Ruben Amorim still has many important decisions to make going forward, and perhaps one of the biggest is whether Bruno Fernandes has a future at Manchester United.
Fernandes is by far their most talented player with the ball. He's capable of playing that great ball like anyone else in the Premier League, but the rest of his game is lacking in a big way.
From his antics when the game isn't going well to constantly throwing arms in the air, shrugging his shoulders at teammates – and he's wearing the armband.
What example does he set for Kobbie Mainoo, Amad Diallo and Alejandro Garnacho, young players who are all finding their way in the game?
You want your captain, your leader, to be an example to everyone in the locker room. That's why you choose him as captain, because he sets a good example.
With all that wonderfully creative image in your head and the ability to make it happen, he certainly, certainly did and I'm sure there isn't a day in training, watching the small team games, when the manager and his coaching staff are busy not nudging each other and saying 'wow' when Fernandes has the ball. But I think he has become a liability for Manchester United.
He has undoubted talent and he will think he should be playing for the very best teams, but that is not the case and he is showing a negativity that will be damaging to those around him – such as in the send-off against Wolves.
I don't believe he is an annoying player, but these actions come from frustration. That's three times he's been sent off this season, and we're in December.
I'll never get the image out of my head of how he reacted when he was three goals behind Liverpool as Manchester United lost 7-0 at Anfield.
He just threw in the towel, walked around, pointed his fingers at his teammates and shrugged his shoulders. For the oldies reading this, I quote the Billy Ocean song: 'When the going gets strong, the tough get going.' But not Fernandes.
His actions at Anfield showed me where his mental toughness lay, nowhere. And that's my point. Just having talent is not enough to be a top player. He has to show mental toughness, discipline and work rate when you go against it and that is certainly what United are at the moment.
In successful locker rooms, his negative reactions to his teammates' shortcomings would have been ironed out in the very first week of training. The big players would have been all over him in training, physically and verbally, i.e. 'Shut up and take some of that. And by the way, have some of this!'
I was never part of a team that threw in the towel, I was always lucky to be in teams with strong characters.
When I became captain at Liverpool, our coach Joe Fagan took me aside and said: 'Don't do anything else, do your own job first, if things are going well, help the people around you'. It was never about pointing the finger at your friends when things weren't going well.
As a captain you felt more responsibility when things weren't going well to try to put things right, but I was lucky because in my Liverpool teams we had four or five captains who were inspirational figures. Do Manchester United have any of the above in the dressing room at the moment?
Watching and listening to the new manager's talks about 'survival' and watching his body language, he now fully realizes the magnitude of the task of getting this giant football club back on track.
They then formed Newcastle, then their biggest rivals Liverpool and an Arsenal team firing on all cylinders, but now playing without their biggest threat in Bukayo Saka. It won't get any easier for United.
How did City's demise happen?
I can't remember a big team falling off a cliff like Manchester City did. That is now one win in thirteen games.
Anyone with an interest in our Premier League will be wondering: how did this happen?
This is not the reaction of big players, players who have dominated the world's toughest domestic league for the past four years, so what went wrong?
Any great team can lose to anyone, that's the beauty of our league. But this run from City has left everyone, including their biggest rivals, scratching their heads.
Great players don't lose their technical ability to win games, but what they can lose is the desire and intensity to play the hard yards 100 percent of the time and I'm sure Pep did this many games ago during this gloomy series has emphasized.
Is it just because Rodri is missing or because their troublemaker Kevin de Bruyne is no longer making an impact in games like he has done in our league over the last five or six years? Or is this the worst possible scenario, where some people simply stop listening to Pep?
Magpies rely on Isak
Newcastle United must fear the worst for Alexander Isak if they continue to fall victim to the profit and sustainability rules.
He is a class player and will be an obvious target for the big boys of the Champions League next summer, if not sooner.
The one surefire advantage for Newcastle is that they will receive a lot of money, because on current evidence Isak is quite close to the best centre-forward in our league.
He is fast, athletic, involved in the build-up game, can dribble and can finish. He has scored 24 goals this calendar year, three short of Alan Shearer's Newcastle record of 27.
For a striker who is just approaching his prime and has scored 42 goals in 68 Premier League games for Newcastle, he will be on the radar of all the real big boys.
Cherries on top
I have to mention my hometown team, Bournemouth, for the progress they have made.
They made an extremely brave decision to trade Gary O'Neil for Andoni Iraola last year and there were a few hiccups early on. But they sit sixth in the Premier League, a point ahead of champions Manchester City, and their tally of 29 points after eighteen games is their best ever return to the top flight at this stage of the season.
They play a brand of football that is entertaining, difficult to play against and can win games. Their site only has a little over 11,000 people and the atmosphere that is created is very impressive. Even when the big boys come to town, they struggle. Everyone in the region is behind them now and the manager deserves a lot of credit for encouraging this talented group of players.
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