AI foresees post-apocalyptic Old Trafford if United fail to solve issues in time

OLD TRAFFORD could become more suitable for zombies than Red Devils within just two decades.

That's the post-apocalyptic vision predicted by AI images - unless Manchester United fix all their creaky, leaky stadium problems.

Luckily, United's minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has identified the issue as a vital part of his plans for a massive revamp on and off the pitch.

But the "Old Trafford falls" - the taunting new moniker for the club's sieve-like roof - has symbolized the Red Devils' plight this season.

"You must be soaking" might be another way of expressing the damp squib of a campaign for Erik ten Hag's squad.

And Arsenal fans chanted "Old Trafford is falling down" as the Gunners triumphed 1-0 in a stormy deluge last Sunday - with water cascading through the roof at what could now be called the Theatre of Streams.

AI's doom-laden vision of how the country's second-largest stadium could look in the mid-2040s is the worst case scenario - and surely unlikely.

Nonetheless, the images are another alert for Ratcliffe of how dramatic, expensive - and arguably urgent - the refurbishment must be.

The pictures look like scenes from a horror movie - perhaps to be titled "The Night of the Living Red".

Despair and disrepair dominate the gloomy representation of a do-nothing nightmare future.

The patchy roof has gone to rack and ruin in the desolate depiction, and the pitch is littered with debris.

Meanwhile, the surroundings of the stadium look more like a bleak industrial site than the setting for one of football's most grandiose venues.

However, before any stadium re-build, Ineos CEO Ratcliffe and United's new board must decide whether to keep under-fire manager Ten Hag.

So for now the priority is sorting out the reign rather than the rain.