But it could well be that the job is too big for him. I wanted here, like so many others, but he looks absolutely overwhelmed, and because of how he alienated portions of the squad, he's created rifts where the squaddies aren't playing for him, which gives him little to nowhere to turn to i.e. a sinking ship that he more than likely doesn't have the means to get to the proverbial port anymore.
Separate from anything else, he is being outcoached by every team we face. That is the biggest alarm bell of all; the football he is playing, and then his in-game management have been appalling. I don't know what you refer to by courage, but in the cerebral back and forths between he and other managers, he is being dragged from pillar to post. Slow to recognise danger, very slow to address tactical amendments, and even when he does, his substitutions have been horrendous. We can look at everything else, but the bottom line at the moment is his ideas are not translating to English football, and without hero bailouts (Rashford's super streak), we look lost.
Because he hasn't implemented a workable and transferable system, the players always look like strangers who have just met one another. Always, even on good days, our football is disjointed and has sporadically successful moments, rather than fluid halves of football.
There is nothing to actually back with ten Hag:
personnel - dire. He doesn't even trust his own purchases by now;
implementation of any kind of system - absent, we play the worst football in the league sans only Everton and Luton now;
squad management and motivation - he created a rift that has caused him to lose the squad, those he favours are all out of confidence;
preparedness - most of us have been alarmed since preseason at just how unprepared we are for the challenges we face. He either underestimates the league or just doesn't get it;
There's nowhere to turn and state he's even mediocre; it's been a capitulation. An awful formation idea (Casemiro-Mount-Bruno) put us on the backfoot from the outset, and everything has conpounded since then.
With the best will in the world, I don't know how he turns this around. People calling him pragmatic, but he doesn't seem to have any idea how to be pragmatic, because the first thing a pragmatist would do is secure his base (midfield), which is what all great coaches fix before anything else.
It's looking increasingly like he cannot set up an underdog team in this league. At Ajax, they were overwhelmingly better players than the rest of the league, but we don't have that, not even close and it looks like he cannot adapt or cope under the circumstances he's mostly created for himself.
There's a lot here to pick from. I'll start with the point about alienating part of the squad. That is squarely on the club. A manager at United needs to be backed 100% and every player needs to know that. It is on the club that they did not shift the players the club briefed the media about a few times over summer - they were said to be available and a wishlist of fees was even reported. That invites toxicity and lo and behold, it turned toxic.
Rashford hero-ball. Well, up until the League Cup final last season the team was starting to look good and it wasn't just about Rashford.
About not picking his own players. I suspect Casemiro was a club decision and a club suggestion and Erik could say yes or no. I doubt Erik asked for him to get a mega 4 year deal and I doubt Erik negotiated his transfer fee. With Eriksen I suspect he was the manager's suggestion and I questioned it at the time due to his age, his wages and him playing in Bruno's position. But as the season wore on him and Casemiro transformed our way of playing, though they were short-term solutions to problems we've had for a decade.
He's played pretty much all of the players he's bought. Antony has obviously got a situation affecting him outside of football and that's why he was away too for a fair bit. He's nowhere near worth what we paid but he's also got some attributes that worked for us last season though he is an incredibly frustrating player to watch. Malacia is injured, as is Martinez, the latter of whom is absolutely fundamental to our playing out from the back. Onana plays, he protects Hojlund so as not to run his only striker into the ground who arrived injured. So I'm not sure what you mean when you say he doesn't trust his own players. Maybe it's Mount? He was obviously injured too, and then sat on the bench for two matches before getting a start last night.
He's obviously got a major issue in figuring out the midfield.
With regards to coaching and being out-coached. I think last season is still catching up with the team as is our non-sporting-related pre-season. Erik should have spoken to the club and demanded a sporting-related pre-season as it was imperative to get his methods across in a season where we are only ever training for specific matches as there is no extra time available. This is also a problem of expectations. If you get a new manager who is meant to completly overhaul the way the team plays he cannot at the same time be expected to guarantee results. However he probably defied expectations last season where we made more progress in terms of results than in terms of performances (I'd have much preferred the latter, for long-term gain). This is where I'll criticise him also, as he's continually spoken about standards in trying to overhaul the anti-meritocracy culture at the club, and say things like "United has to win every game". He'd have been much better served by talking about performances and tactical execution, and stressing that when that starts to function properly the results will follow but that it may take time and some players will have to prove they can manage this.
My issue with his lack of courage has to do with reverting back to the team's original underdog football, or closer to it, to accommodate players who have likely shown that they aren't cut out for his tactical style. As well as not selecting the younger players who gave him the only good performance of the season and who are still young enough to be developed and moulded for the style he wants to pursue and have the hunger we see sorely lacking in the wasters clogging our team. One more issue I have with his lack of courage and that's him not being bullish with the media, but instead elaborating on and on about certain things he's asked when a simple "go feck yourself" in coded language would suffice. It's not like he's got friends out there, they have smelled blood all season and are gleefully piling on.
I hope he continues to select Garnacho and Mejbri, I would love to see him use Pellistri (and Amad when fit), Garnacho will actually put in dangerous balls for Hojlund. I would very much like to see a midfield of Mainoo, Mejbri and Mount. I would like to think that he has told the club which players need to be shifted in January and that he simply must have a centre back who can play a high line.
Generally I want him to reclaim his own dignity. This club can ruin anyone. I hope it doesn't ruin him. With a partial sale in process there is absolutely no point in changing manager right now. So he'll need to be given authority and he'll need to believe in it himself. Probably helpful to trust the instinct that a lot of these players are cnuts.