He was an important player, for sure, but the point here is not that losing him was the issue. He was always going to move on at some point and the strategy of our previous ownership had always been 'once they want to go, let them'.

The issue with this deal was that they spent all summer negotiating what they saw as the best deal they could get, at the negligence of everything else. It was over the minute he refused to go on the pre-season trip and an acceptable deal should have been done soon after that, allowing the club to move on other players. As it was, they spent the last hours of the window scrambling around for anything they could get.

It doesn't even need hindsight. It was as clear as day at the time.

As I say, they were clownshoes and completely unsuited to running a football club.