Farce has not been a stranger to Old Trafford over the past 12 years. In fact, it has been a regular companion.

Manchester United's post-Ferguson chaos saw them suck in and spit out David Moyes, the chosen one whom Sir Alex had urged the club and its fans to support, before being bruised and burned by two of the big beast beasts of European coaching. It was time for a pivot to the bright young talents on the continent.

But that change had a prelude. And because it was United in its new muddled incarnation, that prelude started with a relatively-inexperienced, part-time, 63-year-old, who was working as head of sports and development at Lokomotiv Moscow when United came calling.

When Ralf Rangnick first appeared before the cameras at Old Trafford in early December 2021, he had the quiet confidence of a man who could one day be king – or at least the kingmaker.

‘I’m fully aware the club might be looking for a new manager,’ said Rangnick. ‘Maybe if they ask my opinion and everything goes well, I might make the same recommendation that I did at RB Leipzig twice - to keep working with me for one (more) year.’

In the end, Rangnick was neither king nor kingmaker. He didn’t get the job, nor did he have a say in appointing the man whom United would task with delivering a new beginning. That manager, Erik ten Hag, revealed the two men had never met, and had only ever exchanged one phone call and a couple of WhatsApp messages.

And so the farce unfolded. Rangnick became a byword in this troubled part of United’s history for terminal indecision and rank incompetence from a hierarchy frozen by its own ineffectuality.

Rangnick will go down as the interim manager who replaced the caretaker manager (Michael Carrick) who replaced the manager (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer). In more than a decade of low points, this felt as if United were close to the bottom.

Although the 63-year-old was lauded in Germany as the ‘godfather of gegenpressing’, those two seasons at Leipzig – one of them in the second tier – were the only times he had worked in management in the decade since he had lost out to Ferguson in the Champions League semi-finals as head coach of Schalke.

And he was in no way prepared for the rampaging chaos and dysfunction of a United he was supposed to shepherd into a new, modern world and away from the panic post-Ferguson.

'Wreck-it Ralph', as he was lampooned, wanted to bring his assistant Lars Kornetka with him, but Kornetka stayed in Moscow and bizarrely ended up providing live analysis on United games from 2,000 miles away.

In his place, Rangnick hired Chris Armas, recently fired as head coach of Toronto and nicknamed Ted Lasso by the United players because his methods and accent were so similar to the eponymous hero of that TV series.

Young Scottish coach Ewan Sharp, also known to Rangnick from Red Bull, joined the circus. ‘He’d done analysis in MLS for New York Red Bulls, and now he was coaching Cristiano Ronaldo. The players were instantly unimpressed,’ said one source.

Having also appointed Sascha Lense as United’s first full-time psychologist for 20 years because he wanted to ‘get into the heart, brains and blood’ of his players, Rangnick at least had the character to challenge a United squad that was mollycoddled under Solskjaer.

The comment that came to define his time at United was that the squad needed ‘open-heart surgery’. When he uttered those words at a press conference at Carrington in April 2022, Rangnick took off his glasses to emphasise the fact it was plain to see.

Sensing that he had little chance of landing the job full-time, he took to making unprompted statements that had United’s communications team running for cover. His record was what you might have expected from a man who was plucked from relative obscurity to manage one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Eleven wins from 29 games was the worst of any United manager in the Premier League era until Ruben Amorim showed up. But, before the Portuguese manager, came a messiah from Dutch football.

United had already identified Ten Hag as the progressive European coach they wanted after his success with a young Ajax team on a relatively small budget.

Ten Hag was a principled man and would only speak to United on his days off at Ajax. A team of United executives - director of football John Murtough, chief executive Richard Arnold, technical director Darren Fletcher and chief operating officer Collette Roche - flew out to Amsterdam to meet him.

Rangnick floated around Old Trafford like a great thinker, a free radical, but there was something puritanical about Ten Hag. Everyone was impressed by the Dutchman’s intelligence and meticulous approach to management, even down to demanding the grass on the pitch was cut to a certain length in millimetres, and drinks bottles were set out in perfectly straight lines.

As soon as Ajax’s season had finished and his work there was done, Ten Hag flew to London for several days of meetings with United executives at the club’s offices in Mayfair and watched Rangnick’s final game in charge at Crystal Palace.

It was clear from the outset that Ten Hag would do things a different way – and that he was more genial than people who couldn’t see past the rather awkward public persona gave him credit for.

