Erik ten Hag and the three stages of being Manchester United manager

By the end of Tuesday's Champions League loss, Man Utd had five academy players on the pitch, ages ranged between 17 and 35, in outline evidence of internal good health, in reality another symptom of a machine that wants to function properly but has for so long been made to judder along at half-speed

Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes applauds the fans.

As the seconds ticked down at the end of a Champions League season‑ender that felt like a gentle, even quite tender, act of sporting euthanasia, the only noise inside Old Trafford was the sound of the Bayern Munich fans singing an impressively sustained version of Football’s Coming Home. A little later they sang Is This A Library? Actually, no, it’s more of a museum. They chanted “Auf Wiedersehen” at the departing members of the home support who, frankly, had done pretty well to stick it out to that point.

The good news for Erik ten Hag at the end of Tuesday's low-fi 1-0 defeat is that United’s players didn’t lie down and die at Old Trafford. Instead they stood up and died, running hard and creating a kind of simulacrum of a functioning elite team.