UCL quarter-final second leg, Sky Sports 2, 7.45pm, bet here

“I spent twenty years at Real Madrid and second is no good,” announced Rafa Benitez yesterday, before dismantling Arsenal with a series of unfathomable hand gestures. Considering Senor Benitez never made it to the Madrid first team, second was in fact pretty good for him, especially as the reserves didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory yet he still squeezed two decades of employment out of the club. But Rafa’s actions speak much louder than his words, and he can spout all the gibberish he likes if he keeps on winning games like last night. Meanwhile, in the heart of polite Cheshire society, Sir Alex is laughing fit to burst, probably with a throaty “heh heh heh.” The arch-foe Wenger has been humiliated, and his two other English rivals for the Champions League now have to try and kill each other, while Sir Alex gets to slide through against a below-strength Roma and a confused Barcelona in the semis - what could be simpler? “I spent twenty years at Manchester United,” he might say, “and coming second is sometimes harder than coming first.”

The statistics

* Wayne Rooney has scored four in five against Roma, Ronaldo has three from four.

* Since the Champions League took its current guise, Roma have never reached the semi-final stage.

* United’s 2-2 draw at the weekend brought an emphatic end to a run of five straight clean sheets, but they have still let in just four in ten games.

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