Man Utd players affected by speculation over Erik ten Hag future, says Jonny Evans

Jonny Evans 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 that left Ten Hag’s team 14th with eight points from seven games; their fewest from the same number of matches since 1989 under Sir Alex Ferguson.

Ten Hag ordered his attacking players to “step up” after just five league goals this season, while ex-United striker Dimitar Berbatov, working as a Sky Sports pundit, said United should be ashamed of Evans being named best player in the stalemate.

Evans, 36, believed the point against Villa was a positive and claimed the squad was impacted by talk over Ten Hag’s future.

“It does affect the players. It’s on our minds too. I think the more experience I’ve got in my career I’ve made sure I do everything to be ready and give everything I can to the team,” Evans said following a week in which United blew a 2-0 lead to draw 3-3 at Porto before Sunday’s stalemate.

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

With United’s key decision-makers meeting in London on Tuesday, co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe was at Villa for the draw that meant United have failed to score in four of their last five league games. 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 in this moment we have a lack of goals, in that perspective it’s not a good start, we have to step up. That’s an area we have to improve,” said Ten Hag.

“Internally, we are disappointed, we know we have to do better, especially we need to score more, that is the moment in this area after this block of games where we are really short.

“All the other areas we are doing really well: four clean sheets, so that tells something about the defending and about the organisation, the defending of defensive transitions.

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

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

“Yes that was one of the reasons to take him off. If it was another foul probably he would be sent off. We can’t take another risk,” said Ten Hag.

“It was a second foul but it would be very harsh. But you can have a feeling in an away stadium if he makes another one then you have to hope the referee is doing. I thought it was the best idea to take him off, to protect the team and to protect him. No, that is not what referees are doing.”

On his own future, Ten Hag says there has been no indication of a change from United’s board.

“We always talk. Every week, I would say every day we talk, so I expect I will speak with them [this week],” he added. “So I don’t have any idea that is different, because they should have told me. We communicate very open, very transparent.

“We always speak, every week we speak. We are all on board together, on one page, we know what we are working through it’s a long-term process. We have come through two very tough away games. This is a team, we showed the belief and faith we have.”