As I’ve got older, I’ve found that taking the path of least resistance has become my default. If I’m tired, I go to bed rather than ruminate about being cool and staying up. If I want tickets to something and they sell out, I don’t scour for expensive alternative routes, I just accept that it wasn’t to be. Sometimes, if there’s nothing I want to watch on TV, I might actually just turn it off.

When I go to away games, I book and pay for parking in advance as soon as I’ve bought my ticket rather than arrive to cluelessly scour the back streets of an unfamiliar town in the hope of finding a space twenty minutes before kick-off. Some habits die harder, I’m an Oxford fan, so I sit where I want. But now, where I want to sit is in the seat designated on my ticket. 

For the Watford game, I was in row DD, which was so close to the pitch, row CC was where the wheelchair users sit, BB were the stewards, and AA was Greg Leigh. I was so near to the action, I think I was at fault for their second goal.

It’s not ideal, I couldn’t really figure out what was going on most of the time, but the novel angle provides an interesting perspective. Players you might think of as lightweight are physical powerhouses. Will Vaulks looks like a boxer while Stan Mills accelerates from a standing start like he’s been fired from a rocket. 

It really drives home the speed of the game, players are constantly moving, sightlines are blocked, changed or obscured. Michal Helik, who is as traditional a centre-back as you’d hope to get in the modern game, seemed to play a roaming role which took him from defence, down the right wing and into the centre-forward position. The idea that there’s organisation and co-ordination amongst all that is difficult to fathom. This is all before you factor in a ball.

It’s also oddly quiet, I don’t know if sound rises, but none of the goals were greeted with a particularly loud roar at pitch level. I didn’t like it, celebrating our goal was an oddly isolating experience, I even missed the feeling of despair when we conceded.

It wasn’t just the sound, all three goals were weird in their own way, Brian De Keersmaecker’s near-post corner was shanked into his own net by Max Alleyne. Jeremy Ngakia bundled in the equaliser at the third or fourth attempt on half-time before bending his corner directly into the goal four minutes into injury time.

Each was a product of chaos, or was it? Is all football like that? It looks more organised when watched from afar. It’s easy to criticise and find fault, but from pitch level, you can see how difficult it is to find clarity through the fog. Ngakia’s corner was practically in line with the crossbar as it bent into the six-yard box, Jamie Cumming, flapped at it but was dealing with a crowd of players while tracking the swinging ball and, somewhere in his subconscious, preparing to hurt himself by colliding with the post. Through all that, he’s expected to simply ‘claim it’.

Somewhere behind me was a young lad venting his frustration. Shemmy Placheta was a particular target in the second half, in part because he played almost directly in front of us. A winger is supposed to combine speed, strength, agility and technique with two or three opponents blocking their way. Most of the time, they fail, so add to that the mental resilience to keep trying. 

At one-point Placheta drove towards the box, but found himself blocked and turned inside. ‘He’s just got pace’ wined the voice behind me ‘He hasn’t got any tricks.’ It’s as if he could unlock a special move through a combination of button presses on a Playstation controller. And, then, that his opponents would simply watch admiringly as he glides past them. It’s all in the moment, of course, and we’re all guilty of complaining about things we’re unable to do ourselves, but the simple solution of ‘doing a trick’ to beat two defenders and put in a pinpoint cross is far easier in theory than it is in practice.

Placheta was guilty of missing the clearest chance of the game when de Keersmaecker threaded the ball through only for him to poke it wide. Again, it’s easy to say what he should have done, but when he went clear my immediate thought was that he was offside, then that the ball would safely reach their keeper. Only in the final split second was it clear that neither was happening and that there was, in fact, a chance. Placheta seemed to pause fleetingly, not quite believing the opportunity was on. Of course, he’s got to gamble and have more conviction, but it’s understandable as to why he didn’t.

The angle I had of the game accentuated the individual over the whole, and it was hard to see to what extent we were poor, they were good, or what we could have done about it. It was clear that they deserved the win, but as the home side you’d expect them to be the aggressor and to make most of the chances. On another day, we might have got away with a point. On a third day, we could have conceded five.

Crucially, we didn’t. We’re losing by the odd goal and the differences are in the margins. It’s hard to know quite what to do about it; the voice behind me wanted Placheta sold in January. And replaced by whom and at what cost?

On the radio afterwards, callers worked through a variety of alternative solutions, including one fan who focussed on the key issue of whether Rowett had clapped the fans or not after the game. It seems pointless to even entertain that discussion, but as Jerome Sale said, what difference does that really make? And, what about the thousands of fans who left early or headed for the exits at full-time without clapping the players? And what about the fact he did, the caller just hadn’t seen it?

Rowett himself worked his way through his bench, admitting that he considered all his options without being absolutely sure which would make the crucial difference. It kind of illustrates the point, we’ve not been far away in any game and if a realistic answer is in there, finding the right combination of players and tactics is far from easy. While it’s easy to petulantly want players to do things they can’t do or to replace them with ones who don’t exist, or to scream for the manager’s head, the true challenge is to be an adult about it, stay calm and keep probing for an answer. Relegated teams are typically sides that revert to their inner child and get into a mess by throwing tantrums and taking wild gambles. If others are beginning to wobble, we should probably be thankful that Gary Rowett is likely to be the last person to do that.