This piece was intended for publication in the close season, but following the reporting of Andrea Traverso's (UEFA Executive Director, Financial Sustainability and Research) shambolic 15-minute diatribe on February 26th, it really couldn't wait.

Gone is the effervescent, rarely wrong, and inspirational figure in black. Now Unai is cutting a dejected profile on the sideline, focusing on things he cannot fix, whilst hoping for a miracle to repair those he can. To underline the current travails, Emery was on the cusp of a rare 100th win as Villa boss; now he is on the cusp of a 50th defeat, with few expecting the former to come first. Time and circumstance have taken their toll.

Maguire and his band of social media muppets will need something else to bore on about as the Deloitte Football Money League for 2026 is published and Villa are apparently no longer the unsustainable, profligate, wage expenders they once were.

SCR requires the club to collect, hold and disclose a granularity of data that would ordinarily be an input into rather than a published output under general accounting rules.