NOT since Stoke City lost on their Premier League debut at Bolton in 2008, perhaps, has one football match left the pit of your stomach feeling quite so depressingly painful.
One bookie paid out on Stoke being relegated that weekend, you might remember, and many more will be doing likewise in a few weeks at their present rate of descent.
FALSE HOPE: Michael Kightly turns away in delight after scoring the equaliser against Aston Villa. Pictures: Malcolm Hart
On Grand National weekend we were hoping Stoke's performance would resonate to the likes of Imperial Commander and Quel Esprit, but instead it echoed more to Lost Glory, Always Waining and Ninetieth Minute.
Those of us once scoffing at the very possibility of relegation are now paying for the kind of complacency that might have afflicted the dressing room too.
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Not the manager, of course, for he has long been warning that the big C could contaminate the club at which his managerial career has been defined.
He remains to see the job through to the end of the season, it seems, and this is certainly no time for his CV to be besmirched by a first relegation.
Tony Pulis will be grateful for the backing his team heard from the stands on Saturday, while any protest at Stoke's deteriorating predicament was mercifully confined to a rapid exodus before the final whistle as supporters chose to bite their tongue on this occasion.
The time has come for change, though, and perhaps less emphasis should now be put on trying to stop the opposition and more on trying to trouble them.
It is becoming ever harder to defend the exclusion of those players possessing the enterprise and craft to spark a far greater attacking threat than we are seeing from Stoke's on-going and deeply damaging malaise in the final third.
Charlie Adam may not be good for 90 minutes, but the argument for giving him the first 70 instead of the last 20 is becoming deafening.
One chipped through-ball for Jon Walters with just about his first touch on Saturday also demonstrated the wisdom of including a Cameron Jerome to provide speed off the last defender's shoulder.
This isn't a Stoke team with the ability or the confidence to play through the pitch, but it can play constructively long balls to stretch and turn defences if they are playing with precise passing and speed off the mark.
Fitting Adam into a starting line-up remains a problem for those, like Pulis, who don't trust his mobility and defensive nous in a midfield two.
So given the lack of natural width at their disposal anyway, perhaps it's time for Stoke to go 4-3-3 to accommodate both Adam and Jerome.
Either way, something has to change, because at the present rate of knots the club is heading in only one direction.
The optimists will say that as little as four points from their last six games could be enough to save Stoke from the Championship, but that statistic doesn't sound quite so reassuring when you think their last four points have taken seven games to collect.
There were unlucky moments impeding Stoke again on Saturday – two handball shouts that Pulis thought were penalties, not to mention Matthew Lowton's late wonder strike that would hit Row Z on any other day – but nobody can overlook the grim truth that Villa were streets ahead in so many facets.
Only in the first seven or eight minutes of the game, and for seven or eight minutes either side of Michael Kightly's 80th-minute equaliser, did Stoke begin to intimidate arguably the Premier League's worst defence.
Villa looked like a team on the up as their defence thrived on the confidence exuding from their goalkeeper, their midfield possessed and hounded the ball in equal measure, while their attacking prowess was all too evident on the break.
They could certainly have laid Stoke to rest with more than their solitary first-half strike when Lowton wormed clear on the right to cross low to the near post for Gabriel Agbonlahor to stab home at the second attempt.
Agbonlahor provided the day's only light relief when he was later booked for an outrageous dive as Asmir Begovic closed down one of several forays into Stoke territory.
Begovic was the only Stoke player to consistently play to his reputation on Saturday as he tipped one shot on to his post in the first half, while beating away another at the start of the second to keep his team alive.
Stoke's inadequacies were such that Kenwyne Jones gave Kightly a right earful when both inexplicably jumped for the same ball in midfield to surrender possession yet again.
Thank heavens the home crowd was rather more unified as they admirably restricted their displeasure to the occasional groan when either of the Ryans misplaced a pass.
And the home crowd's loyalty in the face of adversity was finally rewarded when Stoke, visibly inspired by Adam's introduction, saw the Scot heavily involved in their 80th-minute equaliser.
It was his pass wide that stretched the play momentarily as Jon Walters retrieved the ball and played back inside to Adam who, with an outstretched right boot, prodded through for Kightly to sweep the ball home delightfully from 12 yards out.
Kightly has his critics and his Stoke career hasn't exactly taken off yet, but he is one player frequently prepared to gamble on getting into goalscoring positions like that.
Suddenly it was Stoke looking the likelier to grab victory against a young Villa side frequently prone to blowing one or two-goal leads.
Not this time, sadly, as a header and a spooned clearance from Adam appeared to have ended any danger from a left-wing corner in the 90th minute.
But Lowton, seeing glory fizz before his eyes, chested the dropping ball and then dipped an exquisite volley over Begovic from 30 yards.
To quote a line from Barry Davies, when he was reluctantly acknowledging Diego Maradona's brilliant second goal against England at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico: "You have to say that's magnificent."
The game was up and Villa's third, after Christian Benteke had broken clear of a defence pushing forward with nothing to lose, was merely the twisting of a knife already embedded deep into the heart of Stoke City.
That knife appears to have been twisted yet one more time by a fixture list throwing up Manchester United at the Britannia next Sunday, but daft as it sounds that may not be the worst fixture in the world.
A game from which so little is expected from Stoke does take the pressure off some pretty despondent-looking players, giving them time to steel themselves for a much more significant home game against Norwich later this month. We live in hope.
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