There were boos from the Tottenham support at half-time and sighs when Cristian Romero got himself sent off for a second wild lunge on 77 minutes. There were more jeers when Antonio Conte substituted Dejan Kulusevski and jettisoned his brief flirtation with a line of four attackers. On came Davinson Sánchez in a role that nobody seemed to be able to describe.
And it all led up to the inevitable outpouring at full time, the loudest jeers of the night from a home crowd that wanted to believe but in their hearts knew that this team, set up by this manager, was never going find a way.
