The Dutch coach, Eric Ten Hag, needed only two official matches to discover firsthand the depth of the crisis that his new team, Manchester United, is going through since the retirement of his legendary Scottish coach, Alex Ferguson in 2013.
After three victories in four warm-up matches he played on his Asian-Australian tour, United fans were optimistic that Ten Hag could revolutionize the team, bringing him back to his previous position and forgetting the disappointment of last season and the sixth place that the “Red Devils” won in the league.
But Ten Hag soon ran into the bitter reality of the 20-times champion, by losing the first two matches of the new season of the “Premier League”, the first at home against Brighton 1-2 and the second, on Saturday, at Brentford Stadium with a clean four, his last record in the first 36 minutes.
On Saturday, the painful loss that occurred with the presence of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo in the starting lineup after he was a substitute in the opening meeting, was the seventh in a row for United away from home in the league as an extension of last season, in a scenario that has not happened with him since… 1936 and made him bottom of the “Premier League” ranking Leg”.
In need of “open heart surgery”
This series included similar humiliating defeats against Manchester City (1-4), Liverpool (0-4) and Brighton (0-4), so that the “Red Devils” netted four or more times in seven Premier League games since the beginning of last season.
After this disastrous start to the new season, any hope for a bright new future led by the former Ajax Amsterdam coach, who quickly realized what his German predecessor, Ralf Rangnick, meant, after his last match as interim coach of the team, when he said that United needed an “open heart operation” and recruited something Up to ten new players in order to try to improve the sixth position in which it has arrived.
With the league reaching its third stage, United have so far been unable to bring in more than three new players: Danish, Christian Eriksen, Argentine Lisandro Martins and Dutchman Terrell Malacia, all of whom are unable to achieve the desired revolution.
What increases the size of United’s crisis is that the current team appears on paper to be weaker than last season’s team, especially with the departure of French midfielder Paul Pogba, Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani, midfielders Jesse Lingard, Serbian Nemanja Matic and Spaniard Juan Mata, all for free as a result of the end of the season. their contracts with the club.
Instead of stealing the spotlight with high-caliber contracts, United made the headlines for deals that did not happen, and we are talking about Dutch midfielder Frankie de Jong, whose Spanish team Barcelona reached an agreement from the English club regarding him, but the former Ajax player refused to move to Old Trafford, And Ronaldo, who applied to leave the club, but the latter refused to release him.
Once again, the American Glazer family, which owns the club, was a target for United fans, who vented their anger on her and demanded her departure.
The club’s store was forced to close its doors as a result of the attack launched by the fans demanding the departure of the Glazer family even before the start of the opening match in which the team fell at home against Brighton.
It is expected that there will be other moves on the sidelines of United’s next match at home against rivals Liverpool, in a replay of the scene of last season when the decision was taken to postpone the match between the two teams in May 2021, when fans stormed the Old Trafford stadium in protest against the plans of the European Super League.
“The time has come for the Glazers to sell the club,” former United captain Gary Neville said, adding: “People in the decision-making positions (at the club) should have known that it was not acceptable to hand Eric ten Hag this team.”
The lack of a coordinated transfer strategy at the club was exposed this week when United were reported to have pulled out of the deal for 33-year-old Austrian striker Marko Arnautovic, due to a backlash from fans.
Arrows also criticized another potential deal that United might make to include French midfielder, Adrien Rabiot, from Italian Juventus, especially from the former Scottish “Red Devils” midfielder, Lou Macari, who mocked this deal on the club’s television channel.
“We have to change that quickly.”
So far, it seems that Ten Hag has been left alone in a sinking ship with a team he inherited with the vast majority of its members without succeeding in vaccinating him with players capable of changing the downward curve of the record holder with the number of league titles.
After the humiliating loss, on Saturday, the Dutchman said he had asked his players to “play with faith and take responsibility for your performance, which we did not do”.
He continued, “It seems that what happened in the past, last season, is repeated this season and we have to change that quickly.”
United have needed change over the past nine years since the legendary coach Ferguson, who gave the club their 20th title in 2013, retired before leaving.
Ten Hag became the sixth coach to hold the position since then, but to no avail, unless the management is convinced of a more fundamental restructuring of the club’s management. Otherwise, United will be threatening to repeat the same mistakes, which may lead it to new lows.