Erik ten Hag may need to be sacked before FA Cup final - even if he gets Manchester United there

The focus on Manchester United's recent attempts to close the gap to the Champions League places overlooked the real issue facing Erik ten Hag's side. While United eyed up fourth, the reality was they were lucky to be sixth.

By no objective or statistical measurement have United been the sixth-best team in the Premier League this season and Newcastle, West Ham and Chelsea are more of a threat to them than they are to Aston Villa and Tottenham. A run of one win in seven league games has torpedoed the possibility of a top-five finish and left them vulnerable to the chasing pack.

Newcastle leapfrogged them at the weekend, West Ham are two points behind and although Chelsea are six back, they do have two games in hand. The good news for United is a more amenable fixture list that should at least avoid the doomsday scenario of falling out of the top seven and failing to qualify for Europe at all.

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First, it is Coventry City in the FA Cup this weekend, then Old Trafford league matches against Sheffield United and Burnley. Three wins from three are essential to steady a season that is threatening to derail even more wildly off course than it already has.

Ten Hag cut an agitated figure in his post-match press conference at Bournemouth and the tension was visible even before he objected to a question about the possibility of this being United's worst-ever Premier League season. They have never finished lower than seventh and still need nine points from six games to beat the tally of 58 from the doomed campaign of two years ago, under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf