When you think of truly great sports teams, Manchester United and the LA Lakers immediately spring to mind.
A combination of 17 NBA championships and 19 league titles, one of both football and basketball's greatest exports have achieved innumerable amounts of success and are forever etched in sporting folklore.
Some of the sport's best ever players have contributed to their success, such as Wayne Rooney, Magic Johnson, Paul Scholes and the late great Kobe Bryant.
Their rich history is often coupled with significantly high expectations, and there is a demand for each player who dons the legendary purple and gold or red and white, to know exactly what it means to represent those iconic teams.
The standards they have set in their respective sports and the iconic moments they have given to sports as a whole, sets them apart as two of the most recognisable and popular franchises across the globe.
But this season, both Man United and the Lakers have been a far cry from the lofty heights they have set.
Speaking of high expectations, much was expected from the teams ahead of the ongoing campaign, especially the Lakers who had assembled a new roster packed with star power and were looking to return to the pinnacle of basketball after last winning the crown in 2020.
The Red Devils were keen to challenge for the title once again and a returning legend certainly seemed to bolster their chances.
But both teams are currently floundering in the Premier League and Western Conference and are struggling to find a winning formula and play to the levels many expected they would reach.
So what are the similarities between these two under-performing teams?
One things that seems clear with both teams is the lack of identity. Neither appear to have a clear system or style of play.
In the case of the Lakers, in many of their games, there is a heavy reliance on the greatness of LeBron James, who has been the team's only consistent performer this season.
His 56 points carried the Californian outfit to their first win in four games over the weekend against a beleaguered Golden State Warriors side who have won just two of their last ten.
Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony joined James and Anthony Davis to form a star-studded team which excited not just Lakers fans but supporters around the league.
But Davis' struggles to stay fit, and the mediocre performances of Westbrook, along with a lack of leadership has significantly hampered the Lakers' chances of a successful season.
The foundation of a great NBA team is defence, and their consistent failure to do this as a cohesive unit this year has been damaging.
The team are languishing in 20th place in defensive deficiency this season, and perhaps an ageing squad and a lack of energy in the closing stages of games at times have contributed to such poor showings, along with a dependency on James, who is averaging 29 points per game, his highest in 12 years, to carry them on the offensive side of the ball.
They also rank very low on free throw shooting, meaning the lack of free points places more pressure on their stuttering offence, minus the brilliance of James.
Despite the initial excitement, the makeup of the Lakers' roster this season sees them unable to compete effectively at both ends of the court, especially when they lost three of their most important defenders from last season in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Alex Caruso and Kyle Kuzma.
With questions being asked within the organisation regarding coach Frank Vogel, who seems to have lost any control he had over this team, the directionless Lakers are heading for a spot in the play-in tournament, a massive underachievement for a team boasting four future Hall of Famers.
Like the Lakers, Manchester United boast an all-time great of their own in Cristiano Ronaldo, who sent shockwaves around the football world with his move back to the red half of Manchester last summer.
Like LeBron, the Portuguese star has carried his team through games this season, especially in the Champions League group stages, as his six goals hauled The Red Devils to the top of group F where they otherwise may have suffered an early exit from Europe's premier cup competition.
Along with Ronaldo, United can call upon the services of Paul Pogba, Bruno Fernandes, Edison Cavani, another summer signing Rafael Varane and two of England's brightest talents in Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, with the latter also heading to Old Trafford in the summer.
But much like the legendary basketball outfit, despite the quality within the squad, all is not well on the field as United sit 5th, 22 points off the top and suffered a damaging 4-1 loss to neighbours and reigning league champions, Manchester City on Sunday.
They didn't register a single shot in the second half and they looked like a team of individuals on the field, which has been the case for most of the season.
A hallmark of United's great teams of yesteryear was their toughness and resiliency, but that has been missing from the team this season, and the fear factor they once had seems to have disappeared, as is the case with the Lakers this year.
They have only kept seven clean sheets this season and the team has had to make more saves than another Premier League team, as they've struggled to tighten up their back line.
Their great players who, in good form, are some of the best in the world, have not lead from the front.
A lack of leadership, compounded with the players reportedly refusing to implement interim manger Ralf Rangnick's preferred formation of 4-2-2-2 highlights a significant problem behind the scenes at United.
With that being one of at least six formations used by the German during his tenure so far, along with several different starting XIs and no clear style of play, it is hard to envisage how United move forward unless these issues are ironed out and they are in danger of missing out on Champions League qualification next season.
It has certainly been surprising to witness both these special sides battling with so many issues both on and off the court/pitch, and with another damaging loss for the teams in the last two days, they face a race against time to salvage something from their substandard campaigns.
