After two games of the season Manchester United sat at the foot of the Premier League with no points and a goal difference of -5. Roll the clock forward five months and manager Erik ten Hag has turned the club’s fortunes around to the point that a win against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on Sunday will spark genuine belief that an unlikely title challenge is on. It has not been an overnight success for United’s Dutch manager, who had to contend with an unsettled Cristiano Ronaldo while also trying to knit together a much-changed squad after taking over a team that finished sixth last season and 35 points off champions Manchester City. This was supposed to be a season of transition, and after back-to-back losses at the start of the campaign United looked more likely to fight to avoid relegation rather than compete for the title. United trails Arsenal by eight points. It might still be too soon for Ten Hag's team to mount a sustained challenge at the top, with Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace a reminder that it's a work in progress. However, the improvement is clear — and a win against high-flying Arsenal would be further evidence of United’s title credentials. The Associated Press looks at some of the key factors in the team’s turnaround. RONALDO’S EXIT Ronaldo’s departure in November removed a cloud hanging over United and an unhelpful distraction for Ten Hag at a time when he was trying to establish himself at the club. While Ten Hag tried to make it work with the Portugal great, their relationship was only ever likely to be a temporary one of convenience, with a younger, more mobile center forward needed to implement the Dutchman’s tactics of pressing from the front. Ten Hag gave the 37-year-old forward opportunities — playing him on 16 occasions — but Ronaldo was largely ineffective at the point of United’s attack, scoring only three goals. More of an issue was his behavior off the pitch — leaving early during a pre-season friendly and refusing to come on as a late substitute against Tottenham in October. His explosive interview with Piers Morgan on the eve of the World Cup was the final straw. Managing the Ronaldo situation throughout the summer and the opening months of the season was an added challenge for Ten Hag, however, he has emerged with his authority intact. United’s decision to terminate Ronaldo’s contract was evidence the manager has the trust of the club’s hierarchy. Ronaldo has since signed for Saudi Arabian team Al Nassr while Ten Hag can focus on building for the future instead of trying to accommodate an aging star who is past his peak. SELF BELIEF It was a desperate start for Ten Hag, with the 4-0 loss to Brentford in August coming on the back of an opening home defeat against Brighton. It raised questions about his insistence on playing out from the back with a squad unsuited to those tactics, as well as his decision to sign Lisandro Martinez, who at 5-foot-9 looked likely to struggle with the aerial side of English soccer. It would have been easy for Ten Hag to try to adapt his methods as he settled into a new league in a new country, yet he remained convinced United could play his way. He stuck with Martinez, dropping captain Harry Maguire instead, and the Argentine has been one of the outstanding defenders in the Premier League this season. And while United remains a work in progress, there have been clear signs of the players embracing Ten Hag’s system and showing the bravery to take the ball in tight spaces even in their defensive third. United appointed the former Ajax coach in part because of his commitment to his methods that saw him win three Dutch league titles and reach the semifinals of the Champions League in 2019, beating Real Madrid and Juventus on the way. He has shown the courage to stick to his beliefs even after such a humbling start to the job and the benefits are clear to see now with United arguably producing its best soccer since Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. GETTING TOUGH Ten Hag has left United’s players in no doubt about who is the boss. Nicknamed the “new sheriff” when he arrived, he has laid down the law when necessary. After the defeat to Brentford he ordered his players to come in on their day off to do a punishing run during a heatwave in Britain to make up the 8.5 miles difference in ground covered between them and their opponent in that match. He also reportedly joined in on the run as a show of solidarity and collective responsibility. That wasn’t the only time he has had to exert his authority. He accused his players of lacking bravery in United’s 6-3 derby loss to Manchester City in October. Individually, he dropped Ronaldo and made the forward train away from the first team squad for refusing to come on as a substitute against Tottenham — and Marcus Rashford was also dropped to the bench against Wolverhampton last month for oversleeping and missing a team meeting. Maguire has spent much of the season on the sidelines after struggling for form, while Luke Shaw was also dropped earlier in the campaign before establishing himself as a key figure in the team. The message is clear: no one is too big to be left out. CASEMIRO’S CLASS After spending much of the summer trying to sign Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong, United ultimately turned to Real Madrid’s Brazil international Casemiro. At a cost of around $80 million, he didn’t come cheap. But he has added steel and composure to a United midfield that has been desperate for a player of his profile since Michael Carrick retired in 2018. Arguably, United has not had a dominant midfielder of Casemiro’s type since the departure of former captain Roy Keane in 2005. Casemiro’s authority, range of passing and anticipation to win the ball has had a transformative effect on United. In 12 Premier League starts, he has been on the losing side only once. United has won 14 of 19 games in all competitions with him in the starting lineup. His understanding with Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes is developing to form an imposing midfield unit. United, however, will have do without him against Arsenal after he picked up a fifth yellow card of the season on Wednesday, which means he’s suspended for Sunday’s match. RASHFORD RESURGENCE United desperately needed someone to replace the goals scored by Ronaldo, who hit 24 last season. In the absence of a top-class forward being recruited last summer, Ten Hag needed those goals to come from within his existing squad and Rashford has been the answer. The England international underwent an intense pre-season training schedule to ensure he was in peak condition after injuries impacted his previous two campaigns — and it has paid off. Ten Hag has also given him the opportunity to play in his favored position on the left of the attack and that settled role has seen him produce arguably the best form of his career. His winner against City last weekend saw him score in seven-straight games — a run that came to an end against Palace. Notably in that match against City, he shook off a first-half injury to play on and produce the decisive moment. “He knows that in football you have to suffer and sacrifice and have painful moments,” Ten Hag said. “He is unstoppable and opponents will go tough against him but he keeps going.”  

