There was genuine surprise when the teamsheets dropped at Bournemouth, an hour before Sheffield United would kick-off their first Premier League game in over a decade.
Not because that, despite spending decent money, Chris Wilder only picked one new signing. It was the name John Lundstram that prompted the loudest murmurings.
Lundstram barely played during last season's promotion, registering only five starts. Wilder operated with two central midfielders, John Fleck and Oliver Norwood, and Lundstram barely got a sniff. Certainly not a fans' favourite either.
In fact, the expectation was that the former Everton trainee would actually leave Bramall Lane over the summer in search of a 10th professional club.
That seems unthinkable now. Lundstram is the heartbeat of this electric Sheffield United team that rose to sixth in the Premier League on Saturday, his prominence aided by Wilder wanting another body in the engine room. The midfielder scored twice, his trademark late runs from deep too precise for Burnley, as they had been for Crystal Palace earlier in the season.
'I've had a lot of knock-backs along the way,' Lundstram said. 'It hasn't been easy, but it's a journey I wouldn't change. I'm at the top now and hopefully I can stay there.
'It's a hard one because I always believed I could play at the top. But at the same time the position I was in last year it didn't seem that I could. I went away over the summer and worked unbelievably hard to give myself the best chance I could.'
Just before the Kop belted out United's spine-tingling Greasy Chip Butty song before kick-off, Kasabian's Comeback Kid booms inside Bramall Lane. Sometimes twice. Lundstram, 25, someone who toiled on loan in the lower leagues for so long, is the absolute epitome of that tune.
'The system suits him,' Wilder said. 'Fleck and Norwood were the best two players in the Championship last year and we played two sitting midfielders. We knew what Lunny was about. He's grown and raised his game in the summer.'
Lundstram is philosophical about his travails to reach this point, an admittance that he probably was not prepared for all that comes with playing for Everton when he was released four years ago.
'That is always in the back of your mind when you get a setback, to prove people wrong,' he said. 'You grow as a person and as a player and maybe at the time when I was let go by Everton, I wasn't ready. I didn't think that at the time, but looking back, maybe they were right.'
