Let’s face it, nobody really knows what they’re doing or what they’re talking about. Authority supposedly comes expertise, but a lot of expertise is little more than guessing with confidence. 

Over the last few weeks, we’ve lost games we expected to lose (Burnley, West Brom) and dropped points we expected to win (Derby, Portsmouth). Combined, these four fixtures seemed to indicate a downward trajectory. But is that what it was? A tailspin into the relegation zone? Or was it an unfortunate combination of fixtures working with an unfortunate set of performances?

One point from four games against an expectation of between four and six. Is that data a definitive indication about our decline? Hard to tell, we probably need more data.

Take Coventry City; George Elek on the Dub said that earlier in the season, under Mark Robins, their ‘underlying numbers’ were good, but they weren’t getting the results. Under Frank Lampard the underlying numbers are still good and they are getting the results, and that was the difference.

Doesn’t this mean that the underlying numbers have less of a relationship with outcomes than we’d like to believe? Expected Goals are not, after all, actual goals. Look at the xG table and we’re 23^rd, Cardiff are 10^th, Burnley are 9^th. Now look at the actual table.

Banks of data can only walk you up to moments; those molecular decisions to bend or break the rules, to do something unexpected or decisive. Each decision contains an even more microscopic act of bravery to execute. Scoring a goal is an act of almost maniacal hubris; in the presence of thousands of people, you are declaring yourself the best person to take the most decisive action in football. In that split-second, you are facing adulation or humiliation, of being the biggest hero or the biggest fraud. If you thought about it for a moment, you’d go and live as a hermit on the side of a mountain rather than take a shot. And yet, we still do it, because being brave in the moment also gives you control; trying and failing is far better than not trying at all.

It’s easy for that bravery to seep away and become enveloped in bleak inevitability. There was a sense of helpless despair after last week’s defeat to West Brom; partly down to the manner of defeat and partly the defeat itself. Another win looked a hopeless prospect, we couldn’t see where the next goal was coming from, or even the next chance. Everything we’d tried, failed, it seemed to be convincing us not to try at all.

One of our biggest problems this season is that we’ve been unable to deliver a surprise win, on top of our away win at Millwall, the highest placed team we’ve beaten is Blackburn in seventh and then Norwich in eleventh. While it may still be enough to plunder points from teams around us, without a surprise win, chances are we’ll be playing with fire all the way to the end of the season.

By almost every metric, we’re a bottom three side – money, experience, even preparation time for the season. We can’t exist purely on our presence alone, which means that almost every win requires a moment and a greater act of bravery.

As a result, against Coventry, expectations were low even before Jack Rudoni stepped across Peter Kioso to latch on to Tatsuhiro Sakamoto’s cross for the opening goal. If there was any hope on the pitch and in the stands, it was mercilessly lanced, sending us tumbling down an irreversibly terminal trend line from which there appeared no recovery. If we can’t score goals, we have no hope of recovering a deficit.

For a few minutes, we looked beyond hope, drained of any bravery, helplessly trapped in a tractor beam. In front of the Coventry fans, Shemmy Placheta performed histrionics, a kind of performative dance of the emotions most of us were trying to suppress.

Gradually, however, as we slid down the shale cliff edge, our momentum slowed. We could have capitulated, but we didn’t. Ole Romeny, a player largely unburdened by the mental load of the season, brought a freedom to our attack. His willingness to chase balls and make a nuisance of himself encouraged others to preserve, it was enough to get us to half-time, not on terms, but still in it.

Then, a moment, Romeny tangled with Jake Bidwell, three of us in the stand called it differently – a foul by Romeny, a foul by Bidwell or no foul at all. Bidwell complained, the referee was unmoved, Romeny climbed to his feet and headed for the box. Placheta was free to advance, rolling the ball into the path of Romeny to side-foot into the net. We’d had a moment, made a chance and scored a goal. 

It was like lighting a box of fireworks all at the same time. Five minutes later, Cameron Brannagan scooped the ball high into the sky, Jamie Cumming paused, frozen inside another moment. The bravery drained from him; was he worried it was a back pass? Had he miscalculated his jump to pick the ball off Mason-Clarke’s head as it dropped? Whatever happened in that moment, it left him flat-footed and Mason-Clarke nodded through his hands for 2-1.

It took four minutes to get back on terms, Elliott Moore rising in slow motion to head in Tyler Goodrham’s corner.

Another five minutes, Peter Kioso persues Bobby Thomas, who looks like he’s advancing to connect with a near-post corner. Thomas just stops running and Kioso falls into him. A penalty. It’s marginal, this stuff happens, but the referee decides in the moment to give it. Ellis Sims, a brute of a forward and as good an illustration of what we’re up against this season, steps up but Cumming saves. It doesn’t make up for his mistake, but it neutralises its impact. 

We now need calm, to shut the game down and avoid inviting more moments. But the madness has consumed us, just four more minutes pass, Sakamoto, unmarked at the far post, collects a long cross and lashes it in for 3-2. 

Substitutions weaken us, Stan Mills looks promising again, but his fitness only allows him to spark for short bursts. There’s applause at the end, a sense, finally, that there were moments, there was bravery, it hadn’t quite come off, but it was a step in the right direction.

The consensus is that two wins will be enough to keep us up. If the equation does turn out to be that simple, that also means nine games could end up in defeat. It will take bravery to keep pushing to create those moments and a faith that it’ll all be worth it in the end. We may not know where the points are coming from, but while the bravery exists, we’re more likely to find them.