What exactly has Erik ten Hag done following his Manchester United reprieve?

The first few games of a season are always instructive about what has changed over the summer term. For Manchester United, the answer so far is ‘very little’.

It’s one thing for United to be short on quality in the last two thirds, as they have been for a long time, and have been again so far this season. Sir Jim Ratcliffe was not wrong when he said on the eve of the summer break that it would take time to address those issues, which frankly only a squad overhaul and the continuing development of their handful of promising youngsters can fix at this stage.

What Manchester United would have been banking on, though, was for a basic level of competence to be implemented into the squad – and we’ve just not really seen that.

It’s not asking a lot for centre-backs to mark opposition centre-forwards six yards from goal. Brighton’s opener came from a cross that ran out on the far side of the box and was then put back in from that flank. At no point on either ball did anyone inside the United box consider that they should perhaps pick up Danny Welbeck. He left the club ten years ago and was wearing blue and white stripes, lads. You can’t be that confused as to his intentions.

It’s not asking a lot for centre-forwards to avoid drifting into needlessly offside positions inside the opposition box. Yet United committed more offsides against Brighton (7) than 17 of the other 19 Premier League teams have had in their two games combined this season, two of which led to goals being disallowed.

Want to put that down to clever defending, because it must be said, Brighton have looked good so far? Alright then: Brighton had no offsides at all. What does that say about the intelligence of United’s own work at the back?

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We’re not talking here about United playing a system with an Achilles heel that can be exposed. We’re not talking about players being overladen with complex instructions they’re not smart or talented enough to understand. We’re talking about basic principles that eight-year olds would be taught by a geography teacher who happens to have a whistle, a pair of shorts and 427 hours racked up on the latest edition of Football Manager.

United’s unexpected decision to retain ten Hag’s services over the summer felt a strange move at the time, but one presumed from the way he and others at the club have spoken about their historic issues that the Dutchman was being given carte blanche to rip it up and start it again in his image. ‘You’re not the one to blame, Erik, show us how it’s done’.

Now look, obviously two-and-a-half competitive games is not a lot of evidence, and it’s possible things might improve, but this is very much not how it’s done.

It will be interesting to see how the higher-ups at United treat this season. Having done their full audit of their failings over the past few years and concluded that ten Hag was still the man they wanted in charge, are they now going to treat him as if he were a new managerial appointment who will have some inevitable teething troubles? Or does the weight of the last two years’ worth of evidence still lay on the scale, tipping further and further against him until it finally lands heavily upon his head? (We should have mentioned: ten Hag was standing under the scales in this analogy, for some reason.)

We’re not altogether writing off the idea that ten Hag might be able to make it work. Show an improvement against Liverpool, then carry that forward, and this conversation will go down as a ridiculously premature reaction to a side who cannot yet be expected to be consistently excellent. Not as bad as this, like, but still.

But ten Hag has to deliver, not just for himself, but for United. Otherwise it won’t just be the past ten years under the old regime that was put to waste, but the first year under this new one, and probably more given how difficult it is for a new appointment to make a real impact until their first pre-season.

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