Middlesbrough 4-0 Southampton

Well, that was about as enjoyable as finding a parking ticket on your windscreen after a romantic dinner. The Saints’ trip to the Riverside Stadium turned into a masterclass in how to make 26,077 Middlesbrough fans very happy indeed, while leaving our travelling faithful questioning their life choices and wondering if there’s still time to switch allegiances to cricket.

For the first 54 minutes, there was genuine cause for optimism. We actually looked like a football team rather than a collection of strangers who’d met in the car park. The possession stats tell a story of Saints dominance early on – we edged the ball-keeping contest 56% to 44% and matched Boro shot for shot on target. Our five efforts that troubled their keeper suggested we’d remembered which end of the pitch we were supposed to be attacking, which felt like progress after some recent performances.

Then Matthew Whittaker decided to ruin everyone’s New Year resolutions about staying positive. His 54th-minute opener was the first domino to fall, and like a particularly cruel game of Jenga, everything collapsed spectacularly from there. Seven minutes later, Shea Silvera added a second that had our defence looking more confused than tourists trying to navigate Southampton’s one-way system. Whittaker then grabbed his second on 66 minutes, presumably just to make sure we got the message.

The coup de grâce came courtesy of Alan Browne with 76 minutes on the clock, by which point our away end had adopted that thousand-yard stare usually reserved for people watching their broadband buffer during a crucial penalty shootout. Our solitary save statistic tells its own story – when your goalkeeper is having a quieter afternoon than a librarian on Christmas Day, you know the defensive unit has gone AWOL.

The numbers paint a picture of a game that should have been closer than the scoreline suggests. Twenty-two shots to their sixteen, equal efforts on target, and decent possession – yet somehow we managed to convert precisely none of our chances while gifting them four. It’s the kind of mathematical impossibility that would make Stephen Hawking reach for the paracetamol.

Still, it’s only January, and stranger things have happened in the Championship than teams recovering from embarrassing defeats. Though right now, finding those silver linings requires the kind of optimism usually associated with England fans before major tournaments. Roll on the next one – it can’t possibly be worse. Can it?