Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag wore the haunted, hunted expression of someone reaching the end of the road after Tottenham Hotspur inflicted abject embarrassment at Old Trafford.
Since United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the club’s restructured hierarchy eventually chose to keep faith with Ten Hag in the summer, he has been placed in a position where he is only one bad defeat away from a crisis and unforgiving scrutiny.
By that measure, the 54-year-old is running out of time after a United performance that was as shambolic, incompetent and indisciplined as any he has presided over in his tenure.
Winning the EFL Cup 18 months ago and last season’s dramatic FA Cup final victory against Manchester City, which effectively kept Ten Hag in a job, have been the highs among many lows – but it does not get much lower than this.
Ten Hag’s Spurs counterpart Ange Postecoglou has been under the microscope himself after an indifferent start to the season, but Sunday’s 3-0 rout was another outstanding step on the road to rehabilitation, a fourth straight win since losing the north London derby at home to Arsenal.
United, in the sharpest of contrasts, were a shambles – a rabble.
The big question looming over Old Trafford as the rain lashed down on thousands of red seats vacated by supporters who had stuck admirably by their side was this: can Ten Hag survive? And if so for how long?
This is a manager who is looking increasingly out of his depth. He has pulled back from the precipice before, most notably in the summer, but is back there again.
If there had been small signs of improvement defensively this campaign, that felt a distance away at Old Trafford on Sunday. This felt very much like the end – if not now, then very soon.
From the first whistle, Spurs were all over United like a rash, the tone set in the third minute when the magnificent Micky van de Ven raced like a white flash from inside his own half, leaving a succession of United players in his slipstream before setting up Brennan Johnson’s simple finish.
United started dreadfully and went into a rapid decline, somehow surviving until half-time as Spurs carved them open on countless occasions but could not add a second. [BBC News]