Erik ten Hag has hit back over the speculation surrounding his job as Manchester United boss, implying his critics are creating “lies and fairytales”.
United have won just two of their first seven league games, and sit 14th in the Premier League table, closer to the relegation zone than fourth.
There were suggestions that Ten Hag’s future was one of many topics up for discussion during a meeting involving Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Joel Glazer and United’s leadership group, but Ten Hag remains in the job for Saturday’s Premier League clash with Brentford and insists everyone at the club is on “one page”.
“No,” Ten Hag replied when asked if he had received assurances over his future at his press conference on Friday.
“The noises came from the media, some of you, not all of you. Some of you are coming up with stories, creating stories, creating fairytales, bringing a noise, bringing lies.
“I know we are all on one page at this club. I’ve said this before the break to some journalists who probably didn’t believe me as I saw the reports. Internally at the club it’s quiet.
“Of course we are discussing the position we are in and we’re unhappy with that. We have to turn the corner and that’s the strategy to turn this corner. We are quiet and composed, stick to the plan and are convinced we will turn the corner.
“We face challenges in football, sometimes it goes up or down. I’m sure we will make this a success as we did the last two seasons.
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Erik ten Hag lashed out at the media for building uncertainty about his Manchester United future by creating stories and ‘making noise
Ten Hag: I see good patterns and stats
Ten Hag appeared to give himself some breathing room after his team produced an impressive defensive display in a goalless draw at Aston Villa before the international break. However, they remained very toothless in attack – a story of their season so far.
United have failed to score in six of their last 11 Premier League games, including in four of the last five league outings. They are also severely underperforming their XG, they are worst in the league for it.
Ten Hag isn’t concerned about the lack of goals, saying: “Underneath I see good things, good patterns and good stats – that confirms we are in a good direction but the ranking is not lying. We are where we are and that’s not good enough.
“I think the players do well, we won last season. Maybe you forgot and when we face problems sometimes we have to line up teams that were not in the right balance because the players were not available.
“But, in general, the players do perform well and you see now we have to start scoring and that part is the most important part in football. If you want to win games you have to score goals. That part we have to improve.
“We are entering the final third, we are entering the box, we are coming in good positions to score but now we have to step up with the most important part is to net.”
