Bom Dia! and welcome back for more Friday fun and frolics with Nick and his Portuguese Wolves. They’re in the quarter finals of the Champions League, and still going strong in both domestic cups, but there’s work to be done in the league. How will it all unravel this week? Here’s Nick…

The league table isn’t the best reading if I’m honest. We were as low as eleventh, but things began to pick up towards the end of last week with 4-1 and 5-1 wins over Barnsley and Villa respectively, so hopefully that’s a sign that things are finally on the up. Let’s rock and roll.

This week’s action kicks off in the FA Cup at home to Wrexham, where an early Gomes penalty gets us off and running. We have a second disallowed soon after, but in the end the spot kick is enough to see us through…

Our reward is Bradford. I’ll take that…

A few days later we’re at home again in the other cup, this time to Arsenal. I’m expecting a close one, but we’re out of sight at half time, and the man advantage only helps our cause…

Typically we draw United in the semis, with Everton and Fulham contesting the other tie…

After a bit of a mini break from league action, we’re back to it away at Sunderland. There’s not really much to report, but it’s a useful point against the second-placed Black Cats…

After a good recent run of results, throwing in a stinker was always inevitable. Fulham to their credit are fourth, but the board still say it’s a very poor result. Let’s move swiftly on…

Oviedo come in with a reasonable offer for 32 year-old Dominguez, so I bite their hand off…

The cup games are coming thick and fast now, and up next it’s Second Division Bradford in the FA Cup. We go ahead, but are wasteful with the subsequent glut of chances, and they soon deservedly equalise to force a replay…

Meanwhile back in the league, we bounce back from that home defeat by Fulham with a good away win at Hillsborough thanks to Futre who makes it two goals in as many games…

The win takes us up to seventh, but it comes at a price as we lose one of our star men to injury for a month…

Despite the victory, the board are quick to remind me that they expect a much higher position now that we’re champions…

In the Bradford replay, The Bantams are being a bunch of cocks, but we eventually manage to ruffle their feathers in extra time as Futre nets for the third game running to finish the job…

The draw hands us Arsenal, who will no doubt be seeking revenge for the trouncing we gave them in the League Cup a month ago…

Speaking of which, we go a man down early at Old Trafford, and it all goes downhill from there, as Michael Ball terrorises our defence down the right-hand side, and their right wingback of all people scores a hat trick…

Switching briefly back to the FA Cup again, if ever there was evidence that this game can conspire against you at times, then here it is. Gomes has 20 for set pieces by the way…

In the second leg with United, we manage to keep them at bay for the whole match, and just as I’m expecting penalties, I’d forgotten that the away goals rule comes into play at the end of extra time, so we’re into another cup final!

And it’ll be those lovely Toffees who we have the pleasure of entertaining at Wembley. Let’s just hope it’s not us who are the April fools…

A couple of weeks after losing Amaral to injury, The Boa joins him on the sidelines…

And then to make matters worse, we lose both Vitinha and Gomes against Colchester, right before the visitors equalise with their only shot on target all game just to top it all off…

With injuries continuing to mount by the week, I decide to recall Eduardo from his loan at Betis. He only played three games for them, so I don’t think they’ll miss him too much…

Eddy goes straight into a side that I just about manage to cobble together for the midweek replay with Arsenal, which goes pretty much as well as expected, and our infamous FA Cup curse rolls on for yet another f*cking year…

After an absolutely dismal first half at Bolton in which we can’t even manage a single shot on target, I revert to the trusty old 2-3-1-2-2 formation at half time, and it eventually pays off with Coelho netting a late winner. Get in!

Now for the biggest game of our season so far, and it turns out to be a bit of a non-event. We have so many good chances, but just can’t put any of them away to capitalise on a below-par performance from Schalke. No away goal could well cost us dearly in the second leg…

We wrap up this week’s action at home to Forest. It’s looking like one of those days, but cometh the hour, cometh the man, and Coelho is the hero for a second league match running, and we also keep a third straight clean sheet!

Out of the fifteen games I’ve covered in this week’s update, only six were league games, and the three wins and two draws move us up two places to sixth, plus due to all the cup games, we now have games in-hand on most of the teams above us, which will be handy as we near the business end of the season…

That’s it for another week. I apologise if it was hard work constantly switching between league and cup games, but bar the League Cup final and whatever’s left of our Champions League campaign, it’ll be league action from here on in. Join me next week to see if we’ll lift the League Cup and make it past Schalke into the Champions League semi-finals. Adeus!