Manchester United humiliation evidence of a decade of decay

The effects of United’s 10 years of decline can clearly be reinflamed by errors, fatigue — or the excellence of an opponent

FOCUS OF ATTENTION: Bruno Fernandes has been identified as the cause of the failing culture at Manchester United despite being one of the club’s best players in recent seasons. Pic: AP Photo/Jon Super

Manchester United: A correction. When we, the Premier League’s massed quick-reaction media hacks, wrote of a decisive culture shift, of the healing hands, blazing eyes of an ascetic bald Dutchman, of ripping out the rot at source, what we really meant was, steady as she goes, still a fair old bit of damp in there mate, you might want to give it a while.

Headlines such as Banana Bread, Bikram Yoga and Shostakovich: A 10,000-word Deep Dive Into Total Ten Hag; or Everything Is Fine It’s The 90s Again; or Casemiro: How He, Like, Totally Carried Modric For Years may have given the impression that we, the football media, are simply trying to graft some kind of meaning on to a constantly shifting set of parts. Or indeed that it is just more fun to see a story of progress and major chords than a period of indeterminate change.