Have Man Utd become the unmanageable club?

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 angered 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.

Even before Carrick's appointment, morale at Old Trafford had been low after savage cost-cutting under Ratcliffe, with many staff leaving, among other "efficiencies".

This season ill feeling among an already dissatisfied fanbase boiled over after United launched a ticket-touting investigation in the summer.

Although they admitted to underestimating the number of fans who shared their account details, and toned down some of the threats around season-ticket confiscation if supporters failed to respond as requested, United officials defended the investigation.

If the football has been underwhelming, finances - which Ratcliffe promised to improve - still remain an issue.

Figures revealed in September confirmed overall debt remains at £1bn, despite Ratcliffe's cost-cutting. United did announce record revenue of £678m and a £23m operating profit despite not playing in Europe for the first time in a decade. This represented a huge shift from the £113m loss in 2023-24.

United also confirmed spending £64m buying land for the new stadium, which Ratcliffe hopes can be his legacy at the club and proof of his desire for success.

In August Berrada said the club remained on track to build the projected 100,000-capacity stadium at an estimated cost of more than £2bn.

However, it is the record of bad decisions backstage and lack of success on the pitch that is the unpalatable cocktail currently poisoning United.

It leaves them facing the possibility of more churn and instability as the clubs they would regard as competitors threaten to become a spot in the distance.