Grudge match that's certain to bring Fergie to the boil again

I don't want to wish ill-luck on any man, but it's hard to see Sir Alex negotiating the next couple of months without saying something so outrageous (read: innocuous) that he catches a life-ban from football and a spell breaking rocks in a specially constructed Uefa gulag on the outskirts of Nyon.

Anyway, that's only one aspect of a Champions League draw that today made things pretty bloody exciting for every English team still involved.

Chelsea, on the opposite side of the draw from Real Madrid and Barcelona, will have to progress to a Wembley final to have any hope of a reconciliation with Jose Mourinho. But a double-header against the team that denied them a first European Cup in Moscow in 2008 offers more than enough spice for now.

With Liverpool sitting this season's Champions League out, a Chelsea-Man United quarter-final replaces a Chelsea-Liverpool semi-final as what used to be a regular domestic hoedown in the competition. Between 2004-09, Chelsea played against Liverpool eight times in Europe. It was usually very entertaining. And since a thrash-about with a team from the north-west of England has been a constant feature of their European campaigns, it's nice to see that they'll not be denied one this year.

Chelsea-United is, then, unmistakeably the grudge match of the draw. It's personal, for the squads of both teams have changed very little since that night. Petr Cech, John Terry, Michael Essien, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba all started in Moscow. Nicolas Anelka and Salomon Kalou both came off the bench - the former to miss the penalty that handed the European Cup to United for a third time in their history.

Every one of them will be burning like the unholy clap to revenge themselves. If Chelsea aren't going to take the Premier League title from United this season, it's the least they can do to ruin their European season.

Among the United ranks, only Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez have departed the squad that started the 2008 final. The former, now at Madrid, said this week that he fancied a return visit to Old Trafford - presumably so that he could do a bit of crying, applaud the Stretford End in a nauseating, doe-eyed, faux-humble manner and then take his top off to remind the whole of Manchester that, yes, those really are still six-pack abs.

But Ronaldo will not be going to Manchester. Instead, he'll be off to White Hart Lane, to experience the full and improbable force of Harry Redknapp's European Juggernaut. (Note to Sky One producers: next time he has some time off from football, this would make a good title for a reality doc in which 'Arry drives an 18-wheel truck around the motorways of Germany, Holland and Benelux to get an insight into the real lives of overnight haulage drivers - just a thought.)

The more pessimistic Spurs supporters I know are already moaning about the iniquity of the draw. As if the visit of Real wasn't bad enough, beating them would mean a visit by and to - ugh! - Barcelona. But what do Spurs have to worry about? They've already done for Inter, AC Milan, Bremen, Twente et al.

Madrid is the biggest ask yet, but what's your first season in the Champions League for, if not an adventure?

Predictions? The odds suggest that Chelsea will face Inter for one place in the final, where they'll meet the winners of an El Clasico semi. That sounds pretty tasty to me.

But who knows? Maybe it'll all go balls up and punters who've paid out £300-odd quid a ticket for a seat in Wembley on May 28 will be twiddling their thumbs as Zadok the Euro-Priest introduces a final between Schalke 04 and Shakhtar Donetsk.

There's a little bit of me that would find that quite funny. It's not a bit I'm proud of, but still.

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