If you’ve ever gone to the shops on Christmas Eve on a do-or-die mission to bring back Brussels Sprouts only to find an empty green crate where the miniature cabbages once lived, you’ll know what it’s like, on a slightly smaller scale admittedly, to live the life of Ed Woodward during a transfer window.

For the Manchester United Chief Executive, the agony of a badly-timed transfer window is over, and to United fans’ relief, players have been signed. Good players, too, and potentially great players. But, after a summer linking United to Jadon Sancho of Borussia Dortmund, it still feels to many like a disappointment instead of a positive. 

The set-up didn’t help, of course. Two home defeats (a 1-3 reverse to Crystal Palace before a 6-1 mauling at the hands of former manager Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur) had created a negative atmosphere around the club, coming just weeks after indiscretions by captain Harry Maguire and Mason Greenwood cast a shadow over the side who surged to 3rd place in last season’s Premier League. 

Things change so quickly in football that there is no sport like it. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was 33/1 to be the first Premier League manager to leave his job at the start of the season, but the Norwegian is now a 2/1 shot few see the value in missing out on.