EXTRA SPECIAL RAN-OUT-OF-TIME SHORT VERSION

Okay, the matches are drawing near already and silly stuff like actual work has got in the way all day. Stupid work.

That makes no difference to the infallibility and 100-percent reliability of these predictions though, naturally.

Football World producer Andy Greaves and I cranked up the old console just now and played both tonight?s Champions League quarter final games with each team?s line-ups as accurate as we could make them. Here?s what happened:

Liverpool 0-4 Chelsea
Didier Drogba will head home a Deco cross after just four minutes. Liverpool will fall about being generally rubbish for the rest of the game after that as their heads visibly drop (and feet fall off, apparently, if you watch their nightmarish passing for the rest of the game).

Chelsea will dominate Liverpool at fortress Anfield and that will show with goals. On 23 minutes Michael Essien will produce a carbon copy of Drogba?s earlier goal, meeting a Deco cross from the right. After more than half an hour Liverpool will get their first and only clear sight of goal, with Fernando Torres spinning like a ballerina in the Chelsea box before skidding a low effort just wide of the post.

Michael Ballack will exploit a flat-footed Liverpool defense mid-way through the second half and run free on goal, hammering it more or less right through the helpless Pepe Reina. And Liverpool?s coffin will be firmly nailed shut with Drogba?s second goal just before the final whistle ? a dainty back-heeled effort after silky play around the Liverpool area.

Barcelona 0-2 Bayern Munich
Barcelona, by rights, should walk this one. They don?t, though. Bayern launch themselves from the traps with all guns blazing. Which is a bit of a mixed metaphor really. Race horses launch from the traps, right? But not with guns. Imagine that! Grand National with a gunfight. Only little guns though, since the jockeys are so small. And you could strap guns onto the horses, like those two cannons on the front of Batman?s bike in Batman Returns! That?d be cool.

Anyway, Bayern look good and largely dominate proceedings. They go agonizingly close on five minutes as an attempted lob almost catches Victor Valdes off his line in the Barca goal. Valdes is probably Barca?s best player as he goes on to make a number of flying saves, including a further two from Franck Ribery in the first half. He?s finally beaten as half time nears, however, as Luca Toni receives a deep cross, takes it away from a defender with a deft touch and slices it in across the keeper from a tight angle.

Despite continuing to dominate, Bayern are kept at bay by Barcelona for the majority of the second half. It?s largely one-way traffic, with Barca rarely threatening. Munich finally break through again on 86 minutes. It?s that man Toni again, who gratefully takes a simple but devastating through ball into a one-on-one with Valdes, which he dispatches with ease.

P.S. Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea
A less likely turn of events this evening will see Rafa Benitez get really peeved at Liverpool?s 4-0 drubbing, moan a lot, and then convince Guus Hiddink to play it again.

And this time the game is much more akin to the sort of thing we?d expect. Tightly fought with nothing to choose between the teams, it goes right to the wire. Steven Gerrard will score a blinder from range for Liverpool, only for Frank Lampard to level the scores with a drilled, precision effort just before half time. The second half will be a tense, if exciting, affair. Xabi Alonso will pop up to break Blue hearts in injury time though, curling a stunner into the corner of the net from about 35 yards with the outside of his boot.

There, victories for both teams in one night. Can?t get fairer than that. Right, I'm off to the pub with the big telly.