After Manchester United’s defeat to Fulham this past weekend, Robbie Mustoe has identified the man he would now be surprised to see staying at Old Trafford the next season.
On Saturday, Manchester United received a reminder that, despite the excitement around Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s arrival, they still have a lot of work ahead of them.
Alex Iwobi scored the game’s winning goal in stoppage time to help Fulham win 2-1. And with Marco Silva’s team doing so brilliantly, it was difficult to argue against the outcome. They completely dominated the game and could have won by more goals.
Erik ten Hag has to put up with a lot of criticism. To move the team forward, the Dutchman has faced difficulty. Injuries have not helped him at all and some of the issues off the pitch have come as a distraction, but his failure to grind out results and poor in-game management has cost United a lot this season.
Robbie Mustoe expressed his opinion on The 2 Robbies podcast, saying he would be shocked if the 54-year-old was still in command at the beginning of the next season.“And given what they’ve done in going for really good people from the CEO of Man City who was almost the head man, they got the head man, Dan Ashworth is going to go from Newcastle – really, really highly respected as a technical director – I think it makes absolute sense at the end of the season to thank Erik ten Hag, did the best that he could, but try and get somebody that is close to that respect of being a really top, top manager,” he said.
“I’d be really surprised if Erik ten Hag stays on given what they want.”
There is constant speculation around the United job and who would take over from ten Hag if he is sacked at the end of the season. A number of managers have been linked including Graham Potter, Thomas Tuchel, Roberto De Zerbi and Julian Nagelsmann.
The position of the new hierarchy of the club is still not clear regarding ten Hag. It looks like his job is currently safe until the end of the season but beyond that, there are no guarantees.