When Erik ten Hag was sacked by Manchester United on Monday, 29th of October, it caught the footballing world off-guard.
United’s 2-1 defeat at West Ham had come in unfortunate circumstances, a game that United dominated for the most part, and lost due to a controversial penalty awarded by VAR in stoppage time.
Particularly after the 2-1 win over Brentford last week, which many expected to buy Ten Hag extra time, the timing felt surprising, but the reality is that Ten Hag’s exit had been coming for a long time.
The stats make brutal reading for United fans: their league start to the 2024/25 season has been the worst in Manchester United’s Premier League history, and the only manager in the post-Alex Ferguson era to lose more of his games than Ten Hag (31.8%) is David Moyes (32.4%). The football has been equally brutal watching.
One of the most damning criticisms aimed at Ten Hag has been his inability to implement a defined style of play at United, despite signing five players he worked with at Ajax – United have been most successful under Ten Hag when setting themselves up as underdogs.
To an extent, Ten Hag has been let down by poor individual errors at the back and blunt finishing: United have under-performed their attacking xG by 6.8 goals this season, comfortably the worst in the division – the underlying numbers are perhaps not as bad as their results suggest.
Aside from why Ten Hag was sacked, the biggest losers are the new INEOS ownership team – make no mistake this will be a stain Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS will find hard to wash off: the decision to extend Ten Hag’s contract by a year in the summer, and spend around £100 million on new signings, now looks like Glazers-esque mistake.
The decision to keep Ten Hag after winning the FA cup against Manchester City was a distinctly reactive decision, and left Ten Hag with shoddy authority.
Had Ten Hag lost, he would have almost certainly been sacked after a season of huge under-achievement: the fact that INEOS spoke to new manger Ruben Amorim and Thomas Tuchel in the summer showed how indecisive INEOS became over Ten Hag’s future after the final.
Ultimately, this muddled thinking shows that INEOS lack the clear plan they say they have for rebuilding United, putting into doubt whether they can break the cycle of failure that has engulfed the club since Ferguson left in 2013.
Illustration by Regan Donovan