“A change will be coming”: Ex-Man United coach says he expects club to sack Erik ten Hag | OneFootball

Former Manchester United coach Rene Meulensteen has insisted that a managerial change is needed at the club as he stated that he expects Erik ten Hag to be sacked.

United sunk to a new low earlier this week on Monday as they were battered 4-0 by Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

On yet another occasion, the Red Devils were outplayed and dominated in almost every single department. The loss was United’s 13th Premier League defeat of the season.

Ten Hag’s men currently lie in eighth position in the standings and as it stands, they are in serious danger of completely missing out on Europe.

Meulensteen recently spoke to a Dutch news outlet and didn’t pull his punches as he gave a scathing critique of Ten Hag and the job he has done this term. Sir Alex Ferguson’s ex-assistant lambasted Ten Hag for lacking a clear and defined style of play or football philosophy.

Meulensteen has now renewed his attack on Ten Hag but also blamed some of the United players for letting the fans down.

Indeed, a number of senior players especially have been disappointing and have fallen way below the standards expected of them. Marcus Rashford, Casemiro, Antony and Christian Eriksen are just a few examples of stars on the club’s payroll whose displays have often left a lot to be desired.

There is also another group consisting of individuals like Anthony Martial, Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane, Luke Shaw and Jonny Evans, that have struggled to remain fit all campaign and as a result, their contributions have been sorely missed.

As Meulensteen alludes, there is plenty of blame to go around and it’s not purely down to Ten Hag.

The 60-year-old told Football365, “We are in a result business and the people who make decisions on what happens to Ten Hag have to decide how they think United are going to look in a year, then three years time and five years time. They need to look at the current trends with this manager and this coaching staff and it is not good, so it looks like a change will be coming.”

“When you look at a manager’s work, you need to see a pattern of progress. Once that pattern becomes clear, you try and build on that after a season or a season and half. While a lot of teams are moving forward at this stage with a manager, United have regressed, there is no getting away from that. The whole trend of this season has been going backwards rather than forwards and there will be a decision over whether he stays or goes.

He added, “Clarity is the key for everyone involved now. The key here is United have three tough league games left and the doom scenario is they might not win any of them. So they will go into the FA Cup final on the back of four losses. Ten Hag is hoping players will come back, but they won’t have played for three or four weeks and that might not be good against Manchester City.”

On United players who have failed to deliver, Meulensteen remarked, “There are so many things I see at Man United that are foreign to me. Poor patterns of bad behaviour, no work ethic. That would never, ever be the case under Sir Alex Ferguson and that’s why there is a disconnect at the club from what it was to what it is now.”

“You have a problem because you can get rid of the manager, but the new guy still has all those same players who have performed as they have this season. Listen, we are talking about Manchester United here. Not an under-14 team from Walsall. These are all good players and at the end of the day, it starts with good structure, good organisation and work ethic.”

He opined that in recent months United have been relying on moments of individual brilliance from players like Alejandro Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes rather than focusing on collectively playing well as a unit.

According to Meulensteen, these bad habits have now caught up to the 20-time English champions, hence why they’re suffering.

He called on the club to make a quick decision on Ten Hag and let everyone know rather than drag it out.

Another thing Meulensteen took issue with was Ten Hag and his coaching staff’s inability to sort out some of the team’s tactical problems that are so obvious and which rival outfits have been all too keen to exploit.

“I can’t understand how there is a hole in the Manchester United midfield the size of Vesuvius and it has been there all season. You have players in there that have no legs, no energy. The lines from front to back are far too disconnected and this was a problem we could all see months ago, but it still exists. I don’t understand why.”

“Every team that plays against United knows this is a massive weakness and they capitalise on it.”

He re-affirmed his earlier point that Ten Hag has partially been handicapped by some of his players who are simply “not good enough to play for United.”

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