There are significant culprits elsewhere, led by Ratcliffe.

United fans have held regular protests against the Glazers since they took control in 2005, their leveraged purchase loading debt on to the club. They have remained majority owners, despite the level of anger aimed towards them from supporters, unmoved by years of ill feeling.

In turn, Ratcliffe's move into part-ownership alongside the Glazer family has meant fans turned on him for his association and business partnership with the hugely unpopular Americans.

Ratcliffe, like other successful billionaires before him, has found running a football club is a different world to the one he inhabited previously.

He has suggested he leaves big footballing decisions to others, such as Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada, but instability and rank bad decisions have come with Ratcliffe as United's leading figure.

United were set to sack Ten Hag before the FA Cup final win against City, but the Wembley win earned him an unlikely stay of execution. He was then given a contract extension and £200m in transfer funds, only to be sacked six months later. The pay off to Ten Hag and his staff was more than £10m.

It was a catastrophic move to keep Ten Hag, both financially and in a footballing context.

Then there was the farce of the pursuit and subsequent sacking of sporting director Dan Ashworth in 2024.

He arrived in July with a reputation as one of the game's shrewdest administrators, regarded as a prized capture, only to leave after a behind-the-scenes disagreement five months after his appointment.

The impression of a club in chaos, in which United still exists today, was confirmed by the stark fact Ashworth actually spent as long on gardening leave waiting to join from Newcastle United as he did in post at Manchester United.

It was suggested Ashworth had been held responsible for Ten Hag staying, but another theory was that he wanted to target English managers such as Graham Potter and Gareth Southgate rather than Amorim.

United instead pursued Amorim, whose obsession with a 3-4-3 system had already persuaded Liverpool to look at Arne Slot to succeed Klopp. It was the fault that holed his reign below the waterline.

Amorim was gone after 14 months, but not before a parting blast at United's hierarchy and a hostile meeting with Wilcox.