Merson says: Postecoglou not under pressure – but Ten Hag is

Paul Merson is back to preview the Super Sunday clash between Manchester United and Tottenham, live on Sky Sports, and the Magic Man thinks defeat for United would crank the pressure up on boss Erik ten Hag again…

‘Huge game in top-four mini league’

Manchester United vs Tottenham is a huge game.

You’ve got your little leagues within the Premier League. One league is Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool. Basically, who’s going to finish top of Premier League from those three sides.

Then you go into the next league and for me, you’re looking at Tottenham, Manchester United, Chelsea, Newcastle and Aston Villa. You are looking at those five teams and thinking who is going to get fourth place and qualify for the Champions League.

After that, you look at the bottom and there’s about five teams at the bottom who are in trouble, and that’s another league.

United against Spurs is a top-of-the-table clash in the league to reach the Champions League.

Neither side is winning the league, in my opinion. But the goal is to qualify for the Champions League, and with that in mind this is a really important football match.

Sunday 29th September 4:00pm


Kick off 4:30pm

‘Both sides will want points on the board fast’

It is a huge game. There will be people that say there’s 30-odd games left but I don’t agree. You need points now.

In basketball, why do they play the first three quarters? Because you’ve got to get the points to go to the fourth quarter and have a chance of winning the game.

In the past in England, look back at Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea team. Every time he won the league at Chelsea, he got off to a flyer. He just blows everybody away early doors and then that’s it, there’s no chance for any other side to recover.

They never came from behind to win their last 10 games of the season. They just went bang, crash and blew everyone away.

This is where I think some people miss a trick. Look back at Sunday and Manchester City vs Arsenal. That was another big game. if Arsenal had lost the game they would have been five points behind Manchester City. That is a huge gap, especially to City, at any stage of the season.

However, there would have been people flagging the amount of games left but to me it doesn’t matter. You get the points when you can whatever time in the season. You need the points. The margins are so fine up and down the league.

These are massive football matches and if you don’t go into it with that attitude, you won’t get where you need to get. It’s also how you win league championships. That’s how you win Premier League. Every game counts.

‘Pressure will never be far away for Ten Hag’

I don’t think Ange Postecoglou is under pressure. In my view, he’s doing okay at Spurs.

They aren’t top, I know, but no disrespect, they aren’t one of the biggest teams in the league.

People will say I’m saying that just because of my Arsenal connection but they aren’t the biggest club in the world.

On the other hand, Manchester United are one of the biggest clubs in the world.

They should be finishing in the top four at the very least with the heritage they have as a club.

That is why the pressure is always seemingly on Erik ten Hag. He has to get in the top four, minimum, and that is difficult with potentially only one place up for grabs with Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

That’s why this is such a big match. Lose at home to Tottenham and that pressure will start to crank up again.

‘United need to find consistency’

Last season, if you go through the Manchester United results, they always had a nice game at the right time. They always seemed to have a game at home where you thought they would get a result. And they got those results at just the right time. A result to paper over the cracks.

Somehow, Manchester United need to find some consistency.

Last weekend, they could have beaten Crystal Palace. They had good chances to win the game, but to be fair so did Palace.

If they had have snuck a win, you start to think they might get on some sort of a roll. But that never seems to happen for this United team and Ten Hag. They will never go and win five, six, seven games on the trot.

They always seem to be up against it.

‘Man Utd biggest club in world but not biggest team in world’

Manchester United are the biggest club in the world, but they’re not one of the biggest teams in the world. Far from it. It’s not even close, and that’s where we forget.

Being one of the biggest clubs in the world is different from being one of biggest teams in the world. We probably need to get used to that with Manchester United. I’m still treating them like the great United teams of the past. They were a championship side year in, year out. Not anymore. They are lucky if they are a top-four team.

It does make you think about where it has all gone wrong at Old Trafford.

It’s not like they’ve built a new stadium like Arsenal and Tottenham. They are still in the same stadium and it still has holes in the roof. Why has it gone so horribly wrong at the club? It’s tough to answer.

It doesn’t really matter if Ten Hag has the support of the fans. It doesn’t really matter if he has the support of all the people behind the scenes at Manchester United now.

The players at the club have got to be behind the manager.

If they are, Ten Hag has every chance of succeeding. The players are the most important thing.

‘Not much wrong at Spurs’

If you take away the Arsenal game, Spurs should have won every game.

They were bang unlucky at Leicester on the opening day. if they score a second goal it would have become a rout.

They then go and slaughter Everton before getting beat by Newcastle. I do not know how they got beat at Newcastle.

It wasn’t great against Arsenal, I know. But at the end of the day they only lost to a set-piece goal. Now we are talking about Arsenal as Manchester City’s nearest challenger so the defeat is not the worst in the world.

Brentford then get swept away comfortably. What I’m getting at is there isn’t a lot wrong at Tottenham.

‘Problem for Spurs is being judged against Arsenal’

The problem at Spurs is they are always being judged up against Arsenal.

It’s a bit like Manchester United. if Manchester City weren’t where they were then it wouldn’t be so hard to swallow for United.

All I’d say about Spurs is be careful what you wish for.

Look at West Ham. I was waiting to practise my dance on Strictly last Saturday and one of the floor managers came up to me and said Chelsea were 2-0 up. He was a West Ham fan. I asked him what was going on and his reply was that they haven’t even got Europe to look back on.

That really struck me. West Ham had some really great times under David Moyes but they got rid. Just be careful.

With Tottenham, i find people have short memories too.

It really wasn’t good for a few years at Tottenham. But now, I like watching Tottenham. I think they’re a good team.

I don’t see Ange being in any trouble. I really like him.

‘United a good match-up for Spurs’

Against United, I think it is a good match-up for Spurs.

I see there being plenty of goals with Tottenham causing United a lot of major problems. Spurs will press and building from the back is not one of United’s strong points.

Ange plays one way. He goes out on the front foot and gets his side playing to win football matches.

It doesn’t matter if they are playing a lower-league side in the cup or one of the top sides in the Premier League, they will have a go.

That’s what I like about him as well. He won’t sit there and play 10 behind the ball. At Old Trafford, he’ll go out and put Manchester United under pressure.

Watch Man Utd vs Spurs on Sunday live on Sky Sports; kick-off 4.30pm