At his unveiling, he insisted on the regular United reporters being seated in the front row so he could walk in and greet them personally in front of the cameras. When they returned from his first tour to Thailand and Australia in the summer, he emailed to thank them for their ‘engagement’ and to show appreciation that, like him and the players, the job involved long periods away from home and family.

Relationships were being cemented by a clever coach, with a more sophisticated approach than some of his predecessors. But one, crucial relationship was already sour.

That first tour – and Ten Hag’s first six months – was dominated by Cristiano Ronaldo, amid speculation the Portugal superstar wanted to leave just a year after returning to Old Trafford.

Ten Hag had gone to extra lengths to get Ronaldo onside, holding one-to-one talks shortly after his arrival. But it was clear trouble was brewing. Despite showing Ronaldo the respect he felt the player deserved, Ten Hag said he wanted the five-time Ballon d’Or winner to press hard.

Ronaldo, then 37, thought a player of his age and reputation should have the team built around his strengths. It was a terrible start to their relationship and the two were stuck in an unhappy marriage.

While his agent, Jorge Mendes, sought a way out, Ronaldo tried to force a separation. He didn’t turn up for the tour and was given permission to stay in Lisbon by United, who were mindful that he and his partner Georgina Rodriguez had lost a son in childbirth only three months earlier.

At Ten Hag’s opening press conference at the Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok, more than half the questions were about a player who was 6,000 miles away. When United returned to Manchester, Ronaldo played the first half of their final pre-season friendly against Rayo Vallecano at Old Trafford, but left before the end and Ten Hag branded his actions ‘unacceptable’.

It was a precursor to a more serious incident in October when Ronaldo refused to come on as a late substitute against Tottenham, and again left before the final whistle. This time, he was dropped and made to train alone as his relationship with Ten Hag deteriorated.

Ronaldo’s return had smacked of weakness from the club anyway. He had once been a great player, but signing him a second time felt like a futile attempt to recreate a glorious past with a superstar who was past his best.

It felt as if, once again, United were signing a name, a reputation and a commercial icon, not a player. Merchandise sales might go up but an ageing Ronaldo was not going to help them move up the table. He was another sign of a club trying to cling to its past.

When Ronaldo’s bombshell interview with Piers Morgan leaked immediately after United’s final game before the mid-season World Cup in Qatar, it was clear there was no way back. His contract was ripped up and a major weight was lifted from Ten Hag’s shoulders.

The Ronaldo row turned United into a soap opera when they were desperate to be taken seriously again. Just as Ronaldo dominated the narrative on tour, he was the hot topic on United’s winter training camp in southern Spain.

Now free to discuss the issue, Ten Hag told journalists over lunch at the club’s base at the Montecastillo golf resort in Jerez that Ronaldo had never told him he wanted to leave.

‘In the summer we had one talk,’ said Ten Hag. ‘He came in and said, “I will tell you in seven days if I want to stay”. Then he came back and said, “I want to stay”. Until that (interview), I never heard anything.’

United backed Ten Hag and he had won his first major power battle. It was important for a man whose philosophy was based on discipline and attention to detail.

He soon laid down the law at United. Alcohol was banned in match weeks, which accounted for most of the year. There were regular weigh-ins with punishments for players who were over their limit. A mobile phone ban was imposed at meal times.

There was a crackdown on dress code too, with sliders in particular forbidden. More than anything, they had to be on time for team meetings and meals. Alejandro Garnacho, a player who never stopped looking like an immature show-pony at Old Trafford, fell foul of this rule twice on tour and did not play a single minute as a result.

Ten Hag did acknowledge that the lifts at the Athenee Hotel in Bangkok were ‘s**t’ – players ended up abandoning them and running up 29 floors to be on time – but it was too late for some of the regular offenders.

The manager switched the home and away dugout at Old Trafford so he would be closer to the tunnel and the Stretford End, and because it was the half of the pitch used by United to warm up.

He redesigned the player briefing room at Carrington, with upgraded technology and tiered seating for the players, and later a privacy wall next to the first-team training pitch so his players could work in secret. The projects cost £200,000 each.

Ten Hag wanted United to be the best transitional team in the Premier League, quick to win the ball and counter-attack. But it left his midfield over-exposed, and there were problems playing out from the back. Both issues were ruthlessly exploited by Brighton and Brentford as he lost his first two games, killing the optimism over his first summer in charge.

