After a summer that promised so much, Manchester United have arrived in an autumn of discontent. Just as it looked like they might be turning a corner, they’re back to square one.

Tuesday’s Champions League defeat to Atletico Madrid may well put Michael Carrick on the brink of losing his job. Several United players – notably captain Bruno Fernandes – looked totally dejected at full-time – and that was before Lisandro Martinez decided to launch an astonishing attack on the club’s ownership .

The result leaves United with just two wins from their opening nine games of the season, with those coming against newly promoted Ipswich and Champions League debutants Sabah. It is a far cry from the team that won 12 of their last 17 Premier League games on their way to finishing third last term.

“Sometimes it’s a reflection of the mirror of how is our club at the moment, you know?” Martinez said to Prime Video in Madrid. “We did a fantastic season last season and now we expect more from the top. I expect more, 100 per cent. I expect more from our technical director [Jason Wilcox].”

It was a surprising tirade from the Argentine, though one most United fans will agree with. And while it signals real discontent among the players, Carrick was quick to emphasise how together the squad is in terms of matters on the pitch. The players clearly back their manager too, with Martinez saying that United “can't keep changing, changing, changing the manager”.

While Carrick’s tactics and his role in United’s downturn in form will rightly face scrutiny , it’s clear that this is not an issue of a player revolt against the manager, but rather disillusionment over the actions of those at the top of the club.

This will hurt Ineos and the likes of Wilcox and director of recruitment Christopher Vivell, mostly because Martinez is undeniably correct. United spent a portion of the summer pursuing Elliot Anderson, only to see him move to rivals Manchester City, while they instead signed Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba for a combined total of around £150m for a different type of midfield rebuild.

A few weeks later, only Baleba looks up to the required standard. Spending £50m on Santos – a player who could not get regular starts for Chelsea – when other parts of the squad needed investment now looks staggeringly inept – especially if Luke Shaw and Benjamin Sesko are injured.