At least no one will have to ask Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford where they went on their holidays when Manchester United's players return for pre-season training. No need to waste time on pleasantries. The only catching up they need to do is with Manchester City and Liverpool and we all know that is going to take a while.
But one image of the sojourn Lingard and Rashford enjoyed in Miami Beach may still linger with United fans — and the rest of us — for a while. When Lingard decided to give us a video tour of the apartment the players had shared on their trip, he wandered into one room and captured his friend, Jamal Branker, face down and gyrating with a pillow.
Branker's name may at some point pass into United legend as rhyming slang but the sight of him attempting to have sex with an empty bed seemed like the perfect analogy for a club wallowing in its impotence while the conquests are being made elsewhere. At United, the good times have gone away. All that's left are some crumpled sheets and an urgent need to get the cleaners in.
Paul Pogba has asked to leave Manchester United this summer, with the club crippled
Jesse Lingard's Snapchat video showed Jamal Branker, face down and gyrating with a pillow
It has been six seasons since Manchester United won the Premier League but even with the signing of Daniel James and the imminent arrival of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, it has been another summer of drift, procrastination and discontent at a club that was once so dominant in English football.
The club have become the Premier League equivalent of a giant wood-chipper, chewing up the reputations of players and managers, devouring mountains of bank notes and leaving a few piles of sawdust to show for it. The failure of executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward to appoint a director of football in the summer is yet another sign of a club gripped by stasis and incompetence.
The hard truth is that United are further away now from reclaiming the hegemony they enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson than they ever have been. In their quest to rediscover the glories of the past, they have gone right back to square one. This is England's biggest club, stuck in one Year Zero after another.
Manchester United, England's biggest club, are stuck in one Year Zero after another
It has got to the point where it is difficult to see them breaking free of the cycle of despair that they have fallen into. Once, their dominance seemed so free and effortless but now the club have become a soap opera for actors who seem to believe they belong in a better show.
The cycle runs like this: United fail to qualify for the Champions League and so find it hard to attract the best players in the world. The only elite players who consider them are the ones who are coming for the money. Those aren't the kind of characters you build a title-winning team around, as United are finding out. So they leave and the cycle keeps on spinning.
This summer, it's Paul Pogba who wants to leave. Pogba is a brilliant midfielder, a player with vision and drive and grace, a star who played a vital role in France winning the World Cup in Russia last year. And yet at United, he has only shown fleeting glimpses of his talent. And now he appears to have grown tired of trying to lift himself out of the bog of mediocrity around him.
Paul Pogba wants to leave and has only shown fleeting glimpses of his talent at Old Trafford
'After this season and everything that happened this season with my season being my best season as well... I think for me it
