Miguel Delaney of The Independent reported that at the meeting between United's board last Tuesday in London, Sir Jim Ratcliffe asked his football hierarchy to provide him with forensic cases on all the potential scenarios for Erik ten Hag and his future at United.
I'm not sure what they mean by "forensic cases." That sounds like stuff you hear on CSI and other cop shows but basically as ten Hag looks set to remain at the club, it's all the potential pathways we could go down with the Dutchman, probably.
These are what I think those pathways are:
1. Consistently good and we keep him (at least until Christmas)
2. We are inconsistent which leaves us all in a puzzling predicament
3. Consistently shite and we end up sacking (soon or late)
All these scenarios depend on the next games until the November internationals, should he survive that long.
United face:
Brentford (H)
Fenerbahce (A)
West Ham (A)
Leicester (H) (EFL Cup)
Chelsea (H)
PAOK (H)
Leicester (H) (PL)
It's recently been reported that the next two games are the ones that will determine ten Hag's immediate future.
However, we've been hearing that 'the next two games will determine his future' for quite some time. Porto and Villa were considered those games yet he's still here which could give an indication of what is good enough for United's board to keep the Dutchman.
Those two relatively decent draws may be good enough for now but how long can he last should his side continue to play in that manner?
1. Consistently good
I thought I'd open with a joke but this one is the least likely of the three.
Of course there's always a chance that United could play some consistently good football but considering where we've been under ten Hag, and for the last decade to be fair, playing consistently top stuff is rarer than seeing unicorns.
We've had periods in this time where we have shown the ability to play something like our former selves and have done so under Erik ten Hag. That period post the World Cup until the Carabao Cup win was perhaps one of the best along with Solskjaer's first three months and a decent portion of Mourinho's second season.
But we haven't played like this long enough.
Despite the poorest start to a Premier League season ever, I do feel that it isn't all doom and gloom for us this campaign.
There have been promising signs for most of the season but due to lack of chance conversion, silly mistakes and in the case of Spurs, inexplicably not showing up, we are where we are.
United this season concede fewer shots at goal, we create more than most (we've missed the joint-second most big chances in the PL), the average possession is higher, we've seen a new high press that has been impressive and we're at the top of the clean sheets chart with 4.
So it's not been utter shite from us.
This shows that there is a chance that United can display a form so good we can at least push for top 4. We just need to be able to do it consistently.
2. Inconsistent form
Against Liverpool, we lost 3-0 but all 3 of their goals came from stupid midfield mistakes rather than LFC carving us open. We created a couple of good chances that we should've scored from and MUFC actually had more possession (53%) than their rivals (47%).
To be performing like that against them is an improvement despite the score line. We haven't often seen us play like that against a big team under ten Hag, or any manager post Sir Alex for that matter.
But when looking at some of the performances, we see that we are very prone to falling back into old habits, often unexpectedly.
While the result was disappointing, the 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace was the best performance we've had this season and the best we've had in a while. We should've been 2 or 3-0 up in the first half. That's how well we played.
That was then followed by a boring display in which we picked up another draw at home to Twente.
Spurs next was a performance that we've seen all too often: the downing tools performance.
That's exactly what it looked like as United simply didn't turn up. We cannot be having those games anymore. We shouldn't be having those games at all.
To go from the highs of Southampton and Barnsley to the disappointments of Palace and Twente, to the absolute disgrace against Spurs in a week is mental. That sort of downfall is unacceptable.
This is the inconsistency problem.
We haven't been terrible all season but we haven't been playing at a good level often enough. We cannot be having the odd good games followed by the odd bad ones and the occasional disgraces.
This will probably leave us in the postion we're currently in: not knowing what to do.
Although, while picking up some decent points at clubs like Porto and Villa, doing that regularly definitely won't past the mustard for INEOS as Erik ten Hag has had enough time and signings to showcase a much better style than simply being ok. That will grab you a decent point here and there but those games would only be acceptable if we can go on a run of five to 10 games where we play good football and get some good wins.
3. Consistently shite
This is similar to us being consistently good: there is a chance.
MUFC over the years have been very hard to predict. Regardless of how we performed in the previous game or previous games, we don't know which United will show up in the next, if they will show up at all.
While there is a very good chance of a shite performance around the corner, I wouldn't say that we've been 'consistently shite' for a while. One could point out that we are 14th in the league and this is our worst-ever start to a PL campaign to rebuttal that but even still, I don't believe we have been dishing out poor performances long enough for us to say we are garbage.
If that were the case, ten Hag would've been long gone.
But as United can perform like they did against Spurs out of the blue, it can happen again as it has done for many years. This is where all that doubt and luck of trust comes in as we can never truly rely on this team.
Anything is possible.
While it is highly unlikely to me that we will constantly put in poor performance after poor performance and get hammered every week, it's not out of the realms of possibility as we all remember Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's last two months at the club. 4-2 at Leicester, 0-5 at home to LFC, 0-2 in the derby and 4-1 at Watford was how things ended for him.
Final Thoughts
I think that it's better to have either of being consistently good or consistently not so good as we know where we're going. To be having a mixture of the two does no one any good.
I don't think that these next seven games before the November internationals will be the time when they let him go unless things go completely awry.
Erik ten Hag WILL be here until mid-November in my opinion.
Those run of games are challenging but not ones where he can't get results and performances like we've seen so far. Whether that will be good enough for the club to keep him or not remains to be seen.
What if we win playing badly? What if we play great but lose? What will INEOS do then?
I'm sure INEOS' forensic cases will be a lot more in-depth than mine but I feel like performances and results will be the gist of it. Whatever happens, a decision on the manager's future, at least until the new year, has to be made.
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