Erik ten Hag sack: The five lowest points of Dutchman’s troubled tenure at Man Utd

Manchester United’s worst-ever start to a Premier League campaign, coupled with last season’s struggles, has seen Erik ten Hag shown the door and TT has picked out the five lowest points of his reign.

This is the Red Devils’ 32nd season in the Premier League and results have included a 2-1 defeat away at Brighton as well as 3-0 home losses to both Liverpool and Spurs, while Sunday’s loss at West Ham proved to be the final straw.

Since Ten Hag‘s appointment, Utd have been fairly successful domestically, winning the League Cup in the 22/23 campaign and the FA Cup in the 23/24, but despite this, scrutiny and criticism of the Dutchman has never been far away.

A third-place finish in his first full season in charge at Old Trafford was followed by an eighth-place finish last season, the worst finish ever in a season for Utd.

With iNEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe becoming co-owners of the club in February 2024, speculation surrounding Ten Hag’s future was heavily discussed during the summer.

It was reported that Man Utd had spoken to several different candidates about becoming Ten Hag’s successor over the months preceding last season, but nothing was agreed and Dutchman survived – until now.

And here are the five lowest points of his time in charge of the club…

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5 – Brentford 4-0 Man Utd

The beginning of Utd’s 22/23 campaign could not have gotten off to a worse start. After a 2-1 humbling at home to Brighton on the first day of the season, ten Hag’s side travelled to London to face Brentford.

With a side that contained the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, David de Gea and Bruno Fernandes, the Red Devils found themselves 4-0 in 35 minutes as goals from Dasilva, Jensen, Mee and Mbeumo humiliated and stunned Utd.

A triple change at halftime did not do much to help change Utd’s fortunes, as the game would ultimately finish 4-0.

Even though it was just two games into the season, this result left Utd sitting bottom of the league and ten Hag thoroughly embarrassed in a nightmare start to a season.

4 – FC Copenhagen 4-3 Man Utd

In the 23/24 campaign, Utd were drawn into a group alongside Bayern Munich, Galatasaray and FC Copenhagen in the UEFA Champions League and on the face of it, had a good chance of going through.

A 4-3 loss on the opening game week away at Bayern followed by a 3-2 home defeat to Galatasaray suddenly left Utd in dire need of a win against FC Copenhagen in the third match week, which they achieved with a 1-0 victory at Old Trafford.

However, they would face the Danish team again a couple of weeks later at Parken Stadium, with the underdogs hungry for revenge.

Ten Hag would put out a strong 11 and would get off to a great start, going 2-0 up thanks to a brace from Rasmus Hojlund, however by halftime the teams would be level thanks to goals from Elyounoussi and Goncalves whilst Rashford received a red card.

Utd would retake the lead midway through the second half thanks to a penalty from Fernandes, however, two late goals from Lerager and Bardghji fired the Danish side in front and the game would finish 4-3 to the hosts.

A dark day for the English side as they had been defeated by the lowest-ranked team in the group in dramatic fashion.

Misery was compiled for ten Hag as Utd finished bottom of the group after failing to defeat either Galatasaray or Bayern, crashing out Europe in the process.

3 – Crystal Palace 4-0 Man Utd

On May 6th 2024, Utd travelled to South London to face Oliver Glasner’s high-flying eagles at Selhurst Park, in what would be a day to forget for ten Hag’s men.

Since Palace’s decision to replace the veteran Roy Hodgson with former Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt manager Oliver Glasner, their form had seen a dramatic upturn.

Victories including a 1-0 win away at Liverpool, a 5-2 thrashing at home over West Ham, a 2-0 humbling at home to Newcastle and a draw away at Fulham preceded this fixture for Palace.

Utd on the other hand had failed to keep a clean sheet in their last eight competitive matches, so would need to be at their very best to keep the Eagles quiet.

However, it would turn out to be another nightmare for Utd and ten Hag, who succumbed to a 4-0 defeat thanks to a brace to now Bayern Munich winger Michael Olise, the on-fire Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell.

Following this defeat, Casemiro, who was at fault for two of Palace’s goals, came under a lot of scrutiny for his performance, particularly from Jamie Carragher on Monday Night Football who quoted: “Leave the football before the football leaves you”.

A damning display and one that only created more questions about the Dutchan’s future at Utd than it answered.

2 – Man Utd 0-3 Spurs

After a long summer of speculation surrounding Ten Hag’s future, iNeos decided to stick with the Dutchman for this season, but question marks around that decision came to the fore following Spurs’ visit to Old Trafford.

Losses to Brighton and Liverpool preceded this game and the Dutchman would have been expecting a much better performance than what was to come.

It took just three minutes for Spurs to hit the front thanks to a powerful and purposeful run from Mickey van de Ven who won possession in his own half before soaring through the Utd team and firing a low cross along the box for Brennan Johnson to tap in.

Bad would turn to worse as Utd’s flat first-half performance was compounded with captain Fernandes seeing red for a challenge on Maddison on the 42nd-minute mark, reducing Utd to 10.

Spurs started the second half just as they did the first, with Dejan Kulusevski poking home Johnson’s deflected cross to give ten Hag’s men a mountain to climb.

Very little threat from the Red Devils followed as Spurs were cruising when Dominic Solanke added a third for Ange Postecoglou’s team as the rain figuratively literally poured on ten Hag.

Another desperate day for the Dutchman, whose side plunged into the bottom half of the table following the 3-0 humbling.

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1 – Liverpool 7-0 Man Utd

By far, which is telling given the number of low points in his Utd tenure, the lowest point for ten Hag as Red Devils boss has to be the 7-0 drubbing inflicted by Liverpool at Anfield on March 5th 2023.

Utd had actually been in good form prior to their trip to Merseyside, with their last defeat before then coming at the hands of Arsenal thanks to Eddie Nketiah’s late winner at the Emirates in January.

Casemiro had the ball in the back of the net whilst the scoreline remained goalless thanks to a cross from a free-kick from Fernandes, however the Brazilian was deemed to have been offside and the goal would be disallowed.

From there on out, it was all about Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool as Cody Gakpo latched onto a pass from Andy Robertson and fired beyond David de Gea to give the Reds a 1-0 lead on the cusp of halftime.

The teams reached the interval with just Gakpo’s goal to separate them, however, it would not take Liverpool long to flex their muscles as they stormed into a 3-0 lead by the 50th minute thanks to a goal from Darwin Nunez and Gakpo’s second of the game.

Mohamed Salah would grab Liverpool’s fourth before Nunez fired in his second to grab their fifth in the 75th minute and they weren’t done just yet.

Humiliation was compiled when Salah grabbed the home side’s sixth before Roberto Firmino rounded off the scoring by making it 7-0 for Liverpool just shy of the 90-minute mark, which is how the game would end.

This result meant that Liverpool had just recorded their biggest-ever win against Utd whilst the Red Devils had just suffered their joint-biggest-ever defeat and the heaviest since losing to Wolves by the same scoreline back in 1931.

A dark day for ten Hag and one that broke numerous records for all the wrong reasons from a Utd perspective.