If I was writing this column with my football hat on I’d describe the SNP as currently being 3-0 down with full-time approaching.
Their defence is full of holes, their midfield generals are posted missing and their attack has been completely blunted.
Ten years after we voted to remain as part of the UK in 2014, the party which won 45% of the vote for Scotland to become independent is bickering, broken and beaten.
And yet I wonder if there is just the slimmest of possibilities of a late comeback.
Granted, it’s hard to imagine but while in football there’s a final whistle there’s also the next game and the next season.
If the SNP has any hope of a rally it’s in playing the long game; this current one is lost.
Their tactics now must be to avoid further own goals and reassess their strategy for the forthcoming fixtures.
‘Unfit for the modern game of politics’
On the face of it the prospects aren’t bright. A huge squad rebuilding exercise is needed.
Many of the players they’ve fielded so far are unfit for the demands of the modern game of politics.
They may have the stamina to continue picking up their hefty pay packets, but they lack the vision and the ability required to run the country better.
However, after the hammering they took at the general election and just when it’s started to look like defeat was a certainty at the next Holyrood election, Sir Keir Starmer may have handed them an opportunity to get back onside.
The prime minister’s winter heating allowance grab has gone down as badly as Margaret Thatcher’s free school milk snatch.
While the Tory PM stole sustenance from the mouths of babes, the son of a toolmaker has engineered a policy to rob pensioners of winter warmth.
Meanwhile, as a millionaire socialist, he seems unable to see how iffy accepting thousands of pound worth of free clothes for him and his wife Victoria from a multi-millionaire looks to those about to watch their grandparents and parents shivering through the chilly months.
The PM’s poor judgement just months into his reign has reignited the suspicions of many in Scotland that Labour are indeed just like the Tories.
Played smartly, Starmer’s ill-considered decisions could rekindle the dying embers of the SNP’s big game hopes.
It’s a long shot, admittedly.
Once fans desert the stands after a run of bad form it’s very hard to get them back again.
‘You and many others’
A huge number of the activists and supporters who drove the SNP so close to victory in 2014 have called time on them.
Someone close to me who was a member was called recently by her branch secretary to see why she’d stopped her contributions.
When she said she could no longer vote for the party or trust them, the telling response was: “You and many others.”
The rebuilding of trust for the SNP is a huge job.
If it can be done it’ll require a root-and-branch gutting of the dressing room and a huge injection of new talent and fresh thinking.
The despair among the thousands who have deserted the SNP runs deep and their sense of betrayal is palpable.
Instead of regrouping after the disappointment of 2014 – when in fact the party under Alex Salmond had done very well indeed – and planning for another push, they lost their way under the now deeply tarnished leadership of Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes.
Instead of assiduously laying out hard factual evidence of how an independent Scotland would work – with currency, pensions, EU and other crucial issues addressed in grown up fashion – the party under Sturgeon’s leadership fell apart in open play.
Chief among their self-destructive policies was the indulgent and immature descent into the pursuit of minority issues of gender wars.
They forgot their raison d’etre was the pursuit of independence.
Salmond return?
With party leaders unable to define what a woman is, and the madness of putting male prisoners who self-identified as woman into female prisons, ordinary everyday voters turned their backs on the SNP.
With party grandees like Fergus Ewing openly rebelling, and the outcome of Operation Branchform lurking in the background, along with Alex Salmond’s civil action against the Scottish Government yet to play out, the SNP looks beaten.
Support for independence still remains strong.
But for any hopes of pursuing a successful comeback, the SNP must show the team comes before individuals.
In assessing tactics for the long game ahead, bringing Salmond back into the fold like a director of football to work with manager Stephen Flynn – the party’s Westminster chief – might just convince independence supporters the team really does come first.
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