My mum and dad’s house doesn’t work. Their heating, internet and car have all broken in recent weeks. My dad’s Facebook isn’t posting, he said he wanted to say something about Gary Linekar last week – a chilling prospect – but it wouldn’t let him do it. Even their recently installed SkyQ is ‘full of bugs’, according to my dad. It’s been released too early, he says. It was released seven years ago.

On Saturday afternoon, I was at their house doing something in their garden, I turned on the hose and nothing came out. I followed it along back to the outside tap and sure enough there was a hole in the hose as well as another section which had been taped up. 

“It’s fine” my mum said, because that’s what she does.  

I detached the hose from the tap and the water gushed out, I turned it and it jammed. I turned it the other way and it jammed. The water cascaded out, creating a great lake on the floor; I asked my mum if she had a wrench to turn it off, but she chuntered something about ‘it working before’ while staring at the detached hose.

The tap was eventually turned off using some hedge trimmers, obviously, but it meant the momentum of the afternoon’s jobs was lost and we retired to the house for a restorative cup of tea. Soccer Saturday was bellowing out from the ‘bug-ridden’ SkyQ box. The room was full, my sisters had independently arranged to come over as well – induced by some kind of migratory instinct due to it being Mothers’ Day.

Somebody shouted, ‘Oh no!’ 

Frankly, this could mean many things; running low on creme caramels, a gas explosion in the kitchen – while Oxford United is a common thread, those in the room follow a myriad of other teams for a variety of reasons. Wolves, Maidenhead, Wrexham (because of Ryan Reynolds), Tamworth, Aston Villa, Barnet and Rangers are all clubs of interest when my family gather, and Trek Segafrado as my brother-in-law prefers professional cycling. I scanned the room, looked at my phone, then at Soccer Saturday. I needed confirmation – the ‘oh no’ could have been about Oxford, but maybe it was something else.

‘Morecambe have equalised.’ someone said. I awaited Jeff Stelling’s confirmation. The problem with modern technology is that every device is attached to a different feed and you can’t be sure who has the most current or accurate one. When the vidiprintevr on the screen confirmed their goal, I felt an unusual emotion; my heart sank. 

I’ve come to realise in recent weeks that as defeat has become our default state of being, I’ve lost the emotions attached to it. They’ve ebbed away so imperceptibly, I didn’t realise that something had changed. It’s probably some kind of protective response, a shutting down of the senses in such a way as not to alarm you. Like a boxer huddling up to take a few punches in the hope that his opponent will run out of steam and allow him to escape.

But it’s a good thing that it’s back, that deadened numbness permits you to accept each defeat as though it was normal and assume that the good times will somehow magically return. The sinking feeling of an equaliser can only mean a heightened sense of hope existed in some form at some time.  

It feels like we’ve navigated another phase in our emotional recovery – there was the anger and frustration of the latter days of Karl Robinson’s reign, the deadened acceptance of the defeats to Lincoln and Derby and now, as the emotions return, we can apply some focus on our recovery.

I’ve liked Liam Manning’s pragmatic approach to the situation we’re in; when David Kemp was appointed in 2001 and Jim Smith in 2006, both immediately poured petrol on the flames of the problem by getting their excuses in early. The players weren’t good enough, there’s been mismanagement, we need to start again. Both ignored the reality in front of them and both seasons ended in relegation.

The club released a clip of Manning’s first meeting with the players during the week, mostly it was about his broad philosophy, only at one point did he briefly mention that we’re in a bit of a pickle. It was acknowledged, but the focus was all about application and doing something about it.

It’s too easy to stare at the problem, manifested in looking at the table and waste energy simply processing it. I looked at the fixtures coming up and the fact we don’t have one next week, and despaired at the prospect of dropping into the relegation zone by next Sunday with two very difficult fixtures to follow. 

But that doesn’t address the problem. Accepting it and dealing with it is the only way to ultimately fix it. That includes accepting the fact that we’re not likely to be safe for some weeks yet, the final three games of the season – Cheltenham, Forest Green and Accrington – will likely determine our fate, there are six games before that, and none look straight forward. We just have to go into them with conviction and a bit of hope. Performances have improved in recent weeks, this, and raw logic suggests we’re edging closer to another win, which may come at a time when we’re least expecting it. We just have to keep applying the process until form and fortune collide to produce three points.  

There is part of me that’s actually quite excited about the next few weeks, it’s going to be unpredictable and fraught with peril and jeopardy, relegation will feel like a death, but survival will feel like promotion. I can’t call the outcome right now, but I’m finally looking forward to finding out.