This is the real Manchester United, going through the motions with another wooden, graceless performance at the Theatre of Dreams.
Once more, this time with enthusiasm fellas.
Champions League nights at Old Trafford are not a practice run, they are not a dress rehearsal for something a lot further down the line.
It is four without a win for United, the sort of depressing run against mediocre opposition that a Mourinho team of old would have put away for fun.
Wolves, Derby, West Ham and Valencia, last night’s opponents, are the sort of sides United would be scoring threes and fours past in their illustrious history.
Instead, they have not won any of them.
This wretched, unconvincing performance in front of their own fans was disrespectful to the 73,000 disciples who made their way to this sporting cathedral to watch their idols. Fallen idols, now.
United supporters booed off their team at full-time. They were entitled to so much more.
A top class performance, by way of apology for the pitiful manner of the 3-1 defeat at West Ham last Saturday, would have been a good start.
What they got was another pedestrian performance.
This is borderline intolerable because these players, whatever their groans and gripes with the Special One, are barely lifting a leg.
It is no way for a United team to play.
They did not really want to win it, certainly not in the cavalier style that their worldwide support demands after decades of dominance.
United should have been tearing into Valencia, putting the fear of god into them with one of those rampant, relentless attacking displays.
This was another protest performance.
There wasn’t a single seven out of ten in a United shirt.
This was 4s, 5s and 6s again, the same as it was when the goals started to fly past David de Gea at the London Stadium.
Paul Pogba, his name booed by a few of the locals when his name was announced before kick-off, was lamentable.
Could he really leave Old Trafford last night, look at himself in the mirror in the way Nemanja Matic spoke about, and say that he tried to set the tone in midfield?
This is drab and dreary, with the top table executives praying it will all fall into place for Mourinho and these players after weeks of rancour and recrimination.
Not gonna happen, Ed.
Mourinho tried to get them going, like a yo-yo as he swapped his seat in the dug-out for the edge of the technical area every few minutes.
He knows the score, that his job is on the line after failing miserably in his attempts to get these slackers to fall back into line.
This is an unruly, obstinate bunch of highly-paid footballers.
Beyond the opening 10 minutes or so, when the Stretford End demanded a high-tempo reaction their ruinous defeat at the Hammers, United could not be persuaded to turn on the style.
Marcus Rashford, scorer of United’s goal in London, had a couple of first half digs, but none of them were struck with any conviction.
When Alexis Sanchez shaped up to take a free-kick, nobody really believed the winger would put the ball in the back of Neto’s neto.
His effort cannoned off the wall and Eric Bailly inexplicably lobbed the rebound to nobody in particular and out for a goal kick.
That sort of carry on will get Mourinho’s goat.
So, too, is the kind of heavy touch from Romelu Lukaku at the start of the second half that he ran out of play out on the left.
At this level, with his weekly wage, it is unforgivable.
By then Old Trafford had lost patience with the players, repeatedly screaming “attack” as Pogba, Sanchez and Marouane Fellaini prodded the ball around in midfield.
This is not the United way.
The stars of yesteryear watching on glumly the stands – Law, Beckham, Giggs – could have told these under-achievers a bit about this shirt.
Brian McClair did, battering the coach and players with an icy blast on social media. It is impossible to disagree.
Even when United showed willing, with Pogba’s 63rd minute free-kick flipped over the bar by Neto, it still did not feel like a famous nail-biting United night was about to unfold.
They even tried to lose it 67 minutes in when Pogba recklessly gave the ball away.
Michy Batshuayi was waiting in the centre, with the former Chelsea striker connecting Rodrigo’s knockdown but sending it sweetly over Neto’s crossbar.
Mourinho was spewing, turning on his heels and throwing his arms up in the air after another lapse in concentration.
It is becoming a habit.
The cheers that greeted the substitution of Sanchez, sarcastically applauding his detractors as he made his way off, told another story.
What a plot line this club is turning into.
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