Has there ever been a group of footballers less interested in doing their job than the ones we watched in that second half at Stevenage? They’ve checked out. Utterly. No interest in achieving anything, no urgency, no pride. Just a collective shrug as the season slides into the abyss.

And yet Jon Brady is part of this – strangely – in a positive way.

Because he has upset players. Because he is challenging standards. Because he is telling players when they’re miles off it. And the fallout from that is exactly what we’re witnessing: a wilful disintegration. Brady is forcing those who can’t be bothered with our fight to reveal themselves. He’s smoking them out. Showing us who is actually up for this, and who is already mentally somewhere else entirely.

Stockport in the Vertu. Stevenage in the league. Across both games, how many players genuinely played like they cared? How many fought to prevent humiliation? How many were prepared to run through anything other than the motions? Not many.

The truth has been obvious for a long time now: we are going down. Any faint belief that the new arrivals might be a late-season cavalry charge has already evaporated. But what is life without dreams? I found myself hoping for a huge, improbable turnaround, not because it made sense, but because it was all I had left.

Look at last night: Grant Ward unused while we field a central midfield made of fumes. Gray offering next to nothing (should his goal have stood? He does impede their defender, I would be screaming for a foul if it was Jamie Reid on Connor Hall). Hernandez not even in the squad (my expectations of a little bit of Cuban magic transforming the whole of existence were too high. Way too high). Campbell: so-so. Sherif: the latest in a line of big, isolated lumps who look out of place. When in doubt get yourself a big, useless lump. The mantra of lower league football. And these players – these gambles – are Brady’s signings. He carries that responsibility.

And yet… I still like him.

Right now, that affection is based far more on personality than football. Because the football has undeniably worsened. But I’ll judge Brady properly next season – in League Two, when he has had time to build something from scratch. Improvement will need to come quickly, but I’m willing to wait until then to make a final call.

There is precedent for this version of Brady. When he took over a failing Northampton side in February 2021, they went down. No miracles, no escape act. But then he assembled a squad that should have gone straight back up – only for Bristol Rovers to thump a youth-team Scunthorpe 7–0 on the final day and deny them automatic promotion. How do you pick yourself off the floor after that? Your head would be in another universe. Unsurprisingly Northampton choked in the play-off semi’s against Mansfield. We all remember who didn’t choke in the final. The season after, Northampton went up automatically.

That is the arc: relegation, rebuild, return.

Brady is not the messiah. And it’s possible – maybe even likely – that we are about to witness another manager who can get us out of League Two but not keep us in League One. It’s a theme at Vale Park in recent years. And naturally we do have to look beyond the dugout and upwards. Carol does need to put the house in order. Learn from past mistakes. Right now we are seeing the same things recurring again and again. Something has to change.

But here’s a frightening thought:

What if Brady simply isn’t all that? What if he isn’t the manager he – and lots of us – believe he is?

The comfort, or discomfort, is that we don’t yet know.

Next season will reveal the truth.