As the 2016/17 pre-season rumbles on another important piece of the hype machine has dropped into place. Yes, it’s the marketing overdrive of a United kit launch.

We’ve already had to endure one set of fierce looking player shots when the hideous new blue kit was unveiled earlier this month, but that famous red shirt is the real money maker – so get set for a full barrage.

I’m not against dropping some currency on replica gear. In fact I simply had to have the new black training top I saw José sporting the other day and promptly ordered one.

It is my preference now however to try to keep these purchases to one a year. Mainly because I literally have a closet full of the stuff that I rarely wear anymore.

Some of these kits I will keep, like my green and gold and the black kung-fu Cantona kit. These are iconic and have some meaning.

But for every one of these memory-inducing strips I have two where I can’t honestly even remember a match that we played wearing that particular piece of polyester.

Please know, I’m not bagging on you if you’re a collector or you simply like to have the shirt to wear down the pub when you’re watching the game. But surely this event does not merit the absurd level of coverage it gets?

I know that adidas didn’t drive a dump truck full of money [or was it two?] to Old Trafford so they could have a nice, quiet kit sponsorship deal with a minimum of fuss.

I’ve come to accept that there will always be over the top commercialism surrounding the club. Hell, we have a training kit sponsorship deal that is bigger than what some clubs get for their match day gear.

This is the conundrum of the modern-day supporter.

On the one hand, we are walking ATM’s for the club and it’s sponsors. But doesn’t all of this commercial activity give us a leg up on our competitors?

Maybe you want it to be just about the football, or you can remember the time not so long ago when we’d wear a home shirt for [whisper it] two years.

But as sure as we have an official ‘feature film partner’, you know that it will never be that way again.