It took three minutes. With Matty Cash in midfield, Ollie Watkins starting and Tyrone Mings back on the bench, Villa seemed to be getting the balance of squad rotation right against our next German sacrifices. Super John opened the scoring from a Watkins cross and a straightforward win looked likely, then we remembered that ‘straightforward’ is against the Villa’s traditions so we gave them a goal, with Emiliano Martinez making a bit of a cock-up, to put it mildly. Watkins scored one that was ruled out for offside then he went off at half-time with a bit of a knock so enter the man himself.

Five players round him, thirty yards out and for mere mortals nothing happens from that situation but this is Jhon Duran. 2-1 and again that should have been game over. It would haveb been if Duran’s second hadn’t also been our second to be disallowed, then another long-ball cock-up gave Leipzig an equaliser. Pau Torres did his best to give them a third but another sub, this time Ross Barkley, let fly from long range, slipped, his mis-hit shot was deflected twice and ended up in the back of the net. And thoroughly deserved it was, too.

Results the night after meant that with two games to go we’re eighth in the table and guaranteed at least a play-off place, which was probably our minimum aim when it all started.

Duran celebrates his latest masterwork by turning 21. If he’s like this at that age, what he’ll be like when he gets a bit older doesn’t bear thinking about. Well it does, but it only makes you worry that he might not, if that makes sense.

The West Ham cup tickets are on sale at £25 a time, which is reasonable, or it would be if it wasn’t on a Friday night. They’re taking 6,000 which means the usual away bit and the upper tier of Witton Lane, because that’s the only part of the ground where there’s no room to stick corporates. Never has the name of a stand been so apt.

And off we go to Nottingham, in the three-times European Champions (when you had to be champions to enter it) derby. The day got off to a good start when Tyrone Mings was picked then un-picked after falling ill just before kick-off and boy, did we miss him. The first half wasn’t up to much although we were the better of the teams. We improved after the break and the usual suspect put us into the lead.

That should have been enough, what with us having loads of Euroepan experience now and seeing games out is one thing they do well. We should have had a penalty but then they did the subs better than Unai. Martinez made another great save, they had a goal disallowed and that still wasn’t enough to sort the problem out. They equalised, three minutes into stoppage time they got another, even if the ref should have blown for a foul well before they scored.