Jonny Evans: Man Utd players hit by speculation over Erik ten Hag’s future

Jonny Evans has admitted Manchester United players have been affected by uncertainty surrounding Erik ten Hag’s future, amid the club’s worst start to a season in the Premier League era.

Evans was named player of the match in the 0–0 draw at Villa Park which left the Ten Hag side 14th with eight points from seven games; their fewest over the same number of matches since 1989 under Sir Alex Ferguson.

Ten Hag has ordered his forwards to ‘step up’ after just five league goals this season, while former United striker Dimitar Berbatov, working as a pundit on Sky Sports, said United should be ashamed that Evans be named best deadlock player.

Evans, 36, thought the point against Villa was a positive and claimed the team had been affected by talk over Ten Hag’s future.

“It affects the players. This also concerns us. I think the more experience I’ve had in my career, the more I’ve made sure I do everything to be ready and give everything I can to the team,” Evans said after a week in which United lost a 2-0 lead to draw 3.-3 at Porto before Sunday’s draw.

“That was the important thing to show the team spirit. Everyone competed as much as they could. It’s a nice thing to see.

When United’s top decision-makers met in London on Tuesday, co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe was at Villa for the draw, meaning United have failed to score in four of their last five league matches. Ratcliffe was joined by Ineos director Sir Dave Brailsford, United sporting director Dan Ashworth and technical director Jason Wilcox at Villa Park, with Ferguson also in attendance.

“We know that at the moment we are lacking targets, from this perspective it is not a good start, we need to step up our efforts. This is an area we need to improve,” Ten Hag said.

“Internally we are disappointed, we know we have to do better, above all we have to score more, this is the moment in this area after this block of matches where we are really short.

“In all other areas we are doing very well: four clean sheets, so that says a lot about the defense and the organization, defending the defensive transitions.

“But in this area of ​​the opponent’s box we have to be more ruthless, more clinical, more deadly and we have to work on that.”

Ten Hag’s side have scored just five goals all season, with only Southampton scoring fewer. United’s best chance came from Marcus Rashford, who was then substituted for his own protection to avoid being sent off. Rashford had been booked for a foul on Matty Cash and could easily have earned a second yellow for tripping Leon Bailey a few minutes later.

“Yes, that was one of the reasons he took it out. If it was any other foul, he would probably be sent off. We cannot take another risk,” Ten Hag said.

“It was a second foul but it would be very hard. But you can have a feeling in an away stadium if he does another one, so you have to hope the referee does it. I thought it was the best idea to take him out, protect the team and protect him. No, that’s not what referees do.

Regarding his own future, Ten Hag says there has been no indication of a change within the United board.

“We still talk. Every week I would say we talk every day so I hope I talk to them [this week]“, he added. “So I have no idea what the difference is, because they should have told me. We communicate in a very open, very transparent way.

“We always talk, every week we talk. We’re all on board, on one page, we know what we’re working on, it’s a long term process. We had two very difficult away matches. It’s a team, we showed the belief and faith we have.