He has been at Exeter, one of League Two’s remotest outposts, since before first light, leaving his home near Bath at 6.30am for the hour-and-a-half drive across to the Cat and Fiddle training ground which is named after a nearby pub.
Paul Tisdale has become hardwired to the same routine after a shade less than 12 years as Exeter City manager. Only Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger has been in charge for longer in the professional leagues.
It is the week in which Mark Hughes, whose Stoke team are three points off the Premier League’s 12th spot, has come under unsparing scrutiny and in which people have asked if Saturday’s visiting manager Alan Pardew has lost it, after no wins in his first eight games at West Bromwich Albion.