Little could be more indicative of Manchester United’s mediocrity than the fact that on a night when they simply had to win, a 1-0 defeat felt a decent result.
Kingsley Coman’s second-half goal ultimately killed off any faint hope that Erik ten Hag’s side might play European football in the New Year, that coming a quarter of an hour after Lukas Lerager’s for Copenhagen against Galatasaray had made sure that, it in any case, it would certainly not be in the Champions League.
At Old Trafford, though, long before that, you sensed a lack of belief, the damage done and expectation non-existent as the task of inflicting Bayern Munich’s first group stage defeat in more than six years fell on a set of players hammered at home by Bournemouth only four days earlier.
True, boom has occasionally followed bust for this United — and perhaps that remains a scary thought given a trip to Liverpool follows this respectable, if uninspiring show — but Bayern, even off their own weekend thrashing to Frankfurt, brought the aura of a different beast, with a full-strength side spearheaded by Harry Kane.
Miracles aside, this looked a night with the potential for one of two outcomes; that Ten Hag’s men would either be blown out of the water by a Bayern team with a point to prove, or else produce a spirited display too late to save a slapstick campaign.
Even so, it was alarming how readily fans and players alike appeared resigned to the latter as best-case, evidence of how faith in progress and process has, understandably, faltered badly in the second season of Ten Hag’s regime.
Though the scores were level here for 70 minutes, and for the best part of an hour a place in the last-16 only one strike away, you never felt that United were giving it any more than an underdog’s go, Luke Shaw’s rasping drive their sole effort on target even as Andre Onana’s goal stayed similarly out of Bayern’s shooting range.
The boos at full-time seemed somewhat obligatory, more forced as a show of dissent towards the club’s worst ever group stage than an emotive response to the performance on the night, which came with the application deemed both non-negotiable and blatantly missing after the Bournemouth sham.
Instead, the issue here was quality, or the lack of it even in comparison to a Bayern playing in second gear, the gulf laid bare by the UEFA officials passing around the team sheets, even accepting United’s injury list is long.
Kane’s first club return to England was always likely to prove a what-you-could-have-won showcase, and on a night when the raw Rasmus Hojlund was nullified entirely, the former Tottenham man sparked United’s eventual undoing with a wonderful pass to set Coman free.
But it was not only at centre-forward that United’s hapless recruitment was shown up. In the Bayern defence, Min-jae Kim, poached from Napoli’s title-winning team via a €50million release clause in the summer, was outstanding. Meanwhile, Harry Maguire — who could not get a game five minutes ago — departed before half-time having pinged a groin in what felt a major blow, given Jonny Evans, 36 next month, was his replacement.
Sofyan Amrabat, the panic-loaned midfielder, played the role of the minimum-wage steward tasked with preventing a pitch invasion on the final day of the season, nominally stood in the appropriate place but never likely to stop much getting past.
With Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial missing through illness, and in any case hardly flavour of the month, Ten Hag’s response to Bayern’s goal was to replace his first-choice wingers with Hannibal Mejbri and Facundo Pellistri. In goal, Onana had again performed his strange fussball impression, tied to his line as Coman broke through.
In attempting to express sympathy for his counterpart, Thomas Tuchel inadvertently delivered the most scathing assessment of all: “He has a lot of key players injured for a decisive match. Now, you can see they lack the kind of personality, and also the quality, and maybe the depth to change things from the bench.” But apart from that… all gravy, hey?
This may not have been the mauling many feared, but in many ways, it was a night every bit as damning.
