Man Utd under coach Ten Hag seems to be worse than they were last season, but this problem has a deep cause.

 

Manchester United are facing crisis – again. Erik ten Hag’s team barely avoided humiliation against Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday, but their weaknesses on the pitch were exposed again in a 4-3 defeat at the Allianz Arena.

 

The Red Devils have lost four of their first six matches of the 2023-24 season, which is their worst start in all competitions in the past 36 years. They have also conceded three or more goals in three consecutive matches for the first time since 1978, and have conceded 14 goals in total – more than any other team in the Premier League.

 

Ten Hag’s first season at Old Trafford was considered a success with United winning the Carabao Cup and finishing third in the league, but they have gone backwards since then, despite spending more than £200 million ($246 million). during the summer transfer window.This is a continuation of the series of downturns that no manager has been able to overcome in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, with temporary bouts of optimism quickly turning to despair and disappointment. Ten Hag certainly deserves the same level of criticism that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and David Moyes have received following recent results, but he too has faced an unwinnable battle In the dressing room.

“This is my duty to control standards,” the Dutchman said of his strict approach last week. “Having strict rules is something the club asked of me because there wasn’t a good culture before I arrived last season. Of course, it’s not like someone just makes a mistake once, it’s a process.” overall process before you arrive at a certain result in terms of strict rules. If staff or players or whoever, there is a structure to get across the line so you have to be strong.”

However, the problem is that it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Ten Hag’s comments come after he had a public row with Sancho, who was exiled from the squad for the second time in the past year for not performing well in training.

 

Other players did not react in a positive way, losing 3-1 at home to Brighton, a team that cost a fraction of the error-ridden squad built by Ten Hag. That result was no more surprising than United’s latest loss to Bayern. United at least faced a struggle against Bayern, but the Bundesliga champions could not be said to be at their best. They scored four goals – and could have added at least one or two more – without ever really running at full steam.

 

Ten Hag’s team is too easy to play. The Dutch coach said as much after the 2-0 loss at Tottenham on August 19, when he told reporters: “They [Spurs] were nowhere, nothing, and then things happened. happens during the match, then they become distracted, don’t do their job anymore. They don’t run. Or they run at the wrong time, too late. Especially the strikers don’t recover.”Ten Hag will realize that he does not have time to spare. United have to start winning now, otherwise he faces the sack – that’s just the way it works at top clubs.

 

But United would face similar problems under any other manager. They have fallen far behind the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool in competing for major trophies over the past decade as the core values that defined Ferguson’s glory days have been forgotten.