Fifth place feels about right for United but problems lie in the difficulty of separating sporting and commercial ventures
The protest songs began around the hour mark, shortly after Burnley had scored their second goal: swelling and swirling around the tired, peeling old ground like hymns to a hazily-remembered past. One was about wanting their United back. Another proposed chopping Ed Woodward up from head to toe: the same grisly verse that had greeted the Glazer family when they first rolled into Old Trafford in the summer of 2005. Another beseeched fans to stand up if they hated the Glazers. Thousands of fans got to their feet. To be fair, they might simply have been heading for the exits.
For his part, Ole Gunnar Solskjær is very much a ground-half-full rather than a ground-half-empty kind of guy. After being pasted by
Manchester City in the Carabao Cup semi-final, he took heart from the fact City had put out their strongest team. After being outclassed by
Liverpool, he paid tribute to the fact they had been “in the game until the last kick”. And again, despite going down 2-0 to Burnley at Old Trafford amid an unprecedented fan exodus and the worst start to a league season for 30 years, the
Manchester United manager was keen to look on the bright side.