Manchester United have had their worst start to a season in the Premier League and enter the international break in 14th place. With just two wins in seven games, coach Erik ten Hag's position is increasingly under threat.
The new powers at United, the executive team created by Sir Jim Ratcliffe since his Ineos Group became minority shareholders in February, will hold a regular board meeting on Tuesday, and the future of Ten Hag could be on the agenda .
But it is unlikely that the people charged with running the club's football operations – Ratcliffe, Dave Brailsford (Ineos sporting director), Omar Berrada (United chief executive), Dan Ashworth (United sporting director) and Jason Wilcox (technical director) of United) make the decision they surely need.
Although Ten Hag has overseen United's two worst starts to a Premier League campaign, in back-to-back seasons, how much blame does the 54-year-old former Ajax manager have?
Poor decisions, on and off the pitch, have left United behind rivals Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal, and put Ten Hag in the line of fire.
How has the biggest club in English football and 20-time league champions gone wrong?
Keep Ten Hag as manager
Ten Hag's position has been the subject of intense speculation for more than a year, with poor results and performances leading up to Ratcliffe's £1.25bn investment. Last season, the team finished eighth, with a negative goal difference, and Ineos had plans to replace Ten Hag.
Thomas Tuchel, Roberto de Zerbi, Kieran McKenna and Mauricio Pochettino were spoken for by Ratcliffe's team, and Gareth Southgate, Gary O'Neil and Graham Potter were also considered, but United's surprise victory in the FA Cup final against Man City in May effectively kept Ten Hag. in a job.
It took two and a half weeks for the club to confirm that Ten Hag would be granted not only a stay of execution, but also a one-year contract extension. Ratcliffe's team had chosen the easy option, and the start of this season has only shown how misjudged that was.
In mitigation, Ratcliffe did not want to sack a manager without Berrada and Ashworth at Old Trafford, with both men serving a notice period following departures from their previous roles at Man City and Newcastle United respectively.
But the decision to keep Ten Hag has led to performances that have produced United's worst start in 25 years.
2:38
Burley: No point in Man United delaying Ten Hag sacking
Craig Burley believes Manchester United should sack Erik ten Hag during the international break.
Sign Højlund instead of Watkins
Man United's recruitment failures date back more than a decade and even to the final years of Sir Alex Ferguson's reign as manager, but Ten Hag has been guilty of some of the worst decisions.
He pushed for Antony's signing from Ajax for £85m in August 2022, and the Brazilian winger has been hopelessly ineffective. Ten Hag also sanctioned the £55m signing of injury-prone Mason Mount from Chelsea a year later.
But Ten Hag's decision to sign then-20-year-old Rasmus Højlund in the summer of 2023 as a solution to the team's scoring problems has proven pivotal. It was a mistake by the players that United rejected in favor of the Danish striker.
Harry Kane was a target but was ruled out for lacking the pressing game required by Ten Hag. In reality, however, persuading Kane to sign for United rather than Bayern Munich was always unlikely to be successful.
Victor Osimhen and Ivan Toney were also ruled out, but sources told ESPN that Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins was seriously under consideration. It was decided that Højlund, who was seven years younger at the time, represented better value for money and was a long-term prospect.
Ten Hag said after United's 0-0 draw at Villa on Sunday that Højlund is United's “best goalscorer”, yet he scored just 17 goals in 48 appearances and finished 25th in the Premier League scoring charts. League last season with 10 goals.
By comparison, Watkins scored 19 goals to propel Villa to the Champions League, and won the playmaker of the season award for providing the most assists (13), two more than Chelsea's Cole Palmer. Bruno Fernandes scored eight goals for United, while no other player scored more than four.
Højlund could still prove to be one of the players of the future, but Ten Hag should have pushed for a proven goalscorer and not just a youngster with unproven potential.
Or perhaps he turns out to be Dutch international Joshua Zirkzee, who cost £36.5m from Bologna in the summer but has, so far, also flattered to deceive.
Rashford's mismanagement of his career
Getting the best out of players is probably the most important job of any coach, and Ten Hag has failed to do that under Marcus Rashford.
Not to be forgotten, Rashford scored 17 goals in 2022-23, Ten Hag's first season in charge. That allowed him to regain his place in the England team, but last season he returned to the stuttering form that had seen him fall out of favor with Gareth Southgate in the first place, and failed to reach Euro 2024.
