Man City might be showing Manchester United what to do with managerial change strategy

Last week threatened to be busy but turned out to be so quiet it was a struggle to come across any Manchester United coverage on some of the national newspaper websites over the weekend.

United’s refusal to clarify Erik ten Hag’s position was in itself so newsworthy the BBC even did a story on it. After four days of attempting to get concrete confirmation, this correspondent got a credible steer from a source on Friday. At nearly five o’clock.

You cotton on pretty quickly in this industry that Friday is the worst day for news. Readers have metaphorically or literally logged off and are already in weekend mode.

So the published time of ‘Erik ten Hag expecting to stay’ came at the absolute worst possible time in a barren week and with another eight days until United played again. By that time, the natural assumption was United would not sack Ten Hag even though they could not actually bring themselves to answer the question on millions of fans’ lips.

READ MORE: United to consider releasing up to five players

READ MORE: How United misjudged their left back with one decision in the transfer market

It helped United that Lee Carsley presided over a tactical debacle in England’s first defeat to Greece at Wembley on Thursday night. That was compounded by Carsley’s mixed messages during his post-match media rounds as to whether he wanted the England coach's job on a full-time basis or would rather get back to coaching the Under 21s. And so the news cycle whirled again and United-related queries died down.

The England national team and United are the two sporting institutions that fascinate this country the most and it remains to be seen which one will appoint their next permanent manager first. England technically have a