With concern over their worst-ever start to a season, Erik ten Hag-led Manchester United squad face the disgruntled Old Trafford fans once again on Saturday as they welcome for Brentford for a Premier League showdown.
The Red Devils suffered a 3-2 defeat at home to Galatasaray in their midweek Champions League match while the Bees most recently held out for a 1-1 draw away to Nottingham Forest.
Even star striker Rasmus Hojlund admitted that Man United are in a crisis after the Dane’s Champions League brace against Galatasaray was in vain, as a 10-man Red Devils outfit succumbed to a second successive home defeat owing to another catalogue of errors.
Heading into the final 15 minutes level pegging at 2-2, Andre Onana and Casemiro breathed huge sighs of relief when Mauro Icardi sent a penalty wide of the mark – the goalkeeper’s awful pass went straight to Dries Mertens, who was felled by Casemiro for the Brazilian’s second yellow card – but the Argentine exorcised his 12-yard demons to delicately dink the ball over Onana a few minutes later.
Rock bottom of their Champions League group without a single point to their name and languishing in 10th spot in the Premier League table – having only amassed nine points from a possible 21 so far – murmurings of a managerial change are slowly growing louder, but Ten Hag is believed to still possess the full backing of the hierarchy.
Five of the hosts’ last seven matches in all competitions have now ended in defeat – including three of their last four in the top flight – and Ten Hag could also set another unwanted record this weekend, where United are at risk of losing three successive Premier League games at the Theatre of Dreams for the first time ever.
Seeking to consign the Red Devils to their worst-ever Premier League run at their Old Trafford headquarters is a Brentford side who have endured their own sticky patch of results in recent weeks, having failed to get the better of a 10-man Forest outfit at the City Ground last weekend.
September was a truly forgettable month for Thomas Frank’s side, who failed to pick up one win across the month and saw their EFL Cup dreams come to an end at the hands of Arsenal, and the Bees now trek to Old Trafford without a triumph in five straight matches – leaving them 14th in the rankings as a result.
However, Brentford can take some solace from the fact that their only Premier League win this season did come on the road against London rivals Fulham, but that 3-0 success also represents their only clean sheet of the season so far in any competition – offering the glass-half-empty Man United crowd a slice of optimism.
Head-to-head
– Manchester United have won three of the four Premier League meetings, losing the other 4-0.
– Brentford have lost their five most recent away games against United in all competitions, last winning there in February 1937.
– The Bees are yet to score at Old Trafford in the Premier League.
Manchester United
– Manchester United have been beaten in five of their past seven games in all competitions. They have lost six of their opening 10 matches in a season for the first time in 37 years.
– United could lose at least five of their opening eight league fixtures in a season for the first time since 1986, which happened weeks before Sir Alex Ferguson was appointed.
– They are in danger of suffering three home league defeats in a row for the first time since February 1977.
– Erik ten Hag’s side have conceded first in each of their past three home league games.
– Brentford are winless in five Premier League matches (D3, L2).
– They have dropped a joint division-high eight points from winning positions this season.
– The Bees have gone six top-flight away games without a win (D2, L4) but are unbeaten in each of their past six away league London derb
