It is not just on the pitch that Manchester United are being outmanoeuvred this season. Just as the Barclays Premier League title is being prised, finger by finger, from their grasp, so too are they losing their grip on Wayne Rooney, whom Ed Woodward, the executive chairman, has described as “irreplaceable”.
That was in October, when the scale of the challenges facing United in the terrifying new era appeared not to have dawned on Woodward or David Moyes as they took over from David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson respectively. It seems typical of the miseries being endured by the new regime at Old Trafford that even its one apparent victory last summer — a resounding triumph in the eyes of Woodward, who went out