Old Trafford, The Theatre of Dreams

The last time Manchester United lost six of their opening ten games was in 1986.It’s safe to say they haven’t started off the season as well as could’ve been hoped for by manager Eric Ten Hag. Typically, managers are the first people we look at and critique when it comes to poor form. However, I believe that we should have faith in Eric’s abilities.

Manchester United are one of the world’s biggest and most successful football clubs with support that stretches all over the world. With this comes immense expectation, inexplicably high standards and a demand for managerial success. Managing Manchester United means forever living in a shadow of the world’s biggest footballing greats. However, in recent years, United have failed in almost every expect to carry on this successful legacy to the same extent as before.

The pressure on Ten Hag last season was immense and it was only his first time managing in the Premier League. By restoring a togetherness and rebuilding the symbiotic relationship between the fans and the team who had let them down the season before, for the first-time fans could see a long-term success path for the team that was being created for them by their manager possibly since Sir Alex Fergusons retirement.

He did this in multiple ways, one of which was turning United back into a fortress with a 30-match unbeaten home run (their longest streak in this respect since a 40-game spell between September 2016 and December 2017). He led Man United to third in the premier league (so securing Champions League football back again) with 17 more points than the season before that. Plus, he won the Carabao Cup and reached the FA cup final. He did this while dealing with multiple internal disputes caused by players he didn’t bring into the club, working for owners utterly despised by the fanbase for their continuous exploitative ownership , a lack of investment into training facilities and having to transform a team that was plagued with instability as a result of having eight managers over the course of 10 years .I believe more time, leniency and understanding of a wider context of misfortunes that prevent him from being able to reach the top standard the team are capable and expected to achieve are required if United are ever going to reach their former glory again.

Ten Hag isn’t perfect- no managers are, however one season and a series of bad luck in the injury department that has caused most of the problems united have faced at the start of this season (in terms of losing matches) isn’t enough to start dismissing all his good managerial qualities. History has proven that hire and fire culture doesn’t work at United -they need stability. In a BBC news football interview Ten Hag said there was “no good culture” when he arrived at United, so creating a team that performed relatively well last season is more than impressive and likely to only be the start of his plans in fixing the broken culture.

Whilst it’s hard to predict how successful Ten Hag’s player purchases this season will be, we know that two additions to United’s squad last season made by him both played a pivotal role to the way the season played out. Lisandro Martinez (defender and World Cup winner) and Casemiro (defensive midfielder and 5 times Champions League winner) quickly became immediate fan favourites, their success showed fans how Ten Hag was building the club back into a team of deserving, passionate players with undeniably strong winning mentalities.

Ten Hag has won 30 of his 50 Premier league games in charge of Manchester United (which is the most wins of any United manager in the first 50). Considering United have had a list of 17 first team player unavailability’s this season, the position they’re currently in is hopeful. Defence particularly has been hit harder than any other area. When looking to the future, with Ten Hag receiving the Premier Leagues November manager of the month award for recent success, United can feel reassured that Ten Hag has more than what it takes to make them successful again.