What's wrong with Manchester United? It starts and ends with the Glazers

For more than a decade now it has felt like Manchester United can't go a season without setting some kind of unwanted record or benchmark - and this year has proved no exception.

A year ago United were bottom of the league for the first time in 30 years and Erik ten Hag had become the first manager to lose his opening two games in charge since John Chapman in 1921. But then things started to go well. Really quite well. A first trophy in six years was secured at Wembley and a third-place finish in the league earned a return to the Champions League.

If we've learnt anything since 2013, however, it's that things rarely go well for long. United looked well placed to kick on but then came a string of off-field controversies and three defeats in the first five games of this season for the first time in the Premier League era.

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So where do the problems lie? There are two possible routes here. Some of these are short-term issues, such as the situations around Antony and Jadon Sancho and the tactical issues afflicting Ten Hag's second term.

Then there are the long-term problems that have constrained this club since 2013. Or perhaps more accurately since 2005. If we're to presume Ten Hag will fix the short-term pain, there will still be issues that leave him with an arm tied behind his back for now.

They say a fish rots from the head down and at the modern-day Manchester United, that is certainly the case. It's easy for fans of opposition clubs and radio rent-a-gobs to point to the transfer spending, or the tactical problems against Brighton, or the absence of Antony and Sancho, and say this has nothing to do with