One of the Ineos staff members arrived at Old Trafford on Sunday in a red Grenadier. That cabal ought to be red in the face after another dismal day for Manchester United.
The crumb of comfort for them is there was an unintentional separation between regimes past and present during the FA Cup tie with Fulham. Leny Yoro was warmly applauded following his premature substitution, Matthijs de Ligt had his best game in a United shirt, Noussair Mazraoui played for more than two hours, breaking his fast in the second half, and the crestfallen Joshua Zirkzee was serenaded after his feeble penalty. All four were summer signings.
But two scapegoats emerged. Andre Onana, for his dilatory restarts from goal kicks, and the harmless Rasmus Hojlund. The cheers for Chido Obi's arrival were amplified by the identity of who he was replacing.
Onana and Hojlund, of course, were two signings from the infamous 2023 summer, John Murtough's last as football director and Richard Arnold's last as chief executive. The circumstances of both deals must cause United fans to bury their heads in their hands.
United paid Inter Milan £47.2million for Onana a year after his contract ran out at Ajax. They would have known that because his manager at Ajax was Erik ten Hag, who left the same summer. David de Gea's dodgy distribution was already established in 2022, yet Ten Hag assessed him for a year and was so indecisive over whether to hand De Gea a new contract the goalkeeper announced his departure before United did.
A more disciplined football administrator would have balked at Ten Hag's demand to be reunited with an Ajax alumni who commanded nearly £50m. Not Arnold and Murtough.
Hojlund had a mediocre goalscoring record in three different countries,
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