Shambolic Manchester United thrashed by Tottenham as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s problems laid bare

Within seven minutes, though, Spurs were in front. They drew level when a terrible header by Maguire bounced off Eric Bailly and then Maguire made it even worse when he tried to nod the ball back to David De Gea only for it to fall short as Lamela put him under pressure. For some reason Maguire grappled with Luke Shaw as he tried to shield the ball and it fell to Tanguy Ndombele with his shot deflecting off Maguire and into the net.

Maguire, Bailly and Shaw were again all at fault after Kane was fouled clumsily by Maguire and took a quick free-kick that sent Son running through with the forward dinking his shot over De Gea. He was simply too quick for Bailly and Shaw.

It was from a Spurs corner that Martial was dismissed as he reacted after Lamela pushed him in the chest by flicking his hand into the Argentinian’s face. Lamela went down and referee Anthony Taylor showed the red card with Martial loitering by the corner flag in the vain hope that the VAR would intervene. But off he went.

Soon after and it was more awful defending from United as they stupidly tried to play the ball out from the back with Bailly putting Nemanja Matic under pressure on the edge of his own penalty area and Kane sliding in to dispossess the midfielder. The ball was crossed low by Son and there was Kane to side-foot home.

It carried on. Moussa Sissoko switched play to Serge Aurier – where was Shaw? – and he had time and space to cross low with the ball flicking off Maguire as he tried to cover. It rant to Son who steered it through De Gea’s legs at the near post.

Before half-time it could have been worse with Son’s control letting him down as he ran through and Kane heading across goal and while Solksjaer tried to shore things up by bringing on two defensive midfielders, Scott McTominay and Fred, it was Spurs who scored again.

Once more United were at fault. There was no pressure on Pierre Emile Hojbjerg as he slid a smart pass inside Paul Pogba – who simply failed to react – allowing Aurier to run onto it and shoot low across De Gea and into the corner of the net.

They threatened again when Fred’s poor pass was intercepted and Kane was given a sight of goal only for De Gea to turn away his low shot down to his left. But United were never far from bringing about their own downfall and when Ben Davies ran into the United area Pogba inexplicably slid in to bring him down and the penalty was given with Kane firing it powerfully past De Gea.

The frustration for United was shown in a horribly cynical tackle by Shaw on substitute Lucas Moura for which he, too, could have been sent off. Solskjaer just looked shell-shocked.