Former Manchester United centre-back Rio Ferdinand believes manager Erik ten Hag would trade his whole starting XI for better players if he could.
Ferdinand made the admission following Saturday's 4-0 battering at the hands of Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium. United found themselves 4-0 down after just 35 minutes, producing their worst first-half performance in living memory.
They were battered and bullied by the Bees, who made the most of two goalkeeping errors by David de Gea and some non-existent defending, with Brentford boss Thomas Frank later admitting that his side planned to exploit Lisandro Martinez's weaknesses. The Reds were blown away by the Bees, leaving Ten Hag with no choice but to make three substitutions at half-time, even though he admitted that he could have made more.
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Defeat in the capital means that Ten Hag has lost his opening two matches, leaving United bottom of the Premier League table. He is in desperate need of new signings to give the club a fighting chance of getting their season up and running as quickly as possible.
Signings have been hard to come by at Old Trafford this summer, with United landing just three new players so far. And for Ferdinand, Ten Hag will be furious with what he has seen so far, so much so that he believes he would like to replace his whole squad if he could.
"He's definitely coming in here and I guarantee he is sitting there amazed," Ferdinand told Vibe with Five. "'Like what is this?'
"'This isn't what I expected to come back into.' I reckon Ten Hag is walking in thinking 'I didn’t know it was this bad.' Is it irretrievable?
"Does it need an absolute mass turnover where all you aren't good enough and we’ll get rid of all of you?. You can’t do that. I think that’s the dream scenario.
"If Erik ten Hag could say: 'I'll get rid of all these players and start with another 11' - he would. I think he actually would."
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