And soon a familiar pattern of transfers developed, with targets missed and underwhelming players brought in on overpriced deals. Having finally admitted defeat in their pursuit of Frenkie de Jong by overpaying for £60million Casemiro, the poor start caused panic at United - who agreed to sign Antony from Ajax for £86m even though he was available for £25m less just a couple of months earlier.

Both those signings spoke of poor research in United’s recruitment process. Casemiro came from Real Madrid, where he had won every trophy available. Real Madrid tend not to sell their best players until it is clear they are entering the autumn of their careers. It was not a surprise that Casemiro’s Old Trafford sojourn has been a crushing disappointment.

Antony represents another low point. He may be, pound for pound, the worst signing in United’s history. He was a mixture of anonymity, mediocrity and downright hilarity at Old Trafford. He was most remembered for circling the ball as if he were playing ring-a-ring-a-roses during a match.

With Lisandro Martinez also joining United from Ten Hag’s old club, along with Christian Eriksen – who had trained with Ajax during his recovery from a cardiac arrest – and Tyrell Malacia from Feyenoord, there was no shortage of players who were either Dutch or had a history with Ten Hag.

No one had to be a genius to work out what was coming next. When Ten Hag went, whoever succeeded him would be stuck with a gaggle of Dutchmen that he would want to move on as soon as possible. United have a wearying amount of football executives but have, for too long, lacked a coherent, consistent recruitment policy that can outlive management changes.

Despite the poor start and an excruciating 7-0 loss to Liverpool, Ten Hag recovered to win the Carabao Cup and qualify for the Champions League by finishing third in his first season. In the light of some of what has gone since, that feels like luxury.

United also reached the FA Cup final, but defeat by Manchester City at Wembley confirmed Ten Hag’s reservations about David de Gea, who had made some costly mistakes in the second half of the season.

On Ten Hag’s recommendation, a contract offer to De Gea was withdrawn and he was shown the door after 12 years, replaced by Ten Hag's old 'keeper Andre Onana. More Ajax. More deadwood to be moved on by the next guy.

United also signed Ten Hag’s former Utrecht midfielder Sofyan Amrabat and Rasmus Hojlund for £72m from Atalanta, with Ten Hag’s representative Kees Vos and his Sports Entertainment Agency involved in both moves.

There was some concern over Vos’ influence at United, and some players also felt the manager showed favouritism to his old players, particularly Antony on the right wing - at the expense of Jadon Sancho, Amad Diallo and Omari Forson.

When a frustrated Sancho challenged Ten Hag on social media for saying he was left out of the squad at Arsenal in September 2023 for not training at the required level, he was frozen out. Efforts were made behind the scenes to broker a peace deal by Murtough and some of the senior players, but that relied on Sancho saying sorry and he steadfastly refused.

The England winger was made to train and eat on his own at Carrington which did not sit comfortably with team-mates, after Sancho had spent three months out of the team in Ten Hag’s first season because he was not ‘physically or mentally ready to play’ according to the Dutchman. Sancho’s camp were unhappy that the player’s psychological state was discussed in public.

Ten Hag was supposed to be curing the idea of a dysfunctional club but it was already starting to appear as if the issues simply ran too deep. Sancho rejoined Borussia Dortmund on loan in January 2024, but he was by no means the only player who fell out with Ten Hag that season.

He had issues with Casemiro and Raphael Varane who, like their former Real Madrid team-mate Ronaldo, were big personalities who felt they deserved more respect from the manager.

Marcus Rashford was one of Ten Hag’s favourites, but their relationship soured towards the end after the England star was lambasted for going to a nightclub for his birthday the night after United lost a Manchester derby, and again when he missed training following a 12-hour tequila bender in Belfast.

In September 2024, a month before his sacking, Ten Hag said Rashford had to ‘get his lifestyle right’ before benching him for the goalless draw against Crystal Palace. It was a problem he would bequeath to Amorim.

The impression that some of the players were immature and childish grew and grew. Hojlund complained that some team-mates weren’t passing to him following a fallout with Diogo Dalot during a Champions League tie in Copenhagen.

Despite the internal friction and increasing uncertainty over Ten Hag’s future after an eighth-place finish that was then United’s worst of the Premier League era, he and his players came together to stun City in the FA Cup final.

The team spirit around United’s 2-1 win was said to be excellent as players parked any problems, and even Varane fought back from injury in time despite having little loyalty to the manager.

