It feels appropriate that Burnley vice-captain Josh Brownhill was in Disneyland last summer when he heard Vincent Kompany had been appointed manager.
What’s happened since at Turf Moor has been a fairytale — though Burnley’s remarkable promotion, confirmed on Friday, has been down to strategy as much as fantasy.
At tomorrow’s homecoming party against Sheffield United, on the manager’s 37th birthday, fans can be assured that planning for the Premier League has already been going on for some time.
A restructuring of the club’s recruitment departments is underway and Kompany himself has been abroad on scouting missions.