Marcus Rashford scored his fifth goal in as many matches after creating two others to help Manchester United beat Everton 3-1 and reach the fourth round of the FA Cup Friday. Rashford set up Antony's early opener and saw a second-half cross turned into his own net by Conor Coady, scorer of Everton's equaliser. Then, in stoppage time, Rashford kept his scoring run going by sending Jordan Pickford the wrong way from the penalty spot after Ben Godfrey fouled Alejandro Garnacho. United were hardly ruthless, grateful to see a potential Dominic Calvert-Lewin equaliser ruled out for a tight offside call. But United did enough to make it seven straight wins in all competitions for the first time since 2019 when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was in caretaker charge. Read more: Chelsea beats Leicester to go 3rd in PL, avenges FA Cup loss For Everton, there was consolation in a better performance after losing to Brighton 4-1 midweek left them 18th in the Premier League, the pressure firmly on manager Frank Lampard. Erik ten Hag named a strong side for his first taste of the FA Cup but notably selected Luke Shaw at centre-back while Lisandro Martinez – without a start since Argentina's World Cup group match against Mexico on November 26 – joined Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof on the bench. After the horror show of Tuesday night, Lampard reverted to the 3-5-2 system used to frustrate Manchester City last weekend. Read more: Liverpool vs Chelsea 2022: Who is the favourite to win the FA Cup? The 9,000 travelling Everton fans arrived in Manchester still fuming over the latest capitulation, the first chant of "Sack the board" coming 15 minutes before kickoff. Their mood did not improve much.

