Olympiacos. Not Bayern Munich or Barcelona. Olympiacos. Not master coach Pep Guardiola. Michel. Not Lionel Messi. Alejandro Dominguez.

And not down to 10 men either. Unlike Arsenal and Manchester City last week, Manchester United had their full complement on the field. It just didn’t look like it.

They contrived to lose, not to giants, but to one of the also-rans of the competition. Olympiacos are not potential winners.

Chances are they will be removed in the quarter-finals by the first good team they play, if they manage to survive the return leg at Old Trafford. The odds must favour them now.

United pulled the plum tie out of the Champions League draw — and then choked on it.

This may well be the worst performance of David Moyes’s brief time as United manager, the one that really will cause questions to be asked about his suitability.

There are some contenders, obviously. Yet United looked so ordinary, so lifeless, so devoid of ambition and desire against the Greek champions that there may well soon be a tipping point.

‘Can they score? They always score.’ Those were the words that summed up the old United. Here they did not even manage a shot on target, let alone a goal.

Until now, the performances in Europe have been the saving grace for Moyes. Emphatic against Bayer Leverkusen, gutsy in Donetsk.

This, however, was the kind of display that gets a manager the sack — one that brings into dispute matters of selection, direction and inspiration.

Until Tuesday night, Manchester United were the only team in the tournament who had not trailed in any match. Hard to believe on this evidence.

The defensive reaction for both goals revealed a lethargy that would have mystified heroes past. Maybe television analyst Roy Keane should have delivered the half-time team talk. Or played.

This was a United seldom seen. Timid, inadequate, uninspired. They were not unfortunate or hard done by.

There were no excuses left by the end. Moyes picked what he considered a team to get a result and watched lamely as it was undone by supposed inferiors.

The goals came from Dominguez, an Argentine without a senior cap to his name, and Joel Campbell, an Arsenal loanee whom Arsene Wenger has shown scant inclination to take back.

Yet they deserved it. United will no doubt make a trademark heroic effort to reclaim the tie at Old Trafford — but do they have it in them any more? Not on this showing. Under the pressure of knockout competition, they seem to have forgotten how to win.

Players on whom Moyes gambles his reputation — Tom Cleverley, Antonio Valencia, Chris Smalling — were ordinary. Rocks of old are now crumbling relics.

Wayne Rooney spent more time slapping the pitch in frustration than he did near goal. Robin van Persie took a heavy hit from goalkeeper Roberto in the first half but it failed to wake him.

When Smalling crossed from the right with nine minutes remaining, the striker ballooned an excellent chance over the bar. Here was everything that has been wrong with United this season, encapsulated as if in a highlights reel.

The goals told the story. For the first, United failed to close Olympiacos down and were punished with a shot from Giannis Maniatis that could have been stopped by any team with enough will.

Instead it travelled low into the penalty area where Dominguez diverted it deliberately with a back heel.

A touch of the Denis Laws, although United are not facing relegation. Just elimination. With perhaps a sprinkling of humiliation.

A second-half revival? Not these days. Instead, Michael Carrick went meekly into a tackle that should have cleaned out his opponent, and Campbell came through with the ball, keeping his balance and curling a fine shot round Rio Ferdinand with David de Gea stranded.

There were similar instances of weakness all over the field. Sloppiness has crept into United’s play that — whisper it — Sir Alex Ferguson would never have tolerated.

Within a minute of the second-half restart, Cleverley played a wayward pass across the face of his defence that was so lackadaisical it almost arrived half an hour late, with its tie off, a hangover and a bad excuse about leaves on the line.

Soon after, Ashley Young attempted the blind back-heel of a ball that was already rolling close to the touchline.

You can imagine where it went. It wouldn’t have happened on Ferguson’s watch and it shouldn’t happen on Moyes’s either. He’s new; he’s not a patsy.

This is a team that is not so much in need of support as underpinning, and it showed in a litany of first-half mistakes.

Occasionally, in times of crisis, a player sends up a distress signal and that is what appeared to have happened after 29 minutes when Ferdinand, under little real pressure, launched an aimless hoof downfield.

Ferdinand doesn’t do that; or rather, he didn’t. Ferdinand grew up idolising the likes of Matthias Sammer and the great German sweepers.

This is his last season at United, though, and times have changed. Where once a back line of Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic would offer encouragement, now it causes concern.

The next generation, represented by Smalling to Ferdinand’s right, hardly bred confidence either.

The game was six minutes old when, trying to knock the ball around casually at the back, Ferdinand sold Smalling short, forcing a hasty rearguard action. It was no temporary lapse. Defensive frailties were constant.

Time was, United would have taken this Olympiacos team apart. Now, they are vulnerable and opponents sense it. They pull strokes, they try it on, they get away with murder. That is what Dominguez did after eight minutes. He took a right liberty.

Dispossessing Smalling just inside Olympiacos’s half was fair enough. He was asking for it. But Dominguez then went on a dribble, probably the longest run attempted by a slightly overweight Argentine since Diego Maradona retired.

It wasn’t mazy, not even particularly tricky, just direct and determined and United’s players backed off, or abdicated responsibility.

Ferdinand was among those who couldn’t get near enough to put a challenge in and by the time Dominguez was stopped he was inside the United area and had unleashed a shot, which Vidic charged down.

Moyes’s reputation as a defensive mastermind dwindled with each passing stride. Some people don’t travel as far as that on their holidays. These are strange and desperate times indeed for United.

—Daily Mail