Robert Fernandez had stated that one or two incomings was his goal for the final week of the transfer window but Barcelona go into the first half of the 2017/18 season without the reinforcements they had dreamt of.
And it's not just the technical secretary who will have a red face as reality sets in, the Blaugrana board must admit responsibility for missing out on all their main on deadline day.
Philippe Coutinho may have wanted to join but Liverpool stood firm, Angel Di Maria wasn't released from his Paris Saint-Germain contract, and Paulo Dybala was kept under wraps at Juventus.
It's clear that Barcelona were caught out by Neymar's 222 million euro exit to PSG.
They failed to recover from the blow of losing a star player, they did not believe it could happen until too late on, and they could not manage the funds that Les Parisiens had delivered them.
Following that deal, any search for replacements was seen coming by rival clubs.
Paulinho came but not for a penny less than his release clause, and Borussia Dortmund wrung out 105m euros for a player they had signed last summer for 15m euros.
The other options were all diluted, one by one; Inigo Martinez, Hector Bellerin, Marco Verratti, Dani Ceballos, Jean Michael Seri, their potential left untapped by one of the biggest clubs in the world who must now decide the way forward following the most haphazard of summers.