By Matt Slater

Derby County fans may or may not believe this, but the original hook for this piece was a press release issued by Walsall on Monday morning. After 12 months of talks, it said, the League Two side have been bought by a new group of American sports investors called Trivela.

No maverick tycoon doing keepy-uppies on the pitch, no Twitter spaces to tell the world we’re all going to make it, no bait thrown to the papers, no auctions, no last-minute haggling or late swoops: just a note to tell us it had happened.