This weekend, even as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team were demonstrating their inadequacy on the pitch at Bournemouth, the attention of many Manchester United fans was diverted much further south. A story bloomed on social media suggesting that the Saudi royal family was about to buy the club. Richard Arnold, United’s managing director, had been spotted in Riyadh the previous week and the news was that this was but the opening of negotiations. Things were moving quickly, the Glazer family were in the process of selling up. And the new owners were wealthier than Croesus.

Never mind that United sources insisted there was nothing in it, that Arnold was in Saudi for a long-scheduled commercial meeting, that the Glazers had no intention of offloading their valuable cash cow and anyway, if they were, such a deal would be announced via the appropriate channels rather than on some unauthenticated social media channel, thousands of the club’s followers excitedly spread the word. The Glazers were on their way, the club was being bought by the richest people in the world, the money they would spend would make United great again.

Which makes you wonder what on earth they were smoking. The very idea of a Saudi takeover should be enough to send a shiver down the spine of any sane United follower. Sure, as owners, the Glazers might be guilty of many things but staging a public stoning of a woman accused of adultery in one of their Florida shopping centres is not on the charge sheet.