So far this season things haven’t gone too well for Erik ten Hag and Man United.
With 21 games played of the current Premier League season, the Red Devils are in seventh place, eight points off the top four and 13 away from Liverpool at the summit. The Reds also have a game in hand.
Of the top ten teams in the table, they are the only ones with a negative goal difference at this stage, though a mitigating factor is that United have had an unsettled squad throughout the campaign because of injuries and ill-discipline.
If ten Hag can hit the sweet spot that he found last season, there’s no reason why United can’t make a late run for the Champions League spots at worst, though it will require everyone to pull in the same direction and for injuries to be kind to them.
It may well be that this January window isn’t the time for the club to make a big splash in the transfer market, rather they wait until Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s takeover is fully ratified.
The remainder of the season will also give Sir Dave Brailsford and others a good chance to assess exactly where there needs to be changes, with money made available in the summer as a result.
One player that the Daily Mirror (h/t TNT Sports) linked with the club is Bayern Munich’s Matthijs de Ligt, a defender that ten Hag made captain at Ajax at just 19 years of age.
The Dutchman isn’t having the best time in Bavaria, and it appears that a summer move could be on the cards.
“It’s still too early to predict summer transfers… for sure there will be a chance for Matthijs de Ligt to leave in the summer because the situation remains quite open, but it’s too early to mention concrete clubs,” Fabrizio Romano said in his exclusive Daily Briefing for CaughtOffside.