Comfort found in past

With less than a week to go, we are still mired, rear wheels spinning, in nostalgia.

Defy a visitor to walk among us and not conclude that Houghton, Whelan and McGrath are our key men this month and Joxer is set to drive us all to Poland, where our hopes rest on this Trap-Jack link-up working a lot better than Gerard Houllier’s tandem with Roy Evans.

At times, dewy eyes are dabbed with a faint hint of desperation. We badly want this to be some sort, any sort, of celebration, but as Croatia looms, the champagne stays iced in cold evidence. We can’t help worry.