There was me thinking that making eight changes to his team at Wembley (while still retaining Grant Hanley) was the last time Gordon Strachan would have the power to shock as Scotland manager.
Well, his decision not to walk away after the 3-0 defeat has probably trumped it.
If ever there was a natural time for a head coach to call it a day, this was it.
The England game felt like a last hurrah and that is what it should have been.
Strachan and his SFA bosses are deluded if they think Scotland still have a fighting chance of qualifying for the World Cup. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest a dramatic upturn in form or results will happen. An 18-month steady decline predicts the exact opposite.
Had Strachan resigned or been sacked the SFA would have had several months to conduct a proper recruitment process before the next competitive fixture and given his successor a proper head-start for a Euro 2020 campaign that will represent a much more realistic chance of getting to a championship finals.
The next man could have used the remaining World Cup fixtures to grow comfortable in the job and acclimatise the next generation of players to international football.
Who knows, he might even have dropped Grant Hanley.
There was nothing glorious about Wembley but it was a man, and his team, going down fighting. The Tartan Army would have seen it for that.
For Strachan personally, he has now opened himself up to an exit that a Scotland legend should not get.
But that’s what happens when you outstay your welcome and misjudge the public mood so terribly as the national coach and his chief executive have just done.
