When Manchester United sold Daniel James to Leeds for £25million last summer it was just the fifth time in a decade they had managed to make a profit on a player they were ready to discard.
United got lucky with James. Marcelo Bielsa was obsessed with the winger and he'd done just about enough at Old Trafford to suggest there was still potential there. If Leeds were selling him now they wouldn't get £25million for him.
James was the first of the 2019 intake out of the door but he will be followed by Aaron Wan-Bissaka this summer. United will do well to avoid making more than a 50% loss on the £45million that Crystal Palace managed to hoodwink out of them for the right-back.
READ MORE: United offering Wan-Bissaka to clubs
Wan-Bissaka and James were two players who fit the bill in what Ed Woodward described as a "cultural reset" in 2019, but in what reality has been a dreadful waste of £140million. Harry Maguire was the headline act but the £80million is clinging on at Old Trafford, with a point to prove if he's to keep his place in Erik ten Hag's team.
Those three signings three years ago fit the bill for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, they were young, hungry and British. The one criteria Solskjaer failed to demand was that they were good enough to play for Manchester United.
The warning signs should have been ringing when the manager of a football club with aspirations of dominating in Europe as well as domestically advocated signing players from Palace, Swansea and Leicester City, but Woodward had nailed his colours to the mast with the early appointment of Solskjaer and they had little choice but to back him.
Had United stuck to their original plan of waiting until the end of the 2018/19 season to make a decision over a manager then perhaps this intake would have been avoided. To be fair to Solskjaer he began to aim higher and Bruno Fernandes, Raphael Varane, Jadon Sancho and Cristiano Ronaldo all look decent signings, at least. He never again reverted to signing players from lesser domestic rivals.
But that initial splurge in his first summer has been damaging to United and while Maguire may yet resurrect his career, he was never an £80million centre-back. Three years on he remains the world's most expensive central defender and if he was to be up for sale this summer it's doubtful United would get much more than a quarter of that back.
If Maguire will be at Old Trafford next season, then it looks almost certain Wan-Bissaka won't be. United are open to letting him leave and it's clear he has no future under Erik ten Hag.
If the punt on James was a bit of a wildcard, and they simply paid too much for Maguire, then the move for Wan-Bissaka is quite possibly the daftest of all for United in that strange summer of 2019.
This was a spending spree focusing on character but the right-back is an introverted character who never had the mettle to play for Manchester United. He was almost mute on his first pre-season tour and has never come out of his shell.
When he signed United proudly claimed they had whittled down an eye-watering database of 804 right-backs to alight on Wan-Bissaka, the perfect fit. Most of those 804 have since played for England but United's right-back is considering switching his nationality to DR Congo to try and earn an international cap.
The 24-year-old arrived as a defensively sound full-back who had been converted from a winger, but his attacking inclinations have barely been on show during his United career. There have been 10 assists in 126 games and while his one-on-one defending is undoubtedly supreme, he is guilty of switching off when sides attack down the other flank and can be caught cold at the back post.
Once United finally moved on to a modern, progressive manager it was a matter of time before Wan-Bissaka was moved on. Ten Hag has made his mind up from a distance and the call is even more decisive given Diogo Dalot hasn't convinced as a long-term answer either.
The fact United's new manager is trying to get rid of one of the old manager's signings, who clearly doesn't fit into his style of play, is the clearest example of Ralf Rangnick's astutest observation of the club's muddled transfer strategy.
This is a squad built on the whims of a series of managers with different ideas and different demands. It's been a mess for too long and the acquisition of Wan-Bissaka is just the latest example. Unpicking those mistakes will be a big part of the plan for John Murtough and Ten Hag over the next couple of transfer windows.
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