Erik ten Hag and the Manchester United job that is probably impossible – The Warm-Up

Was Erik ten Hag watching on Tuesday night, as Manchester United went to Anfield? As the side he will take over this summer lay down meekly on the chopping board; as they were filleted, seasoned, lightly fried and then devoured by a rampant title-chasing Liverpool? He probably was. Dereliction of duty not to. And Liverpool do play some very watchable stuff these days.

What did he make of it all? He was announced into his new job a couple of days later, so he probably didn't have a last minute change of heart. Or if he did, his lawyer had some bad news, and everybody's agreed to pretend the tearful late night phone calls never happened.

We've all spent the days since picking over the gory details of United's performance: can't defend; can't attack; can't transition; can't hardly find the will to run, let alone somewhere sensible to run to. Let's assume that Ten Hag, a clever man who knows his onion bags, was just as horrified and fascinated as the rest of us. But perhaps — and we're guessing here — there comes a point where a mess becomes so big that it starts to look like a good time.

After all, Manchester United have to be the biggest blank slate in football at the moment. Everything about the first team is under question, and so everything is up for grabs. United's best players on Tuesday were, in order, Jadon Sancho, Hannibal Mejbri and Alejandro Garnacho, and one of them didn't even get off the bench. We've included him here because the sight of his name on the teamsheet didn't make anybody wince or laugh. What do you do with that? Well, anything you want to.

All Ten Hag needs is time, money, and for the rest of the United machine to start functioning properly. Simple enough. You'd assume he's been promised all that in his interviews. You'd hope he checked that nobody had their fingers crossed.

It is traditional, in these moments, to outline the contents of a manager's in-tray. Get so-and-so firing. Get the crowd back on side. That sort of thing. But when Ten Hag settles into his desk and looks for his Things To Do, he will find a single piece of paper. Stained, as if somebody has been crying. The ink has run a little. But it's still legible. And it reads, simply, HELP.

A big job? Yes. An impossible one? Very possibly, very probably. But Ten Hag is being given a huge lump of clay to shape any way he pleases, and even if it cracks and crumbles and falls apart, that does sound like fun. Exhausting, soul-breaking, reputation-shredding fun.

If your first thought, upon hearing of the sacking of Sean Dyche, was complete confusion, then you weren't alone. The Warm-Up was right there with you. There was a certain brutal logic to it, of course: Burnley were in relegation trouble, and worse, Burnley weren't looking very Burnley. The aura was gone.

But with the possible exception of the two at the top, there wasn't a team in the league more particular to its manager and to their vision. Bespoke doesn't always mean fancy. How could the house that Dyche built possibly stand without its terrifying short-sleeved architect, there to hold the walls up?

Er, quite well, apparently. Burnley took 24 points from the first 30 games of the season under Dyche; without him they've picked up four in a week. Could have easily have been six, in fact, but for a wasted penalty against West Ham. But perhaps the most impressive thing about last night's win over Southampton was that Burnley's players didn't seem to be carrying that disappointment with them.

Or maybe it was the fact that Burnley played energetic attacking football, created loads of chances, scored two of them and could have had more. That was pretty exciting too. Connor Roberts, buccaneering forward from right-back. Dwight McNeil, running his legs off. Wout Weghorst … well, he missed his chances, but he got into good positions to miss them, and that's the first step.

Exciting for everybody bar Everton fans, that is. The Merseyside Blues still have the advantage of position, of points and of games played. But Burnley have the goal difference. And Burnley don't have to play Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester or Arsenal: that goal difference is only going one way.

Turf Moor was bouncing last night, and we can assume the same for Sunday. A point against Wolves will move Burnley out of the relegation zone ahead of the Merseyside derby, and if you're predicting anything other than a heavy Liverpool win there, you need a good long sit down.

Generally speaking, the panicked late sacking of a much-loved manager doesn't work: just ask Chris Wilder, current favourite for the Burnley job. And replacing said much-loved manager with a thrown-together braintrust: youth coach, club captain, anybody else nearby in a tracksuit. That doesn't exactly scream "We have thought this through." But then nothing about Burnley has ever really made total sense. Why should it start now?

We interrupt your coverage of the here and now to bring you a delightful slice of how things were. Not a day goes by we don't miss Dimitar Berbatov, and all those Dimitar Berbatov things he used to do.

At a rough estimate, the internet is now 75% Erik ten Hag content. Biggest club in the world! But if you're in the mood for a look back at his origin story, Adam Bate has put together a comprehensive overview for Sky Sports. We particularly liked the image of Ten Hag playing in defence and bossing the rest of his team around. According to Boudewijn Pahlplatz, a former teammate:

"That was not always popular with the players because he was not the best player. When you are not the best player, it is hard for the better players to accept it. But he was thinking like a coach and the truth is that he always had the best tactical thoughts. Twenty years on, you can see that he was right all along."

And why not pair that piece with this look at his time at Ajax, from our own Kevin van Nunen. "Literally the opposite of Louis van Gaal," he says, which maybe explains a lot.

It's easy enough to imagine what early success might look like for Ten Hag: a bit of shape, a bit of oomph, some more goals at the right end. There's a ship to be steadied, stables to be cleansed; there's frowns to be turned upside down. But eventually people are going to start wanting trophies and title challenges. And that's where things might get sticky.

As Daniel Taylor points out for the Athletic, Ten Hag is entering a league dominated by two managers at the peak of their powers, employed by clubs that have the money and more importantly the competence to keep them happy and keep their squads purring along. "Nobody should be suckered into thinking that Ten Hag’s arrival from Ajax will put a stop to Liverpool and Manchester City from having all the fun," he writes. "Probably not for as long as Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola remain in their current positions."

And then Taylor takes this on to its logical conclusion: "United are not going to win another title as long as these two remain in the Premier League." However that prediction shakes out, the central point is hard to argue with: United aren't good enough, compared to the best, to be afforded the luxury of thinking that they could be winning titles. Failure is relative and dictated by circumstance, and United aren't good enough to fail at winning the league.

So Ten Hag's job isn't the title. Not in the three years of his contract. It's to get the club to a position where not winning the title becomes something to worry about, rather than the natural order of things.

A proper clash of the titans this evening, as Barcelona Femení take on Wolfsburg in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final. And Huddersfield host Barnsley: a win for the home team would secure a playoff spot and send their opponents down.