Can Manchester United sink any further?

Editor’s Note: This is our weekly football column from Sandip G, which is being published on Tuesday evening rather than its usual Monday morning slot.

Hours before Manchester United hatched an implosion of the most epic nature, new co-owner Jim Ratcliffe had run 26.2 miles at a personal best of 4:30.52 in the London Marathon. He squeezed into the Wembley in time for the second half—missing arguably the most emphatic first-half performance by his team this month—to behold an hour of the most catastrophic performance. His team whipped up an annus horribilis of ages—squandering a three-zero lead against Coventry, a side eighth in the Championship table, and saved narrowly by technology —that reflected the steepness of the task he has inherited to restore its long lost glory.

It was a match, even their staunch tragic, wished they had lost, in that it would have truly captured their disillusionment, embodied the depths they had plummeted, and presumably catalyzed another endless chain of changes. Ratcliffe, himself, seemed exasperated. He would tell the BBC in a short interview, drawing parallels from the marathon. “Always in the marathon, after 30km, it gets quite difficult. I don’t think we’re quite at 30km with the football yet,” he paused, and then summed up his club’s stasis: “No, we’re not really there yet. The first 10km. It’s a long journey really.”

Since his partial buying of stakes, the billionaire has initiated a slew of fast measures to fix a club, which according to former caretaker manager Ralf Ragnick requires an open heart surgery, like acquiring a CEO with indisputable credentials like Omar Berrada and a technical director as sharp Jason Wilcox. Newcastle’s Dan Ashworth too could take charge as the new