IT USED to be the role of England manager which was universally acknowledged as ‘the impossible job’.
Now, the impossible job in English football is indisputably that of Manchester United boss.
It sends them all stark raving mad in the end — and is that the stage we have now reached with Erik ten Hag?
His team are clueless on the pitch and his public utterances are bordering on delusional — such as his claim that United gave a “good performance” in Tuesday’s 1-0 home defeat by Bayern Munich.
United are out of Europe and have now lost 12 matches, one more than they have won this season.
That tame defeat by Bayern — their seventh loss at Old Trafford this term — capped United’s worst-ever Champions League group stage showing.
And the 15 goals they conceded was the worst defensive performance by any English club in Europe’s elite club competition.
United mustered just a single shot on target against Bayern — a Luke Shaw long-ranger — in a match they had to win to stand any chance of progressing.
With United also needing Copenhagen and Galatasaray to draw, Tuesday was always likely to be a matter of discovering whether Ten Hag’s side possessed the spirit to go down fighting and perhaps earn a Europa League spot.
They managed neither.
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In the Premier League, Ten Hag’s rabble are the sixth-lowest scorers and have the eighth-worst goal difference — with most of their victories narrow and fortuitous against lowly opposition.
United have a £72million centre-forward, Rasmus Hojlund, who has yet to register a single league goal.
They have a £47.2m keeper Andre Onana, who keeps chucking goals in. They have an £85.5m winger, Antony, who is a one-trick pony on the pitch, and has been a problem off it.
They have a captain, Bruno Fernandes, who is utterly incapable of proper leadership.
And they have a £73m wideman in Jadon Sancho who has been banished from the first-team squad altogether.
And all of that is down to Ten Hag.
The Dutchman chose to go for rookie Hojlund, who is starved of service and devoid of nous.
He signed Antony and Onana, having worked with both before at Ajax.
He stripped Harry Maguire of the captaincy and gave the armband to the lamentable Fernandes.
And he froze out Sancho, despite United needing his attacking talent.
So it’s obvious that United should sack this failed manager, right?
Well, OK, then, which elite manager would even want the job?
And who could do it much better?
Because United have tried pretty much everything since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013 and all of them have ended up being driven to the brink of insanity before the axe fell.
We’ve had David Moyes — Fergie’s Chosen One — and Louis van Gaal, the worldly, old-school tactical mastermind.
We’ve had Jose Mourinho, the master of the dark arts and serial collector of trophies.
And we’ve had club legend, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the soul man who was supposed to reconnect United with their roots.
None of it has worked because United are a dysfunctional club, under the ruinous ownership of the Glazer family and they have consistently overspent on players without doing due diligence.
Graham Potter — who failed in the Premier League’s only comparable madhouse at Chelsea — is said to be in with a good shout.
But should Potter or any other new boss arrive, what would be his starting point? Where is the foundation to build upon?
We often talk of clubs being ‘two or three players short’ of challenging for major honours.
With United, that figure would be eight or nine.
Go through the current squad and identify players good enough to start regularly in a team which could challenge for the Premier League and the Champions League.
The much-missed Argentinian World Cup-winning centre-half Lisandro Martinez — United’s best signing in a decade — would certainly make the cut.
Shaw is an elite left-back and the fully fit and focused Marcus Rashford of last season would be good enough, too. After that, there is no one.
Alejandro Garnacho is an extraordinary talent but he isn’t yet anywhere near as good as he thinks he is.
At age 18, midfielder Kobbie Mainoo has potential, too.
But the idea that a new manager could propel United into the top four this season is fanciful.
The fact Ten Hag guided them to third place and two domestic cup finals last season now looks pretty miraculous.
On Sunday, they face the worst possible fixture — a trip to Anfield to face their bitter table-topping ‘rivals’ Liverpool — a club with the unity, quality and desire which United could only fantasise about.
Last season, when Liverpool were a struggling team in transition, they whipped United 7-0, as captain Fernandes staged an on-field meltdown and appeared to ask Ten Hag to substitute him.
Fernandes will be suspended on Sunday — for five bookings, the most recent of which came for bleating at the referee during Saturday’s catastrophic 3-0 home defeat by Bournemouth.
Solskjaer revealed in a recent interview that two players turned down the club captaincy when he was in charge — a stunning claim from a man who, whatever his shortcomings, holds United close to his heart.
Fernandes — a petulant, selfish irritant — ended up becoming skipper despite possessing zero leadership credentials.
As well as no leaders, United possess no attacking plan, no creativity, no ruthlessness and little defensive cohesion.
Much of this is of Ten Hag’s making, much of it is absolutely not.
On Tuesday night, the Dutchman bore the air of a man who would not be surprised if he was sacked before long.
And a man who wouldn’t be entirely heartbroken to be rid of this impossible job.
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