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We’ve all grown accustomed to Gary Neville staring dead-eyed into the camera and bemoaning the fortunes of Manchester United. But even by the Red Devils’ legend own high standards of haranguing, his assessment of Sunday’s defeat to Tottenham was noteworthy.
“They need to get a grip on that dressing room,” he said. “The first half was as bad as it gets. This is a shocking day, a sobering day. This is a really bad day for [Erik] Ten Hag… They have been an absolute disgrace. It’s one of the worst performances I have seen under Ten Hag. And that is saying something. It is really bad. Today has shocked me about how low they have gone.”
Ten Hag’s attempts to placate his critics at full time – by pleading for yet more time to turn things around – fell on pretty deaf ears too. “Ten Hag has verbal diarrhoea. I don’t know what game he was watching. The lap at the end is a lap for losers,” ex-Premier League striker Chris Sutton retorted, regarding the trudge around the pitch that United undertook at the end of the game.
It certainly feels like Ten Hag’s lowest ebb, but surprisingly the club have briefed that they are sticking with their man – for now. As reported by The Telegraph, the Red Devils boss has been given a stay of execution for upcoming fixtures against Porto and Aston Villa. Despite this, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Ten Hag is now surviving on borrowed time.
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Getty Images SportEuropa League more important than ever
If he is to keep the wolves from the door, Thursday’s meeting with Porto in the Europa League is must-win. Admittedly, it is still early days, but United’s chances of qualifying for next season’s Champions League already seem extremely remote.
With just six Premier League games under their belt, they trail the top five by six points, having beaten only Fulham – by the narrowest of margins – a woeful Southampton and a third-tier Barnsley in all competitions this campaign.
Thus, the domestic route into the top table of European football appears to be beyond this squad. The only way they will realistically return to the Champions League will be by lifting the continent’s secondary trophy at the end of the season.
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Getty Images SportTerrible start
The importance of the competition made United’s horrific opener sting even more. Ahead of the meeting with his former employers, Ten Hag came out fighting, promising to “hurt” Twente when they came to Old Trafford. Instead, it was the Dutch side that inflicted pain on their hosts, with Sam Lammers’ second-half equaliser cancelling out Christian Eriksen’s 35th-minute strike.
It was an exceptionally blunt attacking display from the Red Devils, who only managed to accumulate 1.37 expected goals against a side assembled for a fraction of the cost of their hefty wage bill.
“Not scoring goals,” Ten Hag said, when asked to identify where his team had gone wrong. “That is the problem, the key area is to score more goals as a team. We have players across the team who have the ability to score, that is clear, you see all the opportunities we are creating but we are not scoring enough.”
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AFPDoesn’t get any easier
On paper, Twente represented one of United’s easiest games, with the Eredivisie side one of two Pot Four sides that they’ll face in the league phase this season. In stark contrast, next up they have their toughest test of the campaign, as they travel to the Estadio do Dragao to lock horns with Porto.
Off the field, the Portuguese giants are entering a new era, with Andre Villas-Boas recently crowned the club’s new president following a controversial election campaign. And on the pitch, they are one of a crop of outside bets to win the entire competition.
Granted, their campaign did get off to a less-than-ideal start, with 10-man Bodo/Glimt securing a shock 3-2 victory on matchday one. However, had Porto been more clinical, they would have triumphed with ease, having fired off 28 shots and missed five ‘big chances’. Poor finishing has not been an accusation that you could level at Porto much this season, though, particularly when it comes to one particular summer signing.
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AFPSecret weapon
Samu Omorodion has had an interesting few months. For a long time, he appeared destined to end up at Chelsea
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Getty Images SportEuropean pedigree
And it’s not just Omorodion that Ten Hag and Co need to be wary of, as Porto have pedigree in European competition. While United finished stone-dead last in their Champions League group last season, the Portuguese side comfortably progressed. They probably deserved to finish top of the pile too, only narrowly missing out to Barcelona on head-to-head record.
In the last 16, they then expertly frustrated an extremely strong Arsenal side, with the high-flying Gunners needing a penalty shootout to finally put down their stubborn visitors – who even won the first leg – at the Emirates.
Porto made it out from their Champions League group the season before that too, and generally, their squad is packed full of players who have experienced far more joy in continental competitions than many of their United counterparts.
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Getty Images SportMust-win
This is going to be seriously tough for the Red Devils, but Ten Hag wants to extend his tenure at Old Trafford, it’s a challenge they must overcome. The former Ajax boss’ recent record in Europe is, quite frankly, pathetic, with Ten Hag winning just one of his last nine games on the continent.
This is a record that was always difficult to explain, but now Ten Hag has been backed for the third-straight summer, with the arrivals of the likes Joshua Zirkzee, Manuel Ugarte and Matthijs de Ligt tipping the club’s spending under him over the £600m mark, he really does not have a leg to stand on. He won’t even be able to play the injury card. Against Spurs, Luke Shaw was probably the only missing man absolutely nailed on to be a started when fit this season.
When he arrived at the club, Ten Hag boldly warned Manchester City and Liverpool that “eras come to an end”. A little over two years on, United are nowhere nearer to toppling their bitterest foes. Ten Hag wasn’t all wrong, though. Eras do indeed end. His United tenure, for example, will surely reach its conclusion if he does not come out of this defining week with a pair of positive results.
, with news that the Blues were close to agreeing a €40 million (£33m/$45m) deal with Atletico Madrid not exactly going down well with the Stamford Bridge faithful. He had only scored nine senior goals at the time, in their defence.
But after that much-discussed switch feel through, Omorodion would end up at Porto. The deal was worth considerably less than what Chelsea were apparently willing to pay, with figures around the €15m (£12.5m/$17m) range being reported. The move might not have brought the same glamour as the Premier League, but it’s proved to be good fit for the frontman.
Since arriving, Omorodion has returned five goals in as many games. Spearheading new coach Vitor Bruno’s 4-2-3-1 system, he has showcased why Chelsea were so interested, despite his unimpressive stats. Already, he’s scored a powerful header, finished off a sublime counter-attack and willed home a couple of scrappy goals.
He seems like a man on a mission and will have something to prove to the English media covering the game who wrote him off before he had even arrived at Stamford Bridge.
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