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Since the start of last season no Premier League club has conceded two or more goals in a game more often than Manchester United's 31.

Since the start of the Erik ten Hag era no Premier League club has conceded three of more more often than Manchester United's 24.

You can pick your favourite stat but both are an embarrassment to a club of United's size and stature. This could be like choosing your own adventure, but everybody knows the adventure is over. Ten Hag is clinging on at Manchester United but his grip has loosened a little more after a bonkers night in Porto.

Harry Maguire's injury-time equaliser will keep the wolves from the door a little longer and in truth it was probably a point this performance merited. United did attack with numbers at times and a shot tally of 29 should have been good enough to claim at least a draw. Ineos insist they won't panic and they will point to the result as a means to an end.

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That this was only a draw owed everything to another shambolic display without the ball. That is where a coach really earns their money and structurally United remain all at sea.

At sea is where Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been this week. He's opted for an Ineos success story in Barcelona, watching the Ineos Britannia boat get to the brink of a first America's Cup final for a British boat since 1964. Ratcliffe's investment in Sir Ben Ainslie's America's Cup mission has been methodical and it has taken patience, but in Ainslie he was always backing the right man.

The same can't be said of United. If Ratcliffe was to return from Barcelona to fire his first manager at Old Trafford now nobody would accuse him of panicking. Ten Hag has had chances to right the ship but he doesn't look equipped to do so. Lifejackets are needed.

He has delivered some memorable days to this club but when Maguire's header hit the back of the net in the Estadio do Dragao, the online celebrations from Liverpool and Manchester City fans were just as loud as United's. They don't want him sacked and that usually speaks volumes.

The reason why is that United have played 61 games since the start of last season and conceded twice in exactly half of them. In their last eight European games they have conceded two goals in four minutes at Bayern Munich, two in 10 minutes at home to Galatasaray, two in four minutes against FC Copenhagen, two in nine minutes away at Galatasaray and two in seven minutes on Thursday night.

How much more evidence do we need? If you were looking for it there was mitigation last season in the form of United's dreadful injury record. But for more than a year United have been a mess tactically and little that is happening suggests an improvement is on the cards.

Ten Hag has offered up his own excuses. Injuries, a new football structure, the Ineos takeover. He certainly hasn't had it easy, of that there is no doubt.

But the Dutchman has had more time and more investment than any other United manager in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. United have spent £600million in three summer transfer windows and although the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup wins were memorable it is delusional to think they are anything other than the seventh or eighth-best team in the Premier League, if that.

Ratcliffe will know that is not value for money. He might be sipping the champagne on Friday if Ainslie finishes the job, but at some point he will have to confront what is going on at his biggest sporting investment.

Thanks to Maguire, Ten Hag will limp on to Villa Park, but there is an argument that nothing that happens there should now make the slightest bit of difference.