Erik ten Hag has been sacked as Manchester United manager

Erik ten Hag has been sacked as Manchester United manager.

The Dutchman was informed on Monday morning and is leaving Old Trafford after two and a half years as manager. His last game was the Premier League defeat against West Ham United on Sunday.

This result left the club 14th in the table, seven points off the Champions League qualification spots, after just three league wins from nine games and just four in 14 competitions.

The club is currently working on the next steps. Former striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who was hired to work with Ten Hag in the off-season, has been asked to take over temporarily while the rest of the management team remains in place for the time being.

A statement later on Monday confirmed the news, which read: “Erik ten Hag has left his role as manager of Manchester United’s men’s first team.

“Erik was appointed in April 2022 and led the club to two domestic trophies, winning the Carabao Cup in 2023 and the FA Cup in 2024.

“We thank Erik for everything he has done during his time with us and wish him all the best for the future.”

Ten Hag was retained as United manager in the summer following a season-ending tally following an eighth-place finish in the Premier League, the club's lowest finish since 1990, and victory over rivals Manchester City in the FA Cup final had drawn.

At the beginning of July, United triggered an option to extend the 54-year-old's contract by a year. His previous contract, which he signed when he was appointed in 2022, was due to expire in 2025.

However, another hugely disappointing run of form at the start of the new season has led key decision-makers, including chief executive Omar Berrada, sporting director Dan Ashworth and technical director Jason Wilcox, to recommend a change.

United kept Ten Hag in position after FA Cup win (Michael Regan – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

The athlete announced during the international break that a United senior management meeting was being planned in London, while also reporting that the meeting was to discuss Ten Hag's performance as manager and a possible departure.

In Ten Hag's first season at United, he led them to third place and oversaw the Carabao Cup triumph, ending a six-year run without a trophy.

However, last year United struggled both domestically and in Europe, exiting the Champions League in the group stages and only qualifying for the Europa League this season by winning the FA Cup.

United had been scouting for potential replacements including current England head coach Thomas Tuchel, newly appointed USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino, former Brighton & Hove Albion head coach Roberto De Zerbi (later appointed to Marseille), Brentford head coach Thomas Frank and Ipswich Town -Coach Kieran McKenna.

But at the end of a process led by co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS sporting director Sir Dave Brailsford, the decision was made to move forward with Ten Hag.

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United were active in the summer transfer window, signing Matthijs de Ligt, Leny Yoro, Joshua Zirkzee, Manuel Ugarte and Noussair Mazraoui for a total sum of around £205 million ($274 million), including add-ons.

After the end of the transfer window and just hours before the defeat to Liverpool, Berrada said Ten Hag had the “full support” of the club's hierarchy.

Ten Hag was previously Ajax coach for four and a half years before taking up the post at United in 2022. He also coached the Dutch teams Go Ahead Eagles and FC Utrecht, each for two years as head coach of the reserve team of FC Bayern Munich.

United next face Leicester City in the League Cup at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

“United has finally run out of patience”

Analysis by Manchester United correspondent Mark Critchley

That United's key decision-makers are finally parting ways with Ten Hag after a narrow defeat in highly controversial circumstances may come as a surprise to some.

But with his side sitting 14th in the table and having won just four of their 14 games in all competitions this season, others may be wondering what was the point of waiting any longer? Keeping Ten Hag in place felt more and more like delaying the inevitable.

The defeat at West Ham was Ten Hag's last game as manager (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Despite a summer of changes above and around him and spending more than £200m on the playing squad, neither results nor performances have improved significantly since last season.

Ten Hag stuck to the argument that two trophies in two seasons meant progress, but few believed it as results were stagnant and unless there was significant improvement his superiors were also always likely to lose patience.

The decision marks a U-turn in the INEOS-led hierarchy, which Ten Hag supported when he agreed to a one-year contract extension in the summer, a month after the remarkable FA Cup final victory over Manchester City at Wembley.

It is now up to the newly installed football structure – led by CEO Omar Berrada and sporting director Dan Ashworth – to select Ten Hag's successor to save the season.

How bad had it gotten?

Analysis by Senior Data Analyst Mark Carey

Without taking recent on-pitch performances into account, a zoomed-out view of United's results shows just how much United's stock has fallen among Europe's elite.

Using data from ClubElo – a measure of team strength that awards points for each result, weighted by the quality of the opposition – we can track United's rating over the last decade and beyond.

Ups and downs are typical for any team, but the graphic below shows how United's dominance has declined. After a notable decline following Ferguson's resignation in the summer of 2013, fortunes recovered under Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

However, there has been little reason for optimism since Ten Hag's arrival, when United's ClubElo rating hit an all-time low in the post-Ferguson era. At times there were initial signs of recovery, but these were hardly sufficient to last in the long term.

Comparisons to the glory days are inevitable, but it's when you look at United's performance over time that the scale of the problems become so clear.

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(Top photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)