Q&A: The key issues facing Manchester United amid slow rebuild

Erik ten Hag faces a challenging start to life as Manchester United manager given no new faces have arrived at a club where the Glazer family’s latest dividends payment has fuelled fan discontent.

Frustration and anger has been high around Old Trafford for a while and those emotions have been compounded by the owners taking a large chunk of the £11million payout due on Friday.

United’s summer rebuild has been slow and pre-season gets under way on Monday.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the state of play at the club.

Last season United’s unbalanced, underperforming squad stumbled home to their lowest ever Premier League points tally, shipping goals aplenty and offering precious little in terms of promise. Off the field, there is unrelenting disdain for the Glazer family given the debt, dividends and mismanagement that followed their controversial takeover in 2005. Protests against the owners have punctuated that time and their part in the botched European Super League coup only added fuel to that fire, with the recently-formed fan group The 1958 leading renewed protests against them.

The owners certainly seemed to in April 2021 during the ferocious backlash to the the Super League. Co-chairman Joel Glazer acknowledged the “need for change” and better communication as he publicly apologised, with United setting up a fan advisory board and putting a fan share scheme in motion. United intend to make the latter a reality, but that is yet to launch. Furthermore, the Florida-based owners have gone quiet again, so Richard Arnold, who replaced much-criticised Ed Woodward in February, is the England-based face of the club. Protests were planned outside the chief executive’s house last weekend until he surprised those fans