Wednesday night and the telly is full of the sorrowful mysteries of Leicester City’s slide down the snake past all the ladders they climbed last season.
Three games to save Claudio Ranieri by all accounts, starting away to Sevilla. By the end, they have a 2-1 defeat to bring back to the King Power Stadium in a few weeks and Ranieri is talking up Jamie Vardy's 72nd-minute goal like a suspiciously eager sommelier trying to convince you the wine isn't corked.
“It’s a great result. In the first half we were a little scared to hold possession but now we are very satisfied. It’s important for us to get some good air and refresh and get confidence.”
In the RTÉ studio, however, it’s fair to say the mood is ever so slightly scooby-dubious.
"They're papering over the cracks at that club," says Damien Duff. "He's a top man, a top manager and I hope he keeps them up. But there's reports that the players aren't exactly running through walls for him or whatever so I hope for his sake that they stay up and he can leave with his head held high when it's over. Just get out of there."
Liam Brady isn't having it either. "The result is good but the performance wasn't good at all. I see some quotes here from Vardy saying everyone gave 110 per cent. Not in the game we were watching, they didn't."
Over on BT Sport, it sounds like Gary Lineker and the lads did, in fact, catch the game Vardy was talking about.
Peter Drury: "Rarely has a defeat felt so good!"
Rio Ferdinand: “Huge! Great result.”
Lineker: “Leicester’s never-say-die spirit was there for all to see!”
In fairness, the BT Sport line-up had Lineker, the lifelong Leicester fan, Martin O'Neill, former Leicester manager and, on co-commentary, Robbie Savage, who likes sweets. So it was always a fair bet that they were going to be out with the metal detectors trying to find any bits of gold buried deep in the rubbish tip. Hard to knock them for it.
Back on RTÉ, an innovation. The night started with Duffer, Liam and Ronnie Whelan lined up behind RTÉ Sport's new tactics board gizmo. It's their touch-screen answer to Sky's tactics board gizmo and in the past fortnight, the likes of Richie Sadlier and Brendan Cummins have shown themselves to be right whizzes with the technology. So to see the three lads lined up with Darragh Maloney beside them was actually quite exciting.
But as Ronnie talked through a few clips of N'Golo Kante and Duffer did his bit on Vardy and Liam brought up the rear with a look at Riyad Mahrez, something was just a little off. Oh yeah, that's what it was – none of them touched the screen. Not once.
All those little squares along the bottom of the screen filled with circles and triangles and squiggles finished the night without so much as a thumbprint on them. Sitting there all neat in a row, aching for a Duffian tap, yearning for a Bradyan tickle. But nothing. You’d see more touching at a respectably-dressed Kilkenny teenage disco.
Basically it looked like the producers had said something along the lines of, “Here lads, we have this new screen thingy – ye better come stand beside it.”
Gametime. George Hamilton in his element as Handel's Zadok The Priest plays in the background. You don't have to have watched much Champions League outside these isles to know that it's a fair bet that no commentator has mentioned Zadok The Priest more times over the past quarter century than our George. And more power to him for it.
Sevilla should be four up at half-time but have to settle for one. Leicester are abysmal. “If you want to get your manager sacked, that’s how to do it,” says Ronnie. Nobody disagrees.
On BT, they can't get their heads around Wes Morgan's mad tackle to give away a penalty. "The game's hard enough to play on your feet, never mind on your backside," says Lineker. Everyone is agreed that only for Casper Schmeichel – who Rio keeps calling Peter – they'd be goosed.
But as the second half gets underway, there’s a touch more pep in the step of the English champions. They get a couple of shots on goal and actually put some passes together. So much so that by the hour mark, things are starting to really look up. At which point, the BT lads don’t so much tempt fate as give it a lapdance.
Peter Drury (60 minutes, 44 seconds): “We’ve had a little more in this second half from Leicester.”
Robbie Savage (60 minutes, 53 seconds): “Yeah, definitely, it’s been better. Much better from Leicester City.”
Peter Drury (60 minutes, 59 seconds): “Terrific early ball for Jovetic, who holds off Huth – and Sevilla have a two-goal lead!”
By the end, 2-1 doesn’t look such a bad night’s work. An away goal, Vardy breaking his duck in Europe, all that jazz. Back on RTÉ though, they know something is still a bit rotten at the club. And that something, to their eye, is last year’s PFA Player of the Year, Mahrez.
“I don’t know the lad,” says Brady. “But he looks to me like he’s annoyed that he’s still at Leicester. I don’t know were Leicester looking for too much money for him or what but he doesn’t look like he wants to put the effort in. He’s suffering from still being at Leicester.”
“The thing that gets me,” says Duffer, “when you see players put in performances like this that show he’s unhappy to still be at Leicester, if he didn’t get his move after the season he had last season and he’s going out downing tools like that, how’s he expecting to get a move this season?”
Well quite.
