EXCLUSIVE
Erik ten Hag will still be sacked as Manchester United boss, even if they go on to win the FA Cup.
That's the view of Graeme Souness who believes the Dutchman's fate at Old Trafford may already be decided.
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Man United reached successive FA Cup finals by edging past Championship side Coventry City on penalties to set up a repeat of the 2023 edition against local rivals Manchester City.
But it is the manner of their semi-final win that seems to have condemned Ten Hag, having been 3-0 up against Mark Robins' side only to let the second tier team back into the tie and go all the way to penalties.
It saw the win labelled embarrassing, while the jury is out on the league form with the club unlikely to qualify for the Champions League this season. talkSPORT host Souness suggested the writing may already be on the wall.
He told White & Jordan: “There’s no embarrassment in getting to a cup final – you can play fabulously in all of the rounds and get to the final and play miserably on the day and lose it.
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“There’s no embarrassment in being there, but what they’ve got to do now is win it."
However, it's a big ask to try and beat a City side desperate to land a league and cup double. United have also only beaten their rivals twice in their last ten games. "They’ve got to win it, but they’ve got a monster job on their hands," Souness added.
Despite the immense pressure the manager is facing to keep his job, talkSPORT understands no decision will be made until the end of the season where he could be celebrating a second successive trophy having won the Carabao Cup in his first year.
Souness thinks that won't help, though. “He wouldn’t keep his job. I think that their minds were made up not long after Sir Jim Ratcliffe came in [as co-owner].
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“I don’t think it’s about this season. I think it’s about the season beyond and the overall quality of player that they have there and the manager has spent some money.
“You look at Marcus Rashford and he looks like a shadow of the boy who was there last year and that comes down to the manager.
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“The manager’s job is to get the best out of the group of players he is working with and right now you would say that’s not happening at Man United.
“I’m not calling for him to be sacked but I think they made their mind up a month ago.”
Zinedine Zidane and Julian Nagelsmann are the two glamour names who have been linked with the hotseat in the past and they will be on the shortlist again if Ten Hag goes.
Gareth Southgate and Graham Potter are others, along with Thomas Tuchel and Roberto De Zerbi.
"It’s a big job for whoever gets it," Souness said. "If they are going to change manager and an enormous job for the recruitment team and an enormous job for the new owner.
“He must know he has an enormous job to get Manchester United back to be one of the most eminent teams in our league and in Europe.”
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Souness' co-host, Simon Jordan is also not convinced Ten Hag will be there, pointing out the standards we have come to expect are just not there.
"There's nothing about [the performance against Coventry] where United can take much from it. If they play anything that vaguely resembles that against Manchester City they will be smashed into the next life.
"There's nothing about Ten Hag and Man United that leads me to conclude that they are going to be sitting with the same manager after this season has finished."
The 2023/24 season has seen plenty of setbacks at Old Trafford with Man United going out of the Champions League at the group stage, finishing bottom of their group which means they didn't even get a bye to the Europa League knockout stages.
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In the Premier League they lie seventh, 16 points off fourth-placed Aston Villa and their Carabao Cup title defence ended with a 3-0 defeat at home to Newcastle in November.
Listen to White and Jordan every weekday from 10am on talkSPORT