This time last week everyone was struggling to contain their amusement at Chelsea shooting themselves in the foot. Now, just as suddenly, it is Manchester United's turn to look very silly indeed.
Going out of the Carling Cup at home to Coventry City was one thing, but doing so in front of a record crowd of 74,055, many of whom did not want to be there in the first place and had reluctantly shelled out money to find themselves watching an unrecognisable team, was a public-relations fiasco that will take some living down.
Particularly as Sir Alex Ferguson had promised that his youngsters and reserves would do very well against Coventry, and perhaps even go on to win the Carling Cup. Arsenal's B team were good enough to score six goals at Anfield last season and go on to give Chelsea a game in the Carling Cup final, but now it is plain for all to see that United's expensively assembled reserves - Nani and Anderson cost more than £30m between them and the latter was taken off at half time - are not of the same quality. There does not appear to be another golden generation like the 1992 vintage to carry Fergie safely into retirement, and fans are already making unkind remarks about their manager staying on too long and showing complete lack of judgment in his use of reserves and substitutes this season.
First the tickets, though. Several United fans have been in touch to point out that while it is clearly risible for Peter Kenyon to talk of establishing Chelsea as a global brand on the back of Champions League attendances of fewer than 25,000, Old Trafford's record Carling Cup crowd was not the handiest stick with which to beat him.
This is because United season-ticket holders are now force-fed cup football under the hated Automatic Cup Scheme. Gone are the days, at Old Trafford in any case, when supporters could regard cup games as optional extras. Now you either undertake to pay for every game of the season, at considerable extra cost when United can play half a dozen Champions League ties as well as whatever comes along in the domestic knockouts, or risk losing your season-ticket entitlement to someone with deeper pockets.
United have lost some of their oldest and most traditional supporters this season - season-ticket holders with decades of happy memories have given up for good, either on principle or because they cannot justify the additional expense - although crucially the club haven't lost much money. Even if there were more empty seats than normal against Coventry, the vast majority had already been paid for.
To no one's great surprise, a scheme for supporters to sell on tickets via the club for cup games they had no wish to attend turned out not to work as well as anticipated. Mainly because United will put it into operation only when a game has been declared a sell-out. In other words, the United Ticket Exchange will help sell tickets only when the club have none left to sell themselves.