Man Utd announced that manager Erik ten Hag has "left his role as Manchester United's men's first-team manager."
The club also state that assistant Ruud van Nistelrooy will take the interim role for the foreseeable future while the club look for a permanent head coach.
The 54-year-old took charge of United in 2022 and led the club to two trophies: the 22/23 Carabao Cup - United's first trophy in six years, and the FA Cup last season after beating rivals Man City 2-1 at Wembley.
Man Utd say: "We are grateful to Erik for everything he has done during his time with us and wish him well for the future."
Final Thoughts
It was inevitable. I think we all knew this was coming. I'm sure ten Hag himself did as well. He was a dead man walking towards the end.
I think he's sacked himself as well by making far too many mistakes. He was asking for it.
I do like ten Hag and think there is a good manager in there. What he did at Ajax gave us all this excitment after he was appointed because we all thought that that was the football we were going to see yet we never did.
That's perhaps the most disappointing thing.
He's also now gotten a lot of the players he wanted, quite a few of whom (Onana, Martinez, Antony, Mazraoui and De Ligt) all played for him at Ajax, but we haven't seen anything near what he was doing in the Netherlands.
That first season was an over-achievement regardless of how great it was but after which, we should've seen an improvement. The injuries and off-field issues did play a part in having a poor campaign last year but when coming into this season, the only changes was the team getting worse.
I spoke ahead of the season about what he needs to improve and change and hardly any of that had changed. ten Hag's stubbornness, favoritism, in-game management, odd team selections, weird substitutions, are all factors to consider as to why this decision needed to be made.
As much as he needed to go, a lot of these players have to look at themselves as they are as much to blame as ten Hag. Whether the manager's tactics, selections and so on were not good enough, the players still had the responsibility to give it everything anyway.
Not only do we not get good performances, we can't even rely on them to show up at times. That isn't on the manager as the players should have the will do to their best all the time.
We've also had players here that have been at the club for a long time and have been through several managers. I think INEOS have done a decent job in trying to move on players who aren't good enough as well as brought in those who the manager wanted.
But there is still a way to go with clearing out the dressing room as there are still problems.
I'm happy that INEOS have made a decision because I felt that they were sitting idle for too long. Now that they've sacked ten Hag, we can start to move forward as before, I felt we were stuck.
But where do we go from here?
Ruud takes over for now but the club are looking for a head coach to permanently replace ten Hag.
What if Ruud does a Solskjaer though? What if he wins all his games for three months? Will INEOS fall into the trap that the previous football regime fell into by giving the Norwegian the permanent contract?
Names such as Xavi, Gareth Southgate (good God), Julian Nagelsmann (my personal favorite), Ruben Amorim and Thomas Frank have all been considered as coaches to take over the helm at Old Trafford.
I was ten Hag in for a long time. In fact, I was still ten Hag in after yesterday but admittedly, we needed a change. 14th in the league, 11 points from nine games, -3 goal difference, poor in Europe. The manager had to look at himself for a lot of that as well as the favoritism, substitutions and all those things mentioned.
I'm happy that he gave us two trophies to celebrate and there were moments of promise but alas, it wasn't sufficient enough to keep him here for the long term.
INEOS even gave him a new contract but weren't afraid to let him go despite that. Big call but probably the right one.
Thank you to Erik and I hope that he goes elsewhere and absolutely smashes it.
Background Image: Erik ten Hag sacked by Man Utd | Image credit: Getty Images via Goal