Coming up: Carlisle United

The drop

Bogsnorkling Cumbrians Carlisle come to the Kassam on Saturday. It should be the biggest test we’ve faced in quite a while. They specialise in soaring and capitulating with alarming regularity, at the moment they seem to be on the up, but just as they begin to find their feet, they’ve found themselves under 8 feet of rainwater. Bloody typical.

Apparently they’ve been able to train this week, but with Brunton Park under water, the wider infrastructure around the team must have been effected. And that, surely, should be to our advantage.

On the other hand, they’ve been helping in the local community and it might be that they will be galvanised by a Dunkirk spirit and come to the Kassam determined to bring three points back to their stricken community. Wellies and buckets might be more effective.

So, who knows? I think we need a test; January is measuring up to be an absolute doozy; Swansea, Millwall, Bristol Rovers, Northampton and Portsmouth are all in the New Year. It may go as far as deciding our season, we need a decent warm up to hit that period as hard as we can.

Old game of the day

Although Sky have tried letting fans commentate on games, all it really produced was a sanitised version of what people thought football fans do when they go to games. Authentic fan commentary, should involve mostly muttering and swearing. And then, when the ball rolls out to your centre-back it should go something like "MATT ELLIOT HOLLLLLYYYYYY CCCRRAAAAPPPP".