It's not hyperbole or fans being dramatic: Man United are the worst they've ever been in the Premier League. Here's proof why they sacked Erik ten Hag.
Ryan O'Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He's also the author of"Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game's Analytics Revolution."was formed in 1992, they hadn't ever been any lower. Over 38 games, they conceded one more goal than they scored -- also a club-worst in the Premier League era.
In both of those other campaigns, United ended up finishing in the top four. But although we've seen them bounce back from situations like this before, we've never seen them be this bad, for this long. NowTen Hag, let's run through five simple numbers that show how the club have reached a new low under his leadership and had to make a change.We'll start with the simplest one: points per game. The Stats Perform database goes back to the 2008-09 season for the Premier League.
The story of why the defense was so poor is also a pretty simple one. Under Ten Hag, they allowed more shots and better shots than they did under any of the previous five full-time managers: Except, with the steady defensive decline under Ten Hag, there was no real improvement at the other end: But even accounting for that underperformance, United still have a negative expected-goal differential this season, and their expected-point total still only lands them in 10th.Ten Hag's United created just 50.7% of the expected goals in their matches. In other words, their average game was a coin-flip outcome for either side.Janusz Michallik can't believe VAR intervened to award West Ham a late penalty in their 2-1 win over Manchester United.
Now, this isn't a perfect comparison because PPDA and pass-completion percentage have both been on the rise, league-wide, over the sample of seasons we're looking at. But it's not inaccurate, either. Through nine games this season, United's PPDA ranks 15th in the league, and eight other teams are allowing a lower pass-completion percentage.The core issue of Ten Hag era was a simple one: they never found a way to control the ball.
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