The Village Idiot’s Sky Sports meltdown was magnificently unhinged … and it all made perfect sense.

If I had to sum up fear and loathing in a single person right now, it would be our friend The Village Idiot. He embodies both emotions perfectly, and yesterday, he was on top form, ranting, raving, and losing his mind at the end of the game.

What really gets me about it is how his anger comes from a deep well of pain. I don’t feel the slightest bit bad admitting that I enjoy that. His fury, radiating at full time, comes from a place of genuine suffering, and that just makes me happier. He’s a clown, a bigot, and he despises us with every fibre of his being.

Watching him freak out on live television is brilliant entertainment. It almost justifies having him around Sky. Moments like this, where he pours out his rage in torrents while Chris Sutton tries to keep a straight face beside him, are glorious.

Here’s the thing, though—when he’s angry, he sometimes stumbles into saying things that actually make sense. That’s the ironic part.

When he goes off on one of his furious rants about his club, he usually nails it. Yesterday, I thought every word was on point. He called out their lack of intensity, the fact they don’t dominate games, and how they seem to be hoping for something to happen rather than making it happen themselves. He hit the nail on the head.

It reminds me of Alan Durban’s infamous comment when he took flak for a particularly dreadful performance against Arsenal. Asked if he thought it was right for his team to play such soul-crushing, negative football, he replied, “If you want entertainment, go and watch clowns.”

I suspect there’s a part of Philippe Clement’s brain that believes the result is all that matters, that it doesn’t matter how you get there, even if it means subjecting fans to mind-numbing football. But the truth is, you only get away with that if you’re winning. When you’re not, it’s inexcusable.

And someone like The Village Idiot? You can’t hide the truth from him for long. Whatever else you might say about him, aside from his hatred for us, he loves his club with a passion. He’s not easily fooled, and he knows that it’s not just that their form has fallen off a cliff but that there’s nothing underpinning the good results either.

Anyone trying to pretend otherwise is wasting their breath.

Going to watch your football club, whether as a fan or a pundit, shouldn’t feel like enduring a Donald Trump speech—meandering all over the place with no coherence or structure to it. I couldn’t stomach watching football that bad every week without losing my mind. I’d want the manager gone long before the results started going south.

Supporting your club should bring you joy and satisfaction, not misery.

I know there are managers who follow the Durban school of thought, who don’t care about entertaining football so long as the result goes their way. But those guys are never popular. Their style of play is dire, uninspiring, and devoid of any joy.

Yesterday’s match was the sort of football that would get the sport banned if every game were like that.

There’s a brilliant episode of The Simpsons called The Cartridge Family, where Homer buys a gun after a soccer riot. The episode opens with a caricature of how non-football fans see the game—a dreary back-and-forth of dull, pointless passes. That was yesterday’s game in real life. The football they play every week is the real-life version of that caricature. It’s horrible. If all football were like that, the sport would’ve died out decades ago. There are so many better ways to spend a weekend than watching that one-note, one-dimensional garbage.

Under The Mooch, they played some of the worst football I’ve ever seen from a team seriously challenging for the title. It was basic and brutal—exactly the kind of stuff you’d see between school teams in a public park. Now, with Clement, it’s somehow even worse. I didn’t think that was possible, but here we are.

Most of the time, the press tries to put a positive spin on things.

They’ll claim the football’s improving, that it’s worth watching. And I’m often left wondering how they can say that with a straight face. But listening to The Village Idiot yesterday, it was clear he knows exactly what he’s been watching this whole time, and he hates it. It’s been ages since he took any pleasure from watching his team play.

It was strange yesterday, finding myself both laughing at his pain-fuelled histrionics and agreeing with every word he said. He’s only watching it because he’s paid to. Imagine how bad it must be for their fans who’ve actually shelled out money to witness that in person?

I’m not going to say they deserve better, though. They don’t. They deserve every bit of it. And so does he. But if I were in their shoes, I’d be furious, and I’d be halfway to demanding the manager be sacked. If there’s been any improvement in their play, I’ve yet to see it. If Clement has made a single player better during his time there—and it’s been a year now—I can’t name who that is.

Our friend The Village Idiot may be many things, none of them good, but there’s no doubt he speaks for a growing number of their supporters. He’s beyond sugar-coating things now. He’s past the point of pretending this manager knows what he’s doing or is capable of turning things around.

I think he’s one of those fans who just wants it over with. He knows exactly how bad things are and wants it to end, no matter the cost. Whatever comes next, whatever catastrophe it brings, I think he and a lot of their support would be willing to pay the price.

Personally, I hope Clement stays at Ibrox for the next five years. I hope he gets the time he’s asking for, the time the board’s promised him, and then some. Because as The Village Idiot knows full well, it’s a road to nowhere. The longer Clement stays, the worse the situation will get and the harder it’ll be to fix.

That raving fool in the Sky Sports box will have plenty more rants in the future. And as hilarious as I found him yesterday, I can’t argue with a single thing he said. What keeps me coming back for more isn’t the football on display—it’s the car crash, the agony, and the pain