Manchester United's troubled season has just hit a new low. The Red Devils' 1-0 loss to Bayern Munich in the last group-stage matchday of this season's Champions League ensured that United would not only be knocked out of the tournament before the last 16, but would also do so in last place in Group A and thus even missed entry into the Europa League.
Heading into the match, some might have expected Bayern to have fielded more backups than they ordinarily would have as they had already clinched first place in the group. However, this was not the case; Bayern made just one change from the starting 11 that were shockingly destroyed 5-1 by Eintracht Frankfurt in their Bundesliga match over the weekend. Thomas Tuchel's decision against making widespread changes paid off, with Kingsley Coman scoring the only goal of the match shortly after the half-time break.
For United, this was a match which as so often has been the case this season, yielded more questions than answers. While not quite in full-blown crisis mode at the moment, United's future is as murky as it has ever been - and one of the players who has been among the chief culprits served up yet another dud in a season full of them.
Rasmus Højlund was completely out of his depth up front. The Danish striker had by far the worst performance of everyone to step onto the field at Old Trafford. Having been signed for the astonishingly high transfer fee of €75 million - one which even at the time was widely regarded as an overpay by a large margin - Højlund has not even come close to living up to his price tag. To say that Højlund has been dismal this season would be unjust - unjustly generous to Højlund, that is. At this point, the only thing that would likely keep Højlund in the red half of Manchester next season is sunk-cost fallacy.
The controversy surrounding Jadon Sancho has also destabilized the team. Once heralded as one of the most promising young talents in world football, Sancho has since revealed himself to be a head case with more red flags than there are literal ones during his club's home matches. While his ensuing fallout with head coach Erik ten Hag has resulted in the London-born winger's exclusion from even being considered for selection, it's obvious that the many incidents that have led up to this point have thrown off the atmosphere within the team and served as an unwelcome distraction.
While it may be true that United have been dealing with injuries suffered by multiple key players, their lack of depth has clearly been exposed. At the moment, ten Hag is clearly unsure over who to play in the absence of certain regular starters - and understandably so. United have to be one of the clubs which have the largest skill gaps between starters and backups. This is something which could easily have been addressed in the off-season if not for the club's exceptionally strange decisions to shell out such huge amounts to land Højlund and Mason Mount.
The issue for United right now is that there doesn't seem to be a single change which would get them out of this rut. Sell Højlund? Fire ten Hag? Bring in backups in January? Sign a new starting winger? Maybe even a tactical overhaul? While any of those options would be understandable, all would serve as no more than a quick fix. Even if the Glazers do finally choose to sell the club, United's would-be new owner would have quite the puzzle to solve - there would be no guarantee that a solution would be on the horizon even then.
Over the last few seasons, again and again Manchester United have seemed so close to finally taking steps forward and at least becoming consistently competitive once again - only to slip backwards before too long. There just doesn't seem to be an actionable plan to give them that push which re-establishes them as top-four Premier League staples; they have finished there in consecutive seasons just once in the past decade. United clearly understand that there is a major problem; however, they can't even define it, much less plan to solve it - and that's what has been causing so many problems there in recent years.
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