Manchester United is a mammoth club in cyclical crisis, and its latest, greatest attempt to stop the rot has instead revealed the depth of its problems. This, the 2024-25 season, was supposed to be a new beginning — with new owners, new executives, new processes, new players, new hope.
But it has begun just like last season, and the one before, and several others over the past decade: with groans and boos, with draws and defeats, with disappointment accumulating and mediocrity deepening. The latest in a long line of “new lows” was Sunday’s 3-0 loss at home to wobbling Tottenham.
It felt like the umpteenth inflection point of the Erik ten Hag era. Ever since the early months of the Dutch manager’s reign, his seat has been warming, then cooling, then reheating again and simmering toward a boiling point.
For two years, every time the boiling point neared, United’s players responded. When they stumbled to losses in ten Hag’s first two Premier League games, they rebounded with a win over Liverpool. Most recently, this past spring, when media reports cast Ten Hag as a dead man walking, they stifled and stunned Manchester City in the FA Cup final. That 2-1 win, and that trophy, saved Ten Hag’s job.
But the root cause of ten Hag’s troubles never budged. For a decade, United was directionless and rudderless. A prehistoric sporting department led by clueless executives left each successive United coach with an incoherent roster of overpaid, underperforming players.
And so, at the latest crossroads, after draws with Crystal Palace and FC Twente, the players still weren’t good enough.
At the very moment to which ten Hag’s early United teams rose — amid discontent, in prime time, at a packed Old Trafford, against a fellow “Big Six” club, Tottenham — this one failed.
They were hindered by a harsh red card, sure. But by the time Bruno Fernandes slipped and lunged at Tottenham’s James Maddison in the 42nd minute, the howls had begun, and the conclusion was clear. Micky Van de Ven had surged through United’s entire team, untouched; Brennan Johnson had put the visitors ahead in less than three minutes. While the match was still 11-v-11, Spurs were so obviously superior. They had 28 touches in United’s box, compared to seven at the other end. They produced 2.0 Expected Goals to United’s 0.3.
“What I saw in the first 30 minutes is below the level of what we can expect from a Manchester United team,” ten Hag conceded postgame.
By the time he spoke, as fans trudged home in driving rain — many left early, prompting Tottenham supporters to sing: “Is there a fire drill?” — the customary outcry was underway. And it centered once again on ten Hag’s employment. Pundits re-litigated the decision to retain him for a third season — which, at the time and even more so today, was shocking.
United leadership — now helmed by billionaire owner Jim Ratcliffe and his sports deputy, Dave Brailsford — had reportedly decided to move on from ten Hag prior to the end of the 2023-24 season. Widespread reports documented meetings throughout the spring with candidates to replace him. After the season, ten Hag reportedly heard radio silence while United brass met with potential coaches. Negotiations advanced with Thomas Tuchel and Roberto De Zerbi.
But then, buoyed by the FA Cup triumph, and perhaps by two forgettable wins to close the league season, Brailsford and Co. chose to move forward with ten Hag.
They apparently forgot that the EPL campaign had, in many ways, been United’s worst in the Premier League era. The Red Devils had finished eighth, with a negative goal differential for the first time since 1989-90, and underlying numbers that suggested they were even worse. Their Expected Goal differential was -12.5, which ranked 15th out of 20.
That, in a nutshell, is why the decision was so baffling and worrying. Ever since Ratcliffe bought a stake in the club last year, and his company, INEOS, took control of football operations, glowing profiles of the new men in charge have hailed their process-oriented, data-driven leadership and decision-making.
And yet, faced with their first major decision, they seemed to ignore a growing body of evidence that suggested ten Hag was a poor fit. Rather than sack him, they backed him with some $230 million and five new signings. They gave him control over staff construction and say in recruitment — just like the ridiculed regimes of the past decade did winter after winter, summer after summer.
So here we are, with United unsurprisingly in crisis yet again.
Four of the five new signings started Sunday; and the result was a beatdown that, if not for goalkeeper Andre Onana, might have been worse.
Ten Hag is still the coach, for now — because process-oriented, data-driven leaders supposedly don’t make rash decisions after a few bad results.
But United travels to FC Porto for a Europa League game Thursday. A trip to Aston Villa awaits on Sunday. Ten Hag’s future might hang in the balance. And the crisis cycle, it seems, will keep spinning.
