UCL semi-final first leg, Tonight, 7.45pm, ITV1, bet here

Thank you, most merciful television schedulers, for giving tonight’s Liverpool/Chelsea Champions League to ITV. In the hands of Sky we’d have been facing a night of incantations from the Book of Revelation, bursts of the March of the Valkyries and Carmina Burana, all interspersed with images of planets colliding from the Hubble telescope, such is their preferred method of communicating the apocalyptic drama of the event. As dramatic episodes go, however, this game would be taken to the cleaners by Cranford; even the paint drying channel takes on a certain appeal. In six Champions League games together, these two teams have produced an average of half a goal a game. We have also started to get glimpses of the Grantian football philosophy, a school of thought so brutish and defensive it makes the Berlin Wall look subtle and discreet by comparison. This is going to be one for the purists, for everyone else, there’s always Holby City.

The statistics

* There have been just three goals in their six Champions League meetings.

* Frank Lampard has scored two of the four goals in Liverpool and Chelsea encounters this season.

* Chelsea have kept fifteen clean sheets in twenty-seven away games this season and have gone four hours and fourteen minutes without conceding a goal against Liverpool.

For more statistics on this game, visit chickendinner