Manchester United’s fossilised defence sums up the super club’s deep malaise in defeat by Burnley

Nemanja Matic, Phil Jones and Harry Maguire could only watch as Chris Wood sent Burnley on their way to a 2-0 victory of the sort that has become all too common at Old Trafford

Harry Maguire cannot stop Chris Wood from firing home the first goal (Getty Images)

Even before Jay Rodriguez’s brilliant piledriver cracked against the crossbar, the sight of Chris Wood’s first-half goal at Old Trafford was something to behold in itself, and as he gracefully swivelled and swept a finish inside the near post, it had most of the Manchester United defence stopping to gawp.

Nemanja Matic lay on the ground having just been beaten in the air, watching helplessly over his shoulder. Harry Maguire had a front-row seat, having somehow missed Wood running past him and on to the loose ball, and as his gentle flail of a man-marking job came to nothing, he stopped and stared. In front of him Phil Jones stood almost motionless, transfixed, like he was wearing a virtual reality headset and the game was rushing around him. Reach out and he could almost touch the Burnley players.

It was an opening goal that Burnley deserved, on route to a 2-0 victory that was well earned, and yet it was the simplicity of it all – a long ball, a flick on, a whack at goal – which was most alarming for United supporters watching on.

As Wood tore off towards the corner to celebrate, this unfortunate trio seemed in that moment to summarise so many things lacking in this current guise of Manchester United. Matic feels like a relic from a bygone age when football was a little more stationary, some monolithic fossil of defensive midfield play the club are dedicatedly preserving. Maguire has been thrown the captain’s armband mid-season, which could be viewed as a boon for the 26-year-old but really illustrates the lack of leaders at the club. And Jones just exists, still there, an experienced campaigner who somehow seems as naive as he ever was.

None of this is really their fault. Above them too many mistakes have been made for too long, and in a way they are just paying the price for being at a super club which has forgotten how to be one.

Yet somehow they each represented some part of that malaise, one that has no end in sight. Maguire is still searching for the right centre-back partner; Jones has a contract until 2023. All around them there were more problems that solutions. David de Gea’s form remains occasionally brilliant but strangely inconsistent, as if his mind is elsewhere. Aaron Wan-Bissaka is a talented full-back who contributes too little going forwards. The only real bright spark, Brandon Williams, appears destined to spend his career making surging forward runs which are completely ignored by his teammates.

United’s problems are deep-set, rooted in their foundations. Other major clubs have been there too, of course, and it will not last forever. Liverpool are the obvious comparison and their journey back to the summit should give United some hope, as bitter as that may be to swallow.

Yet it should also herald a warning: Liverpool went three decades without a title, and needed a consistent string of intelligent decisions to go with their financial muscle in order to rise again. As United’s defence watched Wood peel away towards the Burnley fans high up in one corner of Old Trafford, that necessary sequence of events couldn’t have felt any further away.