– Man Utd look stuck in their tracks, again

It’s probably no bad thing that Erik ten Hag arrived at Old Trafford as a follicly challenged gentleman, because any hair he may have had would surely have been torn out by now.

By Lars Sivertsen, Football Expert for Betsson

It’s easy enough to have some degree of sympathy for Erik ten Hag.

During his time in charge of Manchester United, the Dutchman has had to battle a constant procession of problems, all of which have made it difficult for him to even begin to turn this team into what he presumably wants it to be.

When he took over, the team had an ageing superstar up front with neither the inclination or the physical capacity to play modern pressing football, a captain in central defence who looked uncomfortable playing out from the back, and a goalkeeper who was fully incapable of it. Getting this team to play anything like Ten Hag’s Ajax was not possible, and a pivot to pragmatism was the only sane option.

Last season the club was also forced to navigate the Mason Greenwood situation off the pitch, while the lack of any kind of recognized striker on it saw them turn to Wout Weghorst. When a striker was eventually signed this summer, the club went with a promising, but young and untested option – who then started the season injured anyway. The goalkeeper who was brought in to replace De Gea and enable the team to finally start developing more of a possession game has had a bewildering start to his United career, with his frequent mistakes causing many more problems than his feet have solved.

And Andre Onana’s feet haven’t solved a lot of problems so far either, partly because constant injuries have made it difficult for United’s defensive unit to gel and build confidence. Meanwhile, in the other end of the pitch, Antony has been a disastrous signing and Jadon Sancho has been ostracized. Marcus Rashford, whose goals did much to keep the good ship United afloat last season, is underperforming badly, and Antony Martial is somehow still there.

It’s probably no bad thing that Erik ten Hag arrived at Old Trafford as a follicly challenged gentleman, because any hair he may have had would surely have been torn out during his time in charge. There’s always something. An injury to just the wrong player at the wrong time, an important piece of the puzzle underperforming, difficult situations to handle off the pitch. There’s always something.

When Manchester United still managed to eek out a CL spot last season, Erik ten Hag was rightly praised for his pragmatism.

Any stylistic concerns or notions of wanting to make Manchester United play more like his Ajax team were put to the side, and Ten Hag found a way to win games in spite of the various obstacles he faced. But this can only go on for so long. Ten Hag was appointed with a brief of giving United a clear footballing identity again, but this idea seems to have been discarded altogether. The recent return to prominence of players like Harry Maguire and Scott McTominay is telling. Players initially deemed unsuitable for the kind of football Ten Hag wanted to play have somehow become important parts of the team again. Ten Hag himself recently acknowledged in an interview with Dutch TV that “the football that we played at Ajax, we will never play here”.

“The collection of players you have available determines your style of play and that is why we play here in a different manner than I have at Ajax”, Tan Hag said, reasonably, to Viaplay. But at the same time, Manchester United have signed about 10 new first team players at a combined cost of well over 400 million pounds since Erik ten Hag took over. Whatever style Ten Hag does want to implement, surely that number of new arrivals – at that kind of expense – should make it possible for him to get somewhere near it.

Instead, United are a shapeless mess, yet again. A recent run of positive results has covered over the fact that the team has hardly put in a convincing performance all season. The team has won five out of their last seven in the league, which sounds good, but at the same time we’re in December and Manchester United have yet to take a point from any opponent in the top half of the table. They’re 7th in the league, which is not a total disaster, but Opta’s xG difference puts them 12th – behind the likes of Crystal Palace and Everton.

Again, with awkward injuries to manoeuvre, key players like Rashford and Casemiro starting the season on terrible form and the new goalkeeper having added more problems than he’s solved, there is a temptation to cut Ten Hag some slack. It remains difficult to grow and care for your garden when bits of it are constantly on fire. But after a while it also becomes pertinent to point out that Ten Hag is not entirely blameless here. André Onana is very much Ten Hag’s man, as he worked with the Cameroonian goalkeeper before at Ajax. Ditto Antony, who at a reported cost of 95 million euros has been a catastrophic signing. And as much as Ten Hag is fully entitled to take steps to uphold internal discipline, it’s hard not to think that other managers may have found a more elegant solution to the Jadon Sancho issue. It’s clear that Ten Hag has a big input on the club’s transfer targets, so the fact that he has had to default back to the likes of Maguire and McTominay is hardly a ringing endorsement of his judgement.

Two of Manchester United’s most dispiriting performances this season came at home to Brighton and now away to Newcastle, two games in which the contrast between United and their opponents was stark. Brighton and Newcastle play very different types of football, but both have a clear identity and regularly appear to be more than the sum of their parts. Brighton, having lost their two best midfielders over the summer, were toying with United at Old Trafford back in September.

Newcastle are battling a devastating injury crisis of their own yet were totally superior to United this weekend. Certainly, Newcastle have spent a significant amount of money under their new Saudi ownership, but where Manchester United keep signing players who end up looking uncomfortable at Old Trafford, there seems to be far more joined-up thinking at Newcastle. Whether you can really conquer the world with the likes of Harvey Barnes and Antony Gordon remains to be seen, but at least Newcastle have consistently brought in players who suit their manager Eddie Howe’s philosophy and the way he wants the team to play.

Watching United, it remains hard to discern if there is any kind of philosophy or if Erik ten Hag even has a way he wants the team to play anymore. With the various problems he’s had to manoeuvre, you could understand why Ten Hag may have fallen into a pattern of just trying to get through the next game. Last season’s pivot to pragmatism was necessary, but Ten Hag appears to be stuck there. Perhaps United will soon have fewer injuries and fewer problems to deal with, and the real Erik ten Hag team will somehow emerge. But it’s been almost a season and a half, it’s not unreasonable to expect some semblance of progress at this point.

United fans watching the team this weekend, with Harry Maguire at the back, Scott McTominay in midfield and Antony Martial loitering up front, must have been wondering how it’s possible that this is still happening. And incoming minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe must be looking at the man on the sideline wondering if he really does have a plan and a vision for how Manchester United can become a team that competes for the big prizes again.

Odds might have changed since publication.

Last Update: 22.11.2023