Manchester United are in turmoil once again after they were dumped out of the Champions League by Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night.
Renan Lodi bagged the all-important goal to condemn United to a damning 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford; effectively killing their season. With United now only able to salvage their season with a top-four finish, the club are now guaranteed to finish the season without a trophy for the fifth consecutive season.
After the match, United's woes were aired out by Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand, who conducted a ruthless postmortem on air just minutes after watching their former side limp out of Europe. And Scholes is adamant that United are still years away from challenging their rivals, Liverpool and Manchester City, at the top of the Premier League - even if they appoint the right manager in the summer.
After slamming United's interim boss, Ralf Rangnick, Scholes told BT Sport: "It’ll be three or four years now before you challenge. With Liverpool and City, you could see them coming, you knew they were getting better, you knew they’d start challenging for a league title."
And he warned the Old Trafford hierarchy there there's no margin for error in the summer when they finally decide on a permanent successor for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He added: "We haven’t had that for eight, 10 years since Sir Alex went. There’s no sign of it actually coming, if anything it feels like we’re going in the opposite direction. The next manager might not be the right man, but people behind the scenes have got to make sure it is the right man."
With Scholes' assessment on Liverpool and Manchester City in mind, Mirror Football takes a look at how Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola fared in their first three years in the Premier League.
Jurgen Klopp
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Klopp arrived at Anfield back in 2015 at a time when the Reds were on their knees. The charismatic German was identified as the perfect boss to jolt some life back into Liverpool - but even he struggled to get to grips with the plethora of problems that welcomed him to Merseyside.
The Reds recorded an eighth-placed finish in the months after Klopp's arrival, although he did manage to guide them to the finals of the League Cup and the Europa League. Unsurprisingly, the 52-year-old was ruthless in the transfer market in his to overhaul an underperforming playing squad - and it was an approach that paid dividends as Liverpool clinched the final Champions League berth on the final day of the season.
Klopp couldn't better that finish next term, with Liverpool forced to settle for a fourth-placed finish again. But the foundations of a championship-winning side were slowly starting to come together with the emergence of Trent Alexander-Arnold and the big-money signing of Virgil van Dijk.
Accolades - League Cup runner-up, Europa League runner-up
Pep Guardiola
Unlike Klopp, Guardiola arrived at the Etihad back in 2016 with the foundations already in place for Manchester City to dominate the Premier League. But that didn't stop the former Barcelona schemer from enduring a torrid maiden season in England, with Guardiola failing to win a trophy for the first time in his managerial career.
Unsurprisingly, Guardiola was back with a vengeance the following year. After making some astute signings, including Ederson and Bernardo Silva, City romped to their first league title under Guardiola - racking up a record-breaking 100 points in the process.
And the 51-year-old went one better the following year by clinching a history-making domestic treble for City. As well as retaining their Premier League crown, Guardiola's side also lifted the Community Shield and the League Cup to cap a stunning hat-trick of trophies.
Accolades - 2x Premier League titles, 1x Community Shield, 1x League Cup
