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Erik ten Hag says the Manchester United hierarchy should have told him by now if they intend to sack him.

United battled to a goalless draw with Aston Villa at Villa Park but they are winless in five games, have seven points from seven in the league - their worst start to a Premier League season - and are 14th in the table.

Co-chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chief executive Omar Berrada, sporting director Dan Ashworth, technical director Jason Wilcox and football board member Sir Dave Brailsford were all in attendance at Villa Park. Ratcliffe refused to publicly back Ten Hag on Friday and the Dutchman expects to hold discussions with the hierarchy in the coming days.

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"So I don’t have any idea that is different," Ten Hag replied when pressed on his future, "because they should have told me. We communicate very open, very transparent.

"I speak continuously with them and just after the game I have to do my job, talk with the players, manage the players and answer questions from you. We always talk. Every week, I would say every day we talk, so I expect I will speak with them.

"I think you said it very good - external noise. Internal, we are disappointed, we know we have to do better, especially we need to score more, that is the moment in this area after this block of games where we are really short.

"All the other areas we are doing really well: four clean sheets, so that tells something about the defending and about the organisation, the defending of defensive transitions. We are doing really well, we are really improving on that point.

"Our build-up play is good, we are calm and composed. We are creating chances apart from today. Today we should have created more. But that area in the box of the opponent, we have to be more ruthless, more clinical, more killing and we have to work on this."

United have scored five goals in the league and only Southampton have managed fewer. The 0-0 at Villa marked the fourth league game in the last five that United have failed to score in.

Ten Hag was still intent on dwelling on the positivity of a fourth clean sheet this season after Jonny Evans and Harry Maguire replaced Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez at centre half. The 36-year-old Evans was the man of the match.

"This is our fourth clean sheet in this season and that tells something about the control we have in and out of possession," Ten Hag stressed. "We are organised very well. In many games so far we created loads of chances. Today we didn’t create that much but we had the chances, with (Marcus) Rashford before and after half-time, we had a free-kick from Bruno (Fernandes) on the crossbar.

"And also we have to see that, in the end, when you defend like we did today, very solid, you also have some luck in the end when they create probably the best chance of the game with that deflected shot with the block from Diogo (Dalot)."