Man Utd's embarrassing transfer window proves they're a hapless club with unhappy players

It was former Scottish international Gordon McQueen who once said: “Ask all the players in the country which club they would like to play for and 99 percent would say Manchester United. The other one percent are liars.”

It’s a quote that United fans wear as a badge of honour as it’s emblazoned on one of the thousands of different tee-shirts sold by the hawkers and peddlers who flog their wares on Warwick Road every match-day.

But either McQueen’s take on United is no longer valid - or there are an awful lot of liars playing the game at the moment.

It’s damning enough that United failed to get even a single new signing over the line during the transfer window.

Or that interim boss Ralf Rangnick has warned that it is impossible for him - or anyone else - to implement the kind of high-energy pressing game that has put Manchester City and Liverpool into a league of their own at the top of the Premier League.

Of even more concern for United at the moment is the number of players who just don’t want to be there.

Anthony Martial and Donny van de Beek got their wish by joining Sevilla and Everton on loan.

But they left behind a raft of other players who also wanted to be set free.

Jesse Lingard was so desperate to quit the club he has supported all his life that he was willing to take on a relegation battle with Newcastle.

Dean Henderson was ready to face an even more unenviable task at Watford despite signing a four-year contract worth £100,000-a-week just 18 months ago.

Paul Pogba, re-signed from Juventus for £89million in 2016, has spent the last three-and-a-half years agitating for a move.

United will lose him for nothing for a second time in six months when his contract expires.

And the Frenchman is only still