The Glazers are biggest Manchester United problem but Erik ten Hag isn’t blameless

Another week, another defeat, another contender for Manchester United’s worst performance in living memory. There have been a lot of those this year.

The fact that United’s latest hammering, a 4-0 defeat to Brentford on Saturday evening, wasn’t even a total shock explains just how big the problem is and just how far standards have steadily dropped under the Glazer ownership of the club.

There can be no ignoring that they are the biggest problem at the club, either. Everything stems from disinterested owners who don’t invest their own money, profit despite the club’s failure on the pitch and have seen the club debt rise to almost £500million on the back of their worst ever Premier League campaign.

A lack of investment leads to a sub-standard recruitment department, a lack of quality signings and a first-team squad that is not fit for purpose and in need of a drastic overhaul in quality.

The pressures of qualifying for the Champions League and securing the lucrative financial pot that goes with it mean that new managers are rarely given enough time, despite hollow mission statements of how things have really changed.

It will be Ten Hag who pays the price if United have another disastrous campaign, rather than those who have failed in their roles for a far longer time but have become masters at passing the blame. All of United’s failures in recent years come under the same umbrella of the Glazer ownership, and until that changes, it is hard to see the club ever becoming a respectable force again.

This common theme of failure makes it easy to brush off any defeat as the Glazers' fault; after all, it is indicative of years of neglect, but that doesn’t mean others at the club should avoid responsibility for their own