Sources have told ESPN that senior figures at the club urged Ten Hag last season to show a softer side when dealing with players. The manager's blunt comments about Jadon Sancho, Casemiro and Raphaël Varane had created problems with those players, and he also openly criticized Rashford.
While sources have said Rashford caused trouble for himself on more than one occasion, including a birthday party in Manchester after a 3-0 derby defeat and a night out in Belfast that caused him to miss training, Ten Hag's relentless public comments about the England international did little to help calm the situation.
And although Rashford has shown some signs this season of returning to fitness, Ten Hag criticized him for his defending and dropped him after scoring three goals in two games. Ten Hag then cited “rotation” to replace Rashford at half-time during the 3-3 Europa League draw against FC Porto last week, despite the striker scoring one goal and creating another in the first half in the Dragao Stadium.
Rashford can be a frustrating player, but he has the ability and Ten Hag has done little to help the 26-year-old out of his slump.
Ten Hag Game Management
A major area of concern for United, and a key factor in their poor results, has been Ten Hag's inability to address his team's tactical failings.
Since the start of last season, United have conceded two goals in a game on 31 occasions. In their last five European games away from home, dating back to the 2022-23 season, they have conceded 17 goals.
However, more than two years into his reign as manager, problems remain and Ten Hag continues to search for a solution with regular changes to central defense and also central midfield.
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Dawson: Draw still leaves Man United with decision to make on Ten Hag
Rob Dawson says Erik ten Hag has not convinced his doubters after draws with Porto and Aston Villa.
At Villa on Sunday, United started the match with Harry Maguire and Jonny Evans, 36, as the centre-back pairing – two players who started for Leicester City five years ago.
Under Ten Hag, United have become an easy team for their opponents to play against, but the manager has remained rigidly loyal to his tactical approach.
That mistake is his, but the responsibility also lies with his bosses, who have allowed him to continue in office despite an obvious recurring defect.
The problem on the left side was not solved
Manchester United started the season without a fit left-back and even now, in early October, neither Luke Shaw nor Tyrell Malacia have made a single appearance.
Malacia didn't play at all last season due to a nagging knee injury, while Shaw made just 15 appearances in all competitions and hasn't pulled on a United shirt since being injured at Luton in February. Despite his checkered fitness record, Shaw declared himself fit to play for England at Euro 2024.
Since signing from Southampton 10 years ago, Shaw has made just 191 Premier League appearances for United. In that time, United have played 387 league games, so the 29-year-old has managed to feature in less than 50%.
However, despite Malacia's continued problems and Shaw's unreliability, United and Ten Hag began this season without a solution, leaving right-back Diogo Dalot to fill the role.
It has left United with an unbalanced team and without adequate defensive cover, which has exposed Rashford's defensive deficiencies and diminished his attacking threat.
Waiting too long to sign Ugarte
In 2022, United paid Real Madrid an initial £60m, plus an additional £10m, for Casemiro. In 2024, the Brazil international already looked like a spent force and needed to be replaced.
So United finally completed the £42.1 million signing of Manuel Ugarte from Paris Saint-Germain… on August 30, just as the transfer window was about to close. Two days later, with Ugarte ineligible to play, Ten Hag's side were completely overrun in midfield during a humiliating 3-0 home defeat to arch-rivals Liverpool.
Ugarte has so far struggled to make an impact, with the 23-year-old still building fitness after a disrupted pre-season and Ten Hag unable to find a way to fit the midfielder into his system.
United's financial situation and the battle to comply with the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules (PSR) forced the club to delay the signing of Ugarte until Scott McTominay moved to Napoli. That strict clean-up denied the Uruguay international the opportunity to accelerate his return to fitness and work with his new teammates in midfield before the season began.
Had the deal been agreed sooner, the midfield problems that continue to plague United could have been avoided or lessened.
Waiting for history to repeat itself
United have a history of supporting struggling coaches. The reputation stretching back to resisting calls to sack Sir Alex Ferguson when his team was seemingly going nowhere in 1989-90 after a dull three years in charge. This is United's worst start since that campaign, and they must expect Ten Hag to enjoy the same dramatic transformation.
Ferguson survived and achieved two decades of success, turning United into the biggest and most successful team in England.
Ferguson's story arguably helped keep David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in a place at United. Their demise had become inevitable long before they were finally eliminated.
But if United expect a repeat of Ferguson history, they are heading for another mistake that will keep the team adrift for years.
