Manchester United’s players are increasingly confident Erik ten Hag will be sacked by Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
The Dutchman has failed to build on a promising first season at the helm with back-to-back defeats leaving his side facing an uphill battle to qualify for the Champions League.
While injuries to the likes of Rasmus Hojlund, Lisandro Martinez andLuke Shaw represented significant setbacks, the chasm that exists between the Red Devils and their local rivals, brutally highlighted by Sunday’s derby defeat, will have done little to dissuade Ratcliffe that a change of management is required to kickstart his revolution.
United’s new minority shareholder has turned down the opportunity to emphatically back Ten Hag in his most recent interviews and, according to the Daily Mail, United’s squad feel a change of management is the most likely consequence of mediocre campaign.
Ratcliffe has already made several key changes behind the scenes with the likes of Sir David Brailsford set to play a key part in a major overhaul of United’s infrastructure.
Omar Berrada is set to cross the Manchester divide having played a key role in City’s rise to the summit of English football, while Dan Ashworth will join from Newcastle and is already understood to have held a secret meeting with ex-Chelsea boss Graham Potter.
Ten Hag maintains he has already held many constructive meetings with Ratcliffe, but privately has made his coaching staff aware he has been given no guarantees over his future.
Of course, United could still salvage something from a season which has seen them crash out of Europe altogether before the turn of the year and suffer 11 Premier League defeats.
United remain in the FA Cup and have a quarter-final tie against Liverpool to look forward to while fifth place in the league could grant them entry to next season’s reformatted Champions League.
Despite the comprehensive nature of Sunday’s latest setback, Ten Hag declared himself satisfied wit his side’s performance.
‘They gave everything,’ Ten Hag said of his side to Sky Sports. “We had two players on the pitch that were not 100%, Jonny Evans and Marcus Rashford, and they gave everything, as the whole team gave everything.
‘I think the performance is very good, only, of course, we are disappointed with the score.
‘The togetherness but also the performance was very good. On another day, we could have won this game.’
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