Every time the TV cameras pan to Ed Woodward, squirming awkwardly in his seat in the directors’ box during another debacle for the modern-day Manchester United, the mind goes back to something he once let slip.



On his desk, United’s executive vice-chairman kept a photograph of the scoreboard at the Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraes, as the club fell to a wretched 2-0 defeat away to Olympiacos in a Champions League match on February 25, 2014.



Woodward kept it there as a reminder of what he imagined would be the nadir for United, then in their painful first season of the post-Ferguson era. In his mind, that was the low point from which he would lead them back to glory.



It makes you wonder. Does the investment banker still have that photograph on his desk? Or does he keep updating it with each fresh humiliation? Is he still trying to persuade himself that each new low will be the last?



There have been many more unedifying results over the past six...