by Erik ten Hag has no idea from the Manchester United hierarchy that his position is in danger and says the noise around his job in the run-up to the international break is “external”.
The 54-year-old is under scrutiny and took his Red Devils to Aston Villa on Sunday after a difficult start to the season which continued with a 3-0 home defeat at Tottenham and a 3-3 draw at Porto .
United battled to a 0-0 draw against Unai Emery’s in-form side at Villa Park, where Sir Jim Ratcliffe was among the attendees just days after avoiding the opportunity to publicly support Ten Hag.
The co-owner was joined by key members of the management team for a stalemate that means they have eight points from their opening seven league matches – their lowest total at this stage since collecting seven in 1989-90.
The PA news agency understands United’s executive committee is due to meet on Tuesday for a pre-planned monthly meeting and Ten Hag believes everyone at the club is “on the same page”.
“We always talk, every week,” he said. “I would say every day we talk, so yeah, I hope I talk to them.”
Prompted at the end of the half after United’s worst start to a Premier League season after seven games, Ten Hag said: “I think you said it very well – it’s outside noise.
“Internally we are disappointed and we know that we have to do better, above all we have to score more because at the moment, after this block of matches, this is the area where we are really lacking.
“In all other areas, I think we are doing very well. We have four clean sheets, which says a lot about the defense and the organization.
“Also, now we defend defensive transitions very well, so we are really improving on that.
“Our preparation game is good – we are calm, composed. We create opportunities outside of today.
“I think today we should have created more, but in that area of the opponent’s box we have to be more ruthless, more clinical, more deadly and we have to work on that.”
Asked if he thought ownership was firmly behind him, Ten Hag added: “So I have no idea it’s any different because they should have told me. We communicate in a very open, very transparent way.
Ten Hag was pleased with the clean sheet at Villa Park, where Harry Maguire departed in a protective boot after being injured just before half-time.
The United defender was surprisingly left out of an England squad from which Ezri Konsa is expected to withdraw due to a muscle injury suffered early in Sunday’s match.
Emery was unable to offer an in-depth assessment of the issue, but was more open about the draw following Wednesday’s memorable Champions League win over Bayern Munich.
“I think the result for both teams is fair,” said the Villa manager. “Maybe in the first half they controlled the game better.
“We didn’t concede many scoring chances, but more or less with their position on the pitch they were in better control than us.
“In the second half we tried different ways to improve and we did that.
“They had a shot on the crossbar but we were better in our positioning, we were getting and controlling possession better than them and we created two or three good chances to score.
“The most important chance we created was the last one with Jaden (Philogene), and when a game is so close, maybe that’s the difference at one point like we had.
“But, of course, we have to say that it’s fair for both teams and overall we can think about how we finish this month, more or less, in our goal.
“We are in the top five and in Europe we have done very well in the first two matches we have played, as well as the Carabao Cup against Crystal Palace.”
