As any Manchester United fan worth his salt will tell you, the club are not in a possession of a director of football, so any replacement signed for the outgoing Romelu Lukaku would have had to be negotiated on transfer deadline day by Edward Gareth Woodward.
Indeed, United's executive vice chairman missed the club's pre-season tour - as the club attempted to nail down key transfer targets.
United strengthened the defence with Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka and added youthful burst to the club's attack in Daniel James but some fans weren't happy with the lack of a Lukaku replacement, or a midfielder to replace Ander Herrera.
A physics graduate, Woodward had no apparent experience in football when he rocked up in Stretford 14 years ago.
He celebrated six years overseeing the operations of the biggest club in the world earlier this year, having replaced David Gill in the summer of 2013 after working his way through the ranks.
Like Gill, Woodward is a chartered accountant by trade, spending several years with PricewaterhouseCoopers before moving into the world of investment banking with JP Morgan in 1999.
It was while working on merger and acquisition deals for the American banking giant that Woodward first became associated with Manchester United.
He is said to have worked closely on the deal putting the club in the hands of the Glazer family, by way of a controversial leveraged buyout fuelled with borrowed money.
Criticism has been fierce of the 14-year Glazer era, although Woodward has defended the club's business model to the BBC previously, likening it in the past to a mortgage where the family that lives inside "is getting richer and richer...every year."
Naturally, this had led Woodward himself to criticism from swathes of United fans, while his apparent struggle to bring in a technical director has left anger over the club's transfer dealings at his feet.
On the other hand, Woodward has had an undeniable impact on driving United revenues - even if that money hasn't always been put to the best use in the years since Sir Alex Ferguson waved goodbye to Old Trafford.
Woodward took up a more official role in 2007, tasked with commercial and media operations and developing the club's sponsorship programme.
His success in this field led to a promotion to director five years later.
Commercial revenues jumped from £66million in 2008/09 to £118million in 2011/12, before a series of huge new sponsorship deals led to commercial income of £196million in 2014/15 and a mammoth £276million in 2017/18.
The 47-year old Woodward has been described as a "driving force" behind this growth, including his work in securing world record deals with adidas and Chevrolet, allowing the club to smash its transfer target on several occasions.
But Woodward has also been accused of allowing commercial operations to dominate at the expense of the club's on-field performances, once infamously quipping that, "Playing performance [don't] really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business."
Stoking some United's fans ire further, Woodward has rarely given interviews, his last big sit down coming four years ago.
Some fans have argued a more transparent relationship with them would go a little way to improving the relationship between them and the former investment banker who has indelibly stamped his market on Manchester United in the 21st century.
izukanjijr
31
This idiot will be the end of ManU. Arsenal with £40M got 6 players and here is Ed jerking everyone off