It’s the stage of the season when everything else is getting serious, the injuries are kicking in (and how) and so you wonder whether the great obsession is, for this year at least, an unwelcome distraction. We’ve talked about it many a time, even when it looked as though we might be about to win the thing, which really is the greatest act of self-delusion of all time. This doesn’t, of course, include the supporters of a nondescript football club thinking someone’s going to hand over £2 billion out of the goodness of their heart. There’s self-delusion and there’s downright stupidity.

Anyway, Newcastle. Because it’s the cup they’ll bring more than usual. Whether that makes them more insufferable, we’ll have to see. We’ll also have to see what sort of team they put out. They’ve got Jacob Ramsey back and finally got rid of Matt Targett, if only temporarily.

Our team depends on many things – how seriously Unai wants to take the competition, whether there’s any reaction to Wednesday or if the squad are hit by an overnight outbreak of bubonic plague; where the Villa and fitness are concerned, anything’s possible.

For some bizarre reason a bright spark in whatever our commercial department’s called now has decided to market the match as a nineties event. There’ll be cheaper food, retro shirts on offer and players from the decade in attendance. That’ll be Shaun Teale and Ian Taylor. Sasa Curcic and Dwight Yorke might be there, but don’t bet on it.