THE smiling face of Ruben Amorim and the promise of a bright new future should give everyone at Manchester United a lift.
Unfortunately, the public face of the Red Devils hides a completely different story behind the scenes.
One that makes the new boss long for Lisbon before he knows it.
The consequences of a disastrous summer for the club under new management are still being felt.
Not least among the regular staff, who will see their position erode and, in the worst case, disappear altogether with 250 redundancies.
They understandably wonder if this is the collateral damage of the ex-manager's decisions and woeful recruitment.
Not even Sir Alex Ferguson has been safe now that his £2m-a-year ambassadorial role has been axed.
Those who defended the arrival of new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe as putting a spring in everyone's step have lost their resilience.
Last February, he took over 27.7 percent of the club from the Glazer family, with the mandate to run the football operation while the American owners sat back and continued to milk the cash cow.
He brought in trusted wingman Sir Dave Brailsford, although to this day no one at the club knows exactly what his skills are or what he does, rather than telling everyone what's wrong.
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One of his first complaints was about the state of the IT department office on the training ground, which he was unaware was actually a MUTV studio.
Dealing with former gaffer Erik ten Hag has risen to the top of the charts for tampering in the 11 years since Fergie retired and the bar is already set quite high.
Long story short: they wanted him gone, couldn't find anyone to replace him, asked him to stay, extended his contract, spent millions on a new coaching team at the Theater of Dreams, and then gave another £172.1 MILLION in the transfer market.
Just eleven games into the new season the hierarchy decided they would return to square one again at great cost, with payouts for anyone going out and a release clause for the new guy coming in.
Now questions are being asked internally at the highest levels about how they got into this position, with fingers metaphorically pointing across the boardroom table.
Sir Jim has effectively washed his hands of it after claiming, as questions about Ten Hag's future intensified, that it was not up to him to provide the answers as they had a new senior management team in place to deal with it all doing.
That team consists of Omar Berrada, the CEO poached from rival Manchester City, who did not exactly tie him to the gate of the Etihad to prevent him from leaving, and Dan Ashworth, the sporting director, who on a limited budget lower was in the competition.
Then there is Jason Wilcox, the technical director, who should influence how United play now.
If he had any input at all, God knows what he said.
All this will undoubtedly have had a significant impact on the expenditure incurred over the summer, which did not improve the team's performance.
The most bizarre transfer was the £36.5 million paid to Bologna for Joshua Zirkzee.
Ten Hag didn't want him. He gained a stone too much weight and has scored ONE goal.
Apparently a metatarsal problem appeared during Leny Yoro's medical treatment, ahead of a £42 million outlay.
See, in his second match of pre-season he picked up a metatarsal injury and has only just started training during the current international break.
The question then is why would Bayern Munich let go of defenders Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui for a total of £51.3m up front, rising to a possible £59.5m, if they were that good?
Only Manuel Ugarte, the £42.2m signing from Paris Saint-Germain, looks close to becoming a United player, but even he doesn't seem a step above Scott McTominay, who left for Napoli and is tearing things up .
The spending means Amorim's ability to do anything in the next transfer window will be limited unless he can change players, but who's going to buy someone from Old Trafford now?
All this time behind the scenes, the ship is far from happy, while the staff is unceremoniously thrown overboard in a money-consuming purge.
It has even led to chefs pulling their hair out to try to cover matchday hospitality with lower budgets and staffing levels.
Employees who have been employed for a long time feel that they are being cast aside like rubbish.
The most alarming story came when a member of staff with 25 years at the club behind him was told he was being given a commemorative watch for his services.
He was then told to collect it from the main reception, where a security guard handed it to him in a plastic bag.
That's a photo to show the grandchildren in the future.
An award-winning journalist is currently tasked with following Sir Jim and his new regime for a book on how they turned United around.
It may end up being a work of fiction.
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