After the abuse, the stampede to occupy the moral high ground.
Accompanied, of course, by the amnesia.
Credit to Gareth Southgate, currently turning the previously Impossible Job into the effortlessly manageable.
He in his press conference tempered against laying into Montenegro too much when we still have so much to deal with back here in England.
The message appears not to have made the journey home. Since Monday night the calls to hammer Montenegro have grown. Close their stadium, hit them with a points deduction.
UEFA threaten to close Montenegro stadium if found guilty over England racist abuse
The trouble is, there have been calls for that kind of punitive action for clubs over here. The hypocrisy is strong.
In the last three months alone we’ve had abuse at Chelsea for Raheem Sterling, a banana hurled at Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at Arsenal and abuse for Mohamed Salah at West Ham. In the FA Cup Millwall fans chanted “I’d rather be a p*** than a Scouse”.
The responses? To shoot the messenger. To deny it happened. To question whether the rest of us had heard it correctly.
Callum Hudson-Odoi reveals what England teammates said to him after racist abuse
When it’s your club its not so easy to call out the racism you can identify and jump on elsewhere. Especially if it’s in another country.
Only last Saturday a Leyton Orient player was racially abused by supporters of Telford. It hardly registered on English football’s Richter scale.
Kick It Out remains under-funded, football administration and the media here remains largely white, Chris Powell’s sacking on Tuesday means we still have a disgracefully small number of black managers and supporters continue to bombard radio stations with reasons why sanctions for clubs in this country would punish the many and not the few.
But it’s okay to hammer Montenegro.
Raheem Sterling's perfect response to being racially abused by Montenegro fans
It’s okay to lobby UEFA and accuse European football’s governing body of being too weak. Here in England it’s a societal problem. One we can do nothing about.
Here in English football three men were sentenced to a total of 17 years in jail over illegal Premier League streaming last week. Birmingham were handed a nine-point deduction for spending too much.
On racism we are still finding reasons why we can’t go in harder.
England stars racially abused during 5-1 win over Montenegro
So brace yourselves for the soundbites that will continue to flow and the stones being thrown from our glass house over the next few days.
Words like ‘vile’ and ‘depressing’ will continue to be thrown around. Premier League bosses will be sought for their views in the expectation that they too will pile the pressure on UEFA to do something about Montenegro.
Hopefully those bosses, like Southgate, will admit the focus needs to be here first.
Then we can start thinking about taking Montenegro to task.