Ten Hag and his assistants, Mitchell van der Gaag and Steve McClaren, played their part too. When the players checked into the Marriott hotel in Mayfair, there was a letter written by their partner or loved ones waiting for them, and goodwill video messages from family and friends were also sent via WhatsApp.

The night before the game, the players were shown a video montage of them fighting for each other to the soundtrack of Al Pacino’s speech from Any Given Sunday. Then, on the morning of the Cup final, there was another video of one of United’s security team explaining how she and her unit had worked together and fought against the odds to overcome the enemy in Afghanistan.

It all paid off with the biggest win of his reign, but Ten Hag left the hotel the next morning still in the dark over his future.

He later admitted that communications with Ineos had all but shut down while Ratcliffe and Co bought themselves time by ordering an end-of-season review, carried out by Sir Dave Brailsford, Jason Wilcox and Jean-Claude Blanc.

Brailsford and Ratcliffe held talks on a boat off the coast of Finland, and conversations continued with potential candidates to replace Ten Hag. Thomas Tuchel and Roberto De Zerbi were the most advanced.

United’s executives lost their nerve. It was widely believed that they had decided before the Cup final that Ten Hag should go.

But they changed their minds based on one performance and the emotional reaction of United fans to a morale-boosting win over City. United’s politburo of stone-faced executives should have known better.

The club’s strategic review wasn’t the only off-the-field distraction for Ten Hag, who also had to deal with the ongoing fallout from the Mason Greenwood saga and Antony going on leave while he fought allegations of domestic abuse.

In August 2023, news was leaked that United were planning to bring Greenwood back into the first-team squad six months after charges of attempted rape and assault against him had been dropped.

The club massively misjudged the public mood, and the attitude of many of their own staff, around the Greenwood issue and, after a huge backlash against their plans, the move to reinstate him was abandoned.

Soon after that, Daily Mail Sport was in the press room at Old Trafford for a match when one of the club's communications officers came over to deliver a lecture.

The official, who was well-meaning, said it was a tragedy what had happened to Greenwood and that the loss of his talent was a blow to football. Much ill-feeling against Greenwood had been generated by a gruesome video circulating on social media that did not cast him in a favourable light.

But United's response to the affair and their reluctance to lose their investment made them look tone-deaf, grasping and out-of-touch. It was a PR disaster that told a story of a club that had lost its moral compass as well as its football dominance.

In the end, Ten Hag was given a stay of execution and 16 days after Wembley, a delegation led by Brailsford flew to his holiday base in Ibiza to offer him a contract extension. Quite why Brailsford – a cycling guru who knew nothing about football - was involved in such important decisions is best known to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, although it was not too long before Brailsford was quietly jettisoned.

After another poor start to a season, an executive committee meeting was called at the Ineos HQ in Knightsbridge in October with the manager’s situation once again on the agenda. Ten Hag survived again but not for much longer. He was sacked 116 days after the Ibiza summit after a 2-1 defeat at West Ham, with United 14th in the Premier League.

As Ten Hag jetted back to his homeland, United CEO Omar Berrada was about to fly to Portugal for talks with Sporting Lisbon over Amorim.

Wilcox was initially sceptical over Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 system, while Dan Ashworth, who had been poached from Newcastle amid much controversy and was now sporting director at Old Trafford, was in favour of proven English or Premier League options such as Gareth Southgate, Graham Potter or Marco Silva.

But Berrada got his man, paying Amorim’s £8.3m release clause and an additional £900,000 to get him three weeks early.

Together with the £10.4m cost of paying off Ten Hag and his backroom team, it means United have handed out more than £54m in compensation to managers and coaching staff since Ferguson’s retirement.

Amorim is honest, stubborn and engaging but sometimes his openness and his disregard for image has been damaging. His behaviour in United’s Carabao Cup exit at the hands of Grimsby Town was Exhibit A, as a drenched Amorim fiddled with his tactics board as his team were humiliated at Blundell Park.

How could a manager who had won trophies in Portugal not beat Grimsby? Why was he so hapless when his plan unravelled? Where was the brains and passion and determination to change the game?

If Grimsby was a new low, Amorim's team had been at the wrong end of the Premier League since his arrival from Sporting Lisbon, where he signed off in November 2024 with a thumping Champions League victory over Manchester City.

