Amorim's own 'wally with a brolly' moment has come

Ruben Amorim claimed he had “nothing to say” but, in vintage fashion for such a crisis, one picture said enough.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

The haunting image of the Manchester United manager looking away during the shootout, having already been playing with a tactics board, was one thing. Well, two things... and they mount up. But for all that to culminate in a defeat against a League Two side in Grimsby Town just adds a sense of farce to something that had already seemed alien. Even those who know him from Portugal admit they've never seen him like this. This is what United now do to people. They may have their own version of Steve McClaren and his “wally with a brolly” moment.

Of course, you can do and say pretty much anything so long as you're winning. This was just another humiliation. And such images alone mean it goes beyond mere humiliation. It has become something else.

So here we are, less than two weeks into a new season, and United are not just in crisis but somehow at a new nadir. This was the first time in the club's history that they had been eliminated from a competition by a fourth-tier side. It should be Grimsby's day but it's impossible not to talk about another United nightmare.

Yes, this is rock bottom. Again.

What must the new players, who are supposed to bring that charge of excitement, be thinking? Worse was that all three of them played here, in a strong team. Two became significant parts of the storyline, since there was so much focus on Benjamin Sesko taking his penalty kick so late - 10th in the shootout - and Bryan Mbuemo missing the decisive penalty.

Perhaps the most fascinating question in all of this is how United keep doing this to people, how it somehow stays so bad. Everything changes and yet nothing changes. As one insider said, it’s like the club is “cursed”, as if a deal with the devil had been done after two decades of impossible success.