Hiraeth. A deep longing and nostalgia for something irretrievably lost.

This Welsh word is mulled over in Lucy Easthorpe’s staggering When The Dust Settles, and while it seems trite to then apply it to football, when her book deals with some of the worst real life disasters of the modern age, well, it’s never stopped us before.

All this needs to be prefaced with the recognition that you tend to get disillusioned with ‘the game’ when your team is a bag of shite. Newcastle United supporters, for instance, did not descend on London in such numbers last week to protest about the disenfranchisement of the working man.

Watching English games over on the Costa Del Sol though, and enduring Richard Keys’ massive League of Gentlemen head looming over the bar while Andy Gray does that weird chin jut and sideways stare down the lens – meanwhile Jason McAteer gets distracted by a passing butterfly – just rams home that English football is nothing more than ‘content’ for a worldwide audience. Something to fill the gaps between weird adverts that all seem to have a smirking Neymar on them.

Some revelation, that, admittedly. Like when Gray declares something along the lines of ‘For me, Haaland is an out-and-out goalscorer’.

Talking of things BEIN Sport, do you reckon Bill Kenwright and Denise Barret-Baxendale go round to watch the games on Sharpy’s Firestick?

‘Hello, Graeme. I’m on my way over with a couple of lovely bottles of Merlot, fire up the dodgy box! Denise has got Krav Maga this morning but she said she’ll be there for the second half with a Hello Fresh. Why didn’t we think of this sooner old chap?’

Them still not attending continues to be pitiful. They could at least give their tickets to someone else if they are going to persist with this pantomime. That way you wouldn’t have the cameras zeroing in on the empty seats. Instead, you might just have Jonathan Pearce noting, for instance, that ‘Molly McCann and her pals appear to be having a rare old time there.’ Or, ‘Unless I’m mistaken, that’s actors Dean Sullivan and Louis Emerick there waving to the crowd. Legends in these parts.’

We’re available for PR consultancy any time – they just need to reach out.

On the pitch, old lilac tie can no longer be under any illusions – if indeed he ever was – about the size of the task at hand keeping this squad in the Premier League. It was clear against Aston Villa, despite all the Everton pressure in the first half, that they had much more quality and composure going forward. They were able to introduce Emi Buendia to emphasise their cutting edge and, well, Everton were not. 

We pile the ball into the box – which is an improvement on what the last fella had them doing – but it feels like we do it in the hope of getting a lucky break. Will we get enough of those between now and the end of the season to ensure safety? 

There is definitely an element of ‘Get Idan Tal on!’ around Demarai Gray’s exclusion from the side, but you can’t help feel that his inconsistent form offers more than Neil Maupay’s unwavering consistency. 

Despite the heroics at Goodison in Sean Dyche’s first game, it will take something remarkable to get anything but twatted at the Emirates tonight. And then with a vile set of fixtures on the horizon, these next two at Forest and home to Brentford already look like must-wins.

Great.

Finally, one last point regarding this season’s Premier League title. Do you really hope that it’s not tonight’s hosts, Arsenal, who win it? But that it’s yet another trinket contemptuously hoovered up by the sports-washing arm of a Gulf State with over a hundred counts of corruption pending against them?

You would struggle to find more fitting champions.

King Shits on Turd Mountain.