Had Manchester United's convincing 3-1 defeat at Watford occurred under Louis van Gaal last season, it would have been cast as a watershed, a moment that proved once and for all the need for change and restructuring.
Sunday's lame defeat was as bad as anything that has gone before and if Jose Mourinho's appointment as United manager signified a rebuild, surely that process must be accelerated now.
Mourinho, who also repeated his assertion of eight days ago that some of his players do not handle pressure situations well, appears well attuned to the fact that something fundamental needs to change in United's mentality -- but that is far from the whole story.
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The natural question, upon hearing Mourinho so willingly pick apart an error like Shaw's, is why he does not address the more glaringly obvious. It does not take a frame-by-frame replay to understand that United, just as last season, are painfully sluggish going forwards and lack the most basic fluidity. There are no partnerships across the pitch, no real relationships being formed, and there seems little prospect of that being remedied until difficult decisions are taken.
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Wayne Rooney sometimes seems an easy target but can rarely have been less effective in a United shirt than here. One second half cross, delivered straight into the stands under no pressure, was quickly glossed over by Marcus Rashford's equaliser to make it 1-1. By the end, though, Rooney's frustrated figure was very much to the fore, lashing wildly over from 30 yards and receiving a booking for a rash challenge after Camilo Zuniga's goal made it 2-1. There is never any shortage of effort from Rooney; the things that lack, these days, are speed, invention and confidence. Too many moves broke down at his feet and the sense, increasingly, is of a player needing to be put out of his misery.
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