Chris Wheeler and Sami Mokbel of the Daily Mail have come out with a post (tweet) explaining that apparently the MUFC players expect the manager to be sacked.
"Manchester United’s players expect Erik ten Hag to be sacked. Although he still has the support of the dressing room, there is a growing feeling among the players that he cannot stop the rot and a change is inevitable", via mufcMPB.
They may as well have taken an old tweet and reposted it because we've been here before, far too many times.
It is a bit of a contradictory post as on the one hand, saying the players expect him to be sacked is negative but then on the other, saying that he still has the support of the dressing room is a positive.
It makes no sense.
I'm not saying that Wheeler and Mokbel are right or wrong, I don't know whether they are but to have two journalists do a joint piece on this is a little alarming. This makes me feel more inclined to believe what they're saying is true, even more so because it has happened in the past.
The performance on Sunday would also suggest that perhaps the players have already made their decision and there was nothing to suggest that any one of them are behind the manager.
Saying that ten Hag still has the support of the dressing room says to me that whoever leaked the information to these journalists, they don't want to make it seem as if they're all against the manager by putting in that they still back him.
'We do expect him to be gone, but we still back him.'
This is why I believe it's a culture problem at the club rather than just the manager. Perhaps they're all not good enough but we always change the manager and keep the players.
Yes not all the players are terrible and could be issues in the dressing room but there are some that have been here for a while and have been through these same problems. Again, I'm not saying that it's certain players because I don't know who it is but having seen a group of them go through this before makes you think.
For all we know, it may not even be a player/players who are leaking this information.
But whoever it is, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of every now and then especially when things are going bad, we get these leaks where the players seemingly turn on the manager, that they believe his time is at an end, we see performances like we did against Spurs and the sacking eventually happens.
A lot of those same players remain only for us to be in this same position at some point in the future.
Erik ten Hag will probably get sacked next week but if he has any chance of surviving after Porto and Villa, he needs to pick players he can truly trust. They will back him and have more of a chance of carrying out his instructions.
But players expecting a manager to be sacked shouldn't come as a surprise considering the amount of times we've read this before. We may as well be back in Mourinho's time!
Background Image: Erik ten Hag watching his team draw 0-0 at Crystal Palace | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)