For Hodgson there is only one escape from the barbs — win

I have no talent for lip reading, but I could have sworn when Diouf got that poxy equaliser Hodgson said: “I don’t bel-eeeeeve it!”

You tend to become a bit tetchy as you get older. By the time I’m Roy’s age I’ll need my own 10-yard exclusion zone the way things are going.

But when you’re the manager of a famous team, folk will focus on your pricklier moments. It doesn’t help when malignant types conduct their own fictionalised farce, bending anything and everything to suit their Twitterish whim.