Two good results away from home for Manchester City and Manchester United represented a small step towards redemption for the damaged reputation of English clubs in European competition but I’m afraid Arsenal’s thrashing in Milan will need a long time to forget - hurts more than the Sunderland defeat.

It was so bad it provoked the sternest criticism I’ve ever heard Arsene Wenger make of any of the teams he’s produced.

Four? It could easily have been eight.

And is anyone especially confident of the prospects for the last ‘Englishman’ standing, Chelsea, as they play in Naples tonight?

I can’t help but feel that English failings in the Champions League reflect what is, bluntly, a rather poor season of football in the Premier League.

Yes, we may well have seven teams still ‘in the hunt’ but three are certain of qualification and the other four are scrapping it out to see which of them is the least inadequate!

I hope you noticed that even Sir Alex was vaguely critical of his team’s performance in Amsterdam bemoaning a lack of urgency in the way they played: quite right.