Before kick-off, a supporter ascending the steps in the south stand en route to their seat paused and got my attention. "Arnautovic: is it true?"
"For United's sake, I hope not." The supporter laughed and crossed his fingers. Unfortunately for United followers, it is true.
United have bid €8million for a former Stoke and West Ham forward who is 33-years-old, last played in England three years ago, spent two of those years in the Chinese Super League and plays as though he belongs in a different decade.
Also read: Why United are open to signing Arnautovic after €8m bid
On a day United suffered an opening defeat for only the seventh time in the Premier League era, the Arnautovic development was the lowest point.
Lower than David de Gea going with his feet rather than his hands, lower than Luke Shaw jogging while Danny Welbeck was sprinting, lower than Scott McTominay's six touches outside the Brighton area, lower than Moises Caicedo - coveted by United 18 months ago - bossing their midfield again.
Lower than Bruno Fernandes's regression, lower than Marcus Rashford's finishing, lower than Erik ten Hag's Christian Eriksen experiment, lower than the dilatory substitutions.
Bidding for Arnautovic is the lowest ebb in the last nine years. It is a move that is an affront to the supporters who have renewed their season tickets and walked down Warwick Road in the Sunday sunshine hoping United had turned a leaf. It was an extension of the same chastening chapter.
If any other Premier League club was linked with Arnautovic your instinct would be, "nah, there's got to be a better option". Perhaps Bournemouth, at a push, would be the exception. That is where United are at.
The transfer window is developing into a gag: Benni McCarthy, Tom Huddlestone and Marko Arnautovic walk into a club in the same transfer window. United are the punchline.
Signing Arnautovic would be worse than the deadline day loaning of the 30-year-old Odion Ighalo. That was ostensibly the exception to the norm, prompted by Rashford's long-term injury. Seven months later, the 33-year-old Edinson Cavani touched down on deadline day. Sources said that was "opportunistic" and "pragmatic".
Two years ago, United hoped Cavani could replicate the influence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The script has been dusted off again: United have likened Arnautovic to Ibrahimovic.
Ten Hag believes Arnautovic is a character who would enhance a dressing room lacking self-belief and provide United with a different attacking outlet off the bench; a wily forward who can operate with his back to goal.
Some parallels at the club have been drawn with Sir Alex Ferguson's instinctive signings of Laurent Blanc, Henrik Larsson and Michael Owen. None were outright successes.
Jaap Stam was infamously traded for Blanc; Ferguson's worst decision in the transfer market. Blanc won a Premier League winners' medal in 2002-03 but played in all five of United's defeats. After Blanc's final league start - a Boxing Day reverse at Middlesbrough - United embarked on an unbeaten run to regain the title.
Larsson was an overrated mid-season signing (three goals in 13 games) who broke up the fluid partnership of Wayne Rooney and Louis Saha. Owen was an insult to supporters; a freebie who ushered in the Glazernomic era of Ferguson's frugal final four years.
Thirteen years on, the Glazer family do not have Ferguson's genius or beatable domestic opponents to mask the squad frailties. United have stood still and the lethargic Arnautovic is prone to that, too.
Avram Glazer, on only his third visit to Old Trafford in the last three years, was accompanied by brother Edward for the Brighton game and sat behind the football director John Murtough. A row down was the chief executive Richard Arnold and in front of him David Gill, who previously held that title. Ferguson was sat in the same block of the directors' box.
The image evoked memories of Jimmy Hill's diatribe after Crystal Palace humiliated United 5-0 in manager Frank O'Farrell's last sorry stand in 1972: "That match yesterday was not lost by the players on the field, it was lost before they ever got to the ground and it was lost by three men.
"The three men you see there: Louis Edwards, the chairman to the right, Sir Matt Busby in the centre and Frank O'Farrell on the left. And it was lost more by the two on the right for me, than the one on the left."
The approaches for Ighalo, Cavani and Arnautovic have come after a recruitment reboot in 2019. United fed the spiel of targeting 23-28-year-olds and with a preference for British talent. They "manipulated the data" and cast the net as wide as 804 right-backs. Arnautovic might not have made an 804-list of forwards that summer.
This summer is supposed to mark the foundations' phase of a squad rebuild at United. Even if United had recruited their priority targets of Frenkie de Jong and Antony the strategy would still be deeply flawed.
Tyrell Malacia, Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martinez have all played in the Eredivisie. So has Arnautovic - under Ten Hag and Steve McClaren at Twente. They last coached him so long ago Anthony Elanga was eight.
It is no way for a non-league club to run, never mind the self-appointed biggest club in the world. United managers have an average shelf life of two-and-a-quarter years. Mauricio Pochettino would hardly relish the glut of Eredivisie experts.
There is a tragicomic irony to United bidding for an Austria international and a teenager at a Red Bull team. Ralf Rangnick is familiar with both markets and it is as if the power-brokers at United have picked up the red phone, like Commissioner Gordon dialling the hotline to Wayne Manor in an emergency, to consult Rangnick ad hoc. Not that Rangnick would have recommended Arnautovic.
United have a football director, a deputy football director, a head of recruitment operations and a technical chief scout on the payroll and they have still bid for Arnautovic.
During Ten Hag's tenure at Ajax, they signed Daley Blind, Dusan Tadic, Davey Klaasen, Steven Berghuis, Sebastian Haller and Maarten Stekelenburg - Premier League rejects. That is what Arnautovic is. Ten Hag is not at Ajax anymore.
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