Manchester United always seem one loss away from a crisis but the latest one really looks to have brought one as the performance was wretched in their 0-3 defeat to Tottenham.
The ‘mini-revival’ which looked like it was in the works after consecutive wins vs Southampton and Barnsley, followed by good performances, if not results, vs Crystal Palace and FC Twente are firmly in the background.
Instead, Manchester United go into a daunting run of fixtures in the worst possible form, with the pressure on the manager ramped up to 11.
The manager looks like he’s on borrowed time despite signing an extension in the summer and more than the results, what might seal his fate eventually is the potential for United’s most talented player to take a backward step.
Chaos hurting one man
While the injuries completely derailed last season, the next big running theme throughout was the empty midfield and chaos in games.
Every fixture devolved into a ping-pong game of sorts as United conceded shots for fun, stuck between pressing high and defending deep.
Casemiro was chastised for not covering the holes but they were also going to be too big for one man to cover, as Manuel Ugarte is finding out now.
All this while, the one constant in the midfield is finally showing signs of slowing down and to his credit it has come much later than anyone would have expected.
Kobbie Mainoo got subbed off at the stroke of half-time vs Tottenham and when he came off, he was one of the few players who was doing an acceptable job.
There was the usual confidence on the ball, aggressive out of possession, and the jinking dribbles to take the team forward.
However, the signs are starting to appear that Mainoo is suffering in this system. He is a marked man now. The opposition targets him to press hard and sometimes borderline unfairly.
More often than not, he shrugs them off and gets on with it but for the last season and this, he has been effectively asked to stitch the whole team together.
The effects of that workload are clear to see in that Mainoo looks gassed and mistakes are creeping into his game.
Change the system or change the man
United have looked at their best when they camp in the opposition half and never let them get out. It’s domination by possession won by pressing high.
That was on display vs Crystal Palace but that’s as far as the success of that system goes. Mostly, teams play through the incoherent press and come straight at a scrambled defence, leaving the midfield to run back at full pace all game.
Not only does that cause injuries, but it also gives the illusion of the midfielders not doing their jobs of protecting the defence when the precise reason why that happens is midfielders doing their jobs.
Ten Hag either needs to change the system and bring more control to the game because United don’t enjoy the same leg up over their opponents as Ajax did in the Dutch League, or United will have to change the man tasked with setting the system up.
Fumbling the development of Kobbie Mainoo is the one thing they absolutely can’t afford to do which would be harshly poetic for Ten Hag because he’s the person who brought him along to this level of importance.
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