Larry Ryan: Could more and more football mean less and less viewers?

Already, in this house, in the constant battle for use of the big television, dangerous language has crept in.

A Sky TV camera films the League Two match between Notts County and Grimsby Town. There are 1,000 games from the EFL on TV this season (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

The age-old credo around which so many lives are built — that you should never not watch a match — became even less sustainable in recent weeks, with every single match in the Carabao Cup televised, somewhere out there behind the sorcery of red buttons.

Many years ago, Declan Lynch of the Sunday Indo enshrined this guiding maxim. He lived well by it and indeed it was the dear old League Cup that cemented it for him as a vital principle of footballing FOMO.