For those Manchester United fans who still think that their club still belongs to the top tier of Europe’s top teams, last night when Manchester United faced Atletico Madrid offered another perspective of how United has depreciated.
To cut the long story short, not even Cristiano Ronaldo or David De Gea could save them because United’s limitations were laid bare as Atletico Madrid did a classic Champions League number on them to snuff out their slender hopes of success for another season.
United’s limitations mean a last-16 exit is about par for the course given their current reduced status. And those limitations mean their only hope of anything resembling salvation from this mess of a campaign rest on finishing in the Premier League’s top four. Sadly, resurgent Arsenal already sit above them in fourth position on the log with three games in hand. One of the games will take place this evening against Liverpool who is also chasing to displace Manchester City on top of the league table.
It will also be the measure of whether the experiment of handing Ralf Rangnick the levers of control can be judged a success – albeit a very qualified one – because if United do not overhaul Arsenal or any other contenders, then it must be deemed a failure. In an ironic twist, just as United’s players trudged off after a 1-0 defeat that carried every hallmark and characteristic of Diego Simeone’s streetwise Atletico, television screens at Old Trafford were showing images of Ajax coach Erik ten Hag.
Here was the visionary touted by many as the ideal candidate to drag United out of their current no-man’s land, but who had just presided over Ajax’s own last-16 exit after a home loss to Benfica. Ten Hag has a track record but hardly comes with a guarantee. This had the feeling of a watershed moment for those in charge at Manchester United. It is even worse for United fans who were mocking Arsenal at the beginning of the season.
