It all started out getting there – with Chiltern effectively giving up and the Euston services predictably mobbed, getting a coach was the last resort. Times were booked, the tickets arrived. Then the texts followed. The first coach – cancelled. The second – that one as well. Just before departure time the seat reservations were changed. Still, eventually I got to Wembley, via a pub whose service was on a par with the coach firm and who charged £7.15 a pint for the privilege.

Unai’s decided to go with Ezri Konsa and Pau Torres, Ollie Watkins starting and Marcus Rashford out injured, because we can’t go two games with a full squad to choose from. Palace’s litte drummer boys have somehow got a load of flares into the ground and we kick-off in a haze of smoke.

Sadly, the smoke didn’t obscure the view from my seat, two rows from the back and closer to the clouds than the pitch. Villa had most of the ball but didn’t do a great deal with it. The possession stats would have looked good but for all the figures that get flashed up there’s never one for ‘Sideways and backward passes’. If there was, Villa’s numbers would have been approaching 100%.

All this slow, mundane play should have given a warning when Palace had a goal disallowed but then a mistake by Pau Torres led to them making the lead after half an hour. The constant drumming was bad enough but there’s no worse sound in football than the opposition scoring at Wembley. First there’s the sight of the ball hitting the back of the net, then a split-second later the roar. Sickening isn’t the word.

Not that it seemed to make much difference. Villa still didn’t threaten much either side of half-time, when none of the changes that were needed were made. Unai may be a genius but he was getting this one wrong and wasn’t showing much idea of sorting it.

Palace won and missed a penalty but even this didn’t wake up Villa’s ideas and another mistake led to another goal. Leon Bailey and Donyell Malen made their belated entrances and some width in the team finally gave the Palace defence a slight concern but there was still no sign of a goal until Palace scored a breakaway third in stoppage time.

Everything about the match was wrong. Unai’s team selection, his tactics, the players expected to set their stamp from the start and the ones looked to for changing the match. Even the supporters never got going. And as I walked down from that elevated position I realised how much I hate Wembley. I hate the queues, the prices, the getting in and out, the chaos it causes. Most of all, I hate Villa losing there.