United fans all smiles again

Set the Giddy-o-Meter to ‘eleven’; in the Van Persie deal, United have found the means to attract, sign, and then pay, a genuinely top class, peak-of-career player, for the first time in years.

Indeed, you have to go back into the mists of the Sexton era to find a purchase of this calibre that also had the benefit of being filched from a genuine top-notch rival.

I don’t count 1995’s Andy Cole, because Newcastle never actually won anything, and were essentially fly-by-nighters. So my nomination is Gary Birtles, from Forest, in 1980: big money, right age, proven goalscorer, and from a club that had just won back-to-back European Cups. Remind me, how did that turn out again...ah.