The Red Devils succumbed to a miserable 3-0 home defeat to Tottenham on Sunday, piling pressure on the Dutchman and testing the patience of Ineos, which now controls football operations at Old Trafford under its chairman and chief executive Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

There are no easy answers to Manchester United's cycle of decline but Erik ten Hag seems to be entering a phase familiar to his predecessors

There's now a real possibility that Erik ten Hag is in the last days of his time as Man United manager. And there's no one else he can blame for that.