Manchester United jet straight into London from Istanbul (and practice at Leyton Orient’s stadium!) forward of crunch West Ham conflict as Erik ten Hag bids to ease Ineos’ temptation to vary supervisor

Manchester United flew straight to London from Istanbul for Sunday’s conflict with West Ham the place Erik ten Hag finds himself in acquainted territory.

Again within the capital, again in bother, and together with his again as soon as once more uncovered to the lads who will determine his future.

Information that the membership’s co-owners Ineos are once more weighing up their choices and sounding out potential candidates ought to come as no shock to Ten Hag contemplating the poor begin to the season and his shut shave in the summertime.

He arrived in London for the FA Cup last in Might amid intense hypothesis over his job and reviews that Ineos have been chatting with quite a lot of different managers about changing him.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe met with Thomas Tuchel in Monaco. Thomas Frank, Kieran McKenna and Marco Silva held talks. Gareth Southgate and Graham Potter have been linked. Ten Hag survived however he was about the one one at United who did. 

His teaching workers was utterly overhauled and so was United’s govt group. A complete of 250 workers have misplaced their jobs. Even Sir Alex Ferguson wasn’t protected from the Ineos axe. Ratcliffe’s fame for being ruthless is nicely deserved.

So Ten Hag has each motive to really feel susceptible as he returns to London after Thursday night time’s draw towards Fenerbahce together with his future as soon as once more up within the air after it emerged that United have spoken to former Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez and put Ruben Amorim, Edin Terzic and Frank, once more, amongst an inventory of doable targets.

His group are within the backside half of the Premier League and twenty first in a 36-team Europa League that has Bodo/Glimt and FC Midtjylland within the high 10. This isn’t the development United have been hoping for after they allowed Ten Hag to maintain his job throughout a summit at his Ibiza vacation dwelling and backed him with one other £200million within the switch market this summer time.

It feels as if the Dutchman has reached one other crossroads in his profession at United. He’s unbeaten in 4 video games for the reason that defeat by Tottenham plunged him again into bother. A win over Brentford and away attracts to Fenerbahce, Aston Villa and Porto is a decent run of outcomes.

Win on Sunday and United might be wanting up once more, in the direction of the highest half of the desk and a run on the high 4 ought to nonetheless not be past them. Lose, and it is going to be one win in eight video games.

United have 4 dwelling video games in a row — towards Chelsea and Leicester within the Premier League, Leicester once more within the Carabao Cup and PAOK Salonika in Europe — earlier than a world break that can as soon as once more give Ineos the chance to make a change.

They determined towards it over the past break earlier this month following a much-anticipated board assembly. 

Nevertheless, it now seems {that a} choice was made to begin exploring different choices, which is how chief govt Omar Berrada ended up main a four-man delegation to Barcelona to talk to Xavi, and feelers went out to different candidates. Ten Hag maintains he’s on the identical web page as the manager group, regardless that what occurred within the summer time ought to on the very least make him cautious of what the highest brass are doing behind his again. It’s a lesson that different United managers realized the laborious method.

David Moyes was satisfied {that a} six-year contract gave him some extent of safety till he awakened one morning in April 2014 to headlines that he was being sacked by United chief Ed Woodward simply 10 months into the job.

Louis van Gaal didn’t heed warnings from his spouse Truus that he was in bother till she alerted him to reviews that he was being axed on the day he gained the FA Cup. Not like Ten Hag, success at Wembley was no salvation.

Jose Mourinho thought he was assembly Woodward to debate January switch targets when he obtained the bullet in December 2018.

Ten Hag can solely hope {that a} win at West Ham on Sunday can quieten the most recent noise and take away the temptation for Ineos to vary supervisor over the following few weeks.

United have confirmed that Antony has a sprained ankle,

allaying fears the Brazil winger suffered a extra severe damage after he was carried off within the Europa League draw with Fenerbahce. Antony missed United’s coaching session at Leyton Orient on Saturday however Jonny Evans was match to participate.