The genial but unrepentantly hedonistic, permanently Loaded Best was an icon of the laddish, carefree exuberance that accompanied football’s exponential expansion in the 90s. Now we have seen the game contract a little in its popularity – it’s only the skunks at NUFC and the MUFC rags that fill their grounds like sheep week in week out these days. Most other Prem places attract under-capacity crowds, reflecting the often low-quality fayre (also evident at St James’ and OT).

So we have seen a slight retrenchment in the having-it attitudes, in the media at least. No longer is the game seen as escapist fantasy, but as an affirmative suffix to the working week, with much the same qualities for the majority. Turn up, spend too much, get frustrated, get off home, repeat. The last “moment” I had watching my team was nearly three years ago. Welcome back to grim realism.

The BBC is inadvertently the main avatar of these trends. Pride of place on the focus couch and the studio chair goes to Alan Shearer. The son of a protestant steel worker, he is always one to offer a depressingly reductionist analysis of the soccer events. The verbal equivalent of his boring celebration, wheeling away one arm aloft every time,

The wheeling out of Shearer on the BBC to douse any political controversy in football is a now familiar and dreaded sight. Shearer’s small-minded bleats are firmly predicated on assumed xenophobia and undiluted nationalism in the audience. The majority may agree with him but that’s because questioning a ‘legend’ is just ‘not on’ in the authoritarian world of football. This is why Graeme Le Saux is being promoted to the BBC’s top table of punditry – to pretend that he’s a change from the normal reactionary monosyllabic bigotry. He is not and Terry Butcher is on Radio Five and Channel Five regularly enough to restore extreme sectarian order. On the pitch Shearer gets away with headbutting a Grimsby chickenhead, whose fault the fracas must have been given that he is a lower-division, mixed race, ex-squaddie. The balding Geordie is the stolid enforcer of the selective and simplistic moral judgments that the Sun et al rejoice in publishing, as it is directly related to market share. And of course, Newcastle is the only place where the Sun is published on a Sunday. Is that some sort of reward for obedience. Keep it real dumb. You’ll have more directors laughing at your predictability and stupidity in making them rich. Not that they have ever stopped laughing. One of the few times Roy Keane had our sympathy was when shitehawk Shearer provoked him and was saved from a smack in the mouth when other players and the referee intervened, allowing Shearer to stare and look tough. Steve Bennett dutifully sent the Irishman off without reprimanding the Englishman. Sir Alan Prises and Co.

Fundamentally, Shearer acts like an everyman while basking like a taciturn thief in the reflected glory from the reticent jingoists who go and watch the twat every week. A good player but vastly overrated and, sadly, not going to spend more time with alcohol after he hangs up his legs. Expect more banal opinion and strident cliché from Anal Shitter for years to come.

The other central plank of the new realism is Adrian Chiles. The “Working Munch” presenter never fails to remind us that he is just a punter, coming from a crap area and supporting a crap team. He is the natural replacement to the previous main Baggie – excitable idiot Frank Skinner (I’d certainly like to ‘throstle’ him; whereas that WBA pun is just an aside in our piece, with Wank it is the whole act). Vindaloo Chiles’ stock-in-trade is to ask whichever ex-pro is with him a question in outrageously facile terms, as if he has never played football and couldn’t possibly understand this secret art. Adrian has outsourced scrutiny and interesting comments to the sofa skills of Le Saux and whoever else he can get, following the departure of the affable Strachan. Sill, good luck with the MoTD2 brand masturbation, you prosaic whinger.

Economics is the prime driver of football activity, let’s get sure on that one. Why Sir Alex was in Dubai just the other week launching bespoke and extremely expensive Man U soccer schools, nicely pricing in just rich Arabs and western expats. “Let this be a warning to the imposters from west London,” said Dalex. “You will never beat our brand. Or our ability to seduce idiots with tawdry tales.” We’re glad to smell that the “most successful football manager in British history” is offering team building packages for corporate customers; just in case anyone thought his view of the future might not include deregulated free market economics. Thanks Phalec Fourgunbum.

And of course in a downsizing comes an assertion of base values. Ramming home that football can cater for atavistic knobbers is Tony Adams. Probably because it's earlier in the day and last night’s ‘ludes and other treatments haven't worn off, the irritable android always seems worse on Focus. The XXL-conked ex-Arse has a noticeable trait – an intentional difficulty pronouncing the names of foreign players. How difficult is it to pronounce ‘Ameobi’ or ‘Legwinski’? It’s a clear message to other racist idiots, something like “your views are safe here”. With Tonee, you have no “sporting chance’ unless you’re white and have a big pay packet and even then it seems that only a lobotomy is on offer as treatment. Still, makes a break from Lawro & Hansen’s clichés (why not just show more clips?)

With the British Isles becoming ever smaller, both geographically via heat death and because of immigration “flooding our country” etc etc, assertion of identity via targeting of the other has never been so crucial. Cue the England fans winding up the Argentines with chants concerning the Islas Malvinas, and the Irons’ treatment of Mido last weekend. Speaking of which, whilst it’s clearly the classic illustration of the ignorant nationalists this country specializes in producing, West Ham fans’ ribald bigotry is a reminder of football and footballers’ roots in this country and certainly not welcome in the clinical, carpal vision of Murdoch-centred coverage and promotion. Calling an Egyptian a shoe bomber is a little bit wuuur, a little bit weeeh – dodgy.

With Mourinho referred to as the special one, the escapist bubble hasn’t completely burst yet. Particularly as the miserable shithead resorts to pressing the xenophobes’ buttons when Chelsea lose against foreign opposition by referring to European teams as divers. But you’ll witness a further retrenchment and treatment of football as it is not what it can be in upcoming times. Enjoy.