ERIK TEN HAG’S SACK RACE ODDS have already been slashed by Ladbrokes.
After a humiliating defeat at the hands of Brentford on Saturday night, the bookies cut Ten Hag’s odds of an imminent exit to just 6/1, having been 20/1 at the start of the season (two games ago) – putting him behind just Ralph Hasenhuttl (2/1) and Frank Lampard (4/1).
Elsewhere, 20/1 says United go down this season (150/1 pre-season), while a top-four finish is now priced at 6/1.
Alex Apati of Ladbrokes told TBH: “Things surely can’t get much worse for United at this point and you’d hope Erik ten Hag can whip his players into shape in time for their next game… against Liverpool.”
“The Red Devils are 11/2 to beat Jurgen Klopp’s men, so don’t be surprised to see those Sack Race odds shorten even further over the next week or so.”
Erik ten Hag to be the first Premier League manager sacked this season – 6/1
Man United to be relegated – 20/1 (150/1 pre-season)
Man United to beat Liverpool – 11/2
Erik ten Hag to be sacked before 10 Premier League games in charge – 10/1
I think the Glazers want Ten Hag to sort things out in the long term, but the UK Media circus will hunt him down and time is not a luxury that is often afforded to under pressure managers.
Arteta has had a similar journey at Arsenal. I don’t really rate Arteta as a coach, he can only operate like Pep, whereby he needs huge financial input. He failed massively last year but got plaudits because they finished higher than the year before! This had a lot to do with both Leicester and Utd falling off a cliff rather than Arteta’s tactical astuteness. It was akin to watching Redknapp throw away Ch Lg but at least he had the excuse of not being backed, especially in the January window.
What Arsenal have done well is clear out some of the dead wood and brought in good players. Utd should have been in for Jesus, but that shows their recruitment team haven’t got a clue. Edu seems to have an idea of what a DofF should do. With the money and pulling power that Utd have any football minded individual could have sort out 3 stellar transfers this year, but their entire Summer has been an embarrassing mess. Is Hitchen in charge?
I don’t think it’s ever going to work with ten Hag unless he’s fully backed to rearrange that squad with some kind of vision of his own. Everyone knows the way he works, everybody knows that there are deep problems in that dressing room.
Some of these owners of these clubs (including our own) are just not fit to make decisions about these things, they don’t possess the knowledge to bring people in and then preach to them about what they expect from the situation and make their demands.
Look at he mess we were in last summer? I honestly feel that Levy suddenly realised that even he had pushed his luck too far. The fans were becoming seriously annoyed, the club were looking like a complete mess for the outside, so he’s going with trying to keep Conte in place until the club have recovered some of the ground they have lost since during Poch’s pomp. So Champions League participation and I imaging an attempt to win a domestic cup, which in real terms these days means very little but it would help alter the perception since Levy refused to back Poch in a cohesive rebuild, we had slumped seriously. He tried Jose as the fixer but the problems were not about the coach particularly, it was the criminal neglect of the squad.
Rodon, Fernandez, Stevie B, Bale on loan wasn’t going to fix it either and it took Jose’s eventual departure and the embarrassing manager search which reached the dead end that was Nuno, for levy to admit defeat and appoint someone with the skill-set to sort things out. Our owners are not much better than Utd’s, ENIC have just realised that the chaos on the football side was too much of a negative contrast to the stadium hype…
How can any team be 6/1 for Top 4 and 20/1 to be relegated?