The axe could have fallen on pretty much any day in the last ten months and it would have been understandable and yet, with grim inevitability, Erik ten Hag was relieved of his duties on perhaps the first day of 2024 when it didn’t make any sense to let him go.
By day 850 of the Ten Hag era there was nothing left to learn about the manager but there was still plenty to discover about the team put in place by INEOS to oversee operations.
Choosing to sack Ten Hag on Monday morning has achieved the remarkable feat of making the new part-owners of Manchester United look even more incompetent than when they failed to sack him over the summer.
There is a paradox inherent to any ultimatum issued to football managers.
All coaches should be judged on long-term projects, therefore the moment a boardroom switches to the short-term approach the game is already up.
If you decide Ten Hag has two games to save his job then you’ve already decided he should go. No two results should ever bear that weight, not in a sport with so much randomness in its 90-minute matches.
Speaking of which, it was essentially a random act of the universe that meant Man Utd lost 2-1 at West Ham on Sunday. United were by far the better team for the first 45 minutes, would have won comfortably had Diogo Dalot not missed an open goal, and would not have lost without an egregious VAR error.
To make that game and that performance the final straw is to reveal to the world that you simply cannot read football.
It is at least narratively fitting that the Ten Hag era should end with a formless football match devoid of a real story.
But to make that the game that does for Ten Hag is perverse, not least because it was another match in which Man Utd showed notable improvements from last season.
United’s defence has got significantly better since their injuries have cleared up. They currently top the Premier League charts for tackles (200) and interceptions (102) and are down in 14th only because of profligate finishing and a downturn in chance creation.
Bruno Fernandes being off form explains part of that. Your new £40 million striker still being integrated into the team explains the other part.
This is not to say Ten Hag should have been given more time. Those defensive improvements are mild and only visible because Man Utd started from such a low base.
It is self-evident to anyone with even a passing interest in football that Ten Hag had to go.
To take just a few headlines: United have been an amorphous nothing for well over a year.
Ten Hag has spent more money (£560m) than any other Man Utd manager since Sir Alex Ferguson and has taken the club to an unprecedentedly low level.
They haven’t won in Europe for over a year.
Opta’s ‘expected points’ table last year had United 15th on 45 points and the eye test confirms that United really should have been involved in a relegation battle.
But he should have gone in the summer. Everybody knows that, and a board with decent political antennae would have recognised Ten Hag could not survive their active pursuit of alternative targets in May.
To let him hang on was madness. To twiddle their thumbs over the international break absurd.
To fire him after a decent performance and a refereeing nightmare is, well, Manchester United heritage.
Meet the new board, same as the old board.
Supporters will have expected CEO Omar Berrada, sporting director Dan Ashworth and technical director Jason Wilcox to have handled the situation considerably better than this.
It adds weight to the crushing theory that Manchester United is not a club on the up, nor with owners capable of improving on what came before.
And if that’s the case then we know what will happen next. Ruud van Nistelrooy has been placed in temporary charge “whilst a permanent head coach is recruited,” reads the official club statement.
The cycle begins again.
Next Manchester United manager odds (via Sky Bet)
- Ruud van Nistelrooy - Evens
- Xavi Hernandez - 9/4
- Gareth Southgate - 7/2
- Ruben Amorim - 6/1
- Julian Nagelsmann - 7/1
- Thomas Frank - 8/1
Odds correct at 1725 BST (28/10/24)
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