Sarah Boffin Ran the Numbers on Neymar to Cincinnati. For Once, the Spreadsheet Is Right.

Right. I need to sit down for this one. Possibly have a lie down afterwards. Because something has happened that I genuinely never expected. I agree with a spreadsheet.

Sarah Boffin wrote in her latest piece that FC Cincinnati signing Neymar would be a catastrophe backed up by cold, hard data. Every ageing superstar who has rocked up to MLS thinking they were still the business. Every one of them measured, weighed, and found wanting. She ran the numbers and the numbers said no. And here is the bit that physically pains me to type. She is absolutely spot on.

Now look. I have been in football management for decades. I have watched scouts, analysts, data people and laptop merchants try to reduce this beautiful game to a bunch of digits on a screen. Most of the time it is nonsense. You cannot quantify heart. You cannot put desire into a pie chart. I have said this a thousand times and I will say it a thousand more.

But sometimes. Sometimes. A situation is so blindingly, screamingly obvious that even the numbers cannot get it wrong.

Seven appearances in over a year. Seven. I have had more hospital appointments than that. My local chippy has seen more of me than Santos have seen of Neymar. The lad's knees are not just gone. They have packed a suitcase and emigrated to a country that does not have an extradition treaty.

I managed players in their twilight years. Good players. Players who had been brilliant. And I will tell you something for nothing. The ones who could still do a job knew they could still do a job because they were actually on the pitch doing it. They were not sat in the treatment room watching Netflix. They were training every day, playing every week, dragging their tired legs through ninety minutes because they still had something left in the tank.

Neymar does not have something left in the tank. Neymar's tank has rusted through.

Cincinnati are apparently looking at this and seeing a marquee signing. What they should be seeing is a medical red flag the size of Ohio. This is not a football decision. This is a marketing decision dressed up in a number ten shirt. Somebody in that boardroom has dollar signs where their eyes should be and a PowerPoint presentation where their common sense used to live.

You know what the worst part is? MLS has actually become a decent league. Proper competition. Proper standards. Young players going on to bigger things. And then someone suggests chucking a fortune at a bloke who cannot stay fit for a month at a time and we are right back to the retirement home jokes again.

Boffin's data showed that the pattern repeats itself over and over. Big name arrives. Buzz lasts a few weeks. Body breaks down. Club is stuck with a Designated Player spot burned on a physio room regular. I did not need a spreadsheet to tell me that. I have watched it happen in real time since Beckham first landed in Los Angeles.

But fair play to her. She proved it with evidence. Cold, unfeeling, irritatingly correct evidence.

Cincinnati. Do not do this. Spend the money on three good players who can actually run. Trust me. I have been wrong about a lot of things in my career. This is not one of them.

And Sarah, if you are reading this, do not get used to me agreeing with you. Normal service will resume shortly.