Erik ten Hag has enough problems to deal with at Manchester United without the men who came before him adding to his misery.
As the new manager at Old Trafford, the Dutchman's first major task was orchestrating a successful summer transfer window alongside newly-appointed chief executive Richard Arnold, football director John Murtough and the club's new-look recruitment team. While you can do your best to work around the clock, answer your phone in the middle of the night, and spend hours on planes trains and automobiles, sometimes all it takes to make or break a transfer are some choice words from important people.
Unfortunately for Ten Hag - who's at least been able to bring in three new faces for a total of £70million - those are the people who once stood in his shoes, roaming around the Old Trafford technical area. In the Red Devils' pursuit of two particular targets, Louis van Gaal and Ralf Rangnick have each put a spanner in the works and helped kill any chance of a deal being done this summer.
