When do you pull the plug? The existential question asks one to delve into the fundamental considerations of life, death, meaning, and suffering.
For Manchester United, those considerations were brought crashing to the fore on Wednesday. An embarrassing exit to Grimsby Town, a club in the fourth tier of English football, killed any hopes United had of winning silverware this season. There is still the FA Cup, but does anyone now think that's even a distant possibility?
United were woeful in the first half against Grimsby. They trailed 2-0 before Bryan Mbuemo pulled them back into it and Harry Maguire forced the tie to penalties.
Shoot-outs are, in a sense, a lottery; whether it's 10 penalties or 100, someone is going to mess up at some point. Mbeumo ended up with the losing ticket when he saw his effort crash off the bar as Grimsby claimed a 12-11 win and the most famous victory in their history.
“We should do so much better. I just have to say sorry to our fans,” United boss Ruben Amorim said.
Metaphorically speaking, United are a club on life support. Amorim, their head coach, is at death's door. The club's loyal fans have suffered a succession of failures since the Portuguese took charge last November. The fault is by no means his alone, but he cannot be exempt from blame either.
United were 14th when Amorim was appointed on November 1, 2024, and finished the season 15th, their worst league campaign since being relegated in 1974.
Unai Emery, by comparison, took charge of Aston Villa in October 2022 with the Midlands club even worse off in 17th place. They finished seventh that season and fourth the following season to qualify for the Uefa Champions League. United can only dream of such giddy heights.
United CEO Omar Berrada told The National in an interview in June that losing the Europa League final to Tottenham, and with it the chance of Champions League income, was a “setback” that meant the club missed out on as much as £90 million.
Despite that, Amorim was given a massive war chest to invest in players. Almost €230 million has been spent on recruitment this summer. Two of them, Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, have pedigree in English football. Benjamin Sesko was touted as the man to fix United's misfiring forward line. Those players must be given time, of course, but that seems a commodity Amorim is desperately short of.
United expect more movement in the transfer market before Monday's deadline, with the club desperate to offload Antony, Jadon Sancho and Rasmus Hojlund. Potential replacements must ask themselves: What can United, 20-times champions of England, offer these days besides history?
While fully acknowledging that one setback, humiliating as it was, pales in comparison to the real horrors taking place in conflicts across the globe, in football terms, United's start to the season has been hideous. If a defeat to Arsenal and a draw to Fulham were tolerated, Wednesday's ignominy will not.
It makes Saturday's league game against promoted Burnley arguably the most important of Amorim's tenure. If United are reluctant to pull the trigger in the wake of the Grimsby debacle, it's hard to imagine them being gun-shy should they lose to a team among the favourites to be relegated.
“I'm the manager. It should be my job to understand what happened,” Amorim said. “Again, I'm really sorry for our fans. Let's focus on the next game. That is more than a result. That is the biggest problem in the team. I think it was really clear today.”
Amorim has taken 28 points from his first 29 Premier League games. The question coursing through the minds of United and everyone connected to that club, whether it's at the boardroom level, the fans in the stands, or the corporate sponsors, is: should United pull the plug on Amorim now or prolong the suffering?
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