Manchester United are showing all the hallmarks of a side who cannot cope at the top level and might not be back there soon unless some significant changes are made.

Woodward’s season-long plan to “get rid of the deadwood, play loads of youngsters, and generate some optimism for the future” has lasted until the first week of October.

Well done, Ed. He’s just loaned out Chris Smalling after giving him a contract extension six months ago. Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo are still there after years and years of simply occupying space. The ways Woodward finds to look even more incompetent than he did two weeks ago continue to be absolutely astounding.

There is no way his summer plan was to spend £130m on defenders and needlessly weaken the team in every other area of the pitch, but somehow that happened.

He gave the job to fecking Moyes in the first place and then eventually gave it to Solskjaer, whose only managerial experience in this country prior to this year was getting relegated with Cardiff City for godness sake.

And, fine, sure, the odds are against Ole for the reasons stated above, but Chelsea are basically in the same position as us (relying on kids for squad depth, their main star leaving or agitating for a move, inexperienced manager), yet the very, very beginnings of a new cycle at least look like they are under way for Lampard.

Other than aiming for Harry Maguire at the back post on free-kicks and corners, is there any one tactic or plan that United consistently aim to do? I can’t think of one.

Sure, sometimes philosophies don’t work. Pep during the 16/17 season and all of Van Gaal’s reign (his philosophy needs time, remember), but you could see they were trying something at least.

With the current system, it has gone so far beyond the point of “not knowing which United side is going to turn up” because you know what United side is going to turn up.

It is going to be the United side that prays for a moment of brilliance because we simply cannot control anything else about a game of football.

I think that was it tonight. 5 wins in the last 22 games. That’s not a bad run of form, that’s routine now.

Derrick Adams 
Manchester United are showing all the hallmarks of a side who cannot cope at the top level and might not be back there soon unless some significant changes are made. Woodward's season-long plan to 'get rid of the deadwood, play loads of youngsters, and generate some optimism for the future'...