A clearout is needed at Manchester United. None of the parts fit together

It was less than a year ago that Manchester United won at West Ham to stretch their record unbeaten league run away from home to 29 games. What a happy, uncomplicated time that must seem for them now, in the wake of a seventh successive away defeat with a cumulative score of 2-21.

This is United’s worst away run since 1936. Was the performance in west London worse than the 5-0 defeat at Crystal Palace in 1972? It’s probably too early to be sure, but Saturday was haplessness at a volume that will resonate through the generations.

Which is not to say things were good last September. United had just lost away to Young Boys. They had not played well at Southampton or Wolves. The ease with which Villarreal had restricted them in the Europa League final was still fresh in the mind. Ole Gunnar Solskjær, though, was good at setting up his team to sit deep and play on the break – at least until Cristiano Ronaldo was signed, depriving the forward line of pace and mobility and so destroying the one viable approach United had, and undermining dressing-room morale while he was at it.

At Brentford on Saturday, United were decked out in Stabilo green, as though somebody had highlighted where all the problems were. There’s not a single element of this side that works. Confidence is shot. Basics have gone. None of the parts fit together.

There are complaints about a lack of signing from the Glazers, but this is a squad that has been expensively assembled; the starting XI cost eight times that of Brentford. The problem is that it has been put together extraordinarily badly, with no long-term vision, and zero understanding of football. The present scramble for new players is entirely typical: every player United are linked with is either