He would have preferred to start work at the end of the 2024-25 season, but relented when faced with a ‘now or never’ ultimatum from Berrada. His fears were well-founded. After only a month in the job, he warned ‘a storm will come’ – but no one at United realised just how severe it would be.

It was the first of several startling public admissions from Amorim who said his team were probably one of the worst in United’s history, that he would rather pick his 63-year-old goalkeeper coach Jorge Vital than Rashford, and would later go on to admit that ‘I sometimes hate my players and want to quit’.

The low point came during a 3-1 home defeat by Brighton in January after which a tearful Amorim cut his hand during a dressing-room outburst, in which he also damaged a TV screen. It was not the only time that emotion got the better of him.

The only salvation from United’s worst domestic season in half a century came in the Europa League, which offered the consolation of a backdoor route to the Champions League and a £100m jackpot.

Defeat by a poor Tottenham team in the final in Bilbao denied the club a happy end to a wretched season. Hardly surprising then that Amorim pushed back on plans to let Amazon film a behind-the-scenes documentary that would have been worth more than £10m to the club.

Amorim's 3-4-2-1 system was a double whammy: his players were uncomfortable with it, and opponents lapped it up. Opposition teams were very happy to line up against a team with no Plan B. But he claimed that even the Pope couldn’t persuade him to alter his tactics.

It offered an insight into the mind of a man who could seem arrogant and aloof to his players at times, with Amorim going so far as to suggest that the pundits and media were to blame for planting seeds of doubt in their minds by criticising his philosophy.

The other consequence of a system that involved playing two No 10s behind a centre forward was that a club whose attacking traditions were built on wingers began offloading them at quite a rate.

Antony and Sancho were not worth their places in the squad. But Rashford and Garnacho were bombed out after Amorim lost patience with them over their attitude and dropped them for the Manchester derby in December.

Rashford never played for United again, going out on loan to Aston Villa and then Barcelona. Garnacho got a second chance but upset Amorim by complaining publicly about being on the bench for the Europa League final.

Having attended an executive committee meeting in Monaco two days after the game and been given the backing of his employers, Amorim returned to Carrington and told Garnacho to ‘pray’ he could find a new club.

The Argentine joined Chelsea after spending the summer training separately from the first team in a ‘bomb squad’ with Rashford, Antony, Sancho and Tyrell Malacia.

The departures of Rashford and Garnacho were a blow to United traditionalists, who regretted losing two academy stars at a time when a third, Kobbie Mainoo, was becoming increasingly disillusioned with his lack of game time.

The Old Trafford hierarchy backed Amorim’s judgment and spent £236m on new players in the summer. However, the problem with signing two No 10s in Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo was that it shunted United’s best player and captain, Bruno Fernandes, back into midfield - where he was less well suited, and exacerbated the problem of not recruiting a new No 6 to shore up the middle.

As if United's continued woeful performances were not bad enough, supporters - robbed of European action - have had their noses rubbed in it.

United rejects, led by Rashford at Barcelona and Scott McTominay and Hojlund at Napoli, have been playing with a renewed vigour and ambition under new managers and at less dysfunctional clubs.

A few days after the Grimsby match, Amorim couldn’t even look when Fernandes converted a stoppage-time winner from the spot against Burnley. The coach’s body language suggested the self-doubt that had led to him considering his future in January, and dreading going to games, had returned.

As Amorim approached the end of his first year in charge, his future again appeared in doubt. The club would only say that no replacements had been lined up. Ineos insiders insisted he still had Ratcliffe’s backing and would be given the rest of the season.

After he won what felt like a crucial game at home to Sunderland, Ratcliffe suggested Amorim should be given a total of three years before he was judged. Not even the Portuguese believed that. ‘You know, I know and Jim knows that football is not like that,’ he said. No manager had been given that long in all the years since Ferguson retired. These past 12 years have been a managerial horror show.

And if we started with farce, let’s end with farce. As Amorim’s early-season troubles intensified, a United fan who had pledged not to cut his hair until his team won five games in a row began to gain cult status.

Frank Ilett, known on social media as The United Strand, began the challenge in October 2024 to 'spread some humour'. He has certainly done that although United’s fortunes make it look like decidedly black humour. Ilett’s hair will soon be down to his toes. He got his hopes up when United beat Sunderland, Liverpool and Brighton this autumn but then Amorim’s side drew, at Nottingham Forest. Close but no cigar.

TOMORROW - Read Volume 3: The ruinous transfer policy