Say what you like about Manchester United’s loss to Grimsby Town on Wednesday — a team 56 places lower in the English football league. But in a post-match interview, United head coach Ruben Amorim deserves the Carabao Cup for exposing one of the worst habits in sport, politics and business: equating talking with doing.

My rugby-mad father and I used to bet on how many times a Wallabies coach or player would swat away criticisms after a defeat by saying, “We’ve spoken about that” as if that were enough. Issue sorted, then. Naturally, the same mistakes kept happening. 

Amorim, on the other hand, upon being asked what he meant when he said, “The players and the team spoke really loud today”, simply looked down and replied that they were “completely lost”. Metaphorically or in the dressing room, hot air is hot air. At least United’s manager finally admitted it.