Manchester United's Erik ten Hag is confident Marcus Rashford will keep the goals flowing this season, after the team secured a 3-0 win at Southampton. Ten Hag responded to the criticism Rashford received following a loss to Liverpool, saying there was 'too much negativity' aimed at him, and that the striker created 'great chances'. The 26-year-old had gone 12 matches in all competitions without scoring but doubled United's lead on the south coast, six minutes after Matthijs de Ligt headed in from a short-corner routine

• Ten Hag hopes Rashford will be like ‘ketchup bottle’ and keep goals flowing

After a first goal in 189 days in the win at Southampton, some players seem to inspire these feelings and mean more

The sun was just trying to break through as Manchester United took their curtain call here: a weak and hazy sunlight, an autumn-adjacent sunlight, sunlight if it had been taught how to press by Ole Gunnar Solskjær. But sunlight all the same. And as perfunctorily routine as this win seemed in retrospect, days like these are actually pretty rare for United, a club where the roof always seems to be leaking, even when it isn’t raining.

This was – by way of illustration – only their second away win in the Premier League since February, their biggest win on the road since November, their biggest league win against Southampton since 2001, the year they left the Dell. And yes, getting to that stage required half an hour of pure inertia, a saved penalty and a pretty complete implosion from a home side that failed to register a single shot in the last hour of play. But finally, United had carved themselves out a little breathing space.

• United coach says criticism of striker has been overblown
• Russell Martin bemoans Southampton’s missed penalty

Erik ten Hag borrowed Cristiano Ronaldo’s ketchup analogy as he predicted Marcus Rashford will go on a goalscoring run after ending his Manchester United drought in a 3-0 victory at Southampton.

“Once a striker was talking about a ketchup bottle, once it’s going, it’s coming more,” said the Manchester United manager after Rashford registered his first goal since March.

Finally, Erik ten Hag could enjoy a game without the kind of jeopardy that had stalked his Manchester United so far this season. Four games into the season Ten Hag appeared embattled but after an awkward opening half hour, well-taken goals by Matthijs de Ligt and Marcus Rashford allowed United to runaway with things with victory with uncharacteristic ease. The substitute Alejandro Garnacho capped the scoring in style, lashing United’s third into the net in the 96th minute.

Southampton did not muster a shot on goal from the moment Cameron Archer’s rebound from a 33rd-minute missed penalty ended up in the gloves of André Onana and, to make matters worse for the Saints, Jack Stephens was shown a straight red card for a high challenge on Garnacho. It was a near-perfect day for Ten Hag, who introduced Manuel Ugarte late on for his United debut. On this occasion the full-time boos were not directed at Ten Hag.

• Premier League latest, 12.30pm BST kick-off at St Mary’s
• Live scoreboard | Subscribe to Football Daily | Mail Barry

Southampton’s manager has thus far been loyal to the players who helped Southampton to the Premier League but after three consecutive defeats, he says he is ready to hand more opportunities to new recruits such as Cameron Archer, Mateus Fernandes, Maxwel Cornet and Ryan Fraser.

“I have to balance that loyalty and what they did last season with what some are actually doing now and the place they’re in right now,” he said. “Also, with the level of talent that’s come into the building, they need a bit of time to adapt, but we’ve brought in some really brilliant players.

• Manager says winger will play only if he trains well
• ‘Since Jadon has been with us he has been perfect’

Enzo Maresca has insisted signing Jadon Sancho was not a risk, but Chelsea’s head coach has reminded the winger that he will play only if he trains well.

Sancho, who has joined on loan with an obligation to buy, found himself out in the cold at Manchester United after clashing with Erik ten Hag. The United manager was open about his dissatisfaction with the England international’s level in training, but Maresca is not worried about the attacker’s past.

• ‘In football you have to win, that’s clear’
• Ten Hag defends Matthijs de Ligt’s poor Netherlands form

Erik ten Hag accepts that if Manchester United’s poor results continue the backing offered by the club’s executive will fade, with the manager admitting: “You have to deliver.”

