Without wishing to pour a salt mine into a gaping wound, it’s time to talk about Declan Rice.
It’s time to discuss whether his departure comes with this defeat. Whether his head is turned by those suitors this summer. Whether that’s the cost of West Ham’s failure to secure Champions League football by winning the Europa League.
Rice so badly wanted to represent this club in Europe’s elite competition. He was beating his chest after Aaron Cresswell’s early red card, doing his best to encourage his team-mates into believing all was not lost at Eintracht Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park.