Clear blue eyes surely clouded with regret? Doesn’t show; you wouldn’t know. No mean face – Glasgow-born; leafy suburb – labour aristocracy. Built to take hard knocks and stay in shape (composure’s for keeping not losing). Regular features; teeth now more regular than they ought to be, going by early photos from playing days. Winning smile – that’s a laugh – may always have lacked conviction; or this might be reading history backwards.

Was there a moment when you lost them; more accurately, when you lost yourself and couldn’t keep hold of the squad? I know nothing of your sort of dressing room. Showers and towels and all kinds of shenanigans back in the 1970s – stock pictures are all I’ve got to go on. On stage I know it can happen in the space of a drum beat, all because you didn’t leave enough space between one beat and the next. But even the instant –the moment of failure – is not simply instantaneous. Ever the before and after: continuously unfolding; never predetermined.

None of them pre-set, a series of defeats beat David Moyes, former Manchester United manager as of 8.30am Tues 22 April 2014.