Unfortunately, this precedent was set eons ago by man like Ferguson and more recently Pep. You could be a club legend and a fan favourite but if he felt you had outgrown your usefulness, you were out, no matter how big or popular you were. Pep’s hitrate in recent times has been even more alarmingly accurate, Aguero, Cancelo, Sterling, Jesus, all of these man contributed heavily but were binned off the moment he saw an upgrade. It’s cold, brutal even but it’s one of many ways he’s managed to keep them where they are.

Of course it helps when the money you can spend is basically limitless so you can keep rolling the dice, keep signing expensive players until something sticks well enough but all that means to a club like ours where money is a limiting factor is that we need to try to be even more crafty with our transfers and probably even more ruthless to get every upgrade wherever can.