sport news PETER CROUCH: Why the shock? This is Manchester United's natural place now trends now
Picture me sat upright in a plush chair, looking earnestly at a presenter. Seconds after full-time, we are in the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand at Old Trafford, fans peering through the glass.
The scene is set. The inquest begins. I look out to the pitch, gesticulating towards the grass.
This is Manchester United. Manchester United Football Club. It's nowhere near good enough. Look around, the history of this place.
Manchester United are nowhere near good enough and are deservedly struggling this season
Quite a lot of United's players will be blaming Ralf Rangnick for their miserable campaign
A free tip for any budding pundits out there: always add Football Club on the end for greater emphasis.
So after Saturday's capitulation at Brighton, it is now official that this will be United's worst Premier League season since its inception. Forever in the shadow of former glories, still weighed down by the pressure of the past.
They will always be compared to the greats, because the club will always have its illustrious history and huge expectations. But that was Sir Alex Ferguson's United. This is a wholly different, disjointed club now.
After their Brighton loss, United will suffer their worst Premier League season since it began
The post-Ferguson United is one that can potentially lose at Brighton on any given day. When are we going to stop getting shocked by these results?
It will never be seen as acceptable but right now, this is United's natural place in the modern Premier League — chasing Champions League qualification. Sometimes they will do it, other times they won't.
They lose and shrug their shoulders and I don't get the impression that there are any great autopsies inside that dressing room. Nobody digging people out, coming to blows about performances. I feel they just talk behind each other's backs in little groups. Go on social media, say sorry and move on. Rinse and repeat.
The fans seem like they have had enough. Plenty were walking out of the Amex Stadium long before the end, which is quite unusual for their away support.
Manchester United fans had seen enough long before the full-time whistle on the south coast
United's natural place in the Premier League today is chasing Champions League qualification
Quite a lot of those players will be blaming Ralf Rangnick for a season which could yet finish with a place in the Europa Conference League. That is what players do, and plenty will still be around when Erik ten Hag greets them this summer.
The club will have to keep the vast majority of that squad, because a churn cannot take place in just one summer, but every single one of them, bar David de Gea, is replaceable based on this season. The only reason they have hung on to the top four for so long is the inconsistency around them.
Tottenham and Arsenal had shocking starts, West Ham have fallen away a bit. Everyone has badly struggled at times this year, and that isn't too dissimilar to the two occasions they have finished second since 2013 — miles behind the eventual winners and profiting from others enduring bad campaigns elsewhere.
It needs change from top to bottom but all of this is broken record territory. We talk about the new manager — again. Whether he is the right man or not — again. Ten Hag has a big job on his hands and I expect him to already be making ruthless decisions on some of them. Big names need dropping. Some of them will be told pretty early that they are not required.
Yet he needs the tools to be successful. The guys who have been and gone before Ole Gunnar Solskjaer — David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho — are
