Not on Sunday. Bale started and had put Spurs ahead at Burnley inside two minutes, By the time he was subbed off at 70 minutes he had added another goal and an assist in a welcome 4-0 win, his best performance since returning to North London.

It is purely coincidental that it came on the same day that Chinese Super League champions Jiangsu FC – as Jiangsu Suning have been known for barely a month following new anti-corporate naming rules – “ceased operations”.

Retail giant Suning’s decision to call time comes barely 100 days after the team won their first league title. To add insult to what is almost certainly fatal injury fans heard the news on the anniversary of the club’s founding.

Inter Milan doubt as Suning call time on Chinese champions Jiangsu FC

Jiangsu are not the first club to disappear and they will not be the last.

Chongqing were also reported to be in trouble but have found last-minute funding.

Those to benefit directly from the demise of Jiangsu could be the Cangzhou Lions Mighty Lions – known as Shijiazhuang Ever Bright when they were relegated last season – who could come straight back up. Zhejiang Greentown might also go up with them depending on how many CSL teams fold.

Notably the might of the Lions comes from the state-owned Cangzhou Construction Investment Group and they have relocated to the provincial Hebei city. It‘s the type of state-backed future Jiangsu fans hope for to save the club.

Such chaos is becoming normal.

Chinese football is getting worse – are top six ambitions over?

Last year it was Shenzhen FC who bounced back up despite being relegated after Tianjin Tianhai folded, a year after Tianjin Quanjian were no more following the toppling of the owner’s pyramid scheme and a one-season bailout by the local sports authority.

Amid all of this, the Chinese Super League is still set to expand to 18 teams next season while there are bigger expansions planned further down the pyramid, where many clubs have disappeared over the past few seasons.

Covid-19 has had an effect on the situation, no doubt, but Suning’s expansion into everything, especially football has left them over extended.

They could not pay the Jiangsu players or staff last season and if no new owner is found to take on the debt then the Chinese FA and Fifa will be forced to step in.

There may be short term winners – namely the teams who mop up the beleaguered players that won the league last season – but longer term everyone loses.

Chinese football has gone from boom to bust before. The first time that anyone outside China took interest was when Gazza rocked up for five minutes then it was Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka playing under Jean Tigana in Shanghai, for a chairman that wanted to play himself.

Once-dominant Liaoning face closure as players go unpaid

Interested disappeared again until the money flooded in five years ago.

The CSL (and Asian) transfer record was shattered several times in successive months as the big names flooded in for bigger money.

Hulk, Ramires, Teixeira, Mascherano and so on. packed their bags. Oscar is the biggest left but he will not last too much longer, not with the new contract he signed set to go down in value each year in line with the new salary cap rules.

Owner’s arrest sees Chinese football club airbrush its history

There are tighter rules for domestic players too, much too late to undo the damage of overvaluing them as a result of protectionist rules that limited foreigner numbers.

Chinese players have long been at a premium and paid over the odds, comparatively even more overpaid and underperforming than the influx of foreign stars. Everyone is paying for that now.

After encouraging wild spending, the government has since told clubs they need to be self-sufficient. After bringing in corporations – such as Wanda Group to save Dalian Yifang – they have banned corporate names from clubs.

‘There will be no big names in Chinese football,’ warns former CSL player

It is hard to see where Chinese football goes apart from resetting and starting over. This is not the lowest point – the various corruption scandals of the past were – but leaguewide financial troubles are hard to rectify without systemic change.

The Chinese Super League’s famous dream of being a top six league in the world is over, Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Soccer Dream” looks in trouble too. How will China become one of football’s leading nations by 2050 without a strong domestic league?

It’s hard to see why anyone would want to be involved. Will the last person to leave Chinese football turn the lights out?