In their past two games United have lost 2-1 at Brighton and 3-0 to Liverpool. The chief executive, Omar Berrada, and sporting director, Dan Ashworth, supported Ten Hag when speaking before the Liverpool game. “We think Erik is the right coach for us and we’re fully backing him,” Berrada said.

While a familiar tale of gloom is playing out, the manager’s future is a distraction from the fact that United face more profound challenges

There was no shortage of casually devastating detail in reports this week of the billionaire’s paddling-pool squabble at Chelsea. Chief among these was the fact that, according to Todd Boehly sources, Todd Boehly sees his role at Stamford Bridge as “a 30-year project”.

It is worth just drinking this in, the full implications of a scaled-up triple-decade Boehly supremacy. It has so far taken two years to gouge out any pretence of being a serious sporting and commercial concern. Just think what he could achieve in 30. Crash the global exchanges. Hollow out the Earth’s core. Give a dead leg to every koala bear on the planet. Most obviously Boehly will be nearly 80 by the time his project reaches fruition, up there in his virtual hover-box, unveiling the latest crop of bespoke disaffected 20-year-olds grown in jars from insect protein.

Erik ten Hag has hit back at Cristiano Ronaldo by pointing out that the Portuguese admitted Manchester United are not well placed to win the biggest trophies this season despite criticising the manager for stating the same.

In a pre-season interview Ten Hag discussed United’s chances of winning the Premier League and Champions League. 'We are really a long way away from that,' he told the Dutch outlet AD Sportwereld. Ronaldo criticised this apparent lack of ambition on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, saying: 'You cannot say that you’re not going to fight to win the league or Champions League'. But Ronaldo then effectively contradicted himself. 'They can win the Carabao [Cup] – Champions League or Europa League or Premier League, difficult.'

Ten Hag was asked about Ronaldo’s claim that the manager should not say the club cannot win the league. 'No, he said this, if you read the article very well. He is far away in Saudi. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion. It is OK.'

A clash of colours in north London, Manuel Ugarte getting the Ten Hag call and more new faces featuring

After Casemiro’s disastrous 45-minute outing in the thumping by Liverpool, Erik ten Hag looks certain to hand the Uruguayan midfielder Manuel Ugarte his debut at St Mary’s. Last time out, Ten Hag was forced to send on the inexperienced Toby Collyer at the break to try to bring calmness alongside Kobbie Mainoo because Casemiro was so embarrassingly off the pace in gifting goals to Liverpool. Having not featured for Paris Saint-Germain before his deadline-day move to the Premier League, Ugarte got minutes in his legs with Uruguay, including a full 90 in Venezuela on Tuesday before returning to his new home to get to know his teammates. It seems a big ask for Ugarte to perform on Saturday lunchtime after a hectic few weeks but Ten Hag has little to no choice because he needs results and is heavily invested in the 23-year-old midfielder. Will Unwin

Southampton v Manchester United, Saturday 12.30pm (all times BST)

Brighton v Ipswich, Saturday 3pm

Crystal Palace v Leicester, Saturday 3pm

Fulham v West Ham, Saturday 3pm

Liverpool v Nottingham Forest, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v Brentford, Saturday 3pm

• ‘He is far away in Saudi. Everyone can have an opinion’
• United visit Southampton after consecutive defeats

Erik ten Hag has hit back at Cristiano Ronaldo by pointing out that the Portuguese admitted Manchester United are not well placed to win the biggest trophies this season despite criticising the manager for stating the same.

In a pre-season interview Ten Hag discussed United’s chances of winning the Premier League and Champions League. “We are really a long way away from that,” he told the Dutch outlet AD Sportwereld. Ronaldo criticised this apparent lack of ambition on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, saying: “Manchester United coach, you cannot say that you’re not going to fight to win the league or Champions League.” But Ronaldo then effectively contradicted himself. “They can win the Carabao [Cup] – Champions League or Europa League or Premier League, difficult,” he said.

