The Brentford fans ought to have known better. After all, Darwin Núñez had scored a fabulous goal against their team in the corresponding fixture last season. Still, when the centre-forward entered as a 65th-minute substitute, they were ready with their taunt, one that compared him unfavourably with his Liverpool predecessor, Andy Carroll.
Núñez had travelled to London having scored four times all season. The scrutiny burned. It is no kind of return for an £85m record signing. Arne Slot had insisted he would come good, that it was simply a matter of getting him into the right spaces and situations against deep-set opponents. How it would do so at the very last.
