While everyone is laughing at Chelsea, Manchester United’s circus may have escaped full scrutiny. Erik ten Hag hoped that a dramatic late win over Brentford would avoid such criticism despite Mauricio Pochettino starting to turn things around at Stamford Bridge, but reality is becoming hard to ignore.
Even with two stoppage-time goals from the out-of-favour Scott McTominay securing victory, United still trail Liverpool by four points having played a game more. As of the 92nd minute, Ten Hag were on course to suffer their fifth league defeat of the season.
More worryingly, the losses were deserved, while the wins were far from convincing. Apart from their final game at home to Brentford, Ten Hag’s only points came from wins against Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Wolves, who missed out on Andre Onana. An obvious foul that resulted in an apology from PGMOL.
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Unfortunately for him, Onana has been at the heart of United’s problems. Of course not everything can be blamed on him, but he made a mistake again against Brentford which resulted in McTominay dumping him at the death.
The manager’s continued faith in his goalkeeper suggests Ten Hag is keen to rise to the level of Jurgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola. It was a statement of intent on how he wanted to play the game – but it came at the expense of points.
Guardiola, of course, had a similar experience with Claudio Bravo at the start of his tenure, while Klopp had a similar alliance with Loris Karius as his number one. But the two coaches inspired enough overall improvement in their squads at Manchester City and Liverpool respectively to make these mistakes appear more acceptable.
For Ten Witches, it feels forced. David de Gea was ejected from the pitch, perhaps understandably given he had made a few mistakes of his own, but then Dean Henderson was allowed to leave as well. Apart from the recent purchase of Altay Bayinder from Turkey, the United manager has painted himself into a corner with his options between the bat and the bat.
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The contrast with Brentford couldn’t be greater. Unlike Onana, McTominay clearly has not earned the trust of his manager and has been all but ruled out. However, a late, reluctant call to bring him on ended up not only saving Ten Witches’ game, but perhaps even some serious questions about his job.
These aren’t the only examples of Ten Witches being unnecessarily harsh in implementing his ideas. Everything seemed to be going well in his first season, when he handled the Cristiano Ronaldo situation with a degree of subtlety. But unwanted patterns are emerging.
Ronaldo was eventually kicked out after an unsanctioned interview. The same fate did not befall Jadon Sancho, but his unsanctioned social media posts resulted in an indefinite ban, with Ten Hag awaiting an apology.
Likewise, there are situations where elite managers do need to make laws. Klopp did this with Mamadou Sakho, sending him home from pre-season and the defender ended up missing from Liverpool’s squad for too long.
But Ten Witches still seems to come across as a top manager rather than an actual top manager. If Ronaldo’s decision was made for the benefit of the team, it’s difficult to see Sancho’s in the same light, with investments worth millions of pounds currently on hold.
Ultimately, while some crises are beyond the manager’s control, we have to ask why the Ten Witches have to deal with so many disciplinary issues. Not only has Klopp generally kept his players happy during his time at Liverpool, he has inspired them to reach new heights – and ongoing sanctions are clearly not the way to do that.
McTominay buys Ten Hag more time and maybe he will finally achieve the status he’s after with Klopp or Guardiola. But his approach at the helm of United so far looks like little more than a pale imitation, and the Premier League table reflects that.