Not for the first time this season, the sound of boos filled Old Trafford at full time. Not for the first time, there were enough of them to drown out the final whistle. But this time, for the first time, that low, loud hum of dissatisfaction came from a ground that was already beyond half empty.
Pockets of empty red seats emerged from around the 70th minute, developed into swathes by the 80th and were huge, wide expanses as stoppage time approached. Many supporters had seen enough and their exodus signified that Manchester United’s miserable start to this season had entered a new stage.
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If there is a difference between the defeats that came earlier in the campaign and the consecutive 3-0 humblings of the past four days — first to Manchester City, now to an under-strength Newcastle United — it is that as well as scrutiny of the players and the owners, the manager is now under the microscope, too.
Forget about defending the Carabao Cup in this repeat of last season’s Wembley final, the undisputed highlight of Erik ten Hag’s first year in charge. Last night, the United manager simply needed a positive response to Sunday’s derby defeat. Instead, United lost back-to-back home games by three goals or more for the first time in the 53-year-old’s lifetime.
There are plenty of mitigating factors in Ten Hag’s favour: an unrelenting and unforgiving injury crisis, multiple off-field controversies and distractions, uncertainty over the fundamental issue of the club’s ownership, and specifically the management of the football department itself.
Ten Hag has been reluctant to point to any one of those obstacles as an excuse. He knows as well as anyone that he will be judged upon results and that they must be delivered consistently at a club of United’s size, no matter what is going on in the background.
United were briefly getting them, winning three times on the spin before this pair of defeats, but never while looking like they would make a habit of it, never with the belief that a turning point had been reached.
“You only get confidence when you get the right results and that’s only possible when you follow the rules, follow the principles and are in the game, in the fight,” Ten Hag said in his round of post-match broadcast interviews after this defeat.
Except that those rules and those principles of his are becoming harder and harder to define. Ten Hag has always been more of a pragmatist than his popular image would have many believe. Until now, that has served him well at a club where a curveball is never far around the corner.
United lost 3-0 at home for the second time in a week (Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)Maybe there has been one curveball too many, though, as United’s play has become so compromised it now appears absent of any guiding principles. Ten Hag made seven changes against Newcastle, rotating almost everywhere he could, but in attempting to solve old problems, he only created new ones.
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Replacing the out-of-sorts Marcus Rashford and Bruno Fernandes in attack was wise on paper, but Alejandro Garnacho and Antony struggled just as much in practice. A new, more combative midfield was not as passive or as easily played through as on Sunday, but two-thirds of them were on yellow cards within the first 20 minutes.
The defence was mostly untouched — Sergio Reguilon in for Jonny Evans, with Victor Lindelof moving back to centre-half — but played horribly, undressed too easily on all three Newcastle goals.
And what of the manager? “It is below the standards everyone expects from Manchester United,” Ten Hag said. “It is not good enough by far. We have to put it right.”
It should be stressed that there has been no indication United are considering Ten Hag’s position and, despite many heading for the exits early, he retains the support of the majority of the fans too. Yet a run like this — of eight defeats in 15 games — invites awkward questions.
Ten Hag was asked in his post-match press conference how important it is that he is given time to turn things around.
“We are in a bad place,” he said. “I take responsibility for it. I see it as a challenge. I am a fighter and I am in that fight and I have to make sure that I share the responsibility with my players and that we stick together and fight together.”
The pressure, clearly, is growing. But realistically, what other choice do he, his players and United have? Who would replace him? Elite-level, proven managers rarely swap one job for another. Picking a successor at short notice is often a case of scrambling around for whoever’s available.
Who at United would even make such a decision, given that in a matter of weeks or months, control over sporting matters at the club could be in completely different hands? Up until now, sources close to the INEOS bid, who remain anonymous because they did not have permission to speak publicly, have always indicated that if there are problems at United, they do not lie in the manager’s office.
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Would United even be able to afford a new appointment? Remarkably, at a club that announced record revenues of £648million ($788m) last week, that may be a relevant question once factoring in their dwindled cash reserves, diminished credit headroom, tight financial fair play margins and the compensation fees involved.
Then there is the strongest argument against making a managerial change: that it has not worked the last four times United have tried it and the jury is still very much out on the fifth.
A club that has long been in need of a hard, painful reset has not shown much appetite for the hard and painful part, instead continuing to spend big in an attempt to keep pace, then finding themselves back at square one.
There is a more than convincing argument that Ten Hag is not the problem. But then the notion that there is just one problem to solve at post-Sir Alex Ferguson era United — whether it’s an ageing Cristiano Ronaldo, an antiquated recruitment setup, the leak in Old Trafford’s roof or even the Glazer family themselves — has been an oversimplification throughout.
The problems are many. But recent history has shown that unless the manager can overcome them and build a successful, winning team then, rightly or wrongly, he quickly becomes viewed as one too.
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(Top photo: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
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