Even those Manchester United supporters with a penchant for the darkest gallows humour won’t have been able to stomach this one.
Over £600m played some part at fourth-tier Grimsby. And it still required Harry Maguire’s large head to take things to a penalty shootout.
United fans had suffered enough by that point. Little did the travelling contingent know worse was still to come.
Remember, this is a fourth division side Manchester United were playing. From 12 yards, £600m worth of footballers should be able to strike a ball in a straighter line than their opponents.
And one of the first to step up, you would think, would be the man tasked with firing United back to the top, a £74m hitman with goals in his blood.
Instead, Benjamin Sesko stepped up 10th, one before goalkeeper Andre Onana, to take a penalty against, I remind you, a fourth-tier side. Amid the litany of humiliating moments, that is quite frankly the most astonishing.
Not that Ruben Amorim would have noticed, he did not even watch the shootout, choosing to sit in the depths of the dugout with no view of the goal. Perhaps he knew. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
“The way we started the game, we were not even here,” Amorim said after watching his side concede twice in the first 30 minutes. “When everything is so important in our club, everything that happened, it’s a problem in our club, we should do so much better.
“I felt my players spoke really loud today what they want. I think it’s easy for you [how to interpret it]. Let’s focus on the next game and then we have the stop for the international games. We will think things through.
“I would like to say very smart things and very important things. I have nothing to say. Nothing to say. That is the biggest problem also. To see the same mistakes and nothing to say in this moment. I’m really sorry for our fans. It’s too much sometimes.”
Imagine what it’s like to watch, Ruben. Not sure digging out his players for “speaking loudly”, sending a clear message as to their inferiority in comparison to players one step up from part timers, will help matters.
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Amorim could barely watch the horror show on the Humber (Photo: Reuters)
And to think, United fans were buoyed by “beating” Arsenal on xG on the opening day, all while guffawing at struggling debutant Viktor Gyokeres, who has since scored double the amount of goals as United mustered in their opening two league matches.
Amorim’s job is not under pressure yet, but, as Mick McCarthy rightly points out, just when you think it can’t get any worse, United keep finding a way, each nadir more embarrassing than the last.
Starting Sesko for the first time against a team like Grimsby seemed like the perfect moment for the Slovenian to find his goalscoring touch on English soil. But other than a near-post effort in the first half, the big-money arrival flattered to deceive.
More worryingly, he missed his flick-ons with regularity, treated the ball at his feet as if it were ablaze and looked every inch the latest on the Old Trafford conveyor belt of crap.
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Even if he had a knock and was not perhaps fully fit come the penalty shootout, as some United staff suggested, he should, given he looks leaner than most prizewinning racehorses, have had enough energy for two strides and a swing of his right foot.
As it transpired, his spot kick was well put away, before Bryan Mbeumo’s miss on the second round of penalties gave United the result their meek excuse for a performance deserved.
We just shouldn’t have had to wait so long for it. Enough goes wrong at Manchester United, they don’t need embarrassments like this to intensify the scrutiny. Whoever sanctioned their frontline striker to take the 10th penalty deserves to be put under the microscope.
Even if that is the manager.