As the referee and his assistants left the Emirates Stadium pitch at full time, striding off in the classic three-abreast formation, in its own way a little martyred and theatrical, they were greeted with a thrillingly pent-up round of boos from the home support.
Was this fair? Virgil van Dijk had somehow got away with kicking Kai Havertz. Arsenal might have had a first-half penalty, but, well, not really. The problem with becoming convinced that the world is against you is sometimes it starts to feel like it actually might be, because the world is basically against everyone anyway. But not so much here. This was more a sense of people simply wanting to feel something, as memories of an energetic but oddly shapeless afternoon faded with the empty home-time music.
