Like a creaky, rotting galleon caught in the midst of a storm, Manchester United are crashing from one problem to the next, with seemingly no end in sight. The problems on the pitch in 2019 stem from years of mismanagement and start at the very top of the club.

Another Manchester United game, another drab, listless attacking performance. Add it to the growing pile: Arsenal at home, West Ham away, Astana at home, the League Cup tie against Rochdale. And that’s just the games from the last fortnight.

United have not won away from home since mid-March and their stunning upset in the Parc des Princes. It’s a stunningly incompetent run of form for a club with United’s resources, but those who have paid attention to the club in the years since Sir Alex Ferguson retired know that the team’s foundations have been built on sand.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is rightly coming under pressure for this run, as any manager should. His team has looked clueless and devoid of craft when faced with defences willing to give them the ball. But how much of the team’s deeper-rooted problems are down to him? Is Solskjaer responsible for the threadbare squad, the poor signings, and the years of neglect?

One of Ferguson’s greatest strengths and the reason he stands apart from many of his peers was his ability to renew and refresh his squad. United would pay top dollar for players when they had to, and crucially, they paid for the right players.

The first seven club-record signings of the Ferguson era were Mark Hughes, Gary Pallister, Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Jaap Stam, Dwight Yorke and Ruud van Nistelrooy. The money was spent well, and the results on the pitch followed.