Erik ten Hag’s last stand: Ranking is not reflecting our performance

On Sunday evening in the press room at the London Stadium, about half an hour after his team had registered the wretched defeat which would mark his final game in charge, Erik ten Hag was looking forward to Manchester United’s next match.

Even as the extensive brain trust assembled by Sir Jim Ratcliffe to reinvigorate the playing side of the club were checking the details of his contract ahead of firing him the following morning, it was evident from his demeanour that the manager thought he was still in charge. And after he had spoken about the failings of VAR and his players’ haplessness in front of goal when facing West Ham, he addressed some questions from the media about the forthcoming Carabao Cup tie against Leicester City.

As is the way of such arrangements, his answers were to be the subject of an embargo, not to be published until Tuesday lunchtime; there to serve as a preview for the midweek match. Instead, with the benefit of imposed hindsight, they can be seen as a rather sombre obituary for a manager’s career, a swansong for someone who appeared to be as unaware of his impending departure as he was about how to win a football match.

Because in his answers was evidence that, while almost every other observer recognised that the performances he has extracted from his team thus far this season have been tantamount to a note of resignation, he really did not see the P45 heading swiftly in his direction.

‘Ranking is not reflecting our performance’

Take his response, for instance, to a question about whether he considered 14th in the Premier League with a negative goal difference a legitimate reflection of his and his side’s capabilities.

“We have to do better, that is the ranking,” he said. “But I will tell them [the players] the ranking is not reflecting our performances and our levels.”

Clearly his employers did not share such an opinion. For them, the table does not lie. Ten Hag, though, clearly felt time was still on his side.

“But at the end of the season we have to get this right,” he continued. “It is not easy when you have so many setbacks at the start of the season and to overcome this, but we have to fight back. It will always help when you have a good start because that gives motivation, gives belief, the confidence will grow. We are now in the process on the other side where we are disappointed and we have to deal with setbacks and now we have to find the fuel from setbacks and disappointments.”

‘There are still four to go’

He was then asked if such fuel might come from success in the cup competitions. Would winning the Carabao Cup constitute a good season for him?  His reply was revealing.

“Definitely. It is about trophies,” he said. “I don’t want to go into this debate again. There are not so many trophies you can win, if you win a trophy in top football, that is the most important, that is what the fans expect, what we expect – to win a trophy.”

He clearly still believed that the cups he had popped in the Old Trafford trophy room (did he ever mention he had won two?) would continue to shield him from dismissal.

“We have had five opportunities and one we missed, that was the Community Shield,” he concluded. “There are still four to go.”

Four to go? Given the position he had steered the club to in both the Premier League and the Europa League this season, given how poor his team had played thus far, given his tactical arrangements had been exposed time and again, that was a magnificently optimistic reading of potential silverware. 

But never mind that. When the meeting with Dan Ashworth and Omar Berrada concluded with his dismissal, he will doubtless have headed back to the Netherlands convinced that he had bequeathed to his successor, whoever that may be, a side already embarked on the pursuit of a quadruple.