Nothing personal, Claudio Ranieri, for Leicester City it’s just business as usual

Before adding my tuppence worth to the wave of revulsion at The Defenestration Of Father Christmas – AKA the sacking of a football manager - a quick word about another extraordinary tale of the unexpected which might have passed you by this week.

And, knowing what we now know about what was to come the following night, what an even more pleasant surprise it was to switch on RTÉ’s coverage of Seville v Leicester in the Champions League on Wednesday and discover that, without any fanfare whatsoever, a terrible wrong had been righted and John Giles had been parachuted back onto the panel.

Astute, authoritative and with his bullshit detector as finely-tuned as ever, he was in vintage form, up to and including those familiar instances of head-shaking resignation as he was obliged once again to survey the baffling foibles of “the modern day footballer.”