Temperatures soared in England on Saturday and no one was feeling the heat more than Manchester United's latest manager, Erik ten Hag. On another humiliating day for a massive club in freefall, United conceded four goals in the first 35 minutes and was swept aside in a 4-0 loss at Brentford in the Premier League. It’s two matches, two losses so far for Ten Hag, the Dutchman who arrived from Ajax in a bold offseason appointment as United's fifth manager in nine years and looked shell-shocked in the dug-out as the goals poured in at Brentford Community Stadium. It was understandable, too. United had never gone into halftime of a Premier League match trailing 4-0. Never before in the Premier League had United conceded so many goals so quickly. There were so many individual mistakes — goalkeeper David de Gea let a weak shot dribble underneath him for the first goal, Christian Eriksen was tackled inside his own box prior to the second, and Brentford had two free headers at a corner for the third — that Ten Hag probably wanted to change most of his team at halftime. He made three halftime substitutions, with Cristiano Ronaldo — back in United's team after an offseason when he pushed to leave the club — staying on and playing the full match. He wore a frustrated look throughout. “What I asked them to do was play with belief and take responsibility for their performance,” Ten Hag said. “That is what they didn't do.” Josh Dasilva, Mathias Jensen, Ben Mee and Bryan Mbeumo were the scorers for Brentford, which pressed relentlessly and blew United away. “It felt like we were on top of everything," Jensen said. “They couldn’t cope with our pressure, our second balls, our intensity. You could see they were struggling.” It might get even worse for Ten Hag and his new team, which opened with a 2-1 home loss to Brighton last weekend. Up next? It's only fierce rival Liverpool, which will be eager to hand United a fifth straight loss stretching back to last season. “We are, as a team, in a difficult process,” Ten Hag said. “Of course, you expect a different start. It is not what we expected ... It seems like what happened in the past, last season, we bring into the new season. We have to change that really quickly.” United's meltdown came in the last of Saturday's seven games that were played in sweltering conditions that reached as high as 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit). Manchester City and Arsenal both scored four goals in home wins and continue to set a hot early-season pace. Read: Barcelona sells more assets as it hopes to register players CITY CRUISE Man City didn't even need Erling Haaland to score in its 4-0 thrashing of Bournemouth. Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden were City’s scorers along with an own-goal, with Haaland barely getting a sight on goal in his first match at Etihad Stadium. The Norway striker scored both of City’s goals in its opening-weekend 2-0 win at West Ham but was mostly crowded out a week later, making just eight touches before coming off in the 74th. JESUS' DOUBLE A player who left City is thriving at Arsenal. Gabriel Jesus played a starring role in the 4-2 win over Leicester, scoring the first two before halftime and providing the assists for second-half strikes by Granit Xhaka and Gabriel Martinelli. Jesus, the Brazil striker who left City in the summer for a reported £45 million ($54 million), was in hot form for Arsenal in preseason and appears to be relishing being the starting striker once again after being in and out of City's team. An own-goal by William Saliba and James Maddison's strike brought Leicester twice to within one goal of Arsenal at Emirates Stadium. GERRARD TOPS LAMPARD Teammates for England, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard were rivals in the dugouts as they went head-to-head for the first time as managers on Saturday. Gerrard came out on top. Despite a late wobble, Aston Villa beat Everton 2-1 for its first win of the season and left its opponent without a point. Danny Ings and Emi Buendia scored for Villa before an 87th-minute own-goal by Lucas Digne gave Everton hope. Like Man United, Everton is on zero points after two games. PENALTY SAVED Back-to-back draws was probably as much as Fulham could have expected on its return to England’s big time. It could have been much more, though, with Aleksandar Mitrovic having a late penalty saved in a 0-0 draw at Wolverhampton. Jose Sa dived to his right to claw away the spot kick from the Serbia international, who scored twice in the 2-2 with Liverpool last weekend and was looking to score his 45th league goal in as many appearances for Fulham. There were two other draws, with Brighton and Newcastle toiling to a 0-0 stalemate and Southampton coming from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Leeds.

Paul Pogba might have played his last game for Manchester United. The France midfielder, who is out of contract at the end of the season, came off injured in the 4-0 loss to Liverpool on Tuesday and will take at least four weeks to recover, United manager Ralf Rangnick said Friday. Read: DPL Super League: Sheikh Jamal secure top spot, Abahani suffer 2nd defeat “I don’t think it is very likely that he will be able to play again (this season),” Rangnick said. Pogba joined United in 2016 for a second spell at a club where he came through the academy, before moving to Juventus in 2012. He has struggled to reproduce the form he delivers on a more consistent basis for the French national team.

