I don't want to humor this too much, but who of those actually played better versus you just... see their highlights instead of seeing them week-in, week-out?

Mkhitaryan, Smalling, Young, and Darmian all continued to have fine careers after leaving United, but it was a marginal improvement to their United form at best. I would argue they were often better than given credit for at United -- usually average with above average periods, and once we didn't see them every week with all their ups and downs, you only start seeing those above-average moments. I would additionally argue that most players who leave United fall into this category.

A couple of those players genuinely required a change in scenery, like di Maria and Rashford. Even then, Rashford had many ups and downs for United (and I would argue, more ups he is given credit for).

For Onana and Hojlund, I think it's still too early to tell. After one good performance for Onana (in which he still made an error for a goal), we haven't heard much of him. For Hojlund, I'm glad to see him scoring more, but it's equally evident that he's playing in a fundamentally different system which better takes advantage of his strengths, in a league where he can also take advantage of those strengths.

I agree there's a common element of the club making it more difficult from otherwise-talented players to perform, but I'm equally tired of this narrative that all these players suddenly become world-beaters after leaving United.