Peterborough Town roll into town on Saturday, fellow strugglers, albeit beginning to climb out of the dirty relegation pond, and we need to win. We absolutely need to win. And it does not matter how we do that. Because playing well doesn’t matter when you’re staring into the abyss – we played well at Luton, slick and tidy, we saw some fight, some passion, some drive, and all we got was a point, and a point is just not enough. We played well for the majority of the opening seven games this season with not a single win to warm the hands, playing well has counted for nothing this season, nothing at all, the ledger is blind to romance, and the truth is raw: we have to win games, and win them by any means necessary – Winning ugly, winning dirty, winning by strangling the life out of the game and snatching something undeserved, a thieved goal, daylight robbery, a bit of skulduggery. We need six or seven crooked miracles between now and the beginning of March just to give ourselves a glimmer, a fighting chance of keeping ourselves in this league.

We need to shithouse our way out of this appalling mess Darren Moore has created. We must become the team everyone hates to play, the spoilers, the dark artists, the slow poison in the tea, the pantomime villains with black gloves and a smirk, and we will never do that with Darren Moore in the hot seat. That will never happen. And if he is staying, as appears to be the case, then the club is accepting relegation.

Steve Evans in no longer available, but I wouldn’t want him anyway. I completely get that he would be the man to accomplish what is needed, but there’s just something about him that I cannot deal with. It’s irrational, but I just want to punch him in the face and keep on punching him in the face whenever I see him. Keep punching until I can’t punch anymore. I get obsessed about it. He’s shifted plenty of weight though, hasn’t he? Fair play to him, fair fucks.

We need something else, someone else, someone who comes with a flourish – a bit of rock ’n’ roll stubble and a leather‑jacketed grin, someone who can live in the ditch and still hum a tune. You know who I’m on about – Gareth Ainsworth – I’d take him in a heartbeat, no qualms, no second thoughts. He could do it, he could drag us out of this swamp. He loves us, he could so easily be prised away from Kent.

Anyway, Luton – it finished a Desmond, a two‑two, fair enough for the effort we put in, and we scored – which we haven’t done in the league since October, but their equaliser, it makes your heart sink – Amos wanted a foul, hands extended to the sky like the condemned man asking for mercy, but he’s getting nothing, no ghost in the machine, nobody impeding, just a bad goal conceded and we’ve read that chapter far too many times already. And the substitutions he made? Completely killed us off. Mo Faal and Dajaune Brown on for Rauri and George Hall? What does he expect to happen? It’s abusive. He is gaslighting us. I spent the last 15 minutes sobbing.

I have to mention Ben Waine. Three in three, a bright spark suddenly flickering, who would have predicted that? Who saw that coming? Not me. There are big concerns though – George Byers and Funso Ojo limping off into the shadows, and I’ve seen no update on either – it’s Christmas, life is a tinsel whirlwind until Christmas Eve, I haven’t been sober for days, they might both be fine and in training this week, I wouldn’t know, but I do know that we cannot even think about survival without them, particularly Byers. The January window will not be giving us players of their calibre.

Saturday. It’s all or nothing. Do or die.