Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag is under enormous pressure once again after Sunday’s 3-0 humiliation at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur.
After a disappointing 1-1 draw with FC Twente on Wednesday night, Erik ten Hag needed a big performance against Tottenham Hotspur.
Manchester United fans simply needed to see some improvement against a side who could be considered a direct rival for European qualification.
What we saw was nothing short of a disaster as United slumped to a 3-0 defeat against Spurs.
Brennan Johnson opened the scoring early on before Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke sealed the win.
Some may point to Bruno Fernandes’ straight red card as a key factor but United were dire before he was given his marching orders anyway.
Erik ten Hag on Manchester United message
Ten Hag will now be without Fernandes for three games and the pressure is really ramping up on the Dutchman once again.
United aren’t really showing signs of improvement and Sunday’s display was a real low point.
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Ten Hag must now pick his players up quickly ahead of a potentially tough game at Porto in the Europa League on Thursday.
The United boss spoke to Sky Sports after Sunday’s defeat and shared what he told a rather downbeat squad of players in the dressing room.
Ten Hag claims to have told the players to leave Sunday’s display in the past and focus on a ‘new day’ on Monday.
It’s clear that Ten Hag doesn’t want players lingering on this defeat but urged them to improve in many aspects of the game.
“It’s always a new day,” said Ten Hag.
“I told them just in the dressing room ‘come on, tomorrow is a new day’. But definitely, we have to learn, we have to do things better, we have to be better in the pressing, especially also better on the ball because there were situations where we could have played better, to find the spare man or to play over the press, to keep the ball and play from there and we didn’t do it, and of course that’s disappointing,” he added.
Ineos should not be afraid to axe Ten Hag
We are not expecting to wake up on this Monday morning and see Ten Hag on his way out of Old Trafford.
The pressure is certainly mounting though and poor results against Porto and Aston Villa over the next week could prove pivotal.
Ineos backed Ten Hag over the summer, deciding to keep him in place in the Old Trafford dugout despite a dismal Premier League campaign.
Results have yet to materialise and Ineos should not be afraid of sacking Ten Hag if they don’t feel performances will improve.
Allowing Ten Hag to continue whilst making absolutely no progress would be much more damaging to United’s prospects than keeping him in charge just to save face.
Ten Hag needs results quickly and the likes of Omar Berrada, Dan Ashworth and Sir Jim Ratcliffe will be monitoring his situation very, very closely.