Scientists can’t quite agree on how long it will be until the universe ends. The most trigger-happy astrophysicists have it at around 22bn years, but if we’re lucky it could keep chugging away for 200bn. Earth has slightly less time – becoming a burnt-out lifeless rock in about 5bn, after the sun runs out of fuel and enters what’s known as its “red giant phase”.
Which brings us to Manchester United – who appeared to run out of fuel in 2013. As a gaunt, expressionless Erik ten Hag stood in his technical area at Old Trafford on Sunday, it was hard not to feel that this Groundhog Day paint-by-numbers crisis might be put out of its misery only by the demise of the entire planet.
What can Ten Hag do about the sorry decline of Man…