JUST cueing it up and we’ll be ready to go on the world’s most conceited football column. I am writing this so you all go ‘typical Arsenal fan’ and ‘you don’t know how lucky you are – try supporting QPR’ and ‘people in north London aren’t proper fans because they drink latte’… and… and… and…

The upside of this hate is that I might get a job as a viral pundit on TalkSport, where the host will say: Ozzers (or some variation of this ilk), are you honestly, really truly saying this thing? Oh my, well let’s see what the listeners say about it and I can tell you Simon Jordan is sat in front of me in the studip shaking his head. Let’s open it up’.

The thing in question is the Champions League, which we are taught to love above all other football competitions and cherish as the most important prize in the whole, entire world. For reference, it’s not better than Weekly Newspaper Of The Year 2022, even if the trophy is bigger.

Given the rules, I should yet to have come down from the thrill of beating Paris St Germain, the fearsome French champions, on Tuesday evening. But I’d say: Yeah, it was nice… but surely it was far more fun to puncture all that Premier League tension that had been building on Saturday afternoon by scoring a scrappy own goal winner against lowly Leicester at the Emirates a few days earlier. It doesn’t really matter who the opposition are – scoring late to win any match is a unique enjoyment and for the last two seasons Arsenal have been doing it a lot.

The ‘statement’ win against Paris St Germain is of course seen as a greater achievement but in a table of 36 teams, I’m far less excited than I should be.

In the new format, big teams play big teams a lot – some matches will be won, some will be lost – and then everybody gets through to the next round. There is a missing sparkle without any jeopardy.

But this is column is genuinely conceited, as billed and promised, because although I’m saying ho-hum to beating PSG in Europe, I wouldn’t give it up.

The Champions League is meaningless at this stage, but we have to be in it because some of our rivals are not. The one-upmanship conquers all. The bragging rights.

Nevertheless, it’s a curious situation – all season we will all fight to ensure we finish in the top four and qualify for a competition which is now inherently dull for four-fifths of its schedule. It’s semi finals and final will no doubt be the cause of great excitement but it’s a real drag being a Champions League team until then.

There I said it. Now, get me on the airwaves.