FC Hollywood make Kane the star in perfect script for Manchester United

It was a day of frayed nerves and emotion, Harry Kane forced to wait in and around Stansted Airport, to borrow from the football vernacular. His move to Bayern Munich seemingly in jeopardy at the very last.

Told by Tottenham to stay away from the training ground – an edict of staggeringly bad optics – Kane knew there would be no face-to-face goodbyes with the people at his boyhood club, no chance to personally collect his belongings. But would there be a goodbye at all? As the Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy, tried to renegotiate the finer points of the deal with Bayern on Friday 11 August, Kane began to wonder and fret.

At which point it is worth considering the view at Manchester United, because this was what they had feared; the reason why they did not go all out for Kane, despite him being the player that the manager, Erik ten Hag, most wanted and in the position he was most desperate to fill.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s comment about Levy has practically gone down in folklore, how he was more painful to deal with than hip replacement surgery. Now the feeling at Old Trafford took in vindication. If Levy was prepared to blow everything up at this stage with Bayern, imagine what he would have done with them? There had always been scepticism at United over whether Levy would sell Kane to a domestic rival, even if they could meet the needed numbers. They were definitely better off out of this one; their safer, cleaner transfer window plan was wise.

How is the decision looking today? An unfair question, perhaps, posed with the benefit of hindsight. But one that felt unavoidable as Kane sat in the Allianz Arena media theatre and looked ahead to his Champions League debut for Bayern on Wednesday night. That it is against United was