“Why don’t you delve more into the intricacies of quantum physics in your column?” I hear many of you cry* and so in response, for all you fans of Brian Cox (the former D:Ream keyboard player & serial planet botherer, not the guy who played Logan Roy in ‘Succession’...) and perhaps also devotees of the US sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”, please read on – this is for you..!

We should start by examining the paradox of quantum superposition via the thought experiment of Schrödinger’s Cat. In it, Schrödinger postulated that a cat (theoretically I should emphasise) sealed in a box alongside a radioactive atom could simultaneously be described as “both dead and alive” until said box was opened. Only then could you definitively know the feline’s fate.

I would like to expand the theory to take onboard the entity known to us as Blackburn Rovers FC – who, sealed into a division alongside 23 other non-radioactive football clubs, can apparently be simultaneously described as “pretty good” and yet also “a bit rubbish”.

Until the experiment is fully concluded (after 46 games) the outcome of any observations presumably must be that both of these states can and indeed do co-exist.

At this point in this scientific treatise, it’s appropriate also to consider the phenomenon of “recency bias”. This is an all-too-common occurrence in the realm of football fandom e.g. endless streams of pundits proclaiming “you’re only as good as your last game”, which if that’s true, is somewhat unfortunate; albeit not quite as bad for Rovers as “you’re only as good as the game before last” which frankly was diabolical.

Without the welcome intervention of our favourite NFL franchise, the ‘Shepherd’s Bush Form Rejuvenators’ at the end of September, Rovers could easily have been described as being on the crest of a slump. The exciting 2nd half against ten men definitely stopped a rot setting in.

But just imagine for a second that the season had started with back-to-back defeats and then the team had got their act together, going on an unbeaten run of seven games, how would we all be feeling?

I think the answer is obvious – recency bias skews how we view our current predicament.

If offered a position of eighth after nine games at the beginning of August I’d have snapped the hands off anybody brokering such a deal but, the last two games have cast a cloud over proceedings...understandably.

It’s Schrödinger’s Rovers right enough – vibrant for an hour against Derby, grittily determined against Norwich and Oxford United; resilient and defiant against Burnley.

The counterpoint to those performances being comically inept against Blackpool, toothless against 10-man Preston, clueless against Coventry and ultimately, undone at the death by Plymouth.

What does it all mean? Well simply put – I suspect we aren’t quite as good as we’d hoped we were at the end of September but equally plausibly, we aren’t quite as bad as the first week of October would lead a dispassionate observer of this experiment to conclude.

The interesting question to pose to the manager would be “what do you think needs to be done to improve consistency/creativity/concentration?”

The extent to which he has been involved in the shaping of the squad as opposed to being told to coach what he’s been given would be my follow up.

The noises coming out of the Ewood boardroom suggest that a January splurge in the transfer market is unlikely and so if this season is to deliver success, it is almost certainly going to rest on John Eustace’s ability to coax performances out of the players he has.

What would success look like this season? Well on 1st August I’d simply have said ‘avoid relegation’ but the emergence of a new cult hero in Yuki Ohashi (congratulations on the national team call-up, Yuki!) and the signing of Todd Cantwell have generated hope that a play-off push isn’t entirely a pipe dream.

Join me for my next lecture in a fortnight when I’ll be exploring “Regression To The Mean & The Likely Long-Term Impact Of Outperforming Your xG” – in the meantime, enjoy your fix of international football.

*Please, cut me some slack – it’s the international break after all..!