The Home Nations are pinning their collective hopes on Scotland, then

Given the state of the place and the clowns brazenly running it into the ground, The Fiver gives the United Kingdom another decade tops before it splits into four independent countries, or maybe territories so small they’d make several of the states on the Balkan peninsula look like Canada. Two or three years if the disaster capitalists take it up another notch and the unravelling really starts to accelerate with extreme prejudice. But we’re pretty sure the union will hold firm until at least the end of next week, yes, fairly sure, so for now we’re on reasonably safe ground with the concept of the Home Nations, right? Right! Nations League preview for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales it is, then.

England don’t play until Friday, so let’s set them aside for the minute. The Fiver has to vamp for the next seven days straight, and we can’t blow what little subject matter there is all at once. Suffice to say Gareth Southgate’s rabble, savagely worked over back in June by Hungary in a manner that if nothing else restored the reputation of Gil Merrick, are not the only ones in serious trouble of relegation. Wales, for starters, will fall out of the A tier should they lose in Belgium on Thursday and the Poles avoid defeat at home to the Dutch. That looks more likely to happen than not, but then The Fiver has a record of being wrong about everything that now stretches into a third decade, and with a first appearance at the World Cup for 64 years looming, we’re not entirely sure whether the Welsh will care anyway. Oh, integrity of the Nations League! We hardly knew ye.

Northern Ireland are also battling to escape the drop. They have to at least match Cyprus’s two results this coming week, else it’s Andorra,