Terrace Talk: The BFG’s fairytale return fed me humble pie

It felt like one of those slow-motion car-crash moments when Koscielny recklessly clattered into Valencia during last Sunday’s climax to our league campaign.

Realising he’d miss the cup final, all hope I had of us denying Abramovich’s upstarts the double and ending the season on a high evaporated in that instant. Any remaining vestiges of optimism departed upon the stretcher that subsequently bore Gabriel from the fray.

Our rearguard was further decimated seemingly daily. And as I fiddled with my radio for team news, while negotiating an illusory Wembley security cordon, I half expected to hear that Alexis and Ozil had collided in the warm-up.