‘We can play [to] very high levels within the same match, and also we can go [to] very low levels in the same game,’ Erik ten Hag mused in the bowels of Wembley Stadium.
‘That's not explainable but it has to do with managing the game, taking responsibility, taking responsibility for each other. I have to teach my players clearly. We have to do better in such occasions [after conceding] but the difficult thing to do is put ourselves in a winning position, the last thing is much easier.’
Still teaching two years into his tenure? Easy to pass on those instructions? Don’t be ridiculous, Erik.
The problems that led to United’s dramatic 30-minute collapse at Wembley - arguably the most damning of the Ten Hag era - were oh, so familiar. So damning was this display that the teaching may well get cut short before he even reaches summer school.
While United kicked and screamed their way to the final via a 4-2 penalty shootout, going from 3-0 up to 3-3, and then extra-time where a Haji Wright's ‘toenail’ was all that spared a 4-3 defeat, makes it thrown away leads at Brentford, Chelsea, Liverpool and Coventry in the space of a month.
Here sat Sir Jim Ratcliffe, fresh from a personal best time in the London Marathon, Sir Dave Brailsford, as well as a rare appearance for Avram and Joel Glazer. Jason Wilcox, the club’s new technical director, was in the stands, too.
Trust Ratcliffe, who arrived at half-time, to miss the first half party where United got everything they wanted. All he got to see was a chaotic team lacking any sort of identity.
There were Coventry team personnel at half-time talking about enjoying the day out and the challenge. Down 2-0 and barely troubling Andre Onana, they looked defeated. What they should have known is that Ten Hag’s United have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
When Bruno Fernandes drilled in United's third after 58 minutes, the expectation was that United could soon turn to a youthful bench and introduce the 250th academy graduate to play for the club.
Only almost immediately after that goal United, as they so often do, regressed. Fast.
Ten Hag’s side routinely drop off into a puzzling low block, inviting pressure and allowing the side behind to go ahead and dictate.
A lethargy kicks in with pressing becoming muddled. An inability to keep the ball allowed Coventry to break at will and an overload down their right side soon ended with an unmarked Ellis Simms converting in the penalty area.
A consolation, you thought. Wrong.
Alejandro Garnacho, subbed off five minutes before that Simms goal, and Kobbie Mainoo, a minute after, were withdrawn in favour of the experience of Antony and Christian Eriksen. Both moves were headscratchers in the moment and became even more puzzling as it wore on.
Routinely in recent weeks United continue to show no ability to keep the ball. Once they establish what should be an unassailable lead, they wilt, with players looking forlorn of ideas and that calmness they possess in the first hour of games vanishes.
‘He took off Kobbie Mainoo, which I was really confused with. Same with Garnacho, I’d have kept those two on,' Ian Wright said.
‘It was the way it just descended into chaos. You could see Coventry thinking, “We can get something from this”.’
United too often find themselves overwhelmed, caught between trying to drop off and be compact, stop pressing as high as before and yet leave gaping holes between defence, midfield and attack.
Eight minutes after Simms scored United continued to drop off, lax in the press and Callum O’Hare had far too much time to take a speculative shot from the edge of the box with not enough done from Scott McTominay and Aaron Wan-Bissaka to close him down.
Inexcusably Wan-Bissaka turned his back, with the ball deflecting in off him and looping over Onana.
It was from there that United were reduced to time-wasting against a Championship side in a bid to limp through to an FA Cup final.
That’s the thing with United. They have an innate ability to give teams hope when they should have none.
Coventry were dominated for an hour and then after Simms scored it was as if United were a boxer on the ropes desperately waiting for the bell to ring.
At Chelsea they conceded two in stoppage time; at Brentford they coughed up what should have been a smash-and-grab win after Mason Mount’s stoppage time goal; against Liverpool they were left to rue slack defending to relinquish their lead. All of those have been in the last month alone.
Ratcliffe, Wilcox, Brailsford et al are watching closely and, for now, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
But what they and the supporters are seeing on a regular basis now is a team that appears tactically flawed when trying to close games out.
Ten Hag’s desire for high-intensity, high-pressing football seems both naive in the culmination of games and also beyond many of the personnel at his disposal. A failure to adapt to that, even with the individual mistakes beyond his control, prove a mark against his name.
Wingers offer little to no protection and central midfielders are left exposed with too much ground to cover. The likes of Eriksen, sent on for Mainoo, no longer possesses the energy to cover the necessary ground and so it was no surprise at all that O’Hare was one of those to elevate his game significantly after Mainoo was hooked.
‘They [Man Utd] know they were lucky today, they had the game won at 3-0. They were almost embarrassed to win at the end,’ Roy Keane fumed after the shootout sent United through.
‘They’re in the cup final, they got the job done. But every time I see this Man Utd team, I don’t like what I see.
‘They’re hard to like, they just play in moments. We talk about leadership, characters – I don’t see any of that in this Man Utd group
‘Team management when you’re 3-0 up… you don’t give a Championship team any sort of hope. But that’s what they do, they give up chances, they give up goals.
‘We’ve seen it all season so I don’t know why we’re that surprised. My goodness, they rode their luck at the end.’
That they did. This was about as hollow a victory as United have had under Ten Hag, one which produced more questions than answers and one which looked to seal his fate. Time and again the same mistakes cost them - and the evidence that they are moving in the right direction feels inadmissible.
What should have been a dominant, routine win went on to be anything but, and that just about sums up Manchester United right now.