Words were no longer enough for Ralf Rangnick to express the sorry state of affairs at Manchester United that he will hand over to Erik ten Hag this summer. He needed a prop.
The interim manager briefly removed his spectacles to illustrate the point at Carrington on Friday before delivering the most drastic diagnosis of United's problems yet.
Rangnick's solution? The football equivalent of open-heart surgery.
'The good thing is that it's crystal clear,' he said. 'You don't even need glasses to see and analyse where the problems are.