We need to address something that we’ve started to see rather a lot of recently. And it’s the idea that The Media want Erik Ten Hag sacked, and are thus somehow attempting to undermine and unseat the blameless Dutch tactician.
It’s not really true. For one, more general, thing, despite the occasional undeniable hivemind tendencies of a press pack quite happy to get their theoretically rival heads together and decide which press conference quotes they will permit readers to read at which particular time, there isn’t really The Media as a homogenous group.
One only need look at the way several different columnists at several different outlets were all able to read, digest, analyse and then write lengthy columns full of very solid, very absolute but very different conclusions about the Man City Thing within about 15 minutes of the publication of a 175-page report this week to see that.
But even if we do treat The Media as a blob, it’s still not quite right to say what ‘they’ want is Ten Hag sacked. What The Media want at all times is a circus. They want chaos and noise and nonsense. And yes, that includes us.
Sure, that can ultimately be provided by a sacking, but it’s more suitably provided by a harsh or unfair or out-of-the-blue sacking. A Ten Hag sacking now would bring an end to that particular piece of fun.
Yeah, it would be replaced by a manager-search circus, but a) that’s already happening anyway and b) will happen in full whenever he happens to be sacked. There’s no rush.
MORE ON MAN UTD FROM F365:
👉 Ranking Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s mistakes at Man Utd from the email to Ten Hag
👉 Ten Hag avoids bottom spot in latest Premier League manager rankings with a newcomer on top
👉 Man Utd reach Erik ten Hag sack verdict with the Dutchman ‘understanding of the situation’
United fans’ current frustrations are understandable, but it’s hard to have too much sympathy when all the attention is simply a by-product of being as huge as they are. United have spent a decade spaffing away most of the advantages of being the biggest club in the country, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
All the great things that go with being the biggest club in the country come with this one specific downside: the attention you get when things are going well will be redoubled when they are not.
There really isn’t anything to do about that but shrug. The inevitable laser focus on United and Liverpool in particular at all times no matter whether they’re good, bad or indifferent has been exaggerated by the data-driven click-hungry media world we now live in, but it’s not a new phenomenon.
The idea has always existed that the ideal scenario is for one of those two to be doing well and one doing badly. There’s logic as a hypothesis, because those are the two states that will attract the most attention and having the added bonus of a contrast seems like it should be ideal.
Alas, it’s very hard to truly test this hypothesis because for the last 30 years, we don’t actually have a great deal of evidence to consider when anything else has been the case.
But the key point with United specifically at this time is this: as far as The Media can be said to collectively want anything, they would want precisely what they are currently getting. The wonderful thing with soap operas is that they never actually end, and nobody wants the Ten Hag storyline to come to a conclusion, not while it still delivers.
Ten Hag actually turning it round and becoming properly good would also represent an acceptable outcome for the #numbers, but a sacking at this stage would represent killing the goose that keeps sh*tting out golden 3-0 home defeats to Spurs.
Even the two subsequent draws do the job, answering nothing in any meaningful way but keeping the wolves from the door for long enough to spin the whole click-generating tale out for another international break at least.
One could, if one were mischievously inclined, go so far as to say Ten Hag is currently the media’s ideal Man United manager. Forever going round in circles, forever taking one step forward and two steps back, turning corner after corner but finding they all lead down the same cul-de-sac.
It’s almost greedy to imagine how The Media could want more from a manager of Manchester United – because remember as always This Is Manchester United Football Club We’re Talking About – than one who delivers frequent blockbusting headline-grabbing calamity while still in between doing just enough to not get sacked while never actually looking like he might actually have solved anything.
Even the trophies he’s won feed perfectly into this scenario.
Why on earth would anyone whose job is writing about football want Ten Hag sacked? He’s putting our kids through college.
MORE ON MAN UTD FROM F365:
👉 Ranking Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s mistakes at Man Utd from the email to Ten Hag
👉 Ten Hag avoids bottom spot in latest Premier League manager rankings with a newcomer on top
👉 Man Utd reach Erik ten Hag sack verdict with the Dutchman ‘understanding of the situation’
