Manchester United are out of the Champions League after another abject Old Trafford defeat, this time against a resolute Atletico Madrid who enjoyed exhibiting their unique variety of gamesmanship.
Ralf Rangnick’s side put on one of their familiar performances, with a strong first half but a frustrating second, as the club failed to progress to the quarter finals of this competition for the first time since 2014.
In fact, when Lodi dos Santos scored just before the break, the visitors had already shown their comfort in the game, having had a goal disallowed and forcing De Gea into a magnificent save.
The hosts, for all their territorial advantage in the first half, fashioned nothing of note aside from one moment in each half where experienced goalkeeper Jan Oblak was tested in different ways.
Apart from that, Simeone’s men frustrated United with all of the delaying and play-acting you would come to expect. Frustratingly, the game was refereed by an official happy to oblige them.
As the second half wore on, Rangnick rang the changes. The German arrived at Old Trafford with the reputation of a tactical innovator but as United ended the game with Matic, Mata, Cavani and Pogba trotting ineffectually over the turf, supporters were left to face up to the fact that they’re at the start of yet another difficult transition.
Those fans were hoping to see the sort of heroics Cristiano Ronaldo has showed in this competition this year and throughout his career, especially after the hat-trick at the weekend.
But the Atletico defence refused to give him the same sort of space he enjoyed against Spurs and presented him with an unfamiliar prospect; having to miss a year in the premium competition of the continent, right at the back end of his career. Of course, United supporters are used to that, as the only thing more familiar than failure at this stage is not getting to the knockouts at all anymore.
Once upon a time defeat at home in Europe was unthinkable. Now it is a regular occurrence. That’s not all that is alien at Old Trafford, but coming especially as it did on a week where rumours of the old place being torn down to be rebuilt were published, it was just another uncomfortable reminder that things at the club are not the same as they used to be, and the tradition which is purported to be represented is most definitely not.
The idea that possession-heavy draws against Burnley and Middlesbrough (before the penalties) were a sign of progress has proven to be a bit of a red herring as the players, unfortunately, demonstrate that they just lack the quality.
There is only so long that supporters will accept keeping hold of the ball without having any bite, as the Louis van Gaal era showed, and perhaps the only saving grace is that the wound of defeats against Liverpool and Manchester City in the autumn is still far too open for us to consider that not doing anything other than moving on from the Solskjaer reign would have been the wrong move.
And okay, it still feels like that, because there are polarising performances and then there are the sort of era-tainting results that we experienced.
But those players are still here, and as the return against City showed, the qualities that frustrate supporters are more a part of them than they are a directive from the management and coaching staff.
Solskjaer had to go because he didn’t have the experience to lead this squad out of trouble – because they were questioning his ability to manage at the top level. Just like, as rumours might have you believe, they’ve done the same with Rangnick and Chris Armas. The story goes that the players want Ten Hag or Pochettino, and you can predict as regular as clockwork that their lack of winning experience where it is significant is already a comfort blanket in waiting.
Every passing week, though, makes Solskjaer’s job look better. At least there were last minute winners. At least there was occasionally good football, probably more often than we’ve seen it under Rangnick so far. And the third and second places which felt like underwhelming steps forward now look like a manager getting more out of a squad than what they do on their own, instead of – as many said – it being a case of Solskjaer holding them back.
The Norwegian, because of his lack of experience and because of his faith in this particular squad, was never going to be able to bridge that gap from second to first.
The plain and painful truth is that it seems improbable that any manager can now bridge the gap from wherever this United team are careering to, back to second.
That’s because United have developed a very unhealthy habit, and that is to take what you might consider to be the worst possible reasonable outcome, and still manage to underwhelm and fail narrowly in trying to achieve it. Last night was nine years in a nutshell.
All of this would be tolerable if it at least felt like things were moving in the right direction generally, and so far (questionable substitutes last night aside) Rangnick does at least appear to be saying and doing things we can see that mostly make sense.
The issue is that in two months he is going to be swallowed up into a chain of command that includes two or three non-specific ‘directors of football’, a buffer of comfort that appears to take the strain off the owners and yet should only emphasise the concern. The whisper is that the club now have a clear idea of who the main man will be in the summer but it’s still the start of a new process yet again.
There is always a general sense that things are going right before it even explodes into a positive era – throughout the 90/91 season under Ferguson, for example, United finally started to show a team that looked like it would seriously compete. More recently at Liverpool, it’s easy to look at their Champions League record improving under Klopp before they became so consistent in the league.
United need to get back to basics. After the derby I asked on Twitter how many players people thought we might need in order to challenge. The answers ranged from 5 or 6, to 11, to even 22-25.
What is clear is that the primary ability required in at least two-thirds of the players who do come in is a tenacity and a hunger and a willingness to do the selfless off-the-ball running that creates space. Unfashionable players who will do the dirty work.
At the moment watching United feels like an experiment; one bloke near me at the game called Harry Maguire a ‘hot plate’ player but he’s far from the only one. What does that mean? It means a player who will do what they can and get rid of the ball with no real sort of awareness about the position they’re putting a team-mate in, or with any sort of carefulness about what happens next.
A team littered with players who could probably compile an Instagram reel that makes it look like they had a good game from any of the disasters you feel compelled to mention from this season; a team littered with players who think posting ‘this is not acceptable’ is the same as making it acceptable.
There’s only so many times that even they can do that before realising their time is up.
That time has to be now for almost all of this team, with even the top performers like De Gea or Ronaldo now at an age where they won’t be part of the next great side, if and when it arrives.
There are nine games left this season, nine games in which you can expect United to fail to qualify for the Champions League, and to probably still suffer another two or three embarrassments in the mean-time.
It’s that sort of sombre tone which follows the abrupt end of a meaningful season which promised so much at the start and has spectacularly failed to deliver.
We say it every two years, but we’re approaching yet another critical summer where we have regressed and where it is paramount that the people in charge make the right decision.
While they are only interested in what they can get for themselves, then that is unfortunately going to trickle down into what you see on the pitch, a collection of employees benefitting from the profile of a club based on the hard work of people in the past.
Ratings
De Gea 6
Dalot 4
Varane 6
Maguire 5
Telles 5
McTominay 5
Fred 7
Fernandes 5
Elanga 5
Ronaldo 5
Sancho 6
While you’re here, why not check out our new pre-match podcast, hosted by Marc Biggs :
