Erik ten Hag needs three Manchester United players to dramatically improve form

Anyone can have a bad start, it's all about how you recover from early adversity that makes the difference.

Manchester United have faced a whole heap of adversity in the first quarter of the season. A lot of it has been self-inflicted but much has been out of their hands as well.

The protracted takeover process is now on the verge of - if not a complete conclusion - a long-awaited step in a positive direction but the months of uncertainty have helped drain all the optimism Erik ten Hag built in his first year. Add several off-the-field issues, an unaccountable injury crisis and nearly all the top stars playing below their best, it's a perfect storm for a disastrous start.

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Ten Hag would have had his eyes set on a genuine Premier League title challenge before the campaign began and with good reason given the progress he made last season and the new recruits he got in the summer. But those hopes are all but completely extinguished.

United have already dropped 12 points and given that the league winners have hit 89 points or more in four of the last five years, only around 13 more points can afford to be dropped in the remaining 30 games. United are yet to even play Manchester City or Liverpool, so that's fairly unfeasible. The standard is incredibly high now and United are not yet up to it.

But it doesn't mean the campaign needs to be a complete write-off. Progress can still be made domestically and in Europe despite the dreadful start. But improvement is needed. Quickly.

While not much can be done about the injury plague that has decimated the United defence, the players