‘We’re going to see you win,’ we say. An affirmation that clangs with gallows irony in the midst of a relegation death spiral. Each dropped point is another bitter nail in the coffin of the Radz-Orta project, as we regress haplessly to the mean of their natural level of underachievement. The Bielsa anomaly aside, when they effectively threw up their hands, gave him the reins to the horse, the keys to the car and the deeds to Thorp Arch and said “do what you like”, they have struggled to deliver sustained progress.

Speaking of mediocrity and lack of progress, Jesse Marsch came and went didn’t he? It was what it was. Maybe he did save us from certain relegation last year. I genuinely don’t know because I feel football much more than I know about it. Although we stayed up, it felt fraught. And aside from the scant celebrated moments of improbable exaltation, it has felt like hard-going ever since. We’ve been less than treading water for too long. Thick waters of failure are already dark and heavy above us.

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