Erik ten Hag Manchester United sack timeline clear as Ineos face up to double dilemma

There is no easy way to dismiss a manager mid-season. It is even harder to do so having spent most of the summer chasing transfer targets that align with their style of football.

This is exactly what Manchester United face with Erik ten Hag though. The club are still backing him but after over two years in charge, he now faces a week that could break it all, because even a good one offers little chance of total makeup just yet.

A trip to Porto in the Europa League - masters of the now notorious dark arts and novely tough to play against - and Premier League action at Aston Villa are certainly not the sort of games Ten Hag will have picked to face in such a pressurised week. The time for complaints is long gone though. United and Ten Hag are up against it.

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The brief period of respite - headlined by 10 goals in two matches against Southampton and Barnsley - has made way for no win in three and genuine cause for concern of disaster. This is not a start to the season as bad as last under Ten Hag but having been forced into a corner with sticking with him, doesn't reflect the faith just about placed in him either.

United made every attempt to move on from Ten Hag, very publicly, isolating him during the early portion of the summer, before returning without an alternative. Had it not been for the FA Cup final - once more a fixture he wouldn't have selected as an effective play-off for his future - then he may not have lasted regardless of what Roberto De Zerbi, Thomas Tuchel, Gareth Southgate, or Marco Silva were up to.

That is all conjecture at this stage though. What is known is that Ten