The phone call arrived, belatedly, at 3pm. Frank Lampard had known the writing was on the wall but, even still, it did not make it any easier to deal with the pain.
Farhad Moshiri had spoken to the 44-year-old a number of times since Saturday night, even asking him for his views on what was needed in terms of recruitment, but the final conversation between the pair ended with a parting of the ways.
A man with Lampard’s experience of football, from the clubs he has played for and managed, will have known that losing so many games so quickly had left him on a sticky wicket.