When Erik ten Hag suffered a bruising start to his Manchester United career, the mitigation was significant.
At the time of the 4-0 defeat to Brentford in the club’s second Premier League game of last season, United had only two new players in the line-up: Lisandro Martinez and Christian Eriksen.
David de Gea, Harry Maguire, Fred, Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho all started that day. It was not really Ten Hag’s team.
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Even when the aberrations came in an otherwise positive campaign, such as losing 7-0 to Liverpool or 3-0 to Sevilla for instance, the sense persisted that the failings owed in part to Ten Hag adapting his principles due to the players he had available.
That argument is not as compelling this season. In the 4-3 loss to Bayern Munich, a performance that bore many of the horror hallmarks of defeats gone by, United had a spine of players brought in by Ten Hag: Andre Onana, Martinez, Casemiro and Rasmus Hojlund. There was also Bruno Fernandes, whom Ten Hag has made captain, and Marcus Rashford, who in July was given a new long-term contract.
Onana was not the only one of these players culpable in Munich. Martinez was booked for pushing Harry Kane into the assistant referee in the second half and he turned his back on the shots from Leroy Sane and Serge Gnabry.
Casemiro scored twice late on but only after another display where he looked fatigued by attempting to keep up with the pace in midfield.
Rashford was a threat on the ball and at one stage sprinted back to win United possession, yet got it wrong in other moments and cut a visibly frustrated figure. Fernandes started well but misplaced 13 of his 46 passes, including one at 3-2 that set Bayern on the counter-attack that led to their fourth goal.
Ten Hag ripped into his team at half-time about their application and afterwards gave a flavour of his thoughts publicly. “You see how easy Sane is coming through and that has to do with determination: don’t let players so easily through,” he said. “You have to suffer sacrifice in certain situations to stop that and only when we get that will we win games. We have to look in the mirror. The goals were easy giveaways.”
GO DEEPER
Onana is in the spotlight but Manchester United have issues all over the pitch
That was the kind of sentiment he expressed after the Brentford defeat, yet those players who were seen as causes of previous turmoil were not in Germany this week. Ronaldo is long gone, De Gea left in the summer, Sancho has been banished and Maguire is injured.
The dial on where responsibility lies for United’s form is now shifting from the players on the pitch to the manager putting them out there. This is increasingly Ten Hag’s team, which is why questions are beginning to be asked about whether he must also reflect on his work.
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That is not to say Ten Hag has everything the way he would like. Far from it.
He still can’t select a midfielder in the mould of Frenkie de Jong, his principal target in his first summer, and the current right-wing options leave something to be desired.
Then again, United have signed four midfielders — Eriksen, Casemiro, Mason Mount and Sofyan Amrabat — since Ten Hag was appointed, so he had opportunities to recruit a player more naturally suited to picking the ball off the back line and dribbling forwards or passing progressively, as De Jong does.
And it was Ten Hag’s call to make public his complaints with Sancho and eject him from his squad over a refusal to apologise for the public backchat. Inevitably, such a major decision will generate more scrutiny the longer it goes unresolved. Ronaldo was 37 when he was kicked out, Sancho is 23 — they are different circumstances.
That Antony’s legal issues have surfaced at the same time, stripping United of two players in the same position, is unfortunate and an indication of how firmly Ten Hag believes in his approach to Sancho.
The Dutchman, 53, pushed United to sign Antony from Ajax, which came at a cost of £85million ($104.5m).
So United have just Facundo Pellistri as a recognised right-winger. He is enthusiastic and direct, but he is also 21 years old and raw. It was only in the final week of the window that United confirmed he would not be heading out on loan. Pellistri made his second United start in three years in Munich.
Hannibal Mejbri has also experienced a sudden rise to prominence. He was so upset at missing out on the bench against Nottingham Forest that it seemed he would be leaving on loan, but he stayed and scored as a substitute against Brighton & Hove Albion on his third United appearance.
In that game, Ten Hag turned to Hannibal ahead of either Pellistri or Alejandro Garnacho, persisting with his diamond formation, before bringing both wingers on for the final five minutes in a fluid system based on a 3-4-1-2 formation.
All these elements add together to create a picture of uncertainty and flux — not the kind of structured control Ten Hag advocates.
Injuries have undoubtedly had a huge impact. United had nine senior players out for the trip to Bayern and the situation should ease soon with Raphael Varane, Mount, Amrabat and Kobbie Mainoo back in training.
United also have a gentler run of fixtures now that could see the mood shift, beginning with a trip to Burnley on Saturday. Defeat, however, would ratchet up the pressure.
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Yet United staff are conscious that there was pain at Liverpool and Arsenal before Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta delivered progress.
Ten Hag, given huge authority at the club, has credit in the bank from the Carabao Cup triumph and Champions League qualification, but now he has a squad populated by his signings, he needs results and performances to ensure his stock does not drop.
(Top photo: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)