Steven Gerrard is a fighter not a quitter as they say in Downing Street. This much we know from a career famed for its rescue missions.
He has never been one to give in and yet the heat is on him like never before after Aston Villa capitulated by the Thames.
Gerrard’s team were outplayed by Fulham. They were feeble in the first half and lost their discipline in the second, when Douglas Luiz fell for an Aleksandar Mitrovic wind-up plan and was sent off for butting the Serbian.
Villa were already trailing to a goal by Harrison Reed and, left them to play for half an hour with 10 men, they conceded twice more.