It will have been the call Rickie Lambert was dreading.
Transfer deadline day, time running out, Aston Villa - a frightening combination.
There will have been a lot of soul-searching during those final hours, but when he looks in the mirror today, Lambert will know he has made the right call. An emotional call, probably, but the right one nonetheless.
Having worked for 17 years to get another shot at an Anfield career, to give it all up after eight months would have been a big call. To give it all up to move to a club in freefall would have made it an even bigger one.
Lambert spoke last summer of how his parents had cried when he told them he was “coming home”, after a career spent working his way around the country and up the divisions. At 32, a move to Liverpool was the biggest moment of his career.
The pride, bordering on disbelief, in that interview was clear, moving even.
How it must have hurt, then, to be effectively told that he was free to leave, that even though his manager rated him and wanted him to stay, an offer of £5m was simply too good to turn down. In the end it all came down to whether the Kirkby lad wanted to stay and fight for his place, or go and start again down at Villa.
There will be some who will question his decision to choose the former, there will be plenty who will ask why a player would be happy to stick around and play a bit-part role, to train all week for the prospect of a 10-minute cameo or a low-key cup appearance.
Of Liverpool’s last 13 games in all competitions, Lambert has started just one, and has been an unused substitute in seven.
He spoke earlier this season about needing to improve his fitness, and he will have noted Brendan Rodgers’ recent comments about Mario Balotelli and the need to press from the front in Liverpool’s system.
Lambert, unlike Balotelli, is a naturally hard-working player, but lacks the energy and mobility of a Daniel Sturridge, a Raheem Sterling or even a Fabio Borini. He would be the first to admit he has found life tough since switching from Southampton.
Sturridge’s return will make it even harder for him to nail down a regular place, but if anyone doubts the benefits of staying at Anfield, they need only watch the celebrations which followed Lambert’s last Liverpool goal – which came, fittingly, against Villa last month.
When you have supported a club all your life and you are given the chance to play for it, to represent your own people, it is not something you should give up easily. The joy on his face that day will live long in the memory.
He will do well to convince the doubters he has a place at Anfield for the long term, but if he has even one more moment like Villa Park in a Liverpool shirt, his decision to stick it out will be vindicated.
And no true football fan would begrudge him it, either.
