Erik ten Hag arrives at Man Utd training ground barely 12 hours after being thumped by Tottenham at Old Trafford
ERIK TEN HAG arrived at Manchester United’s training ground just 12 hours after his side were humiliated against Tottenham.
The Red Devils put in a woeful performance and were thrashed 3-0 at Old Trafford yesterday.
The defeat must have given Ten Hag a sleepless night as he pulled into Carrington at 7:30am this morning.
He was pictured looking glum behind the wheel of his Audi.
There was no sign of the players just yet as the boss got to work early to analyse where it all went wrong.
Man Utd were poor throughout and went behind after just three minutes as Micky van de Ven charged through their whole team and put it on a plate for Brennan Johnson to score.
Things then went from bad to worse as Bruno Fernandes was controversially sent off for a lunge on James Maddison.
Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke then got on the scoresheet to wrap up the three points for Spurs.
United were booed off by their own supporters at full-time, with Gary Neville labelling the display “disgusting” and “shocking”.
Just nine games after receiving the vote of confidence from Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s new chiefs, Ten Hag is back under immense pressure.
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He is now the bookies favourite to be the first Premier League manager sacked this season.
Asked about being in danger of losing his job, he said: “I’m not thinking about being sacked, not at all. We all made the decision to stay together.
“Ownership, staff, players, myself. We made the decision from a clear review of what we have to do.
“We knew it would take some time. We are on the same page together.”
But the under-fire boss may not survive if there are more performances on yesterday’s level as Neville ranted: “The first half was as bad as it gets. This is a shocking day, a sobering day.
“This is a really bad day for Ten Hag. Today has shocked me about how low they have gone.”
Rio Ferdinand added: “An absolute p*** poor performance, I’ve got to be honest.
“Powder-puff, embarrassing, no real idea it seemed, no real fight.
“Second half a little bit of a fight here and there but a distinct lack of quality.”
And Ashley Young said: “Man Utd didn’t give anything. There was no effort. There was no work rate.”
MARK HALSEY: Questions must be asked after Bruno Fernandes was sent off for Man Utd against Tottenham
IN real time Bruno Fernandes’ first-half challenge on James Maddison looked a poor one.
And based on an immediate viewing, it seemed ref Chris Kavanagh’s decision to show a red card was the correct one.
But replays clearly showed he slipped and his foot did not make contact as high on Maddison’s leg as it first seemed.
In these circumstances a ref has to consider whether a challenge was reckless, which would be worthy of a caution, or if it has endangered a player’s safety with excessive force and brutality — a red-card offence.
Looking back at the footage, you would have to say it was reckless rather than a case of serious foul play.
There should be no criticism of Kavanagh as he only gets one view of it.
But the question to ask is why VAR Peter Bankes did not get involved, as he sees what we see.
If VAR had recommended a review I’m sure Kavanagh would have changed his mind.