Is Time Up for Erik Ten Hag?

As the rain poured down at Old Trafford on Sunday evening, there was an all too familiar feeling of dejection amongst the fan base as Spurs became the latest team to dismantle Erik Ten Hag’s side.

United may have played most of the game with ten men after Bruno Fernandes’ red card at 42 minutes, however the team unfortunately showed no signs of being at the races from the first whistle. Honestly, it may even be the worst half of football we have ever witnessed under Erik Ten Hag at Manchester United.

A 3-0 defeat might have flattered United given how poorly they performed. According to the xG Philosophy, Spurs’ xG of 5.33 at Old Trafford is more than United have generated in total at home this season.  A truly damning statistic. According to Opta, Ange Postecoglou’s side created the biggest xG of any Premier League away side since Manchester City beat Norwich City 4-0 back in February 2022. The defeat means it is also back to back 3-0 losses in the Premier League at Old Trafford given the Red Devils were outclassed by Arne Slot’s Liverpool just four weeks ago. 

So will Erik Ten Hag survive after another disastrous result? According to OddsChecker, the Dutchman is now the favourite with the bookmakers for the next Premier League manager to be sacked. Evidently, the Manchester United fans are quickly losing patience and many believe Ten Hag’s time might be up. 

ERIK TEN HAG'S TACTICS AND STYLE OF PLAY 

You will hear many fans and pundits alike claim Erik Ten Hag's Manchester United don't have a 'style of play' but the truth is, this is it. This is Erik Ten Hag’s Manchester United. What you are witnessing is a high risk tactical philosophy which after three seasons, seems cannot work consistent enough to deliver results expected for a club the size of United. Can his game model really work in building a title challenging team? Is his brand of football sustainable? Unquestionably his game model can on occasion be successful or he wouldn’t have delivered two trophies in two seasons. Maybe Ten Hag's style of football is more suited to cup competitions but is that enough for Manchester United fans? He has shown for one off games he can be pragmatic and adapt to implement a tactical plan specific to the opposition in a knockout competition. A perfect example of this is our FA Cup win this year over Manchester City. It was executed to perfection and Ten Hag deserves full credit for how this played out. The frustration however amongst United fan base is the unpredictable nature of not knowing what type of display the team will deliver. It leaves fans questioning if the manager’s football philosophy will ever reach the levels required to compete for a Premier League title. Too frequently has his Manchester United side been dominated or lost to supposed 'inferior' teams and scraped undeserved wins against weaker opposition. 

Ten Hag said he wants United to be the "best transition team in the world" and maybe therein lies the problem? His Manchester united side are instructed to play vertically and direct, forcing transitional moments opposed to keeping possession and building momentum. The team will forcibly go wide most times in the hope to facilitate chance creation in attack, putting immense pressure on the wide players to deliver. The wingers positions in the wide areas can also almost be ‘too wide’ at times. What I mean by this is that they are so close to the touchline, not too far inside their own half that by the time they attempt to run at the defenders, they run into traffic as the defence has had time to get into position. You rarely see United attempt to play through the middle of the pitch, unless it is Fernandes attempting balls ‘over the top’ or ‘in behind.’ Again, these phases of play are often forced with little build up in possession prior to the attack. In stark contrast to this, if you consider Pep Guardiola's approach and the insight he provides in the book Pep Confidential, Guardiola says...

Let's be clear, not every manager needs to or should attempt to emulate 'The Pep Way.' That said, many teams in the modern game may be guilty of doing just that and if it works, it can be very effective as we all know. Some football fans may even label Pep's style as 'boring' but the longer the opposition doesn’t have the ball, the less chance they have of scoring a goal. Erik Ten Hag's Manchester United certainly do not operate this way, with little to no emphasis on settled possession. Longer sustained periods of possession are not in Ten Hag’s current playbook. The players will look to get forward at the earliest opportunity, often handing back possession to the opposition via errors in the process. Unforced errors and turnovers have been common in United’s game in the Ten Hag era. Too many risks are taken to progress the ball in numerous phases of play and we are often punished as a result. 

This ‘gung-ho’ approach is intentional and instructional. United want to progress the ball to the final third as quickly as possible, and if they lose it, they make attempts to counter press and turn the ball over. Ten Hag had previously highlighted that at one stage his side had the highest number of possession regains in the final third in the Premier League. This is exactly how we wants his team to function. The manager also has Casemiro playing very progressive passes in his role and for the most part, Casemiro has a very good passing range but it wasn’t something he facilitated in his time at Real Madrid. He had two of the best midfielders in the world in Kroos and Modric to do this alongside him so he could simply focus on his core defensive midfielder duties. This strategy is high risk but with unfortunately more often than not, low reward. You also have the issue of the large spaces appearing in the midfield, meaning United get completely overrun and sliced open quickly by the opposition. The aforementioned reasons all contribute to this scenario as well as the fact we rarely see the full backs support the press. The chaos this systems brings, makes the game akin to a ‘basketball game’ and was a reason why most of our matches were ‘end to end’ contests last season. Any defensive midfielder in world football would struggle in this system. Unless the players are of an elite level and profile specific, the physical demands of the role to cover so much ground is too much.  

