You’ll recall that Australia’s shy and retiring manager Pim Verbeek “slammed” former World Cup hero Gordon Strachan for over reliance on the needle in attempting to combat Williams’ struggle with osteotis pubis, a condition more commonly associated with Australian Rules football. Ginger Thatch clashed with Baldness Denier and two men not scared to give it a bit of lip indulged in accusation and counter accusation.

Painkilling injections are certainly a dark art and despite Strachan’s assertion that only two were used to treat Williams this past year, with the player afforded an additional three month winter period of rest, their deployment in this case would seem to highlight Middlesbrough’s desperation in a frankly calamitous season, one that famously saw them slip from one place outside the play offs to a miserable midtable position. Indeed, the Welsh-Australian pretty much epitomises the Boro’s campaign: fans of relegated clubs will recognise him as the kind of prosaic talent one is forced to get used to, just as one had come to expect a diet of more mercurial performers.

A thought though for Williams. He has shown enough promise in a season at the Riverside to have been offered a three year contract in January, and he was instrumental in Burnley’s fine run in to promotion a year ago, albeit missing the crowning moment of the play offs. He can play in a range of positions and the gobby and the combative Verbeek, already called into question after a 3-1 hiding by the USA and the omission of the Green and Golds’ brightest young talent Tommy Oar, might in time wish he had opted for the Perth man.