The Man Utd starting XI and data that prove Erik ten Hag has made them worse

Despite spending hundreds of millions on players, the bare facts behind the Dutchman’s reign make for difficult reading

It was in January last year, eight months into his reign as Manchester United manager, that Erik ten Hag offered a withering assessment of the club’s recruitment prior to his arrival.
“The club has bought an unimaginable number of players in recent years who have not been good enough,” Ten Hag told VI magazine. “Most purchases have been average – and at United average is not good enough. United’s shirt weighs heavily. Only real personalities, who can perform under great pressure, can play here.”
Fast-forward 21 months to Villa Park on Sunday and Ten Hag could have been choking on his own words.
This was a game when he really needed a result and performance to potentially save his job and yet one look at United’s starting XI and the substitutes’ bench offered more clues as to why a muddled team are going backwards under the Dutchman and plenty are questioning the “process” he often rattles on about.
United were going to get better by buying better players and developing them and others within a coherent system and plan. But against Aston Villa it was fair to wonder what exactly £615 million – the sum lavished during Ten Hag’s two-and-a-half years – has bought them.
Praise for United’s defensive performance in the 0-0 draw should be tempered by an acknowledgement that it came at the expense of any form of attacking intent and that the club have now made their worst ever start to a Premier League season – 12 months after the previous worst.
Ten Hag named a starting XI containing four players he inherited at Old Trafford (Bruno Fernandes, Marcus Rashford, Harry Maguire and Diogo Dalot), two academy graduates he promoted (Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho) and, despite a £200 million close-season spend, only one of his summer signings (Noussair Mazraoui).
Of his four other signings who started, two were ageing free transfers who probably cannot believe how much they are still being leaned upon: Jonny Evans delivering a man-of-the-match display a few months shy of his 37th birthday and 32-year-old Christian Eriksen starting his sixth game of a campaign that is only 10 matches old. Rasmus Hojlund and André Onana, both signed last year, completed the XI.
Meanwhile, seven of the nine substitutes were Ten Hag signings, at a total cost of £335 million, including three brought in this summer in the hope of driving improvements in attack (Joshua Zirkzee), midfield (Manuel Ugarte) and defence (Matthijs de Ligt).
Whatever vision Ten Hag has for United, it surely cannot be this: a plethora of big-money signings not trusted to start a game that could feasibly have been his last. It says little both for the recruitment and, perhaps moreover, what Ten Hag has done with all those players he wanted but still cannot mould into a team of any consistency or conviction. They are issues United’s executive committee will surely be poring over when they meet in London on Tuesday for their monthly get-together.
He may argue otherwise but the evidence suggests Ten Hag himself hardly seems convinced by what he has at his disposal – even if he cannot argue he did not want these players. As the former United striker Dimitar Berbatov, working as a pundit on Sky Sports, put it: “Everybody on the pitch should be ashamed because Evans is a man of the match at 36.”
It was not in any way intended as a slight at Evans – an exemplary professional and the kind of character United used to be awash with – but more a commentary on those around him.
After the shambolic defensive showings against Tottenham and Porto, when United shipped six goals across two games, it was perhaps understandable that Ten Hag was going to make some changes. But removing two centre-backs signed for £100 million was a concern in itself. De Ligt has endured a torrid start to his United career but the form of Lisandro Martínez is another worry: once one of Ten Hag’s few untouchables, now less so.
Eriksen’s future was in doubt in the summer, the Dane looking like he could be one of those to go but suddenly has become a relative mainstay again, trusted ahead of Casemiro and with £50 million Ugarte having not left the bench since a bruising first Premier League start in the 3-0 capitulation to Spurs.
Zirkzee again looked lost and ineffectual after being introduced as a substitute against Villa and with him and the similarly young and unproven Hojlund as the centre-forward options, it raises the question about where the goals are going to come from. Villa was the fourth time in five league games United have failed to score.
Indeed, in so many metrics – wins, goals, points, league position, xG against – United have got worse season-on-season after the opening seven games, which is a deeply troubling trajectory given the money spent.
Defensively, there has been some improvement – not that it will have felt like it against Liverpool and Tottenham – with United conceding fewer shots on goal, but those gains have come at a time when the team is more toothless than ever in attack.