Erik ten Hag rebuffed any suggestions of toxicity in the dressing room in his pre-Chelsea press conference on Tuesday.
Still, you’d expect that it’s not all peachy behind the scenes.
Manchester United banned journalists from four outlets from attending the conference yesterday, after all of which had shared their take on the current disarray growing at Old Trafford.
The stories came after the Reds sustained their 10th defeat of the season on Saturday at the hands of Newcastle United, with numerous players since on the end of heavy criticism for their sheer lack of effort, creativity or desire.
Pressure is now mounted on Ten Hag to not only turn matters around – results-wise – drastically, but to keep the players on his side and away from downing tools, or else he’ll join a seemingly never-ending list of sacked managers post-Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ten Hag dismisses recent reports
During his media duties yesterday, the Dutchman was asked about the ‘no-good culture’ he inherited and whether that alludes to what he’s seen ‘over the last 24 hours’.
He responded (via ManUtd.com): “So I don’t know what has come out because you speak in your article about one source. That’s a joke. So I won’t reflect on that.
“And when you play one bad performance you can’t say that the culture is not good. If it was a pattern, once again, [it would be an issue]. Last week, once again [I will say we played well]. We played three games and had two very good performances where the team was playing very good in all perspectives of football, in almost all perspectives of football.”
