By Ian Herbert For Mailonline
Published: 16:35 BST, 25 April 2019 | Updated: 16:35 BST, 25 April 2019
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The waterfall of rain cascading from the roof to the seats, where the Stretford End meets the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand, screamed out the story of Manchester United's hubris, complacency and decline on Wednesday night. Even the so-called 'Theatre of Dreams' is not fit for purpose.
Its occupants have fallen to a position 25 points adrift of Manchester City in today's Premier League because they grew mightily smug: content that they had won more titles than anyone else, earned more commercial income than anyone else and could continuing buying their way to more success.
Some of the conference calls with the club's institutional investors have captured the warped sense of what modernity looks like, in recent years. It's just over four years since executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward used new signing Angel di Maria as a sign of United's growing appeal, telling investors about a '12-times increase on Google searches on the day of his transfer from Real Madrid' and, in relation to Radamel Falcao, 'a 10-times increase in searches' compared with the day he signed for Monaco from Atletico Madrid. 'There is a feeling at the club that we have the start of something special,' Woodward said at the time.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Manchester United are 25 points adrift of rivals City in the league table
Both of those players were abject failures, of course – their services having been secured more in an attempt to demonstrate that United could still make a noise, make a splash, attract the big names, than any material strategy governing the way the team might play and evolve.
As they lurched along, discovering the hard way that the loudest are not necessarily the