That fine run of form belied the internal upheaval that had surrounded the club since captain Carlos Tevez controversially slapped a transfer request on to manager Roberto Mancini's desk.
Recently, when I checked-in at a New York City hotel, the manager was at the reception desk and I told him (I already knew his name through my Web explorations) the reason why I had made reservations was based on several previous hotel guests positive comments on the Traveladvisor Internet site.
On Monday morning in Paris the phone rings on the desk of Christian Vandenhende, the Renault manager whose benchmarking research on global sourcing Ghosn had cited in the Sunderland meeting on Friday.
As he tells it, the booth where a manager used to stand to greet customers was removed and replaced by a desk where an employee was selling bank products.