By England's World Cup squad has been announced, thereby giving us a clearer idea of which elite athlete – which son, father, brother, human being – will be blamed for our early exit for playing badly / missing a penalty / getting a red card, and thus disgracing this once-proud nation.
Euro 2016 felt like a rarity in that the entire team – not just the players on the pitch, but the subs, the coaching staff, Roy Hodgson, the physios, the bus driver – was trapped in the same half-speed lucid dream in which we lost to Iceland... and then didn't wake up.
Not so this time around. Southgate will stay whatever happens, and there’s plenty of fresh meat in the squad for England fans and pundits to stamp all over when the inevitable happens. But who? Here are the candidates – ranked.
23. Trent Alexander-Arnold
Too rosy-cheeked and full of youthful pluck to be in much danger here. Looks so innocent he could probably shoot three Panamanian subs during a drinks break and get away with a yellow. What a scamp.
22. Gary Cahill
English fans have odd blind spots when it comes to their hatred. For instance, if you’re a classic English centre-back like Cahill, you need to be genuinely evil before anyone will blame you for anything. If we drag our oak-hearted, technically deficient centre-backs, we drag the very soul of this sceptre isle.
21. Harry Maguire
On top of being a critically immune barrel-chested centre-back, nobody knows who this man is. He’ll be fine.
20. Jack Butland
Probably not even going to get the chance to ruin anything.
19. Eric Dier
Midfield enforcers never get flak, especially midfield enforcers with tiny shark-like eyes and the blank-faced menace of an apprentice butcher.
18. Fabian Delph
A combo of the sense that he’s just glad to be included and his perfectly spherical head makes him hard to hate.
17. Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Name contains too many letters to tweet coherently in the furious afterglow of a second round extra time defeat, even if it is his fault.
16. Ashley Young
Everyone likes an unexpected comeback, even if it’s as a perfectly fine inverted left back who plays for a megalithic corporation.
15. Harry Kane
Big heart, big chin, has the kind of pained nobility which will plays well on commiseratory BBC montages.
14. Kyle Walker
Benefits from the Pep aura and being eyeball-burstingly fast, which is a skill absolutely no pundit has ever argued with. Not even Merse.
13. Nick Pope
If there’s one archetype English people love piling in on more than the Wealthy And Coddled Footballer, it’s the Startled Public Schoolboy. Pope went to King’s School in Ely (annual fees: at least £13,000), and definitely wears a gilet while walking a fat black Labrador across the Downs, so look forward to seeing his head Photoshopped onto Jacob Rees-Mogg’s body should things go south.
12. Kieran Trippier
Stands out for his haircut, which makes him look like he still isn't quite stopped finding the "cheeky Nando's" thing funny, so could be in the firing line.
11. Jesse Lingard
Probably won’t do anything specifically wrong, but likely to be a name pundits pull out of the bag to exemplify a lack of England's “top top players”. His celebrations are likely to wind up #againstmodernfootball types, too.
10. Danny Welbeck
Guaranteed to come on with quarter of an hour to go, wang one shot over the bar, lose the ball on the edge of Japan's box and watch as they break away to score a decisive third. In danger.
9. Danny Rose
Gives the impression of being a bit mardy - and that’s the kind of impression you absolutely do not need when you’ve let Thomas Muller ghost past you at the far post.
8. Jordan Pickford
As first-choice keeper, he’s got first dibs on the Rob Green Golden Gloves Award. Also: looks a bit like Thomas Turgoose. Not sure if that's strictly relevant here.
7. Jordan Henderson
Possibly next in line to suffer the curse of the male hygiene product ads after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain lost a knee, Adam Lallana could only make the duds bench and Joe Hart was cast adrift into the uncaring cosmos.
6. Marcus Rashford
He’s about the right age for a confidence-levelling ritual humiliation: not so green that it feels unnecessarily cruel, but not so experienced that it feels like there’s no point to crushing his spirit.
5. Raheem Sterling
A favourite hate figure of knee-jerking gammons for some time now, it’s possible Sterling’s window of peak criticism has passed. He’s already been through an ironic charity appeal to buy him a flight home from Euro 2016, and the Daily Mail have since informed him that his breakfast-eating shenanigans won’t be allowed to go unchecked.
4. Jamie Vardy
Shrieking, snarling, frothing at the mouth, Vardy carries a lurking threat of violence. It could be a vomit of expletives at a cherubic but flatfooted ballboy as the clock ticks down, or it could be eviscerating the fourth official, but Vardy could very well explode in some way at some point. His face is probably the easiest to meld with a root vegetable too.
3. Dele Alli
Maybe it’s the flossing, or the time he flipped Kyle Walker off in front of a packed Wembley during a World Cup qualifier, but Alli's apparent joy in life and understanding of Instagram are red rags to baby boomers who see him as the apogee of the decadent, avocado-loving, mortgage-avoiding millennials they despise. An ill-timed post on Musical.ly after a limp exit to Mexico could seal his fate.
2. John Stones
The City link weighs heavy here. Stones isn’t Maguire or Cahill, so if he makes an error while trying to pass the ball more than 10 yards he gives Alan Brazil an opportunity to tell him he’s been playing too much of that Pep-ball and should have just hoofed the bloody thing. If he just looks a bit rusty, it’s a sign he’s not been playing for Pep enough, and if he’s not good enough for Pep, then what’s he doing playing for England? What’s he doing in a football stadium?!
1. Phil Jones
Despite being about 25 stone of straining Preston suet and possessed of the ability to fearlessly throw his body around like a fleshy caber, Jones is not protected by the English centre-back law. He doesn’t have the quiet dignity of a Terry Butcher, a Tony Adams, an Andy Hinchcliffe. He’s also the most likely to do a Phil Neville and steam through the back of some unsuspecting Columbian playmaker, upon which his frozen, Munch-like scream as the referee points to the spot will become tabloid gold. Maybe The Sun will print masks for people to greet the team plane with at Heathrow. Thousands of screaming Phil Joneses, staring silently at a 747. Welcome home, lads.
