Roberto Di Matteo –Robbie D to his friends – should never have been sacked: his performance over the first half of this season suggested that he was going to keep West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League. What’s more, with time, he was only going to improve as a manager.

Football, dear friends, is the realm of stupid people.

Football coverage is easy; observe: West Bromwich Albion have not been winning many games recently. Excepting the qualifiers “many” and “recently”, that is a relatively straightforward fact. But because it’s so brilliantly amazing and definitely a force for good, football coverage also extends to opinion, especially on the internet; observe: West Bromwich Albion are not a very good team at the moment. Sometimes though a third dimension appears; opinion appears so eloquent and so convincing that it begins to take on the semblance of fact; observe: