Manchester United’s final game of 2024 felt like the moment the big top on the Old Trafford circus started to sink.

Before now, United’s calamities in the last decade or so have been incubated to a tier most other clubs can only dream of: finishing bottom of a Champions League group; coming eighth in the Premier League but winning the FA Cup; losing a Europa League final 11-10 on penalties.

As we turn into 2025, however, the ground on which this weekly entertainment show is built is crumbling to a base level.

After Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, Newcastle’s 2-0 win inflicted on United a third straight league loss at home for the first time since 1979. It was their sixth defeat in all competitions this December, the most they’ve suffered in a single calendar month since September 1930. They will end the year in 14th place, their lowest position at this stage since 1989.

United are performing like an inverse trapeze artist — “Roll up, roll up, be dazzled at how low we can go!”

Amid such a spiral, the relegation places are looming into the rear view, just seven points behind. Rather than reject the proposal of a scrap for survival, Ruben Amorim is leaning into it. “We have to acknowledge our position,” he said. “I think people are tired of excuses in this club. Sometimes I talk about relegation. Because our club needs a shock.”

Amorim, charming as he continues to be, gives full and frank answers. It is what has got him this far, winning two titles in Portugal and landing him the job to replace Erik ten Hag. Still, it is startling to hear a United manager talk in these terms and the effect on his team will be interesting to observe.

A sardonic take might be that a trip to the Championship would provide the cover required for further INEOS streamlining, but nobody is seriously planning for a 1974-style jolt to reboot the club.

Amorim also suggested United would have to change coach before he compromised his 3-4-2-1 approach, and the mitigation for him is huge. He has had only four full training sessions with a squad built for a different system — the quality and athleticism of which is being exposed as the weeks go on.

United’s fans gave their view, heartily singing “Amorim’s Red and White Army,” either side of the break.

The man himself said: “I have to sell my idea, I don’t have another one. If I’m going to change all the time it is going to be even worse.”

Amorim’s commitment is commendable. But starting Casemiro and Christian Eriksen in midfield was an idea that had gone stale by the start of last season, let alone midway through this one. Newcastle, as expected, were far too strong for Amorim’s side in the middle of the pitch.

The sight of Bruno Guimaraes passing the ball round Eriksen on the way to Newcastle’s second goal was painful from a United perspective.

It was one of the most catastrophic openings at Old Trafford in recent memory. At 25 minutes, with United failing to register a single attempt at goal, Newcastle had recorded eight shots, with four on target, three of them Opta-defined big chances. That didn’t include two wicked corners from Kieran Trippier that could be counted as real efforts to score given recent goals against United. By the time Sandro Tonali walked into United’s box for a clear strike, only to hit the post, the atmosphere was mutinous.

Rather than either one of the two 32-year-olds in midfield coming off, and with United needing goals, it was Joshua Zirkzee replaced, a player ostensibly bought as a striker. Amorim acted on 33 minutes in what became a brutal, surreal spectacle.

Loud cheers greeted Zirkzee’s number going up, and although some supporters booed that cruel response as a way of showing solidarity, the 23-year-old, a £36.5million ($45.8m) summer signing, headed straight down the tunnel. He did emerge a few minutes later, although his hood was up as he took his seat on the bench.

Zirkzee walks off after being substituted in the first half (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

Kobbie Mainoo came on, and helped prevent a hammering, but some light comedy continued. Casemiro delivered quite plausibly the most off-target shot humanly possible, and then skewed a much closer finish wide too. Mainoo, gifted the ball by Fabian Schar, had chosen to go to him over Rasmus Hojlund or Amad when four on two, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

At one point Harry Maguire tried to inject urgency, bursting forward with the ball and urging Alejandro Garnacho and Diogo Dalot to run ahead. In apparent frustration, his pass went behind both and out of play. (It is notable United have not scored in three successive games that Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui have started as wing-backs.) Even Amad was afflicted, wasting a good counter-attack by passing the ball into touch.

United resorted to set pieces, with Eriksen seizing on free kicks around halfway as a chance to get the ball into the box. A long throw from Dalot caused some chaos. From one of these situations, Maguire went closest to scoring with a header that hit the post.

Hojlund cut a forlorn figure, a combination of his own limitations and poor service presenting him with one chance, which he put wide.

Up to the final whistle, Marcus Rashford remained on the bench. It was his first appearance in a matchday squad after four omissions. He scored a brace on his last Premier League start, against Everton at the beginning of this long December, but there are good reasons why Amorim has kept him out.

Marcus Rashford was an unused substitute against Newcastle (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

He was brought back to the squad against Newcastle with Bruno Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte suspended. But despite the circumstances, he stayed in his seat. More humbling than not being involved at all? Or the first step towards reintegration? Time will tell.

“I’m not making a point,” Amorim said. “I think about the team. You think a lot about Marcus. I just want to win the game and you can feel it. I’m talking about the idea and the fight for relegation and I want to make a point during a game? No, I just want to win the game.”

The buoyancy of that 4-0 win over Everton, when Rashford and Zirkzee each scored twice, has popped, and so much about United right now feels like a tightrope walk.

(Top photo: Molly Darlington/Copa/Getty Images)