In sight of the Alps, a boat ride from George Clooney’s villa, Manchester United will hope, in what has been a terrible start to the season, that things do not get any worse.
They can’t – for the team’s prospects, and Michael Carrick’s job security, because witnessed here by Lake Como was a humiliation of the three-times European champions by Cesc Fàbregas’s competition debutants, as United suffered their worst defeat in continental football since 1994.