Footage emerges of Premier League referee David Coote saying he doesn’t like Scousers very much. After watching him last Saturday you have to wonder whether somebody’s taking the piss.

Then the internationals start. Ollie Watkins scores and Morgan Rogers makes an appearance to add to our tally of England internationals, which is good news. In between these events Ezri Konsa goes off injured, which is both bad and predictable news.

Elsewhere in the world John McGinn comes off the bench and scores the winner for Scotland, their first win since the Ice Age. Amadou Onana played for Belgium, and got injured. Pau Torres didn’t play for Spain, on account of leaving their squad already after being injured. Is it me, or do these things never happen to any other club?

Talking of other clubs, imagine your owner said they were going to build a new ground twice as big as your current one, make it the hub of a world-renowned centre for sport, retail and entertainment, all this was going to be on land that’s too contaminated for anything other than light industry, it’ll be half an hour’s walk from the city centre and half a mile from a two platform railway station but don’t worry because the local authority will provide new transport links despite them taking seven years to build 1 1/2 miles of a tram line, it’ll cost two or three billion pounds and it’ll all be completed by 2029. Would you a) do it in your trousers about filling the ground and being bigger than da Villa despite not having had that many at a match since 1946 or b) think “So THAT’s what happened to Tony Xia.”? Just another day on Fantasy Island.

Ezri returns to Villa after withdrawing from the England squad. They promptly win 5-0, and as Rogers didn’t score and Watkins didn’t play that means they won’t get picked again, which is a bonus.

In a round-up of how long our international casualties will be out for, two or three weeks is the estimate. So, Christmas it is then.