There is not a player with more to prove in the Premier League this season than Moussa Sissoko. Everywhere he looks now that he is a Tottenham Hotspur player, including the mirror, Sissoko will see people he needs to prove something to.

There are the Newcastle United supporters who celebrated the fact their club had managed to get £30m for him with the sort of joy that would normally accompany a new signing. The happiness at the sale of a supposedly key player is unparalleled in the club’s recent history. That should tell him everything about what people thought of him after three-and-a half-years on Tyneside.

There are the Everton fans who will despise him for making their club look stupid, for allowing his agent to pretend he wanted to sign, for agreeing personal terms and then refusing, not only to travel to Merseyside, but to even have the decency to answer his phone to manager Ronald Koeman to tell him he did not want to make the move.