Instead of creating final third patterns, the goal of Ten Hag's side is to take advantage when the opposition is susceptible to attacks, using pace and quick switches of play. Ten Hag's whole idea is to hit them on the 'transition' using these instructions and the intensity needed to carry out these tactics consistently has also often been attributed to the high number of injuries sustained by the squad last year.

At approximately £600M spent under Ten Hag, it’s difficult to argue that he hasn’t been backed in building his team. There are only seven players remaining from previous managers and with most players now returned from injury, he is quickly running out of excuses. The one year contract extension activated after the strategic review in the summer felt more like a prolonged audition for the role, than a longterm vote of confidence or faith in the former Ajax manager.  

Fans will tell you this expensively assembled squad still lacks organisation, discipline, leadership and creativity. The club has had one summer transfer window under the INEOS regime, and the feedback was that positive business was done to improve the squad. United may have raised the technical floor in the summer transfer window, signing the likes of Mazraoui and Zirkzee. These are players capable of comfortably playing in tight spaces, something which massively benefits the way Ten Hag wants to play. However this can also suggest an over-reliance on individual player quality rather than coached patterns of play. Rarely have we seen free flowing football with combinations in the final third, which excites the fanbase. There have undoubtedly been glimpses of this, particularly this season, but not enough on a consistent basis to be impactful. 

PROGRESS

There was optimism amongst the fan base that this season's United side were more compact in the midfield, making them less vulnerable to counter attacks, thanks to tweaks in the pressing structure and rest defence. Claims were made we looked better out of possession, we looked 'coached.' 

Conceding less shots on goal so far this campaign was deemed progress. Last season, Manchester United conceded an average of 17.3 shots per game. Until the Spurs defeat, Manchester United were conceding 9.8 shots per game. According to FotMob, Manchester United surrendered 61% possession to Ange Postecoglu's side and the away team's total shots reached 24 with 10 of those on target.

There was praise that this Manchester United team were also creating higher quality chances in front of goal but just lacking that clinical finishing to ultimately steer progress into points. Maybe if we just took our chances, Erik Ten Hag's side would turn that corner? Maybe it will click? The only thing that is clicking now is the hand of a clock, as time quickly seems to be running out for the Dutchman.

So what about the fact he has won two trophies in two years I hear you say? There is no denying Erik Ten Hag has succeeded in delivering long awaited silverware to the club. The beautiful moment of beating our noisy neighbours as underdogs in the FA Cup final will live long in the memory of every Manchester United fan. However, football is a results business and every manager needs results. Seven points from the first six Premier League games is simply unacceptable as Manchester United manager.  According to Statsdufoot, Erik ten Hag has lost 32% of his league games for Manchester United (26/82), the highest percentage since Tommy Docherty (33 %) in 1977 (minimum 50 games). 

Manchester United have had many 'wake up calls' over the last two seasons however when does a wake up call just become an irritating slap in the face you know is always just around the corner? Teams are no longer afraid to take the game to United at Old Trafford and Ten Hag has collated a library of unwanted statistics highlighting the sharp drop off in the standards expected. The 9 wins, 8 losses and 3 draws in the last 20 games at Old Trafford suggests it is far from the ‘fortress’ it once was and Cole Palmer (6) and Erling Haaland (10) have more goals individually than Manchester United have managed in total in the league this season (5).

The words ‘new low’ have been used regularly to describe results for this Manchester United side. Just when you think it couldn’t possible get any worse, the team will produce a performance to signify going backwards even further than before. The reality is, this is Erik Ten Hag's third season and losing at home with a (mostly) full strength side to Spurs is unacceptable in the eyes of most Manchester United fans. Ten Hag complimented Spurs in the build up to the game, claiming in his pre match press conference "We know in advance they are a top team who can cause us issues" yet his side didn't seem in any way prepared and made no attempts to nullify or deal with Spur's high press.

After a disappointing result midweek (1-1) in the Europa League v FC Twente, fans were expecting an improvement in what could prove to be a pivotal fixture in the race for European football next season. In the United View (club programme) Ten Hag said "I hope that the nature of the second half on Wednesday (against FC Twente) provides us all with a reminder of what can happen without total focus and what is always required at this club." What's required at this club is evidently much better than the dismal performances delivered last season and the beginning of this campaign. Make no mistake, the manager knows this and his defiance in post match press conferences can either be seen as delusion or eternal optimism. New owners implementing a footballing structure accompanied by a strategic vision might take time, but time is no longer an affordable luxury at this stage and it’s quickly running out for Erik Ten Hag.