Manchester United’s garish kit clashed with the manicured grass at the Community Stadium and Brentford stomped all over them as though they were the turf.
“You’re not fit to wear the shirt,” the United supporters spat. Watching the defeatist players clad in attire more befitting a cyclist, the wheels have already come off under the new regime this season.
Steve McClaren urged Cristiano Ronaldo to approach the away end and he was not having any of it. "Hey Jude" largely drowned out the United fans but they booed those who approached them.
Read more: United player ratings from a dreadful performance
The first-half was the worst half from a United side in a lifetime, uttered more than once last season. This was a new nadir after a season when United plunged to new fathoms.
Erik ten Hag, complicit in United's aimless approach, has become the club's first manager to lose their first two matches since John Chapman in 1921. Chapman lost his third and Ten Hag's was ominous prior to Brentford: Liverpool at home.
“We want five”. “That’s why you’re going down.” "You're not famous anymore." "Eriksen, what's the score?" Brentford manager Thomas Frank offered the fans a wave.
There were “ole”s as half-time loomed. The officials showed no mercy and added four minutes. Mercifully for United, Brentford declared at 4-0, having expended most of their energy in the first-half when temperatures hit 35 degrees. United have sieved at least four goals in seven of their last 33 Premier League games.
There was gallows humour from an admirable away end early in the second-half as they impatiently wait for a goalscorer to be signed: "If United score, we're on the pitch." True to form, they didn't.
A cry of "We want Glazers out" started with more than 10 minutes to go until kick-off and a few bedsheets in the Greater Manchester area have been ruined this week. "Glazers out" and "United 4 sale" were two messages daubed onto them by those shielded from the unforgiving sun. They aired their sinister song about Joel Glazer repeatedly.
The fatal error in United's plan to become a credible force again is they hired a coach before lining up players to recruit. The squad Ten Hag has inherited are not on the same wavelength and empowering him in the transfer market risks saddling the next manager with a squad he will want to gut.
Ten Hag is managing in Ajax mode still. The Eredivisie is such a downgrade on the Premier League United intended to loan Amad there last season and he did not cut it in Scotland. The future is not bright, never mind orange.
Cristiano Ronaldo attempted to gee up teammates after the second goal but by the time the third drifted in he didn’t bother. United, still a squad of individualists, trudged back towards the halfway line in a zombified state.
Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw had been bickering but soon lost the energy, in Shaw’s case, literally, such was his risible attempt to keep up with Bryan Mbeumo for the fourth goal. Jose Mourinho called Shaw’s number some time ago and he was hooked at half-time. It is perhaps time his number was up.
It is a pity the United players did not have the energy of their followers. Four-nil down as the hour mark loomed, they belted out the Calypso, a chant that encapsulates the United they recognise. This is not it. United have lost their last seven on the road.
Ten Hag, stood motionless amid the throng behind him that greeted Mathias Jensen's goal for 2-0, was forthright during the drinks interval in the first-half. Steve McClaren clapped encouragingly and hollered "let's go". Four minutes later, United were 3-0 down and the scoreline read '4-0' in the 35th minute.
Dressing room unrest is still rife and Maguire does not retain the full support as captain. Erik ten Hag should have reassigned it to a teammate and, with the season still in its infancy, there is still time to do so.
The partnership of Maguire and the diminutive Lisandro Martinez, at a combined cost of £135.7million, has lasted three halves. To outsiders, it never had any long-term potential with Ten Hag’s insistence on playing out from the back and with a high line.
Ivan Toney is not even 6ft yet, pitted against Martinez, he grew and the Argentinian shrunk. Whatever the phase of play, be it open or from a set-play, United were stumped.
The 25-minute spiral was sudden and spectacular when David de Gea's hologram hands let in a routine shot from Josh Dasilva on 10 minutes to open the floodgates. He received a curt pointer from Bruno Fernandes (get your body behind the ball?). Ronaldo remonstrated with referee Stuart Attwell and Fernandes endangered spectators with another airborne shot.
Attwell had already been playing up to the crowd and had had such an earful of Ronaldo he ignored a deliberate foul that left the Portuguese reeling.
Eriksen, pathetically booed by the natives on his return, seemed unnerved by the crowd’s hostility, as almost every United player was last season with turnstiles reopened. He was soon played into trouble by the dithering De Gea inside his own area and Jensen slotted in nervelessly.
De Gea has stood still for too long and his attempt to adapt to Ten Hag’s Dutch style risks marring a fabulous United career. Midway through the first-half, he skipped a short goal kick in favour of going long.
Such are the paucity of options available to Ten Hag changes were always going to be at a minimum in the same squad he selected against Brighton. Ronaldo for Scott McTominay was an understandable and advisable selection with Eriksen relocated to midfield from the off, a move that would be permissible in the Eredivisie but not the Premier League. The alternative was Donny van de Beek.
United have become the club where anything that can go wrong will go wrong and it was immediately apparent their gaudy kit was the colour of the sun-kissed pitch. It is unclear if the kit man had a blue and white strip packed away in the dressing room.
They couldn't change the kit but did change the personnel in the era of five substitutions. Ten Hag could have done with doubling it.
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