“Playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business,” Ed Woodward said in May 2018, a time we recognise as right at the start of Jose Mourinho’s tailspin.

Almost four years on, as Deloitte published their ‘richest clubs’ list, United were down in fifth, with Manchester City in first.

Of course we can all laugh about City’s place in the list but it doesn’t feel quite as comfortable making a joke about United at least being higher in that table than they are in the one that matters. And yet, with this being the season Woodward finally left his post, the reminder of his statement rings as loudly an alarm bell as it did back when it was stated.

Then, it was following five years of decline, and now with a further four, we can safely say that it was another Woodward statement that didn’t ring true. The most recent figures released by the club revealed that the club have now spent more on interest and servicing the debt than the price of the original takeover, and all of that has been levied against the club. United’s net debt was still a staggering £494.8m as of 31st December 2021.

Forbes valued United at $4.2bn (around £3.16bn), an unrealistic number for anyone who fancied themselves as a prospective buyer.

Woodward’s boast has proven only good for those who have been able to take advantage of the club’s financial situation – and never once has it proven a healthy boost for the club itself.

Talk of his financial prowess and skill in negotiating lucrative deals that the club couldn’t have done without him has been exposed for what many knew it was, a sickening exercise in fleecing and monetising anything of value, with the profits of those off the pitch prioritised against progress on it.

Millions upon millions of pounds have been generated by the club and millions upon millions have been drained from it; if there was actual truth to Woodward’s statement, then they should be able to prepare for this latest big summer of upheaval in rude health, but instead they’ll be economising in the place it really matters.

If United’s own example of Eric Cantona’s arrival didn’t prove as strong enough evidence that gave a contradiction to Woodward’s comment, then Liverpool’s financial improvement in recent years most definitely does. It would have been a far more lucrative path for the club if they had focussed on making the right footballing decisions with prescience and foresight instead of handling everything in such a reactive manner.

Now, United’s supporters are faced with a prolonged break in the middle of March (yet again), actual brief respite balanced against the prospect of an end of season run that will occur without a chance of trophies.

We’re told the interview process has started with Eric Ten Haag the first to undergo it; but the process will continue, with Mauricio Pochettino said to be next in line. This was after due diligence had been undertaken since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sacking in November – a four-month process to arrive at the two people who were the heavy favourites from day one.

The smokescreen is the catastrophic performances at the end of Solskjaer’s reign, the reality is the inevitability of those performances without the key strengthening United needed. Yes, the owners allowed the club to spend some of its own money in the summer, but when that bit more was needed, they closed the purse, only to allow it to be opened again when a marketing opportunity came around.

It’s this sort of handicapping at crucial moments that has restricted the last three managers from taking a step forward. In the summer of 2015 Louis van Gaal had to make do with Matteo Darmian and that sort of profile of signing; in the summer of 2018, just after Woodward made his claim, he went in to public battle with the man he’d just given a three-year deal to, refusing to sign his targets or sanction his desired outgoings.

In the summer of 2020, the pandemic was used as an excuse for underspending until results forced them into a panicked deadline day spend.

And in the autumn of 2021, when it was clear that investment would be needed in January just to get into the Champions League places, the owners took the less expensive option of sacking the manager instead, allowing another season to drift away safe in the knowledge that their own financial recompense will not be impacted.

The owners did that knowing the worm had turned and few would blame them for dismissing the manager; another reactive move that would have probably been spared if they had permitted him greater control over the squad. Had Mourinho, for example, been allowed to move on Pogba and Martial in 2018, it would have been a big statement of control – has the club really benefitted from taking the other road?

Ralf Rangnick is the man leading this rudderless era of United, a spell of months where we are forced to watch a team where numerous players are running out their contracts, others are not good enough for even the bare minimum of expectations, and owners who seem happy to allow this to transpire under the guise that it is sensible planning just because it’s taking a while.

Consider that : they’re happy for it to fall apart as it has done since October, because it simply does not affect them.

There are reservations about Ten Haag or Pochettino. The former is 52 and was turned down by Tottenham with success only at Ajax. The latter overachieved at Spurs but has been swallowed by the mess at Paris, still in effectively a league they should dominate – the idea is that he is a strong motivator. Who knows what he will be inheriting to even try and motivate? You wouldn’t fancy his chances if he took over this lot.

There is no facet of the club that you could say has benefitted from the value of what Woodward said in May 2018.

The stadium is in need of modernising before you even consider it needs expanding. There’s not one area of the team you couldn’t argue needs replacing and the same could be said for the squad as a whole.

The idea of putting together a team off the pitch that concentrated on ‘directing football’ now looks as though it’s a kitchen with too many cooks and none of them in charge of the food.

It should be reassuring to know that the youth team finally looks in decent shape after years of neglect but their route to senior football is blocked by too many average squad players on bloated contracts, many of them who aren’t even interested in being there; and, as well as the kids are doing, Manchester City and Chelsea do still seem to be the standard bearers in recent times.

The whole point is about having the players in the first team but James Garner is an excellent case in point; a talented ball-player who, at 21, is at Nottingham Forest on loan having people scratch their heads about why he hasn’t been given a proper chance in United’s biggest problem area. It could well be that his opportunity has gone; that the chance for him at Old Trafford has already passed by.

Players generally get in to the first team before 21 these days – and now the spotlight goes to the likes of Garnacho, Fernandez, Hugill and Hannibal, all talents who will have the right to ask why they aren’t at least given a chance when the club are stumbling along.

Ralf Rangnick, the custodian, has an objective that one would assume is getting the club into the Champions League, but faces no consequence if he doesn’t achieve it – the same goes for the players, who faced one final question in recent weeks, especially when confronted with Watford and Manchester City, two teams who inflicted humiliating autumn defeats.

Did they have the sort of self-respect that suggested we could at least look forward with optimism? The sort of pride in their performances to show that those games were one-offs? We received our answer and it has been as uncomfortable for those players as it has been for us, a trial by television to the extent where you almost feel sorry for them.

It seems almost unfair to expect them to put in performances that you expect of a Manchester United team – how far we have fallen.

Do we expect Rangnick to have the balls to play some of the kids? Will the pressure be put on from above to play some of these wantaways in the vain hope that Champions League football can be achieved?

One last sign that the short term financial gain for the owners will be put above the long-term health of the team. One last period of a season where the support can almost completely disassociate themselves from the team. A two-month spell where we’ll look at the players almost as victims of mismanagement from the highest level at the club. It takes a tremendous amount of mismanagement to make that the case just months after these players lost 5-0 at home to Liverpool.

Playing performance might not have had an impact on the amount of money the owners or Ed Woodward have been able to extract from the club. But the time has surely come to stop with the spin, for them to stop with the unpalatable idea that the ownership has been conducive to progress – it’s been a disaster of an era on the pitch, and the prime responsibility is with the Glazer family and Ed Woodward for their decision-making. They have to show accountability for the mess that is their making and stop dressing it up as success.

Does it seem like that’s going to happen? Well, the club tweeted yesterday that they were ‘leading the way for intensity out of possession’, enough spin to make anyone dizzy.

The process of taking months to hire one of the two obvious candidates (neither of which seems like a truly outstanding choice) should be enough to transform apathy to ire once more; to inspire renewed protests against an owner that has lied to the support yet again.

This couple of weeks without a game is probably going to be the most enjoyable for a United fan as the season concludes; what a terrible shame.