Here's your dossier, Erik - assume the position and pour yourself a stiff drink. Better make it a large one.
Interim manager Ralf Rangnick will hand new Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag a detailed file on the under-achieving rabble he will inherit this summer. In essence, it will hand the hard-line Dutchman a licence to dismantle a decaying empire because, on the evidence of a needless defeat at the Emirates, Ten Hag is taking over a squad with more dead wood than a lumberjack's back yard.
If anyone at Old Trafford still believes Champions League football next season is possible after a slovenly feast in north London, they will be the people who stake out Father Christmas every year. This is not Rangnick's mess, but his spell holding the fort at United has been a dead loss. He has had the authority of a station platform announcer when the trains are cancelled.
Maybe it's not his fault the railway is unreliable, but for a wage bill of £226million a year, United are not getting value for money from their rolling stock. Ten Hag's rebuild must start in defence, where United have conceded 51 goals in 34 games. That's not keeping the back door shut – it's leaving the front door wide open and inviting the burglars in for a brew before they abscond with their swag.
Captain Harry Maguire was dropped at Arsenal after a torrid week culminating in sick threats from sewer rats to bomb his family home. But in Maguire's absence, Raphael Varane and Victor Lindelof went together like choc ice and chips. In midfield, Scott McTominay's energy is admirable, but it's not a badge of honour when you are outshone by Granit Xhaka.
Jadon Sancho? No goals, no assists in his last seven games. Time to start delivering on £350,000 a week, son. Marcus Rashford? No goals since January and, although feeding a few million kids was a PR triumph, on the pitch his season has been a write-off like an old banger in a stock car demolition derby. Paul Pogba? On his second coming at United, he has played the best football of his life – nearly all of it for France.
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And Bruno Fernandes? This is your captain sinking. Rangnick handed Maguire's armband to a player who hasn't scored since February 22 and is too often on Scotland Yard's missing persons list when the chips are down. Hopefully, his costly penalty miss at the Emirates and Chelsea midfielder Jorginho's patchy recent record from the spot spells the end for those stupid hop, skip and jump 'Riverdance' run-ups.
And Fernandes was lucky to get away with a very poor challenge on Nuno Tavares when the ball was hardly in the same postcode. If that had been a Norwich, Watford or Burnley player it would have been a red card every time, but Fernandes probably escaped because he plays for a 'big' club and VAR official Jarred Gillett was having a mare on his train set.
Full-back Diogo Dalot, who hit the woodwork twice, admitted United's chances of a top-four finish were all but extinguished by Tavares' tap-in, Bukayo Saka's penalty and Xhaka's 25-yard rocket at the Emirates, Cristiano Ronaldo replying with his 100th Premier League goal.
The Portuguese defender said: "It is difficult for us to accept as this club belongs in the Champions League. All I want to say is that if it is still mathematically possible, then I will believe to the end, but I don't think it has to be our biggest focus now. It has to be our habits that we do every single day, the habits to come to training at Carrington with a good energy and with a mentality that we will give everything for this club because at this club we have everything.
"We have to fight for ourselves, for the club, for our families, for the fans that travel every time. We need to mature everyone in terms of the team and we need to be more energetic, to want it more than them and dominate, I think that starts from our efforts every day."
When his flight from Amsterdam touches down, Ten Hag's first question after he collects his bags from the carousel should be: Why wait until four games from the end of the season to bust a gut?
