Condemned to their worst set of pre-Christmas results for 93 years, an off-colour Manchester United return to Old Trafford for a Premier League Boxing Day battle with title-challenging Aston Villa.
The Red Devils' plight continued in a 2-0 defeat to West Ham United over the weekend, while the Lions' magnificent winning home run came to an unexpected end in a 1-1 draw with Sheffield United.
With Erik ten Hag's toothless team doing little to trouble Alphonse Areola in the Irons goal, West Ham delivered two sucker punches through Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus to consign Man United to an eighth loss of the top-flight term, and a 13th in all tournaments before December 25 for the first time since 1930-31.
That year, the 20-time English champions were relegated from the top flight, and while their situation is not quite so dire 93 years later - Ten Hag's outfit sit eighth at the time of writing - a four-game scoreless streak for the first time since 1992 is truly alarming.
Since deservedly putting Chelsea to the sword on December 6, Man United have come up short against Bayern Munich, West Ham and Bournemouth while holding Liverpool to a praiseworthy goalless stalemate, not that such brief defensive fortitude counted for much on Saturday lunchtime.
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