Ten Hag’s incompetence cost Man Utd

West Ham 2-1 Man Utd (Summerville 74′, Bowen 90+2′ pin | Casemiro 81′)

LONDON STADIUM — A penalty that equalized Westham Blush arranged a meeting in extra time that they could have lost by a bucketful before half-time. The feeling of injustice was allowed Erik ten Hag to peel back the familiar excuses, but the facts are as bare as his father. He is not the man to lead Manchester United.

Four league defeats out of nine is no coincidental statistic. Yes, they squandered four golden chances in half an hour, but in the second half that old slowness reasserted itself and a team that was forty-five minutes flatter than a shirt front, led by a manager even more unpopular than Ten Hag, turned the match for. match turned upside down with three dynamic substitutions.

Where Julen Lopetegui At halftime, Ten Hag took the day back and waited for something to happen, with the now usual result. United first fell behind and after stealing the equalizer ten minutes from time, found a way not to cash in on all those early promises.

VAR Michael Oliver’s intervention might have been another performative turn that confused everyone but him and the man in the middle, David Coote, but that shouldn’t mask the incompetence of the coach supervising. United’s continued decline.

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If new co-owners Ineos cannot see that with their expensively put together so-called ‘best-in-class’ technical department, then they are just as unbelievable as the Dutchman. It is difficult to convey how poor West Ham were until the introduction of the speedy Crysencio Summerville, who was strangely overlooked at the start of the match, and Tomas Soucek at the start of the second half.

Alejandro Garnacho might have had two in the first eight minutes. Of the many problems that Ten Hag was unable to solve, finding the back of the net was the most problematic. If Erling Haaland or Mo Salah had fed off Bruno Fernandes’ safe-cracker passes, West Ham would have been on life support.

Fernandes was no better at heading Casemiros cross the bar as Lukasz Fabianski flutters in the air. Diogo Dalot would top the pair with a classic of the type, smashing the ball over an empty net after pushing it over the keeper. Amazing.

The clock had struck 31 when Dalot ignited that fourth opening, vividly explaining why United had failed to score a single goal in the opening 35 minutes. Premier League match this season. Under Ten Hag, they scored less than sixty league goals per season and are struggling with a goal difference deficit this season.

The confident clip United started at was always in danger of being undermined, but in West Ham they had a compliant foe at a low organizational level in the first half. The gaps in midfield allowed United to reset easily. Failed attacks were quickly recycled against a team that had no means of keeping the ball.

So the opening half was a parade, with Fernandes and Casemiro enjoying the freedom to do what they wanted. The latter has been gradually rehabilitated since the wash against Liverpool at Old Trafford and continues to roll like a Bentley in the space he provides here. His one-touch link play with Fernandes was orchestral in timing and repeatedly freed Garnacho on the left.

But it all came to nothing. Ten Hag rightly complained about what it looked like at first glance not only a terrible decision, but also an unnecessary intervention long after the play had continued. Be that as it may, what came before condemns him, and those who keep him in his post.