No.1 Manchester United choice to replace Erik ten Hag has already turned Sir Jim Ratcliffe down

Manchester United’s tepid defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon has seen fresh questions arise regarding the future of manager Erik ten Hag.

The 3-0 reverse was the Red Devils third Premier League defeat already this season and leaves the club 12th in the table with just seven points from their opening six games.

This poor start to the season comes after the Dutchman’s future was a major talking point over the summer, with co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his new hierarchy eventually deciding to keep the faith with the former Ajax boss after he led the team to an FA Cup win back in May following an eighth-placed Premier League finish.

Leading Manchester United candidate has already turned Ratcliffe down

After a summer of big spending, in which Ten Hag welcomed five new faces to his squad, including two of his former Ajax players, Ten Hag’s regime appears to have hit a new low following a poor, indisciplined performance that lacked any sort of cohesion.

Ten Hag insisted after the game that he is ‘not thinking’ about the prospect of losing his job, the pressure is cranking up and potential replacements are being linked the Old Trafford hot seat.

One manager to be linked with the post in the summer when Ten Hag’s future looked to be in limbo was former Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel, who left Bayern Munich at the end of last season.

The German remains one of the most attractive potential candidates on the market, with the likes of Mauricio Pochettino and Roberto De Zerbi, who were both linked with the job earlier this year, now in new jobs.

But according to the Guardian, Tuchel has already turned down Ratcliffe after the pair met in Monaco this summer. Their report said Tuchel ‘outlined his vision’ for the Red Devils, but walked away from consideration after believing that the Ineos billionaire was not minded to offer him the role.

Soon after this report, Ten Hag was backed by the club, who pulled the trigger on a one-year contract extension clause in his contract, which now runs until 2026.

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The club have two more fixtures before the October international break, which could be vital for the Dutchman’s hopes of clinging onto his job. His team face a Europa League trip to Porto on Thursday, before visiting Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday.

In FourFourTwo's opinion, Ten Hag had the look of a manager who knows he is running out of chances after Sunday's final whistle. The one-year extension granted to him this summer was just about the most marginal vote of confidence they could give him, and he was always going to be a few bad results from this kind of pressure.

Tuchel is one of the biggest names on the open market now when it comes to replacements, but if he has already turned Ratcliffe down once after giving the co-owner his pitch, has enough changed between the summer and now for this to be a goer?