by As the seconds ticked away at the end of a Champions League season that felt like a gentle, even perfectly tender act of sporting euthanasia, the only noise inside Old Trafford was that of the Bayern fans Munich singing an impressively sustained version of it. Homecoming Football. Some time later they sang Is This A Library? Actually, no, it’s more of a museum. They sang “Auf Wiedersehen” to the departing members of the home support team and, frankly, they did well to stick to that point.
The good news for Erik ten Hag at the end of this low-fi 1-0 defeat is that United’s players did not lie down and die at Old Trafford. Instead they stood up and died, running hard and creating a sort of simulacrum of a functioning elite team.
Related: Erik ten Hag has no regrets despite United finishing last in the group
This was not a group of players in rebellion or spirit. They looked like what they are, a muddy creation, stitched together from parts and cuttings. United’s back five in the second half consisted of André Onana, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Jonny Evans, Raphaël Varane and Diogo Dalot, a completely random collection of players signed by Ten Hag, José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Alex Ferguson at various times. . Daley Thompson, Michael Portillo and Howard from Take That were probably busy.
United finally had five academy players on the pitch, between the ages of 17 and 35, given an outline of good internal health, in fact another sign of a machine that is trying to function properly but has long been imposed on the park. half speed Ever feel like you’re starting to slip into the past for good? When VAR happens at Old Trafford there isn’t even a VAR screen to say “VAR Check”. The 1990s were a hell of a decade. They are still around here.
So much for the good news then. The bad news is that Ten Hag’s United have now put together arguably the worst performance of any English team in a Champions League group. OK, no Blackburn Rovers. But there are further marks here for United’s pedigree, as the group was not really a group, and United managed to get to the bottom, conceding 15 goals in the process, more than any other English team.
In addition, of course there were only so many moments of farce along the way, a six-part saga of chaos, collapse and laughter in the dark. We remember Onana diving out of the way of the ball in Munich. We also remember Onana diving out of the way of the ball in Istanbul. Casemiro’s red card, the direction he lost in Manchester, Marcus Rashford was wrongly convicted of a poison stamp in Copenhagen, when he was ironically, not the kind of footballer he is interested in.
And yet with both group games empty at half-time United were just one goal away from progressing to the last 16, which would have really made for an excellent punchline. It was not meant to be. For all their faults Bayern are basically a good version of whatever United are trying to put together. Kimmich-Goretzka-Musiala is a grade A version of Amrabat-McTominay-Fernandes. Manuel Neuer is what Onana is trying so hard to be. Bayern went ahead and signed Harry Kane.
They held the ball nicely, trying neat, clean, methodical attacks. Whether they could really be bothered to take this thing to the wall seemed to depend a lot on how acutely Bayern felt the need to turn that scalp. United defended well. Their brutal waves drew waves of applause. Everyone here seemed to want to.
But with 58 minutes gone Copenhagen scored and United’s hopes began to slip under the waves. Just over 10 minutes later Bayern won 1-0 in Manchester. Kingsley Coman found it, granted a huge expanse of time and space in front of the United goal, enough to set himself up, as he would take a penalty, and belt the ball into the corner. It was a sneaky pass around the corner from Kane that made this moment. After all that pressure, all that tender hope, it looked a little like a training goal.
And that was enough. From here United’s season continues to decline. They can’t win the league now, they can’t win the Champions League, they can’t win the Carabao Cup. They still have the FA Cup, and the extended pursuit of fourth or even fifth place, although the state of the co-op means that what could keep Manchester United out of Europe next season is that Manchester could United have been so bad in Europe this season. Perhaps City can redeem their fortunes by winning the Champions League again.
Of course Ten Hag will take the blame for the early departure and many mistakes have been made, especially in the players the manager is allowed to sign. There really needs to be a set of filters applied to assess the job any United manager does with this team. Being a United manager involves three simultaneous roles.
First you must manage the past, which is always in the room and skews every action, achievement and expectation. Second, you need to manage today’s dysfunction, which details everything from a leaking stadium roof to the poor condition of a playing squad with long-term squatters and missteps.
Finally you will be able to manage the daily metrics on which you will be judged; team, results, style, energy, messages. Win things, improve players, create a coherent and happy internal culture: but do it during a relentless takeover circus with star players floundering and briefing against you, and the ghost of Hamlet’s father still lurking in the shadows. This felt like the end of one thing, maybe even the beginning of the end of something else.
