Five Reasons Manchester United Fire Erik Ten Hag

Erik ten Hag had several reasons to be fired (Instagram/@manchesterunited).

JAKARTA - Erik ten Hag officially left the position of Manchester United manager on Monday, October 28, 2024, local time.

The departure of the Dutch coach could not be separated from the results of the minor The Red Devils at the beginning of this season.

Last season, Manchester United finished eighth in the standings. Since the Premier League broke up and was formed in 1992, their position has never been lower than that.

During 38 games, the Red Devils conceded one more goal than they scored. That record is the club's worst record in the Premier League era.

In fact, the last time Manchester United's team made a negative goal difference was in 1990 when we still called it the First Division.

The problem is, it's only the start of the season, Manchester United is already slumping. In nine league games this season, they are in 14th position.

Marcus Rashford and colleagues conceded three more goals than they scored. In fact, they still haven't played against Manchester City, Arsenal, or Chelsea.

Indeed, this is not the worst start for Manchester United. Earlier when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took over in 2019, the Red Devils finished ninth in the 2018/2019 season.

They then managed to get back up the next two seasons by finishing third and runner-up.

However, it appears that the revival was not seen when Manchester United was in Erik ten Hag's hands.

In the first season of the 54-year-old coach, Manchester United did finish third in the league.

However, the season after that, 2023/2024, The Red Devils collapsed by ending up in eighth place.

When the top brass hoped Erik ten Hag would bring the team back this season by extending his contract last summer, it turned out that his trip was not on expectations.

The club's new minority owner, Jim Ratcliffe, who took over the club's football operations, plus Dan Ashworth as Sport's director, assessed that the target of finishing in seventh, sixth, or even fifth seasons seems impossible if it continues like this.

There are five simple reasons that show how club officials have reached a point where there is no tolerance for Ten Hag anymore.

Points

Stats Perform's database returns to the English League for the 2008/2009 season. Since then, Manchester United has had six full-time managers.

Here's how they collect points per game:

During the 38-match season, 1.7 points per match are equivalent to around 65 points.

In the era of 38 Premier League games, Sir Alex Ferguson's side never won less than 75 points.

Then, in two years Louis van Gaal, 66 points were the worst.

Shifting to Jose Mourinho's two full seasons has never been below 69. Finally, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's minimum point for a full season reached its lowest point at 66.

After Ferguson's unrivaled success series, David Moyes took over and in his only season. The team scored an average of 1.68 points per game. He was sacked after 34 games.

Ten Hag's side won points with almost exactly the same ratio, with 84 Premier League games.

Ten Hag is actually higher than Moyes, but right away he is in second place from below.

Conceded

In general, the biggest problem with the Ten Hag era is that Manchester United seem to be letting other teams score for fun.

The following is a defense comparison with all previous managers:

Over the past five Premier League seasons, the average number 10 team has conceded 50.4 goals per season.

During Ten Hag's two seasons in the Premier League, the Red Devils were slightly worse than that, with a 50.5 conceded ratio in 38 games.

The reason why their defense is so bad is also quite simple. Under Ten Hag, they conceded for receiving more shots. That record was worst compared to the previous five full-time managers:

In addition, they conceded 30 touch of the opponent in the penalty area per match. The worst record, before Ten Hag, was 21 touches received per game during the Solskjaer era.

Most managers are forced to make compromises by way they approach the defense side of the game.

His intention was to concede less by aggressively defending, but instead conceded higher-quality shots than several failed aggression.

There is also a scheme to leave a lot of touch in the penalty area with a note limiting the quality of opportunities through the large number of players behind the ball. However, that method failed.

Under Ten Hag, Manchester United's defense has all the weaknesses and no advantages.

Gol

Another greater compromise is between defense and attack. Maybe the Red Devils live with a weak defense as they push so many players forward to score so many goals.

It went well to see Barcelona. Under Hansi Flick, they pressed very high, they lived on a very thin offside line and did concede quite a lot of goals.

However, they scored so many goals that it didn't matter. They may be the best team in the world right now because of the risks they take.

The problem is, with the persistent drop in defense under Ten Hag, there is no real improvement on the side of the attack:

In Ten Hag's first two seasons, Manchester United were lucky enough to finish that high (third place) in the 2022/2023 Premier League, but then slumped to eighth (2023/2024).

Berdasarkan perkiraan poin-- dari metric yang melihat keselisih gol yang diharap untuk setiap pertandingan dan memberikan perkiraan jumlah poin untuk kedua tim--Manchester United berada di urutan keenam pada musim 2022/2023 dan ke 15 musim lalu.

One area that makes Ten Hag unlucky is in attack. His team created 1.64 goals expected per game.

The record is slightly below the combined 1.65 best figure of the Ferguson era and Solskjaer's overall time.

However, it turned out that the expected goals and their actual goals were completely different.

Especially this season, Manchester United's finish was bad. The difference between the expected goals and their actual goals was the biggest in the Premier League in nine games:

However, even taking into account that poor performance, Manchester United have the total points expected to put them in 10th position. In fact, the current conditions again missed.

The story is the same if you compare it to five Manchester United managers before Ten Hag:

Ten Hag's Red Devils only scored 50.7 percent of the expected goal, the lowest compared to the previous five managers.

Pressing

When Manchester United announced that they recruited Ten Hag from Ajax, they called him the well-known manager because of the game of football attacking attractively.

During his first pre-season with the club, Ten Hag said so.

"We want to press, we want to press all day, and play proactive football."

The two seasons have passed and the press has never appeared.

The size can be seen from the team's intention to press and pass permitted for defensive action (PPDA).

PPDA is the number of passes the team allows outside a third of their defenses before trying to tackle, intercept, violate, or block a pass.

Then, it can also be seen the percentage of the completion of the opponent's passes that are allowed to see how effective the press is.

Under Ten Hag, Manchester United's PPDA and the number of finalized passes is higher than ever under five full-time managers before:

Through nine games this season, PPDA The Red Devils is ranked 15th in the league and the other eight teams allow a lower percentage of pass settlements.

Controlling The Ball

The core problem of the simple Ten Hag era is that they never find a way to control the ball.

Every big club in the world has plans on how to get the ball, how to defend it, and how to use those two things to create scenarios during the game to generate more chances than opponents.

Although there are several examples of clubs winning a lot of points without much possession of the ball. For example, Leicester City won the Premier League, Atletico Madrid under Diego Simeone, Inter Milan under Antonio Conte, and Monaco.

However, still most modern teams create sustainable long-term success by keeping the ball away from their opponents.

Ten Hag is of course referred to as the type of coach who wants to do that. The problem is, what happened was the opposite.

Manchester United are in control of much lower possession of the ball under Ten Hag than under five previous United full-time managers:

Usually, most successful managers have developed some cohesive styles with the team long before the third year.

Some things are easy to identify about what they're trying to do and what they're clearly doing well.

The likes of Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Pep Guardiola (Manchester City), and Mikel Arteta (Arsenal) made the team play in certain ways before the managers finally made the team patent play in certain ways at the elite level because it proved to be going well.

While at Manchester United, it's not only the outcome that's invisible, but there's also no evidence that they're on track trying to do something or get into something.

If there are strategic ideas and any style they're trying to put in place, it's impossible not to see them.

They are completely helpless without the ball and never find a way to master it under Ten Hag.