‘Erik ten Hag has made Man Utd a laughing inventory and rival membership’s success exhibits why’

Erik ten Hag can bemoan footballing injustice all he likes but the real injustice now engulfing him and Manchester United is how he’s still in a job.

Just how much evidence does Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his fellow kingpins at Old Trafford need, before it dawns on them Ten Hag will not make United great again? The Dutchman has given it a go and come up well short. He’s been in charge for 30 months.

In this time he’s spent more than £600m on the signings he wanted. The team now representing United in such shameful fashion is Ten Hag’s and it is a pitiful reflection of Ten Hag’s inabilities as a manager and coach to produce a side of substance, identity and purpose.

In less than the time Ten Hag has spent overseeing nothingness in Manchester, Unai Emery has turned Aston Villa into a genuine force at home and abroad despite spending a fraction of the fortunes Ten Hag has at United. Villa are now beating the likes of Bayern Munich in the Champions League, while United can’t even get into the competition in the first place.

The truth Ratcliffe & Co either refuse to admit, or choose to ignore, is that Ten Hag should have been sacked at the end of last season. Instead, he was allowed to continue failing. Beating Manchester City to win the FA Cup somehow hoodwinked United’s board into thinking Ten Hag could still have a future at the club.

Just weeks after Ratcliffe had been so concerned Ten Hag didn’t, he tried to talk Thomas Tuchel into replacing him. You couldn’t make it up.

The upshot of this dysfunctional and disillusioned thinking is now a miserable malaise which has made United a laughing stock once again and Ratcliffe must shoulder his fair share of the blame. along with his right hand man and fellow knight of the realm, Sir Dave Brailsford.

Brailsford once became obsessed with marginal gains, in his mission to conquer cycling but is now staring down from the posh seats at significant losses, on the watch of a manager so out of his depth. Welcome to the brutal world of top level football, fellas.

United’s league season is just nine games old, but is over. We haven’t made it to Halloween, but United have produced a horror show of chilling proportions. Ten Hag’s side have won three of their opening nine league matches, and one of the last eight in all competitions.

United are 14th in the table and closer to rock bottom Wolves than leaders Manchester City, who have 12 more points already. When Ratcliffe and his INEOS colleagues rode into town at the start of 2024, it was supposed to herald a new start. A period of clear thinking and strong decision making where Ten Hag, and new signings, were concerned.

But the endless dithering that’s followed instead has resulted in unmitigated disaster. United lack clear and decisive leadership from the top down.

Ratcliffe can sack Sir Alex Ferguson as an ambassador to save £2m-a-year but he can’t bullet the bloke he really has to, to save United from further damage and humiliation.

It’s believed United don’t want to dismiss Ten Hag, in the forlorn hope he will somehow succeed and this, in a nutshell, might be the most alarming aspect of all when it comes to United and their shambolic ride through utter mediocrity.