A dysfunctional feature of Manchester United’s beleaguered season concerns how many players exist in an Erik ten Hag version of the famous line from the Godfather Part III. “Just when I thought I was out he pulls me back in” is how Harry Maguire, Scott McTominay, Raphaël Varane, Casemiro, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Alejandro Garnacho, Antony, Christian Eriksen, Jonny Evans and Sofyan Amrabat may think of their status of exile – or not – under the manager.
To varying degrees all have been rejected and reinstated as the Ten Hag executes (sometimes puzzling) U-turns that point to a confusion over who should be in the XI – or even his plans at all. As Ten Hag takes his embattled unit (played 24 in all competitions, lost 12, won 11, drawn one) to Liverpool on Sunday this is the opposite of ideal.
Varane is the latest to experience Ten Hag’s selection hokey-cokey. The winner of three La Ligas, four Champions Leagues and the 2018 World Cup began the season as the A-list defender whose header beat Wolves on the opening day. Yet, after an injury-interrupted period, in late October he was dropped for the 3-0 defeat by Manchester City and had to wait six weeks for a next start – Tuesday’s 1-0 Champions League defeat by Bayern Munich that dumped United out of Europe.
In November Ten Hag explained why Varane was a footballer non grata and Maguire had engineered a rise from being the fifth-choice centre-back (behind Varane, Lisandro Martínez, Victor Lindelöf and Luke Shaw) of last season. With Evans, a 35-year-old free signing also then ahead of Varane, he said: “Harry didn’t play a lot, so I was very happy with Rapha’s performance. But, at this moment, Harry is playing very good. There is internal competition.”
Maguire’s return is more a rise from the dead than a victory of his manager’s oft-cited internal competition. In New Jersey in July on the first day of the summer tour Ten Hag stripped him of the captaincy. This bloody nose was followed by the rabbit punch of McTominay being chosen to wear the armband for the final warm-up game, in Las Vegas against Borussia Dortmund, when Maguire was in the XI and his successor, Bruno Fernandes, was not. Maguire would have been playing for West Ham now if United had agreed to pay £7m for the shortfall in wages the transfer would have caused.
McTominay is enjoying a similar Lazarus act. The Scot has become Ten Hag’s designated No 8 and is United’s top scorer despite, like Maguire, having been for sale in the close season. Now Ten Hag would instead countenance the exit of his former go-to midfielder, Casemiro, and Varane in January. And when the former returns from injury he will vie not (for the moment, anyway) with McTominay to be selected but with Amrabat and Kobbie Mainoo.
In attack the state of flux continues. Out wide, Rashford has gone from the 30-goal star marksman of 2022-23 to the substitute of the past two matches because Antony and Garnacho, each dropped by Ten Hag this season, are back in favour. At centre-forward, Rasmus Højlund (no goals in 12 Premier League appearances) was recently out, against Newcastle (a 1-0 loss) and Bournemouth (3-0 loss), after Ten Hag decided Martial (one in 13) should start, with the Dane reinstated for Chelsea (a 2-1 win) and the 1-0 Bayern defeat.
Martial, trusted to lead the line against Newcastle and Bournemouth, was substituted early in the second half of each as Ten Hag twice sent him into a mid-game banishment. Then it emerged that the Dutchman wishes to make the condition permanent by allowing him to be bought next month.
These last four results – loss, win, loss, loss – are the clue to why Ten Hag is in a seemingly endless cycle of promotion and demotion: “internal competition” is not required if the 11 players sent out for any given match turn it on and end with three points or progress to the next round of a cup.
In Ten Hag’s first campaign Varane, Casemiro and Rashford were as nailed-on first-choices as Maguire, McTominay, and Garnacho were for the bench, as third place and the Carabao Cup were secured along with a second trip to Wembley for June’s FA Cup final defeat by City. Now, though, it is all change. And with Casemiro proving more infirm this term his recruitment two summers ago at 30 on a contract of about £350,000 a week calls into question Ten Hag’s eye for a player. As does the fact that three of his other signings, Antony, Eriksen and Amrabat, are maybe – or maybe not – in favour depending on their manager’s fickle assessment of them.
Really, there are two types of “internal competition”. The one at City where the relentless winning machine Pep Guardiola has constructed is so fine-tuned that, the recent blip apart, he can omit a lead act such as John Stones for Rico Lewis and know performance will not drop. And the one at United, where Ten Hag’s continual chop-and-change is fuelled by the desperation to stave off an instability reflected in all strata of the club.
At board level the Glazers on-off-on again (well, 25% to Sir Jim Ratcliffe) sale of United torments the many supporters who want the detested Americans gone. Below the owners high-ranking executives such as John Murtough, the football director, tread water as they wait to discover whether Ratcliffe, who is to control football policy, will retain them.
Within this chaos the embattled Ten Hag fights to bring the order to the team that will secure his own job. A settled formula has to be found – soon. The bear pit of Anfield at 4.30pm Sunday is not an ideal arena to do so. But, conversely, imagine what a win and fluid performance could do for him and the attempt to move beyond his ever-changing cast list.
If not then Ratcliffe, when he finally becomes part-owner, may use his own version of another well-aired Godfather line, by “making an offer” Ten Hag cannot refuse and pointing him to the exit door.
