Now, finally, the dithering and the dissembling of the mediocrities who run what used to be a football club called Manchester United has to stop.
After managerial mistake after mistake, the jumped-up accountants who rule at Old Trafford have no choice but to accept their last throw of the dice did not work.
If they had an ounce of self-awareness, men like executive vice chairman Ed Woodward and managing director Richard Arnold would fire Ole Gunnar Solskjaer today and then follow him straight out of the door.
Solskjaer has to go. It does not matter any more that he scored United's winning goal in the 1999 Champions League final. It does not matter that some of his ex-team-mates are squeamish about saying he should be fired. It does not matter that he is a thoroughly nice man.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's job is hanging by a thread following a damning 4-1 defeat at Watford
Richard Arnold (left) and Ed Woodward (right) must take responsibility for their failings
The Glazer family (pictured: Joel Glazer, Avram Glazer) are the root of Man United's problems
He took United so far and it became obvious earlier this season he could take them no further. They are seventh in the Premier League, 12 points adrift of the leaders. There is no coming back from Saturday's 4-1 defeat at Watford. It is over. But please, let's not pretend Solskjaer is the root of the problem at Old Trafford. He is not even close to being that.
The root of the problem is the Glazer family who own the club, and the men like Woodward and Arnold who they employ to do their bidding.
They drain money from United like leeches. They fret more about profit than performance. They have turned United from a team that boasted of being the biggest club in the world into a laughing stock.
There is no point in trying to be diplomatic here. The men who run United are incompetents. It was obvious to everyone by early this season that things were going backwards after the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo proved to be a huge own goal and yet they did nothing.
They sat on their hands. They fiddled. Antonio Conte, a proven title-winner, was available but the feeling was the weak men in charge at United were intimidated by his strength of character. How pathetic is that?
Now Conte has been snapped up by Tottenham Hotspur. Their chairman Daniel Levy has made plenty of mistakes of his own but at least he was decisive in his pursuit of the best manager on the market.
Where do United go once Solskjaer has departed? There is no one obvious readily available any more, although Zinedine Zidane, who has won trophies as a manager at Real Madrid but nowhere else, appears to be emerging as the favourite to take over.
Woodward is currently in the midst of a long goodbye he should never have been granted. If he were judged on how many new noodle partners he has signed, he might have a case to make. But this is about football.
United dithered with Solskjaer and allowed Tottenham to go out and appoint Antonio Conte
Zinedine Zidane is one of the few names in the frame that actually finds themselves available
It was announced he would leave seven months ago after he dragged United into the disaster that was the plan for a European Super League. He should have departed straight away but he is clinging on for the remnants of an ego trip. All that has achieved, probably, is adding the firing of another manager to his resume.
It is astonishing that a club like United was briefing recently that it was willing to let Solskjaer limp on to the end of the season and appoint a successor then. Really?
The best-supported club in England, a club that used to reign supreme, happy to write off a
