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In their last 15 Premier League games, Everton have taken more points than Manchester United.
If you don’t believe me, count them yourself - Everton 21, United 19. After their crazy 3-3 draw with Porto on Thursday night, since the start of last season United have conceded two or more goals on 31 occasions in all competitions - more times than any other Premier League club over the same period.
And in their last five away games in Europe, United have conceded 17 goals, including four in Munich and Copenhagen. I offer those facts - not opinions, they are facts - as evidence of the tide going out on manager Erik ten Hag.
Everyone has an opinion on whether Ten Hag should stay or go, but it is the facts which are dragging him down. I don’t want to see a good man sacked, but United are shipping too many goals. They are too easy to play against, too easy to walk through, too porous at the back.
Three days after Twente equalised at Old Trafford in the Europa League in similar fashion, it was unbelievable - absolutely unforgivable - that Micky van de Ven was allowed to run 60 yards with the ball, without a single challenge to stop him, to set up Tottenham’s first goal in Spurs’ 3-0 win last Sunday.
And it made no sense for Ten Hag to hook Marcus Rashford, his most threatening forward, at half-time in Porto citing “rotation” as the reason. Are you serious? When you are under pressure, why would you take off your best player, who has scored one goal and made another, when it’s 2-2 and the game is in the balance?
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Erik ten Hag looks to be on the brink at Manchester United
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Octavio Passos/Getty Images)
Did Rashford carry the can for not tracking back for Porto’s opening goal? If so, there should have been half a dozen other candidates in red shirts for shouldering the blame. Sorry, but you don’t look look at squad rotation for the next game when the one you’re involved in has yet to be won.
Although it is early days to be passing a definitive judgement on Ten Hag’s summer signings, I have yet to be convinced that Noussair Mazraoui, Joshua Zirkzee, Matthijs De Ligt and Manuel Ugarte are going to turn United into title contenders. They look like players who might get them back in the top four, but are they going to finish above Manchester City, Arsenal or Liverpool? Not on the evidence of this season so far.
Are they going to finish above Chelsea or Tottenham? Well, Chelsea are flying and Spurs looked demonstrably superior at Old Trafford, even before Bruno Fernandes was sent off.
After spending £600million on new players under the Ten Hag regime, Aston Villa away this Sunday feels like a massive tipping point. I hope it doesn’t come down to this, but it would reportedly cost United £17m to part company with him after the Dutchman signed a new contract in the summer.
That scale of compensation would mean they would have to either give his assistant Ruud van Nistelrooy the job on an interim basis or go for a coach who is currently a free agent… someone like Gareth Southgate, Graham Potter or Thomas Tuchel.
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