Once a model of coaching stability in Alex Ferguson’s long trophy-filled tenure, Manchester United hired a fifth full-time manager in nine years since his retirement by bringing in Erik ten Hag from Ajax. Ten Hag’s arrival was announced by United on Thursday, with the 52-year-old Dutchman joining at the end of the season to 2025. He is tasked with awakening a fallen superpower in European soccer that is enduring its longest trophy drought in nearly 40 years. “I am hugely excited by the challenge ahead,” ten Hag said. “I know the history of this great club and the passion of the fans, and I am absolutely determined to develop a team capable of delivering the success they deserve.” Adopting the attacking philosophy of the great Johan Cruyff, ten Hag succeeded in bringing the good times back to Ajax, leading the biggest team in the Netherlands to two Eredivisie titles — it could be three in a few weeks — as well as the Champions League semifinals in entertaining style in 2019. Read: Juventus to Face Inter Milan in the Coppa Italia Final 2022 Returning United to its former heights is set to be an even bigger job, given the team won the last of its record 20 English titles in 2013 — Ferguson’s final season of his 26-year reign — and hasn’t won a trophy since beating Ajax in the Europa League final in 2017. United hasn’t endured such a trophy drought since the early 1980s and has slipped way behind rivals Manchester City and Liverpool despite continuing to spend heavily on players. Nowhere was this decline more evident than this week, when United was thrashed 4-0 by Liverpool to go along with its rival’s 5-0 win at Old Trafford in October. The three-time European champion might not even return to the Champions League next season. United is three points out of the Premier League top four with five games remaining and is already assured of ending a season without a trophy for the fifth straight year. “In our conversations with Erik leading up to this appointment, we were deeply impressed with his long-term vision for returning Manchester United to the level we want to be competing at, and his drive and determination to achieve that,” said John Murtough, United’s football director. United has been led by interim managers Michael Carrick and currently Ralf Rangnick since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was fired in November. The club has been speaking to candidates over recent weeks — Paris Saint-Germain coach Mauricio Pochettino was reportedly also on the shortlist — but it settled on ten Hag, who might be the biggest managerial gamble in United’s turbulent post-Ferguson era. Aside from a two-year spell with Bayern Munich’s reserve team (in 2013-15, when Pep Guardiola was in charge of the first team), ten Hag has coached only in the Netherlands — with Go Ahead Eagles, Utrecht and most recently Ajax since 2017. As such, he is untested in the Premier League and in handling the egos of some of the biggest players in world soccer — and United has some of them in Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes. Read: Madrid wins again despite Benzema's missed penalty kicks Pogba is, however, out of contract at the end of the season and is set to leave as part of what could be a major shake-up of a playing squad that needs rebuilding and strengthening in key areas like central midfield and up front. An advocate of the 4-3-3 formation that is so popular in the Netherlands, ten Hag tries to play attractive, attacking football in the manner of the teams coached by Cruyff, whose shadow and philosophy hangs over the club like Ferguson’s does at Old Trafford. Since Ferguson’s departure, United has gone with the man he hand-picked as a successor, David Moyes, and then managers with bigger profiles in Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho. None of them worked out and nor did Solskjaer, although he at least got United to a second-place finish last season. Ten Hag joins with United now at perhaps its lowest ebb since Ferguson’s retirement and his first big decision might be what to do with Ronaldo, a striker who keeps scoring goals — with 15, he is third on Premier League scoring list — but whose work rate and mobility is not at the level of forwards at other big clubs. Can he get the best out of United’s younger forwards, such as Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, and bring through youth players like he has at Ajax? “Erik has proved himself to be one of the most exciting and successful coaches in Europe,” Murtough said, “renowned for his team’s attractive, attacking football and commitment to youth.” Before all that, ten Hag will look to sign off at Ajax with another Dutch league title. With five games remaining, Ajax leads second-place PSV Eindhoven by four points. “I’m happy that it has been finalized and that it has been officially announced,” he said. “That clarity is important. But I only have one interest now and that’s these last five games. I want to finish my time here on a positive note, by winning the league.”  

Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba is set to undergo ankle surgery that could keep him out for a month.

Manchester United's difficult season continued Sunday with a frustrating 2-2 draw in the Premier League against Aston Villa, whose defender Tyrone Mings had another standout performance.

Manchester United’s attempt to strengthen its underperforming squad has proved costly with debt rising more than 55% in a year to 384.5 million pounds ($498 million).