The biggest issue they had with the fans was when they announced that between them they had sold 50 per cent of the shares to the Singapore billionaire Peter Lin, a man who had once tried to buy Liverpool and is the owner of Phil Neville’s current employer, Valencia. Though the suspicion appears to have cut both ways. “I think he was a bit surprised when we first showed him round,” said Butt. “He was like: where’s the Premier League lads? But he saw what we want to do. And we needed his input if we were going to take this club to the next level. Believe me, we haven’t got the money to do what we need to do on our own.”