It has been a generationally bad season for Man United. Fans have been depressed all season, especially considering the high hopes they had at the end of last season after winning the FA Cup against League champions, Manchester City.
They were so optimistic that they were saying they had a better last season than Arsenal fans but things unraveled completely this season. Everything has gone down the drain and since it’s too costly to fire all the players, here are the five biggest reasons why Eric Ten Hag got sacked just 7 games into the new season.
5) Big Money Signing Failed
One major reason Ten Hag has failed and got sacked is that his new big money signings have all failed. One of the biggest criticisms put against Ten Hag is that Man United have fully backed him by buying all the players he wanted.
Some high-profile names that they got were Casemiro, Mason Mount, Lisandro Martinez, Andre Onana and Anthony. Only one of those players in Martinez has actually made a positive impact. Other players like Anthony, who was a player that Ten Hag managed at Ajax, they paid nearly £100 million to sign him but he has been so bad that you wouldn’t even have paid £25 million for him. The decision to buy Anthony will be one of the biggest regrets of Erik’s era.
Then you have other players that Ten Hag previously managed in Andre Onana, who they spent big money to sign. Although, he looks better this season, but he was very poor for Man United last season. He was so erratic, made so many mistakes that cost United matches.
Players like Casemiro, who gave United one good season on a big contract, and now he looks like the worst player on the pitch. Yes, a lot of the blame has to go on the players themselves, but Ten Hag has fallen on the sword for not getting the best out of them.
4) Terrible Playing Style / Tactics
We’ve heard this so many times this season by the experts. What is Man United’s tactics?
Even after two years, Ten Hag has not managed to install any playing philosophy on the team. When managers like Arteta were struggling with Arsenal, you could at least see the style he was training his players to play in. Postacoglu at Tottenham had installed a playing style immediately, whereas Ten Hag has had to flip-flop with tactics, and the fans are left unsatisfied.
Ten Hag said he wanted to install his Ajax possession-based playing style but he doesn’t have the players. He also mentioned that he wanted to combine the Ajax style with Man United’s DNA of direct attacking play causing confusion as the players don’t know which philosophy to follow. They are often dubbed the worst coached team in the league.
The players often look like they have no clue what to do, the midfield always looks wide open, the midfield and the defence don’t talk to each other. It makes you question, what is Ten Hag doing in training that the team is still not playing with a philosophy and a tactics that everyone is familiar with?
3) Unpleasant Results & Stats
Now this one is a bit obvious, but the run of results Man United have been the previous season and this new season is shocking. If the leadership group just take a glimpse of these stats, Ten Hag would have been sacked last summer.
Now let me read out some damage stats to show how bad United are this season. Currently, with 3 losses, 4 draws 3 wins, sitting 7 points off relegation zone in the EPL, zero wins in the Europa League, United have suffered the worse start they’ve ever had in a Premier League season.
United finish 8th in the Premier League last season. The lowest they’ve ever finished was 7th. United conceded 81 goals in all competition last season. This is the most goals conceded by them since 1976.
United have never finished a Premier League season with minus goal difference, but they are currently on -3 after ending last season with a -1 goal difference.
So Ten Hag led Man United to their worst campaign in Premier League history. He’s breaking records for all the wrong reasons. Usually, this reason would be number one for a manager to get sacked but understanding that United have been ravaged by injuries and that’s affected their playing style.
So that’s why this reason is only number three on this list.
2) Star Players Not Performing
Carrying on to number two reason is that Ten Hag did not get the best out of his star players. The biggest way to judge a manager’s quality is that is he improving the players in his squad. Whether it’s turning a bad player into a decent player, a good player into a great player, or a great player into a world class player.
No matter the status of the player, every player under their manager should make a forward progress, that is the sign of a true great manager.
Last season, Ten Hag has not done that with any of his players. Besides a few young players in Mainoo and Garnacho breaking into the squad, no other player has improved this season.
The main culprit being Marcus Rashford, who’s been so bad this season and the whole team has suffered because he’s not performed well.
Then you have other star players like Jadon Sancho, who was awful for Man Utd. Ten Hag refused to play him because they had a falling out and he sent him back out on loan to Dortmund. All of a sudden, Sancho is good again at Dortmund and he’s led Dortmund to the Champions League final. This is embarrassing for Ten Hag.
The United owners will be looking at Ten Hag’s failures and getting the best out of players on such a big contract like Sancho, who can perform well in another squad but can’t perform well for Man Utd.
It looks like all the big players have stopped playing for Ten Hag. There’s discontent in the squad, they’re arguing about tactics, the players are not getting along, and usually when this happens, it only leads to one sign and that’s the manager getting sacked.
Although, a lot of Man Utd fans will be saying they need to get rid of the players, it’s very hard to get rid of all the expensive players on big contracts that have long-term contracts. You can’t just get rid of them that easily. It’s much easier, more safer bet to get rid of the manager, bring a new manager in and hope that he can get the best out of all the players in the squad.
1) New Owners
Finally, the reason number one why Ten Hag got sacked is that there’s been a change of ownership at Man Utd. For the simple fact that there’s a new owners of the club, they will want to bring in a manager of their choice.
The new owners clearly have their own vision in their mind, and they’ve shown that by making several changes on the executive level.
They’ve brought in a new CEO in Omar Berrada from Man City, a new technical director in Jason Wilcox from Southampton, Dan Ashworth from Newcastle as Sporting Director of football. So clearly the new owners are changing everything at the club. So, since they’ve changed nearly all leadership levels, the only position left is the manager. They probably waited to give Erik a benefit of doubt, but he failed again.
They have a new CEO, new director of football, new technical director, who are all going to have their own ideas of who should be the manager of their club. None of these guys were involved in the process of hiring Eric Ten Hag initially.
For those reasons, I believe that Ten Hag was not unjustly sacked.
This article isn’t to say Ten Hag is a bad manager. I’m sure he’ll get another job and do a good job there. They’ve got so many issues and Ten Hag isn’t the man to fix it.
Who should be the next Manager of Manchester United? Amorim? Julian Nagelsmann? Potter? Thomas Frank? Xavi? If you’re a Manchester United Fan, let me know who you prefer in the comments below.
Thank you for reading.