When a great house has long feasted on borrowed treasure, there comes a winter when the larders must be counted and the torches dimmed. What is happening at Old Trafford looks, at first glance, like such a reckoning, with servants dismissed from the halls and elder advisers like Sir Alex quietly released from their posts. One can understand the argument that the club must shed weight if it is not to sink under the armour of its own debts. Yet in every tale there is a danger that, in the haste to cast the ring of reckoning into the fire, the steward forgets the small folk who kept the citadel alive through darker days. If this 'efficiency' leaves only polished executives and hungry stars while the ordinary workers are scattered like Hobbits without a Shire, the spirit of the place will be broken even if the balance sheet recovers. A club that keeps its gold but loses its sense of fellowship will discover, too late, that it has saved the body and wounded the soul.