No more rabbits in Rafa’s hat

IT’S not often you’re asked to do a post-mortem on the living, but I’ll give it a go. Ten defeats since October, out of all major competitions, numerous feeble surrenders against sides everyone else is hammering – you wouldn’t gamble a cent on Rafa’s survival chances, would you?

His reign has been a time of extremes; feast or famine, successive wins or long passages of mediocrity, roaring lions or squeaking mice. There has never been anything in-between. Even his most fawning apologists now talk about him leaving, not for our benefit, you understand, but his own.

The realities of regime change in our post-1990 ‘Holy Grail’ era always come down to one final clutch of the straw; “well, who else is there?” When that’s the one bullet in your gun, best to turn it on yourself and end the misery swiftly.