Disappointed? Stoke scored two very good goals and it’s so easy to blame the defence singling out a certain absentee as the cause but for me, well, we didn’t score and never looked likely to. Caused by another absentee? Shouldn’t be the case and our defence starts with the forward line, that’s where we need to do something.

“Give us a B, give us an O…” humorous chant by City fans in the past for a club with one of the longest names Borussia VfL 1900 Mönchengladbach e.V. The German club holds first, second and third goal-scoring records in the Bundesliga but qualified for this competition by finishing third. Third again in Europe is the best they can do tonight but for us to finish top we must beat them and pray that The Old Lady gets it tonight.

Imagine going wrong in that spelling out the name chant and needing to start again. “Give us an…er, where were we up to? … Er, shit…er… shit… Give us a B…”