ETH is a man who has run out of answers... United boss has no conviction or plan

In the foreword to Grit, Rigour & Humour, his book about the INEOS success story, Sir Jim Ratcliffe cuts to the heart of what has made him one of Britain’s richest men.

It relates to an adventure with friends in the remote Kimberley region of northern Australia four years ago, when Ratcliffe’s helicopter stopped off at a refuelling station in the middle of nowhere and he spotted a message on a whiteboard to any pilot passing through. ‘Don’t do dumb s***.’

It was a refreshingly simple piece of advice and one that appealed to Ratcliffe’s business approach. He remains a working-class man at heart with old-fashioned values.

The 71-year-old is also a ruthless operator and has surrounded himself with experts such as Sir Dave Brailsford, whose marginal gains theory transformed British cycling. These are men who do not accept failure, and demand accountability.

Explaining the INEOS ethos, Ratcliffe wrote: ‘Do your job fully, and well, and with pride. Prepare thoroughly and if you don’t know the answer to a question say so, but never twice.’

Those words came to mind as Erik ten Hag faced the media after overseeing another depressing low in Manchester United’s season on Saturday, and tried to explain how he and his players had just been schooled by Bournemouth.

Ten Hag said a lot of words but came across as a manager who is running out of answers.

‘I expected something different,’ said the Dutchman rather wistfully, and you thought of Ratcliffe’s definition of rigour as being the ‘opposite of winging it’.

Ten Hag looks and sounds like a man who doesn’t know what to expect from his team from one week to the next, which is baffling when you consider he has been in the job for 18 months and spent £400million on new players.

Andoni Iraola has only been in charge of Bournemouth since the summer but his fingerprints were all over this superb performance in the way his team pressed and harried and outplayed United.

Where is Ten Hag’s hallmark on United? What is the identity of his team? These are questions Ratcliffe will be asking as he prepares to move into Old Trafford once his acquisition of a quarter of United for £1.25billion is announced any day now.

The deal will take a little longer to be ratified, but Ratcliffe and Brailsford will be key decision-makers soon.

Against this backdrop, Ten Hag enters what feels like a critical week as United manager. On Tuesday, he faces a make-or-break Champions League game against Bayern Munich at Old Trafford.

Even if United manage to beat the runaway Group A winners, they must rely on Copenhagen and Galatasaray drawing to go through to the knockout stage.

Then on Sunday, Ten Hag takes his team back to Anfield where they were beaten 7-0 by Liverpool in March. United fans could be forgiven for watching that one through their fingers. Captain Bruno Fernandes is suspended after he was booked for dissent against Bournemouth. With Christian Eriksen and Mason Mount unlikely to be available, Ten Hag must find another No 10 or change formation.

On the evidence of this rollercoaster of a season, the chances of United putting together two big performances in the same week seem remote at best.

It’s not all bad, of course. That’s the thing about inconsistency. United are capable of raising their game, as they did against Chelsea in midweek. Win and lose, up and down.

Ten Hag went into the Bournemouth match having been named Premier League manager of the month for November, and came out of it looking like a contender for the sack race. United suffered their 11th defeat — their seventh in the league — in 23 games this season, meaning they have lost more Premier League games in the decade since Sir Alex Ferguson retired than in the Scot’s entire 26 years at the club.

Bournemouth, on the other hand, celebrated their first win at Old Trafford in the club’s history thanks to goals from Dominic Solanke, Philip Billing and Marcos Senesi. Their fourth victory in the last five games was richly deserved.

United laboured in the teeming Manchester rain and were booed off. They were sloppy in possession, slack in their marking and toothless in attack.

It brought to mind an unintentionally comic post from United’s Twitter account 10 years ago to the day on Saturday: ‘David Moyes says #mufc must improve in a number of areas, including passing, creating chances and defending.’

All these years later and Ten Hag is in the same boat. It left you wondering what on earth he said to his players before they stepped on to the pitch on Saturday. Whatever it was, he could have done worse than give them the same simple message Ratcliffe saw on that whiteboard in Australia.