Expensive mediocrity confirmed: Manchester United‘s trophy drought completes a fifth season.
The last path to a title was ended at an Old Trafford now accustomed to letdowns as United was knocked out of the Champions League in a 1-0 loss to Atletico Madrid.
In a tight and tense game, it was United defender Diogo Dalot leaving Renan Lodi unmarked at the far post to head in Antoine Griezmann’s cross that made the difference in the 41st minute.
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Rather than Cristiano Ronaldo dazzling as he did on Saturday — with a hat trick against Tottenham — it was defender Raphael Varane testing Jan Oblak with a header in the second half.
With United currently sitting in fifth spot in the Premier League, and only the top four earning a spot in next season’s Champions League, former United goalkeeper Mark Bosnich believes it might be time for a wholesale cleanout.
“From a Manchester United perspective, I really am devastated, there’s no doubt about that,” he said on Stan Sport.
“They’re up against it in the (Premier) League to qualify for the top-four, this may just be the opportunity for (manager Ralf) Rangnick, or whoever it may be, to use as a way to say we need to clear out and start again.
“Horrendous to say, for a club of Manchester United’s size, and for the amount of times they have done that, started again, since Sir Alex (Ferguson) retired, but it may be the opportunity.”
United could find no way past the Spanish champions’ goalkeeper three weeks after a 1-1 draw in Madrid that counted for nothing with away-goals no longer carrying an advantage.
It leaves United with only two appearances in the Champions League quarterfinals in a decade, in 2014 and 2019.
Not since the 1970s has United gone as long without a trophy with the second-tier Europa League in 2017 the last honour for, historically at least, English football’s most successful club.
There’s not much to show for more than $1.7 billion in transfer spending since two-time Champions League winner Alex Ferguson retired as manager in 2013.
Such is the instability at United that it’s an interim coach in Ralf Rangnick who has presided over United’s exits from the FA Cup and Champions League early in 2022.
Now the priority is just regaining the fourth spot in the Premier League to return to the Champions League next season for whoever is in charge of United.
Speaking on Stan Sport, leading football commentator Mark Pougatch lamented the decline of United since Ferguson’s retirement.
“We have to go back to the late 70s, early 80s, winning the FA Cup in 1977, they didn’t win anything again until the 1983 FA Cup,” he said.
“That’s the last time they had a five-year span without winning something. We’re now talking about no trophy in five seasons, that’s just extraordinary.
“There’s no structure, no pattern of play, no cohesion.”
— Additional reporting by Brett Graham
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