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October 6 2018: Manchester United are trailing Newcastle and the singing section turns mutinous: "Jose’s right, the board is s***e."

October 6 2019: Manchester United are trailing Newcastle and the away section turns mutinous: "We want Glazers out."

Jose Mourinho at least oversaw a comeback. For Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, there may be no coming back.

They chanted 'We want Glazers out' 10 seasons ago, back when United matchgoers painted Old Trafford and away grounds green and gold. That chant bookends the beginning and end of the modern United's demise.

You can trace the downfall to before the toxic takeover by the Glazer family in 2005, to Sir Alex Ferguson and a racehorse's stud rights 16 years ago. A racehorse owned by the United shareholders John Magnier and JP McManus.

Ferguson, partly culpable though he is of the current mess, was the glue that held United together for eight years. His league campaigns under the Glazers read: second, first, first, first, second, first, second, first. There were three Champions League finals, they were champions of England, champions of Europe and champions of the world.

It was in that seismic summer of 2009 when the gradual unravelling began. Cristiano Ronaldo was sold for a world record £80million and United passed on the £41million required to permanently keep Carlos Tevez.

In came Antonio Valencia, freebie Michael Owen and Gabriel Obertan for £19.5m. They stopped signing midfielders, pulled the plug on the Adem Ljajic deal and only spent more than £20m on one more player under Ferguson: Robin van Persie in 2012.

The humiliation of FA Cup ejection by League One Leeds in January 2010 was compounded by the Glazers' £500m bond issue, when it emerged Malcolm and his children had borrowed £10m from United. Ljajic would have cost £9m.

Even the totemic Van Persie was a Glazernomic addition, bought with under 12 months left on his Arsenal contract. United relied on Ferguson’s frugality and talent-spotting; £10m for Chris Smalling, £6m for Javier Hernandez, the £18.9m David de Gea. He is the only manager who could have elicited those last two titles with those two flawed squads.

Then the chickens came home to roost. Ferguson anointed a successor who was never going to be successful, vaingloriously billed as 'cut from the same cloth'. That would be Scotland, a sporting dystopia these last two decades. The clear and obvious solution in 2013, with Pep Guardiola committed to Bayern Munich, was Mourinho.

Consider the landscape: Manuel Pellegrini had just replaced Roberto Mancini at City, Brendan Rodgers was a year in at Liverpool and Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal were about as much of a threat as Andreas Pereira on the right wing to left-backs. The handover could have been straightforward but instead it was bungled as badly as Busby to McGuinness.

That exposed the absence of a structure at United, where it was bare behind the curtain without the wizard. United have since lurched from one troubleshooter to another; the authoritarian, the marquee manager and now the populist.

Louis van Gaal recruited 13 players for £258.3m and literally sent some to sleep inside the 'Theatre of Dreams'. Mourinho recruited wretchedly at times. The bigger picture was the United hierarchy refused to back Mourinho six months after they gave him a new contract. United were above Liverpool less than 18 months ago.

However seismic and uncertain that summer of 2013 was, Ferguson was in post when the managing director Richard Arnold claimed United had ‘25 George Clooneys’ in 2012. Arnold was the suit startled by abusive chants amid the fraught atmosphere against Newcastle last year. The caustic cries came from the away section and were directed at Mike Ashley.

Arnold and Ed Woodward have unwittingly readjusted United’s focus these last six years, the era of Daley Blind’s Twitter following, Angel di Maria Google referrals, app downloads, the app rating and Facebook followers. Football has seemingly become secondary. What other football club has to reiterate silverware is the 'primary objective'?

Following one of the more stirring United wins in recent seasons, a player was informed of the praise he had received from a former coach at the club.

"Still a s**t coach," was the blunt reply.

Said coach always was unwanted. Another coach - Mike Phelan - was purportedly the missing link between two managers for whom the phrase ‘great Scot’ carries different meanings. He has been back 10 months and United are worse than at any post-Ferguson period. How ironic Phelan contradicted the club's statement on the Ljajic collapse.

Another United coach, Michael Carrick, may ask for his book to be pulped. "I think the Glazers have been great owners. Couldn't really ask for anything more. The Glazers need a lot of credit for how they've gone about it... United have progressed under the Glazers on and off the field."

Mourinho might have been right.