David Moyes and the Manchester United players are really suffering at the moment - and I don't see things getting better for them any time soon.
They've lost three times in a row for the first time in nearly 13 years and they are a team devoid of confidence - but this has been coming.
Two seasons ago they didn't win anything and Sir Alex Ferguson went out and bought a 'game changer' in Robin van Persie who fired them to the league title.
But if Ferguson was still the manager now and he didn't have Wayne Rooney, Van Persie and Michael Carrick available, which is the situation Moyes has been in, United wouldn't win any trophies.
This squad needs major surgery.
Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand are out of contract in the summer, while Patrice Evra is, too, and Alexander Buttner does not look good enough to replace him at left back?
The right-back position needs to be addressed as well as there are times I look at Rafael and think he looks rash.
Help
Carrick, meanwhile, is as good as anyone in front of that back four but needs someone alongside him who he can knit little balls with.
United have got away without having a midfield of the quality of Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Roy Keane but they can't keep turning to 40-year-old Ryan Giggs, no matter how much of a genius he's been for them
They've got an incredible young talent in Adnan Januzaj but you can't be saying 'he's our answer'.
This is a young man who is going to have ups and downs and dips in form; he's a sensational young footballer and someone you can eventually build a team around, but he needs help.
Then you have the Rooney situation. He can talk to other clubs in a year's time, so what's happening there?
They need to get Van Persie fit, too, and it seems strange that we never really hear how long he's going to be out for; this injury is dragging on for a long time and he was their best player last year.
When you list their problems like that you realise this team looks like it's getting ripped apart, and Moyes needs more than one or two new signings - he needs five or six.
Signings
It's not ideal to have that many new arrivals at once but they need to act.
When I used to go to Old Trafford as a player, you'd stand in the tunnel and think 'wow, they've got players who can win this game here. Not just one, not just two but five or six.'
That's the difference. I don't look at United now and see five or six options that can beat you.
In the summer United had an ideal opportunity to go and get a couple of big names in, but, out of all the players they could have signed, they ended up with Marouane Fellaini. He's not a bad player but he's not a Manchester United player.
It was a panic buy but when you spend £27m the owners will look at that and think: 'that's not ideal, that was Moyes' first effort in the transfer market at a massive club and it's been a failure'. It wasn't like signing a Van Persie or a Cesc Fabregas.
As a result, there will be nerves at the club during the January transfer window. The owners will be thinking 'we need proper players, people who are going to go and win us league titles and take us back to the next level'.
And that's the problem Moyes faces - everyone will be looking at him knowing he's got to go and buy better players.
Sack
I don't think Moyes' job is under threat at the moment, although if this time next year they're still struggling and not buying big players then there will be a problem.
People say Man United aren't a club that sack managers but the reason why they haven't been a club to sack managers is because they've had the best manager for the past 27 years. They haven't had to sack anyone.
If they didn't have Ferguson in charge they'd probably be like any other team in that, when things go wrong, they'd look elsewhere.
I wouldn't rule United out of making the top four - I absolutely think they can achieve that - while they can turn around their Capital One Cup semi-final first leg deficit, too.
But can they win the title? I don't think there's any possibility of that at the moment.
I'm tipping them to get back to winning ways on Saturday Night Football this weekend, though.
It's hard because Swansea won at Old Trafford last week in the FA Cup and when you go back to a club you've recently defeated you have a good feeling about it and see no reason why you can't do it again, plus Michael Laudrup's side will be boosted if Rooney and Van Persie aren't playing.
But I'm going for a narrow 2-1 home win. Normally, you select a Manchester United home win and wonder how many they'll win by - but that's not the case at the moment
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