For most of a lifetime, Manchester United was the most enjoyably hateable team on the planet. They had the money, the reputation, the surly, front-running fans. Every one of their heroes over the past 20 years has been, in some sense or another, an unapologetic weasel. It's a straight line from Eric Cantona to Cristiano Ronaldo to Paul Scholes. Great players; bad pitch citizens.
That was United's glamour. Rooting for them was like pulling for global warming. You don't want either to win, but there is a masochistic pleasure in having correctly called the result.
All that considered, it's hard to watch this version of United. It's a sad collection of overpriced talent matched square-peg style with children who should not have been given the jersey. Somehow, when we weren't looking, Manchester United became the Toronto Maple Leafs of international soccer.
They lost to crosstown rivals Manchester City on Sunday. It's only just turned November. United is 13 points behind league leaders, Chelsea. It's already out of the title race.
The game finished 1-0. It should have been 3-0 or 4-0, but referee Michael Oliver took pity and refused to call a series of obvious penalties. Oliver's only 29, and was in well over his head. You feel for him – which makes him the ManU of referees.
United played most of the match down a man, after Chris Smalling took the two stupidest yellow cards in the history of recorded time. In the first instance, he impeded a goal kick – which is the tactical equivalent of trying to dam a waterfall by standing underneath it. In the second, he … well, it hardly matters. He'll have a couple of weeks to think on his errors. Judging by his game sense, that will mean sitting in a darkened room while his brain produces a sound like radio static.
In the end, United were reduced to two teenagers (Paddy McNair and Luke Shaw), a 'midfielder' (Michael Carrick) and a winger (Antonio Valencia) on defence. Imagine going to Les Miz and, just before the curtain comes up, the announcer comes on: "Tonight, all the roles will be played by our custodial staff."
Their most influential player was gawky Belgian Marouane Fellaini, whose style might best be described as 'bumper car minus steering wheel'. When Fellaini catches your attention, it's because he's stumbled into the ball by accident. Ten years ago, he's a stretcher-bearer on this team, not its occasional fulcrum.
They almost tied it in the late going, which would have been a disaster on many levels. First, unjust. Second, anti-karmic. Third, and most importantly, it would have fooled United into thinking that they are a halfway decent football side. They aren't. Accepting that is the first step toward healing.
The announcers weren't helping. They kept going on about "pride" and "something to build on." This was the cruellest blow of all. United used to win these games. You could reduce them to a 'keeper, two trainers and the mascot, and they'd figure out a way to win. This new United couldn't win a one-ticket raffle, and the world is lining up to pat them on the head for it.
How did we get here?
As in every other case, I'm inclined to blame America. There are 20 teams in the Premiership. Within a few weeks, six of them will be owned by Americans. All six have this much in common – they lose with varying degrees of panache. From high panache (Arsenal) to somewhat less so (Sunderland).
To your average super-rich American businessman, international football makes no sense. You buy players at huge cost. The more you pay, the less likely they are to appreciate your having taken the trouble. Even after you've spent all that money, your irksome employees come and go as they please.
The understandable reaction to this sort of thing is, 'Fine. If they don't want to be here, then they can get bent'. Understandable. Also, disastrously incorrect.
A football team is not a business. It's a very attractive furnace into which you shovel cash. When a group of Abu Dhabi petro-barons bought Manchester City in 2008, they set $900-million aside to buy players. Not pay them. Just buy them.
They've spent about $600-million of it, and the team still isn't that great. Good, but not a world-beater. Not the sort of squad you can amble over to your frenemies in Qatar or Saudi Arabia and say, 'You want to drop by and watch a real team play?' No, that would set you up for an embarrassing letdown.
So they will continue burying the problem in money. It may not work out, but it's the right idea.
United is owned by a family of Florida mall developers, which isn't quite as sexy as sitting on ten per cent of the world's fossil fuel. Unlike the various plutocrats from points easterly, United's owners, the Glazers, need to make money. As such, they spend either not enough or in great, desperate heaps.
We can argue the livelong day about coaching changes and this player in that position, but United are falling apart because they lack a single-minded, anti-business vision from the top. It's taken a while, but it's finally filtered down.
I quite enjoyed watching this pompous, entitled collection of weirdos become a rolling tire fire last season. But it's begun to depress me now. There is no fun in hating United when United are this bad.
Their problems can eventually be solved with the ludicrous application of huge amounts of borrowed money. I long for that day. Because when they lose then, it's really going to hurt.
Cathal Kelly