‘We don’t have a replacement for Kalvin Phillips’.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Gareth Southgate has a team that should be bubbling with the Bundesliga top scorer, the season’s outstanding player in La Liga, and a fresh dollop of Premiership cream.

And yet, he is bamboozled by the challenge of replacing a player who cannot squeeze his lifeless corpse into West Ham starting lineup.

Even worse, the proverbial penny has not dropped that as England manager it is indeed within his gift to, erm, select Kalvin Phillips.

But this is, lest we forget, the bloke who thought we’d best leave Grealish and Rashford at home. After all, what use are they in a defensive formation? Whenever the bastards play, they keep venturing into the final third of the pitch.

Long-suffering fans aside, deepest sympathies today must however lie with Safegate’s BBC chums, who know they are caught between the rock of he’s crap and the hard place of the cabal policy of omertà.

One day we will surely learn of an FA Southgate superinjunction on the BBC? The old boys’ hapless squirming to carve out credible commentary on the most recent shitshow without linking it to the manager by name was as amusing as it was appalling.

The head choke’s reign has not been without some progress, however.

In the past, he has motivated players who grew up with him in the U21s to the heady heights of semi-finals and finals, albeit on the back of collapsed draws.

But that’s it, folks.

Those still backing him are probably the same people who will vote Keir Starmer into power in a fortnight’s time.

And we know how they’ll be feeling four years down the line.

Like Middlesborough fans watching England.