Back in the mid to late nineteenth century, English football was the best in the world. To coin a Timmy Mallett joke, they knew this was true because they made it up themselves. They mastered all the essential skills, which were seen to be hacking, barging and kicking the ball a long way. 

The English were the first to codify football after forming the FA, but it was a brutally physical and strangely individualistic game; there were teams but good play was recognised as a player who could keep hold of the ball and/or give their opponents a proper biffing. 

When the Scots got their act together, their approach was quite different. They acted as a team, with each player combining to make a whole. They moved the ball between each other to evade the opposition. The English thought that was effete and unmanly, passing the ball was seen as shirking your responsibilities.

But it was also more effective than the English preference for raw brutality. When football went professional and the Football League and FA Cup launched, migrant Scots travelled south and became mainstays of teams like Preston North End, the ‘invincible’ winners of the first league title.

While passing is accepted today as being a benchmark of quality play, at the time, despite its effectiveness, fans hated it. 

Our last two managerial appointments have been anointed by the all-pervasive City Football Group; a magical factory of cloned Pep Guardiolas honed to produce perfect football.

Watching us draw with Northampton last night, I’m increasingly convinced that our slow possession based style is deliberate and that Des Buckingham, rather being out of his depth, is simply implementing The CFG playbook. The only problem is, as effective as it can be, it’s also very boring.

LIam Manning’s approach was similar, albeit with more intensity and a little bit more luck. I’m not convinced that, had he stayed, we’d have been much higher than fifth at this stage in the season, but he left before we got to find out.

The opening phase of games, as with last night, was all about possession and control, extinguishing any tension and excitement. A moment of uncharacteristic directness from Josh Murphy gave us the lead, but until then, scoring hadn’t been our primary objective. 

Broadly speaking, I could see what we were trying to do; control the midfield, deprive Northampton of possession and get balls wide when we could. Cameron Brannagan sat deep playing the quarter-back role, Greg Leigh and Sam Long pushed forward to receive his passes. It worked, to a point, although the quality of the crosses meant none of it produced more goals.

What we don’t get right is the intensity; this is a strategy that relies on relentless pressure – constantly moving the ball when you have it or persistently hustling to get it back when you don’t.  If you’re Manchester City, your opponent can be broken within the first half-an-hour, giving you two thirds of the game to entertain and put the result beyond doubt. Under Manning, it might have been a half before our opponents buckled. Under Des Buckingham, the lack of intensity means they don’t bow until the last twenty minutes.

This means two things; if you make a mistake slowly, it’s very hard to rectify it if your opponent counter-attacks at pace. Last night, Billy Bodin’s error turned the ball over and with everyone dawdling around, they equalised, we simply couldn’t keep up. 

Secondly, if you’re applying the pressure slowly over a longer period of time, you leave yourself little time to actually win the game. In our case everything contracted into the final quarter. When the game opened up, Owen Dale and Will Goodwin combined to make it 2-1, which should have been enough.

But, of course, you’re always susceptible to errors. Both Liam Manning and Des Buckingham subscribe to the idea that mistakes are priced into the system and re-branded as ‘coaching points’.

Sure enough, in injury time, there was another mistake and Northampton capitalised. There’s a degree of misfortune in them having two meaningful chances and converting both, but we were always vulnerable to that kind of response when we don’t give ourselves the time to put the game out of sight.

As much as The CFG way has become the orthodoxy and benchmark against which teams are measured, unless it’s played to the highest possible standard, it’s cripplingly boring. You could see Cameron Brannagan waving Ciaron Brown and Stefan Negru forward as they carefully weighed up their options.

I think Des Buckingham knows what he’s doing, implementing a plan which focuses on stifling opponents over entertaining fans, and process over outcome. It’s what he’s been trained to do, in the end, we are all just systems working within systems. 

He sits within a club whose leadership seem unaware that, as a result, the club lacks character. Perhaps when you’re at Inter Milan or Manchester United, and you have brand momentum, engaging with fans and selling tickets is less of an issue given you’re practically guaranteed a sell-out every week.

At our level, you can’t just phone it in and not expect fans to look elsewhere for their entertainment, nobody cares if you’ve got the best possession stats if there’s nobody there to see it.    

Sporting dynasties are usually boring; Team Sky during their period of cycling dominance would try to ride everyone to a standstill, there would be no acts of derring do or bravado, if an opponent attacked on a climb, they would maintain a steady pace until order was restored. It’s was totalitarian regime that demanded compliance that was devastatingly effective and cataclysmically dull.

For all the criticism of Karl Robinson, he never lost sight of the need to entertain and for Chris Wilder – process meant nothing if it didn’t deliver results. Without some of that mindset, we become a soulless corporate entity mass producing averageness. When you have to sell yourself to the public, the blandness really costs.

It’s not all doom and gloom, we’re still fifth, we have capable players, there is a system, of sorts, which could pay dividends, if it works. It’s completely wrong to write the season off as a failure or to draw meaningful conclusions about Des Buckingham, there’s still a possibility that the season will end up a success, we’re I’m just not sure we’ll still be awake to see it.