They were so close to ultimate victory here they could feel the champions’ medals round their necks, could taste the sponsors’ champagne, could begin to compose their triumphal tweets. So close, indeed, that to learn it is not, after all, to be theirs, that victory had been snatched from their grasp even as they waited on the pitch for the green light to celebrate, must have felt like a bucket had been emptied on their heads. The Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill in his commiserations suggested that to lose out in the way they had was “the most harrowing loss you can have.” There were few in red who would disagree with such an analysis.