United owners Glazer, Ratcliffe in town as scrutiny on Erik ten Hag grows

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Manchester United co-owners Joel Glazer and Jim Ratcliffe were at the club's Old Trafford stadium on Monday at a time when manager Erik ten Hag's position remained under intense scrutiny.

Ratcliffe watched the team's 1-1 draw at Aston Villa on Sunday, which consigned the 20-time English champion to its worst start to a season in the Premier League era. For Glazer, it was a rare sighting of him in Manchester since his late father, Malcolm, bought the club in 2005.

A video of Ratcliffe and Glazer entering Old Trafford began to circulate on social media on Monday. United said their visit had long-been planned for meetings in Manchester and London this week.

Glazer will also attend a quarterly Fans Advisory Board meeting.

British billionaire Ratcliffe bought a minority 27.7% stake in United in February and has since overhauled its soccer operations. On Friday he declined to publicly support Ten Hag when questioned about the manager's future.

Ten Hag has faced repeated questions about his future after three defeats in the first seven league games of the season.

United is 14th in the standings and its return of eight points is the lowest at this stage of a campaign since 1989-90, when it managed just seven.

The Premier League was launched in 1992 when former manager Alex Ferguson won the first of his 13 titles with United.

Ten Hag is the club's fifth permanent manager since Ferguson retired in 2013. There was speculation about his position at the end of last season when he led United to its worst league campaign in 34 years. But he kept his job after winning the FA Cup and surviving an extensive end-of-year review.

New CEO Omar Berrada and sporting director Dan Ashworth last month said the manager had their full backing. But Ratcliffe, who assumed control of United's soccer operations following his $1.3 billion investment, declined to do the same when asked on Friday if he had faith in Ten Hag.

“I don’t want to answer that question," he told the BBC. “I like Erik. I think he’s a very good coach, but at the end of the day it’s not my call, it’s the management team that’s running Manchester United that have to decide how we best run the team in many different respects.”

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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer