A report into the spending of clubs in Europe's top five leagues over the last decade, released last September, made for predictably grisly reading for Manchester United.
The CIES Football Observatory report revealed no club had a more considerable net spend than United between the summer windows of 2012 and 2021, clocking in at an eye-watering €1billion.
No club has had less bang for their buck than United in that period, given nine of the 10 years, it covers are in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, where silverware has become increasingly hard to come by.
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The report didn't reflect well on United's spending in that period and you only had to spend five minutes in the company of Ralf Rangnick this season to understand the failings in that regard.
But it also shone a light into United's failure to extract maximum value for players they have been selling. In that 10 year period they had collected €474million in transfer fees, almost €200million less than Manchester City and roughly the same as Everton.
United's struggles when it comes to selling players hasn't just been about the fees they've been able to bring in, but the timing of the sales.
This summer Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard will walk away on free transfers when both could have been sold for sizeable fees without disrupting the squad.
Pogba made his intention to leave Old Trafford clear in the summer of 2019 and if United had their time again they would surely sanction a deal then. Instead, they held on to Pogba and in the three years since he has shown only flashes of his brilliance, while the pandemic made a sale almost impossible.
There can be no such mitigation in the case of Lingard. He could have been sold a year ago for £25million, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wanted to keep him in the squad. He's hardly been used this season and will leave a club he has spent more than 20 years at with a feeling of distrust and dissatisfaction. It reflects poorly on United's transfer market judgement.
Despite bringing three players in last summer United sold only one. The £25million they received for Daniel James was only the fifth time in the last decade they've made a profit on a player, after Alexander Buttner, Daley Blind, Javier Hernandez and Chris Smalling.
The failing at United has been holding on to players for too long. The writing has been on the wall for Eric Bailly and Anthony Martial for a while, but now the club will have to try and sell both when their stock has fallen to an all-time low. It's poor decision making.
John Murtough will take a more proactive role in recruitment this summer and while the quality of the players United bring in will make or break Erik ten Hag's first season in charge, the departures are going to be just as crucial.
There is an acceptance United probably need five players this summer and substantial investments in a defender, midfielder and forward are key, but after missing out on the Champions League the budget will only stretch so far.
That can be supplemented by sales, so Murtough is going to need to prove he is a better salesman than those who have gone before him.
United's previous strategy of securing players on unnecessary contracts to protect their value has only had the opposite effect. This is the summer when that approach needs to be unpicked.
This is a club that has sold only four players for more than £20million (Angel Di Maria, Morgan Schneiderlin, Romelu Lukaku and James) since the record-breaking departure of Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.
Bailly and Martial, who are probably the two most valuable assets United will allow to leave this summer, could both have attracted fees in excess of that had they been sold at a more sensible juncture.
But Bailly was given a pointless three-year contract a year ago, has started just three Premier League games all season and has fallen below Phil Jones in the pecking order. Martial offered little to United in the first half of the season and a loan move to Sevilla produced just one goal in 12 appearances.
The queue for their services will have diminished this season. Now Murtough needs to show he can get an auction going for two players who have seen their value depreciate.
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