There are some things that are clear, even after two weekends of the Premier League season. Arsenal will be there in the shake-up for the title next May. Manchester United won't.
To be in Craven on a sultry Sunday afternoon and to see the side labor of Ruben Amorim in a painful, uncertain 1-1 draw with Fulham, had to be attacked with an uncomfortable feeling of Deja Vu.
There was Bruno Fernandes, who launched a penalty so high over the Fulham -Dwarsbalk balloon that launched his trap a thousand memes who claimed people staring at the ball in wonder while sailing over the night sky.
Fernandes was moaning with the referee to give a clear error against Manuel Ugarte. Amad Diallo was giving the ball away cheaply. Casemiro was bypassed in midfield.
There was Luke Shaw his 200th performance and asked why United has not yet moved from him. There were Fulham, who, through the defense of United, cut like a knife through butter in the final phase, while the visitors clamped to a point for the precious life.
Yes, the new £ 200 million front Three by Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko – when Sesko finally got off the bank – was more livelier than the Moribund trio that contained those positions last season. But that is a low bar. A very low bar.
Then there was the goalkeeper, Altay Bayindir, who was again preferred to Andre Onana. Bayindir continued to look, just as he had had against Arsenal last weekend, like liability in the corners, caused confusion when a ball sailed into the box. Bayindir looked as if he waved abandoned to friends instead of catching a cross.
No wonder that United is said that it is close to signing Senne Lammens for £ 17 million from Royal Antwerp to try to solve the problem. Repairing United is nowadays like a game of Whack-a-Mole. They think they have solved one problem. Then another appears.
The reality is that this is a team that is still being dominated by medium. It is a team of HAS-BEENS and NEVER-WILL-BES. It is a team that is a million miles off to win the competition. It is a team that has a very little chance of getting the top four.
If they are lucky, they can challenge the top six, but after they have viewed them in southwestern London, I would surprise that if they have achieved it. This is not exactly as a surprise for someone, I know. United was 15th last season. They come back from a long, long way.
Messages are also still mixed. Why didn't Sesko start? Why brought Amorim Manuel Ugarte to try to protect United's lead in the second half when Ugarte has already shown that he is not good enough for such a job and showed it again. There is a reason why PSG started when they are rid of him.
It still feels like you are listening to a Dirge who is in a United game. The muscle reminder of people like me, who still remember their triple year and all the triumphs on both sides tells us that this should not happen.
But the reality is that United is now a side of the table. Looking at how they play the way they did in Craven Cottage should not be a surprise, but somehow, after all the money they spent and because of the giants they ever were, it is always.
United had started as an express train. Cunha, who played in the middle of the front three, whistled a shot over the bar in the first minute and hit a shot against the face of Bernd Leno's left pole two minutes later.
Cunha played beautifully. He ran on a long clearance from Bayindir and while the ball fell over his shoulder, he got him perfectly on his right foot and got a shot with a shot. Leno produced a nice salvation to push it away.
The rest of half became Attritional until, eight minutes of the interval, referee Chris Kavanagh was warned by VAR on a wrestling match between Calvin Bassey and Mason Mount that had just taken place in the Fulham Box.
Kavanagh looked at the images, which looked like the highlights of an attack by Judo and also had Shaw Rodrigo Muniz throw the floor at the same time with the vmsulation of Bassey and Mount.
Something needs to be done to stop these absurd antics and in the light of the new referee guidelines, Mr Kavanagh has awarded a fine to United. Fernandes took the stairs and balloon so high over the bar that someone might have had to fish it from the River Theems.
Maybe someone asked Bayindir to do it. The way he waved in a series of Fulham Corners in the last minutes of half, he looked more like a swimmer who crawls. There must be more chance that he will reach a ball in the water than catching one in the air.
So there was some irony in the fact that United took the lead just before the hour from a corner. Leny Yoro got up to meet a mbeumo corner and even if he only made vague contact, cannon the ball from the back of Muniz and defeated Leno's attempt to keep it out.
It was clear that Yoro Bassey pushed with both hands when the corner was taken, but VAR and the referee chose to ignore that specific infringement. Marco Silva, the Fulham -Baas, announced his displeasure from the bank.
Silva might have felt that a kind of justice was served when Fulham equalized in the 73rd minute. Alex Iwobi cut in from the left and curled into a cross. Raul Jimenez put a foot on it and missed Emile Smith Rowe met it at the nearby pole and wore it beyond Bayindir.
A draw was probably a reasonable result. It was a fair reflection of where United is. One point from two games, sitting in 16th place, ordinary players who give a normal performance. The progress, it seems, will be slow.