Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United are in a terrible run of form (Image: GETTY)
The silent owners, the Glazer family, will continue to sit on their faraway heels – focusing full attention on the financial balance sheet and caring precious little about the style and results of the football team.
Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman with a history of duff decisions, will make another by keeping blind faith in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as first-team manager.
Why expect Woodward to be ruthless when the delusion at Old Trafford is so profound, when the supporters sing songs of praise for Solskjaer amid the worst run of results for Manchester United since 1962?
Truly, this is a giant football club which has lost touch with reality – a sporting institution wallowing in nostalgia.
The fans cherish Solskjaer as a former player from the glory days of Sir Alex Ferguson and so they gloss over his lack of credentials for the mighty task of managing Manchester United.
In turn, Solskjaer fuels the sentimental fire – forever harking back to the past and even taking the team for a practice session at the old Cliff training ground before the midweek defeat at home to Manchester City.
Maybe he hoped to energise the mediocre 2019 team with a cute history lesson. It was a silly stunt that didn’t work. Nothing much works at the moment.
Solskjaer’s side haven’t kept a clean sheet for 12 matches and the last time that happened for United was in 1971.
Manchester United appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after he impressed as caretaker boss (Image: GETTY)
The Norwegian is in need of a big revamp in the summer (Image: GETTY)
They haven’t scored a goal from open play in eight hours and 47 minutes. The numbers are damning.
And they are Solskjaer’s numbers. He owns them as much as the honeymoon run of a dozen victories when he first arrived, which prompted a premature elevation from interim to permanent manager.
Equally damning is the poor quality of football being played and the collapse in spirit evident during a dreadful performance in the 4-0 defeat against Everton last weekend.
Another former United star, Roy Keane, was brutal in his assessment. He said there were “too many bluffers”.
Paul Pogba could leave Manchester United in the summer (Image: GETTY)
Keane’s anger was directed at a cabal of disinterested players but it is true also of the Glazers and Woodward and Solskjaer himself.
They are all bluffing in their own ways. A fundamental truth lies at the heart of the matter for Manchester United and it is that they require a high-class new manager to bring his football vision, philosophy, style and personal charisma to the club – a manager who looks to the future rather than hoping to recreate a Ferguson side.
Consider the two best teams in the country today, Manchester City and Liverpool, locked in a stupendous battle for the Premier League title. That is what they craved and found in Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, and they also put in place modern, effective systems to support the manager, particularly in the crucial area of player recruitment.
Do they have the inclination for nostalgia trips? You must be joking. And nor does another modern maestro manager, Mauricio Pochettino.
Alexis Sanchez and Romelu Lukaku could also leave the club (Image: GETTY)
He should have been the prime target to take Manchester United forward, but persuading Pochettino to leave Spurs now seems unlikely.
Max Allegri would be a serious candidate – a serial winner at Juventus who appears ready for a new challenge. There is another alternative place to look as well, and it is to Amsterdam and the brilliant Ajax club who play in the semi-finals of the Champions League this week against Tottenham – and not so much the talented young players, but to the management team on and off the field.
Edwin van der Sar is the dynamic chief executive of Ajax, while the director of football is Marc Overmars – both well acquainted with the English game and one of them even, as a mild bonus, familiar with Manchester United.
First-team boss is Erik ten Hag, who has fashioned a fabulous side from the talent available, playing with panache, passion and attacking excellence and scoring 166 goals already this season. It is even more than the record English tally of 157 by Manchester City in this campaign.
United lost 2-0 to Manchester City last time out (Image: GETTY)
Who is Ten Hag? Well, he is a coach inspired by Guardiola while working under Pep as the second-team boss at Bayern Munich – and this shows in the scintillating style of his Ajax team as they crushed Real Madrid and Juventus to reach the European semi-finals.The record of the Dutch trio speaks for itself.
And, yes, it far outshines the previous three years of Solskjaer as a manager in the relative backwater of Molde in the Norwegian league and relegation with Cardiff.
And, yes, it far outshines the five months’ experience of Mike Phelan as sporting director of the Central Coast Mariners team based in Gosford, an obscure town 45 miles north of Sydney, Australia.
Phelan, the former assistant manager to Sir Alex Ferguson and now assistant to Solskjaer, is reported to be the current choice as the first technical director of Manchester United. If so, it would be one more hopeless nod to nostalgia.
But that’s how it is at Old Trafford these days, a stark contrast to Ferguson’s empire built on ruthless decision-making. I remember so well the day that Sir Alex talked about this and that but nothing very much during a routine Friday morning press briefing in November 2005.
An hour earlier he had cancelled the contract of Roy Keane with immediate effect, booting a superstar player out of the club for criticising team-mates.
Ferguson did not mention it, avoided a barrage of questions and demonstrated his total command.
Now? Well, now the place is full of bluffers, especially those in power; so bereft of nerve and courage and wisdom to do what they should – and that is to say goodbye to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.