The discontent was there for all to hear, justly or not. It was a “chastening night” for England, to use the manager’s words, but the ire was mainly aimed at him. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” chanted some of the Molineux crowd while others proclaimed: “You’re getting sacked in the morning”. Things had certainly escalated quickly.

This was the same England manager who droves of fans proclaimed as ‘the one’ only last summer as he guided the national side to their first tournament final since 1966. That came after taking them to the semi-finals of the World Cup three years earlier and generally lifting the mood around England.

Yet, Gareth Southgate has often brought an opinion out of onlookers. It is right that he is a conservative coach by nature, and could be accused of overcomplicating it on occasion, but going into this summer he had overseen a team which had not lost in 90 minutes over 22 matches. A winning, positive feeling he has brought, no doubt.

So, why the end of the honeymoon? Why the unravelling so sudden and quick? A run of four games without a win is the worst since 2008, over six hours without a goal from open play highlights a blunt attack and, to end the torrid 11-day period, a humiliating 4-0 loss to Hungary that represented England’s worst home defeat since 1928. The schoolchildren booed after the drab draw with Italy, the fully-grown crowd on Tuesday night went further.

Southgate’s remarks post-match were interesting; he acknowledged that the change in tone from the fans has “happened over the past 10 days” highlighting that England’s dull and jaded Uefa Nations League displays have gotten worse, a negativity has developed and that the manager could not be hoodwinked to believe any different. The anti-Southgate sentiments, however, are unwarranted.

“I knew the role before I took it,” he said. “I saw all my predecessors go through that and I know great people like Sir Bobby Robson, what he had to go through and how he was viewed in the end on getting the team to a World Cup semi-final.

“Football is emotional, people pay to come and watch, will give an opinion. The team weren’t able to deliver tonight, that’s my responsibility so if the flak comes my way I have to deal with that. I’ve got to accept that the next period will be unpleasant and uncomfortable, but you’re never going to have six years like we’ve had and not have difficult nights.”

Seeds of doubt have been planted

The England manager tried to act as a human shield to his players, who have hardly done themselves any good just five months and two games out from the start of the World Cup. Of course, there is a feeling that these Nations League games shouldn’t even have taken place at the end of a gruelling 10-month campaign. With players spent, both physically and mentally, Southgate cannot have garnered much from all of this.

Nevertheless, it is clear that this is a squad that still requires adjustments. Experimentation was what Southgate wanted to undertake during these four games but proper learnings haven’t been realisable; at times it’s felt as if everyone just wants to be anywhere but here. It's also felt cruel. England’s ‘first team’ only started the game against Germany — the match which saw the only goal the team have managed courtesy of Harry Kane’s spot-kick.

Individual performances have seeded doubts too. Should Mason Mount be more fruitful in attack? Just when is Jack Grealish meant to enter the field? Is it time to rip up the trusted partnership of Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips in midfield? Has John Stones’ demotion at Manchester City made him lax?

Southgate said: “I feel for [the players] because, in the two Hungary games in particular, I picked teams where I tried to balance the squad, give young players opportunities, and I didn’t get the balance right for them to perform at the level they needed to win those matches.

“The players have been fantastic The responsibility lies with me. It was very difficult to put the strongest team out in every game so we used it to prepare for Qatar. But of course a night like tonight is very difficult and it’s important to take that off their shoulders because it’s totally down to me.”

The timing of this unpleasantness is so unfortunate. Not only will Hungary’s clinical dismantling linger into the summer but it was the third-to-last game before England travel to Qatar. The squad will not meet up again until September when they will face Italy in Milan and Germany at Wembley, then it’s showtime.

“We’ve always said we’re one of the group of teams that can be pushing in the winter,” Southgate added. “I don’t think that’s different. Other big teams have had difficult periods in this competition, it’s been a really unique set of circumstances for every country to deal with. I’m looking at the balance across Europe and there are a lot of countries in a similar situation.”

This 11-day period, which has left Southgate exposed unlike any other time during his six-year reign as national team manager, may prove to be nothing but a bad-timed blip. But it has certainly planted a few seeds of doubts, nonetheless.