Former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has suggested the club cannot dismiss the threat of relegation if their current run continues. His warning came as attention turned to United\u2019s domestic form, with a sequence of nine matches without a win in all competitions leaving them 17th in the Premier League and outside the relegation zone only on goal difference.<\/p>\n
Ten Hag did not frame the issue as a certainty, but he was clear that the league offers no protection to teams stuck in poor form for too long. \u201cIn the Premier League it\u2019s certainly possible [that United could be relegated], because all the teams are simply strong,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re all strong squads, all good managers. And if you end up on the wrong side once and you really get into that vicious circle … yes, then it can become very, very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
On paper, relegation remains a possibility for every side in the division, even if the prospect looks remote for some of the league\u2019s biggest names. The point, however, is that no club is immune. United have long sat among the Premier League\u2019s leading teams, and even if they are no longer at the level they reached in the Sir Alex Ferguson era, their current position has brought an unfamiliar conversation into view.<\/p>\n
There is precedent for a major club drifting into trouble. Last season Tottenham Hotspur, another member of the \u2018Big Six\u2019, survived by just two points with 10 wins from their 38 games. Even this year under Roberto De Zerbi, Spurs were bottom of the table after five games.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s own results underline why the warning has been taken seriously. They have already failed to beat Hull City, Everton, Fulham, Leeds United and Bournemouth, and their only league win has come against an Ipswich Town side that now sit four points ahead of Michael Carrick\u2019s team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ten Hag says United\u2019s poor run makes relegation a real possibility in the Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1162,242,180],"class_list":["post-22181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-analytics","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}