IAN LADYMAN: Erik ten Hag escapes interrogation chamber, but it’s only a stay of execution… The Man United manager NEEDS his players to speak for him against Fulham, if he is to avoid another step towards the door

• Erik ten Hag has recently faced questions over his future as Man United boss
• The side have endured a slump of late and need a result vs Fulham on Saturday  
• Follow Mail Sport’s new Man United WhatsApp channel for all the breaking news

The press conference room at Manchester United’s training ground has long felt like an interrogation chamber. One day soon a United manager will be wheeled in on a gurney. Any last requests?

It’s small and dark. Low ceiling. On Friday, the blinds were drawn, presumably to prevent prying eyes from focusing on the training pitches below. That seemed unnecessary. What could one hope to learn from watching Erik ten Hag’s players at work right now?

Words — spoken or written — have never won a football match. Nor have questions and answers. The press conference is an unnatural setting at best. How many truths are really spoken? How much is really ever learned?

But body language and countenance can be revealing. Sir Alex Ferguson used to own a room — a different one, as it happens. David Moyes could never do that. Louis van Gaal’s default response to pressure was to seek refuge in condescension and Jose Mourinho was a mixture of fire and ice, if sadly an imitation of the magnetic force once of Chelsea, Real Madrid and Inter Milan.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? It was written on the tin. Legend. Good guy. Never convincing.

Erik ten Hag met talk of his future at Manchester United head on during his press conference on Friday

Questions have been asked over his position as Man United manager, after the Dutchman’s side have endured a difficult start to the season

This week, they have suffered back-to-back losses to rivals Man City in the Premier League and another defeat by Newcastle in the EFL Cup

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And now to the slight, pale Dutchman who walked in to smile and utter a hesitant ‘good morning’ at 1.30pm on Friday.

There is no nonsense about Ten Hag. No fakery. Straight questions tend to get straight replies. Whether anybody currently has faith in them is another thing entirely. He’s a straight-up guy, Ten Hag, but he is not a natural orator — either in his native language or what continues to be rather patchy English.

So as the squeeze continues at United, he really does need his players to speak for him if his side’s game against Fulham at lunchtime in the Premier League on Saturday is not to represent another step towards the door.

A siege mentality is not unfamiliar to United. Ferguson used it as a go-to tactic. Sitting on a small chair behind a small table, however, Ten Hag met talk of his future head on and that felt better.

‘We have to win and I don’t want to find excuses if we are not winning,’ he said. ‘That is the demand and I can’t walk away from that. We know the standards here and we have to match them every day. This dressing room is strong, the staff is strong and the manager is strong to put it right.’

Support for Ten Hag within Old Trafford remains. They saw enough last season — when United qualified for the Champions League and won the Carabao Cup — to believe they had finally appointed a capable manager. It is also hard to see how they could sack him even if they wish to.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS group continues to move towards a 25 per cent stakeholding in the club and with that will come — we are told — control of the football operation. It is unfeasible that anyone would feel comfortable sacking a fifth manager in a decade before Ratcliffe and his team walk through the door.

Out on the street and in the pubs and cafes of Manchester, support for Ten Hag is deeper than one may think after 10 minutes spent scrolling social media feeds.

At a Q&A event for football fans in the city on Thursday night, the question of the United manager’s future was raised. Support among those present was unequivocal.

It’s not uncommon for Man United managers to face an interrogation in press-conferences, with Sir Alex Ferguson, among other managers, taking different approaches 

On Friday, the Dutchman stressed the importance of winning matches and added ‘I don’t want to find excuses if we are not winning’

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United supporters have endured too much change. They are tired of it. Embarrassed by it. As Manchester City and Liverpool continue to forge ahead on the back of continuity, structure and planning, their club have staggered from appointment to sacking to appointment like a drunk driver veering his way down Deansgate.

Nevertheless, patience is never endless in football and what endangers Ten Hag — as well as his results — is a lack of clear pattern in the way his teams try to play.

There is not a commentator or analyst in the game who can work out what a Ten Hag United team is supposed to look like. Does he know? He was asked exactly this on Friday. ‘I don’t want to say that (I don’t know), that is too strong,’ he replied. ‘The intention is clear.’

Following that came diversionary talk about injuries, but soon the conversation returned to the point. When Ten Hag arrived at Old Trafford in May 2022, he said his teams would play pressing football, with the classic energy and quickness of traditional United sides. A little like his Ajax teams.

After the recent Manchester derby defeat, however, Ten Hag was reported to have said his current squad could not play like this, that they would have to play direct football.

‘I thought the explanation from my point of view was totally wrong,’ he said, suggesting his words had been misconstrued.

‘We played very good football last season. This season the philosophy is not different.

‘We want to go more direct, but the explanation for my direct thought was that I want to go for long balls. No, I don’t want Andre Onana to go for long balls. I want to play out from the back.

‘We did it in every game but if an opponent is going into a high press, it is a good option to go direct.’

A result on Saturday by the Thames would speak for Ten Hag much more eloquently than that meandering explanation ever could. Given his comments about Marcus Rashford’s post-derby birthday party, he will hope for a response from his best player too.

Was Ten Hag wise to publicly condemn a player who has not, after all, broken any club rules? It’s a pertinent question. But to the United manager, discipline and unity is everything. 

United currently sit eighth in the Premier League standings, having endured a mixed start winning five and losing five of their opening matches 

But having suffered successive 3-0 defeats to Man City and Newcastle, questions have been raised over the team’s performances around Old Trafford

But Ten Hag said he had belief in his team, stating ‘This dressing room is strong, the staff is strong and the manager is strong to put it right’

So is perception, and perhaps the one thing we can say about Rashford’s excursion hours after such a bad result is that it really was a poor look.

Ferguson once lost a derby to City 5-1 and claimed to have gone straight home and hid under the bed. It was tempting to think about this on the drive away from Carrington on Friday, past the autograph hunters, the cyclists and the horses idling in the fields of the riding school next door.

When Ferguson pushed through United’s move from the Cliff to their current training ground in 2000, he did so with the following explanation: ‘Man United always have to be ahead of the times,’ he said. ‘Not up with the times. Ahead of the times.’

Is Ten Hag out of time? No, not yet. But maybe soon.

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