As Manchester United manager, you must be doing something right if you can ship seven to Liverpool, six to Manchester City and four to Brentford and still be acclaimed for your first season in charge.
And don’t forget, Erik ten Hag was unable to stop a 2-0 lead turning into a 5-2 aggregate defeat against Sevilla in a Europa League quarter-final. The Spanish team went on to lift the trophy after a shockingly poor final in Budapest but they are about to finish La Liga in mid-table.
There have been some truly abysmal performances from United under Ten Hag but those performances have been sporadic enough to have minimal effect on the overall verdict on his opening campaign in England.
The verdict is that United have got themselves a serious manager, who - ten years after the great man’s retirement - is looking more like a potential long-term successor to Sir Alex Ferguson than the likes of David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did.
Very, very early days, sure, but there is already a lot to admire about Ten Hag’s limited body of work, whatever unfolds at Wembley on Saturday. And it would not be a huge shock if Ten Hag masterminded an FA Cup final victory, United having twice ground out wins at Wembley this season.
Winning the Carabao Cup, finishing third in the Premier League and reaching the FA Cup final represents an impressive first season for Ten Hag but there are intangibles that should be even more encouraging for United supporters.
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For a start, he represents the club well. There has been the odd moan about refereeing but, in general, Ten Hag conducts himself in a manner befitting his position at a great institution.
He comes across as firm but fair with his players, his treatment of Jadon Sancho being a prime example. Sancho needed to reassess his progress and Ten Hag encouraged him to do that and gave him the space to do it.
Players certainly seem to know where they stand and it takes a decisive coach to pretty much tell a Manchester United captain his days at the club are limited. But when he has moved elsewhere, I suspect you will not hear Harry Maguire say a bad word about Ten Hag.
There are also players who have rediscovered their form or have improved under Ten Hag. Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s contributions - along with Diogo Dalot’s earlier in the season - have made the need for a new right-back disappear, saving money that can now be spent elsewhere.
A large part of whatever transfer money is available will, almost certainly, be spent on a striker. Whether or not that striker is Harry Kane remains to be seen but the one thing that can be said is that Ten Hag is helping restore a lustre to United that had faded over previous seasons.
Of course, United has always been a huge draw to any player but the man in charge of the actual football has already established himself as an attractive coach to work for. And his style will surely become more expansive when he assembles the squad he wants over the next couple of transfer windows.
The caveat to all this is the ownership issue and the way the club operates away from the field. In comparison with their FA Cup final opponents, there is a lot of catching up to do on and off the pitch.
But at least United appear to have the right character in charge of one of those jobs.
