The damning ‘worsts’ Ten Hag’s Man Utd have set this season

Things are going in one direction for Manchester United and there are some shocking statistics that underline this decline

The damning statistics continue to pile up for Erik ten Hag. The last time Manchester United started a season this poorly they were relegated, but the latest abject defeat by West Ham saw the 19-time English champions plum new depths of despair they have not reached for nearly a century – and in some respects even longer.
Not since Nov 1992 under Sir Alex Ferguson have United gone four straight games in all competitions without finding the back of the net. It is now more than six hours since Ten Hag’s side scored, the 2-1 victory over Chelsea now distant in the memory after the goalless draw with Liverpool that proceeded harrowing defeats by Bournemouth and Bayern Munich, before this drab showing.
United’s abject capitulation to West Ham was their 13th defeat in all competitions this season, which is the largest pre-Christmas total since 1930/31.
The good news for Ten Hag is that the two fixtures left to play in 2023 are not enough to eclipse that record 93 years ago of 16 losses, but the bad news is the last time they hit 13 defeats before New Year, United finished bottom and were relegated.
The two strikes conceded in the London Stadium mean United have already let in more goals so far this season than they did in the whole of 2017/18 under Jose Mourinho.
Mourinho was derided for his negative tactics and lack of ambition, but across the entirety of his second season in charge United conceded 40 goals across 56 matches.
This season, United have been derided for their lack of productivity going forwards (more on that shortly) but they have already let in 41 goals in just 26 matches.
Another particularly damning stat for Ten Hag that appears to show his side are spiralling into a regression. In their 62 games last season, United lost 12 times across all competitions.
The Dutchman’s team have already surpassed that number after the loss on Saturday afternoon.
The statistic that sums up United’s shocking decline since Ferguson left the dugout, that was recorded earlier this month.
The humiliating 3-0 defeat by Bournemouth recorded United’s 35th Old Trafford loss combined under David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ralf Rangnick and Ten Hag, one more than Ferguson suffered at the Theatre of Dreams in his 21 seasons in charge.
Bayern made that 36 last week, and you would not put it past this United side to make it 37 before the year is out with Aston Villa scheduled to visit on Boxing Day.
Now to the toothless attack. To add to the stats flurry overwhelming Ten Hag after this defeat, Rasmus Hojlund has not scored in 14 Premier League appearances since joining from Ajax in the summer, while team-mate Antony has not recorded a goal or assist in 19 league appearances all season.
Wretched as the hierarchy at United might be, this is one area of the team where Ten Hag cannot escape culpability. Hojlund and Antony were his buys. He wanted them. Interestingly, even as he pushed his employers to spend nearly £90 million to take Antony from his old club Ajax, Mohammed Kudus was there too. West Ham paid about a third of Antony’s fee on him and he has barely stopped scoring since arriving in East London, taking his goal here with the kind of aplomb his fellow Ajax alumnus has singularly failed to show across nearly 18 months in a red United shirt.
Mohammed Kudus on the scoresheet again! 🤩Great goal. Even better celebration! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/TTexXu8whe
Once Jarrod Bowen opened the scoring, the visiting fans began to leave in their droves. Because they knew from the moment he did that for them it was over, that to stay was only to prolong the misery. They knew this bunch of players who they spend their hard earned income following round the country hasn’t the resolve nor the confidence nor worse the application to fight back. So they might as well head home. There was nothing for them to see here. Well, apart from Kudus adding salt to the wound.
And how that certainty of defeat must hurt. Because this used to be the club that was defined by the fightback, by a collective allergy to the very idea of giving up. This, after all, was the operation that prompted the commentator Clive Tyldesley to insist that “they always score” even as they trailed in the Champions League final deep into added time.
That, though, is so last century. Belief in the escapologist possibilities of Fergie Time is a concept that disappeared a long time ago at Old Trafford.
Ten Hag even admitted that when the opposition scores first his side are doomed.
“It’s the meaning of the first goal,” he said, when asked what happened to United’s history of the stubborn refusal to yield. “You have to take the goal.”
So it was that at the London Stadium once the manager’s single, tactical plan – to escape with a goalless draw – was undermined there was nothing there. Fighting back, after all, is not easy when you have defenders instructed to pass sideways and then back to the goalkeeper, when you have midfielders who cannot retain possession and, most tellingly of all, forwards for whom the very idea of putting the ball in the net is anathema.
In truth, Ten Hag’s obsession with scoring first (he mentioned the need four times in his post-match press conference) has worked for him at Everton, Fulham and Burnley. There United grabbed a lead and, albeit often fortuitously, clung on. But when they have gone behind, as against Manchester City, Newcastle, Bournemouth and 10 other occasions this season, his players almost seem to acknowledge that the game is up. Heads go down, morale disappears, panic spreads.
He might insist he players can come back from conceding first. But only twice this season – against Nottingham Forest and Brentford – have they actually managed it. As statistics go, that is probably the one that speaks loudest about the mess Ten Hag, and his goal-shy frontmen, are in.