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The writing was on the wall from the moment Erik ten Hag arrived at Old Trafford with regard to Ralf Rangnick’s future in a ‘consultancy role’ for Manchester United.

‘ETH’ made it quite clear in his debut press conference he saw little value in the German having any meaningful say over transfers, tactics or training in any over-arching role. In any case, football director John Murtough was not naïve enough to hand the effective power of his role to someone else.

Yet while Rangnick’s consultancy will turn out to be two hours, rather than two years - the length of the phone call between Rangnick in Germany and Ten Hag in Amsterdam, as reported by The Telegraph - it could yet prove invaluable to the new boss.

It is when things are going badly that real insight is gained, and plenty of the players at United let their guard drop believing the German was not going to have a bearing on their future. Several knew they were on their way at the end of the season with Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata, Nemanja Matic and Edinson Cavani all at the end of their contracts.

With the honourable exceptions of Mata and Matic, the returns from those players declined under Rangnick. Eric Bailly, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Phil Jones and Dean Henderson