Well, better late than never like the saying goes.
Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag is now apparently anxious to hold showdown talks one-on-one with all his players in what would look like a desperate attempt to clear the Aegean stables to fix the dressing room mess, reports The Sun. The out-of-sync Dutchman has ordered his disgruntled players to meet with him these two days as he forages for a solution to mend all the breeches.
The Dutchman who was once sitting seemingly untouchable in his Ajax ivory tower is now being way out of his in the English Premier League and wants to clear the air as he is now suddenly keen to know about any and all issues each Man Utd player may have with him, his staff, his training, tatics, strategies and and also issues they may have with their team-mates.
The Old Trafford club can ill afford to have their noses up in the air anymore as they have suffered their worst start to a season in 61 years after losing eight of their opening 15 games across all competitions so far.
Losing 3-0 to Newcastle United on Wednesday night at home in the Carabao Cup round of 16 – after a humiliating 3-0 humbling in their recent derby loss just before that to cross-town rivals Manchester City – they are indeed in a most undesirable situation. On top of that, securing a place in the Champions League last-16 is also looking not altogether too realistic a goal to attain among Europe’s best after they lost their opening two group games to Bayern Munich and Galatasaray with ease.
They have lost five out of ten Premier League games, with only marginal victories barely sustaining them, winning those games just by a goal.
The situation has been greatly exacerbated with leaks that there is disunity and unrest in the dressing room, an unhealthy, chronic situation that’s persisted from earlier seasons, one that Ten Hag certainly did not contain but instead was most likely contributing to with his authoritarian ways.
Realistically too the ownership situation has hardly helped the situation at all. Ten Hag should by now be fully cognizant of the fact that his job is at stake having spent almost £400 million on players since arriving a little over a year ago.
Time is urgently pressing upon him to find a way to turn things around and save their campaign and his own skin, and anything less than victory against Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday could see another nail in the casket for him.
There are three games before the next international break, and their results could make or end his Manchester United career.