Manchester United were condemned to a contemptible 2-0 defeat at home to Crystal Palace on Sunday afternoon.
A pair of second-half goals from Jean-Philippe Mateta, each one exposing a familiar source of weakness for United, was enough to ensure Palace emerged with three deserved points.
Oliver Glasner's Eagles clambered above United in the league table, leaving their lofty hosts trailing in 13th place, just two points ahead of a Tottenham Hotspur side they face in their next Premier League outing.
How the game unfolded
Manchester United came into Sunday's contest fresh with a record which read five wins from their last six matches yet it didn't feel like that. The hosts bossed possession and had more shots than Palace at Old Trafford but, once again, those statistics felt entirely misleading.
Kobbie Mainoo had a deflected effort bounce off the post in a bright opening ten minutes before the visitors found their feet. Comfortably huddled in a mustard-coloured rearguard, Palace were keen to spring forward in transition.
Tyrick Mitchell and Mateta both fired narrowly wide in an opening half which was intermittently wild and consistently wayward. There were a total of 19 combined shots before the interval, yet each goalkeeper was only forced to make one save.
Dean Henderson, Palace's ex-United number one who always relishes a return to Old Trafford, was twice called into action inside the opening ten minutes of the restart, rebuffing efforts from Bruno Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte. Those would be United's last two efforts on target.
That fast start soon fizzled out and Old Trafford was a cauldron of boos when Mateta broke the deadlock shortly after the hour mark. Palace's talisman was first to the rebound from Maxence Lacroix's header which crashed off the crossbar, bundling the visitors in front from point-blank range.
As Ruben Amorim's side probed without penetrating, Palace pounced in the closing stages. Daniel Munoz cantered clear of United's muddled backline, afforded the freedom of the Greater Manchester area to pick a square pass for Mateta to latch onto in the 89th minute.
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Familiar failings for Man Utd
"Every corner nowadays is an opportunity," Amorim sighed earlier this season. United's aerial vulnerability can be extended to set pieces of any kind, as Palace repeatedly proved on Sunday.
Munoz had a thunderous headed opportunity in the first half before Maxence Lacroix towered above Leny Yoro at the back post after the break. The centre-back's looping effort hit the woodwork, but fell kindly for Mateta to tap in the opener.
United avoided conceding another set-piece goal, but they were not without their scares. The Benny Hill theme song may as well have been blaring out of Old Trafford's speakers when Diogo Dalot and Andre Onana left the ball for one another while defending a second-half free kick, each player frozen with fear.
Lisandro Martinez injury scare
Lisandro Martinez is not the type of player to stay down. And so a hush quickly descended upon Old Trafford when United's 'Butcher' did not get back to his feet after tangling with Ismaila Sarr midway through the second half.
After a lengthy delay, giving time for the same expression of grave concern to etch itself onto the faces of anyone associated with United, Martinez was stretchered off in tears. The punch Argentine, who is arguably the only player to actively benefit from Amorim's change in formation, missed 36 matches through foot and knee injuries last season.
This even more porous iteration of United can ill-afford to lose Martinez for any sustained period of time this term.
Kobbie Mainoo fails false nine experiment
Three days after impressing Amorim as part of United's front three, Mainoo was shifted even further away from his natural berth as a defensive midfielder. The 19-year-old lead the line for his boyhood club, or - more accurately - dropped off the frontline.
In a classic interpretation of the false nine role, Mainoo spent much of Sunday's contest with his back to goal, floating between Palace's lines of yellow to receive the ball and pivot forward. This desperately difficult position highlighted the teen's unerring ease in possession as he rarely gave the ball away even under immense pressure.
However, when it came to actual attacking threat, Mainoo struggled to deliver anything aside from one deflected attempt. With 20 minutes remaining, Amorim went from one extreme to the other, replacing his false nine with Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee, the two strikers he dropped at kick-off. Neither forward offered any more danger.
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