The banner in the Manchester United end read, 'We've seen it all'. They have won nothing at all. They have got the season they deserved.
This is factually and undeniably the worst [Manchester United](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/manchester-united-fc) team in 51 years. A team so bad they have lost four times to Tottenham in a single season. The United end emptied quickly at full-time.
Players stood, dumbfounded. Amad sank to the turf and was motionless. All the bravado about United's trophy-winning pedigree counted for nought.
In a season where relegation was never a tangible threat, it does not get more humiliating for United to be the wreckage above those three sunken ships in the table and losing to Tottenham in a final. The worst Tottenham team in living memory.
United's followers belted out their Ruben Amorim chant louder than ever in the first half. Bonnie Tyler was played in Bilbao bars and at the stadium. If she was performing live she might have been outsung by the 14,700 red phalanx.
Come the second half, it did not get a single airing. Glory was within touching distance, with the Europa League trophy pitchside at kick-off. If the glory days are to return under the incumbent United manager, it will not be until 2026. United players stayed to watch Spurs lift silver.
There will be no European football at Old Trafford next season. For the first time since they re-entered the European Cup in 1993, it will be two years without Champions League football.
The team that invested £108.5million on two strikers in successive summers sent Harry Maguire up front again. This time, lumping it up for the big man did not come off.
This is what United get for not having the nerve to sack one manager, yielding to fickle fans, backing him in another Dutch-centric transfer window, only to replace him a third of the way into the season with a manager so far removed from his predecessor that he forecast a "storm". The gales are howling.
Kobbie Mainoo also emerged in the last knockings, almost as if Amorim attempted to summon the spirit of Lyon. Joshua Zirkzee attempted to rally his teammates. Seven minutes were added on, much to the dismay of those in Lilywhite. They may have turned white when Guglielmo Vicario palmed away a header.
After the late afternoon arrival time on Tuesday and the japes at the pre-match press conference, United's preparation looks casual in retrospect. Spurs touched down in Bilbao on Monday, their coach relished the siege mentality he cultivated and made good on his word. Ange Postecoglou can walk down the Seven Sisters Road with a winner's medal.
United have not scored in 15 games this season and this was the first time they fired blanks in the Europa League. Three of those games have come against Spurs, below them in the Premier League.
Amorim, a stickler for pragmatism with the worst United squad since they were relegated, remained loyal to his instincts. There was one change from the team that started at Chelsea on Friday, which felt at the time like a dress rehearsal. Amorim did not dress it up.
He will have to abandon that pragmatism next season. The ends have not justified the means and United are not only not good, they are not good to watch.
Alejandro Garnacho did more in his first couple of minutes than Mason Mount did in his 71 minutes. Garnacho, benched for the second match running for the first time since January at Stamford Bridge, did not take his final snub well. He passive-aggressively posted images of his FA Cup final goal last year hours before the team news was announced.
When the United line-up was confirmed an hour and 15 minutes before kick-off, Garnacho was their only player out on the pitch, in conversation with former teammate Sergio Reguilon. The injured Matthijs de Ligt was the only other United player who strolled around the turf in their Paul Smith suit. Garnacho, one of a handful of fan favourites, was serenaded when he warmed up.
Garnacho, Zirkzee, Mainoo, Manuel Ugarte and Diogo Dalot were the first five substitutes to pull on their bibs and limber up at 0-0. They hurtled down the touchline again as soon as the second half restarted, put through their paces by the fitness coach Paulo Barreira. United supporters were roused by their belated introductions in the 71st minute.
Mount, picked ahead of Garnacho on account of his familiarity in the 3-4-2-1 system and experience of starting five finals for Chelsea, did not justify his selection. Rasmus Hojlund barely got a kick but did get his head to the ball from Vicario's clanger, only for Micky van de Ven to acrobatically volley the ball off the line.
Come the 54th minute, Andre Onana's order to wait to take a free kick inside the United third got some fans' backs up. They will have remembered that Spurs went 1-0 up against United in both league games and kept clean sheets. A minute later, Onana was ushering Leny Yoro forward with the ball.
Amorim railed against United's fast-and-loose approach, berating Casemiro after Spurs almost came a Dominic Solanke first touch away from a chance to make it 2-0. The contest doubled for a tennis match with a sudden back-and-forth rally and Amorim welcomed the stoppage for Richarlison's injury to offer Harry Maguire some advice.
There was some kidology pre-match, with United selecting a larger-than-normal travelling squad and Postecoglou electing Son Heung-min to attend a pre-match press conference only to bench him. It extended to the coin toss, with United instructed to kick towards their supporters in the first half.
Fernandes alerted teammates, already primed for a huddle, to the switch. Tottenham's players then walked back into the half they originally occupied to form their own huddle in front of their lilywhite-clad followers.
For a contest between the fourth and fifth-worst teams in the Premier League, this was not a spectacle. The only polished piece of play in the first half ended scruffily with an own goal.
Of all the contentious calls, Luke Shaw did not fall into that category. A starter in four games in 14 months, he was not just undeserving but undercooked. Brennan Johnson capitalised on Shaw's sluggishness with the most rudimentary of near-post runs.
Shaw glared at Patrick Dorgu, also blindsided and culpable. But Shaw started the game lethargically and ended it so. Amorim got what he deserved.
United got the season they deserved.