Erik ten Hag’s baffling treatment of Man Utd ace could get him sacked, Fenerbahce game summed it up

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Manchester United got a draw 1-1 away at Fenerbahce which would have been a much better result had they won their previous two Europa League games.

As it stands, Manchester United have three points from three games, sit 21st in the Europa League table, and with the 12th place in Premier League Erik ten Hag can thank his lucky stars he’s still Man Utd manager.

The game against Fenerbahce followed a familiar script as United took the lead, played some encouraging stuff without any particular identity then proceeded to get scored upon.

Repeatedly conceding and throwing away leads cannot be completely down to the manager so he can be cut some slack.

However, his treatment of one Man Utd star is completely down to him and that could be a big reason why he gets sacked. The Fenerbahce game was a stark example of it.

Dropped and relegated to second-choice

When the teamsheet dropped for the game, the biggest surprise was undoubtedly Noussair Mazraoui playing as the No. 10 in place of suspended Bruno Fernandes.

That changes the whole symmetry of the team and it was reversed early in the second half when Casemiro and Rasmus Hojlund came on to send Mazraoui back to left-back.

However, it was the other substitution that raised the most eyebrows which happened in the attacking area.

Antony came on for Marcus Rashford and with that, Amad was firmly relegated to the status of last-choice senior winger for this game.

It can be argued, as per Ten Hag’s own previous reasoning, that there needed to be rotation here with West Ham United waiting on the 27th.

Still, a case can be made that both Rashford and Garnacho had a good thing going which he didn’t want to break up just as it was getting started.

However, putting Antony before Amad in substitutions is the kind of move that causes the player to lose trust in the manager and start a downward spiral of morale.

Erik ten Hag has killed Amad’s momentum

Since putting in a man-of-the-match performance vs Southampton, Amad has played a grand total of just over 200 minutes in the eight games since.

This game was the biggest slap in the face of the player as not only did Antony come on ahead of him, but a right-back in Mazraoui started in his place when there was a clear positional need for Amad in the No. 10 spot.

Just when it was looking like the Ivorian had made a place for himself in the squad, if not the first XI, it seems like that was just a phase while he waited for Garnacho to get up to speed.

Now that Garnacho is flying, Ten Hag is betraying his own words of talking about rotation as Garnacho and Rashford are starting every game.

The nadir was this one when he wasn’t even the first man to come on. United might need to make a decision soon. As things stand, potentially losing Amad feels like a far bigger loss than seeing someone else in the United dugout as manager.