Cristiano Ronaldo gave his thoughts on Erik ten Hag and Manchester United during an interview with Rio Ferdinand. The Al-Nassr player reflected on his second spell at United and criticised Erik ten Hag's mentality. Speaking about Ten Hag's modest ambitions for the club, Ronaldo said: 'If you are Manchester United coach, you cannot say that you’re not going to fight to win the league or Champions League.'

• Ronaldo criticises Ten Hag and claims Manchester United need total rebuild

Branded stadiums turn community hubs into billboards. Memories are still made, but the corporate influence dulls the purity of the experience

The Cleveland Browns held an oddly celebratory press conference last week to announce the sale of the naming rights to their stadium to Huntington Bank, a regional bank headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For the next 20 years, what was once Cleveland Browns Stadium will be known as Huntington Bank Field. Never mind that Huntington Bank Field is a laughably generic name that does not even attempt to maintain continuity with the arena’s two most recent monikers, both of which labeled it a stadium rather than a field; the real catch is that the Browns haven’t even decided whether to renovate their current home on the shore of Lake Erie or build a new stadium in Cleveland’s southwestern suburbs.

Under the terms of the deal, the Browns’ home will be Huntington Bank Field wherever it ends up: the stadium now has a fixed name but a curious air of ephemerality hangs over its address.

• Forward implies manager’s attitude is too negative
• He predicts bright future if they ‘rebuild from the bottom’

Cristiano Ronaldo has intimated the attitude of Manchester United’s manager, Erik ten Hag, is too negative. The Portugal forward fell out with Ten Hag before his second spell at Old Trafford ended in 2022.

Ronaldo, who plays for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, believes his former club need to “rebuild from the bottom” but should not rule out winning major trophies in the meantime. Ten Hag has said he is “quite confident” of further silverware this campaign after lifting the Carabao Cup and FA Cup during the past two seasons. But the Dutchman said in July his team were a “long way away” from being ready to win the Premier League.

• Club records revenues of £661.8m in year to 30 June
• ‘Our clear objective is to return to the top,’ says Berrada

Manchester United are confident they comply with Premier League and Uefa financial rules despite posting a £113.2m net loss in their latest accounts. It is the fifth consecutive year United have made an annual loss, with the club £115.5m in the red in 2021-22 and £42.1m in 2022-23.

Profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) permit a £105m loss over a three-year period, but within the regulations certain deductions are allowed in relation to investment in infrastructure, the academy and women’s teams, among other things, which United believe means they will not fall foul of spending regulations. Everton and Nottingham Forest received points deductions last season after exceeding permitted losses in regards to PSR.

• Football department scrutinising style of play
• Manager safe for now with injuries and signings in mind

Erik ten Hag’s game model has to start impressing Manchester United’s Ineos-led football department or he is in danger of being removed, with the style of play this season viewed as underwhelming. United entered the international break having won once and lost twice in the Premier League in a disappointing start.

There is recognition inside the club that Ten Hag has been undermined by injuries and needs time to integrate his five summer signings, but also serious concern regarding how he sets up the side. The Dutchman’s game model is being scrutinised by United’s football department, which is overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and led by Dan Ashworth, the sporting director, and Jason Wilcox, the technical director. A major part of Wilcox’s role is to monitor how the first team play.

• Ashworth clear on stance before Liverpool defeat
• Berrada ‘convinced we’re going to be successful’

Erik ten Hag has received public ­backing from the two most senior Manchester United executives hired by Ineos this summer, as questions swirl again regarding the manager’s Old Trafford future.

United confirmed in June that Ten Hag would be retained after they considered several other candidates, but the team have three points from their first three games after losing against Brighton and Liverpool in consecutive matches.

Casemiro display against Liverpool was painful, but the blame for United’s early season struggles sits with an incoherent structure

• Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

In his beginning is his end; now the night falls. Two years ago, before their third game of the season, against Liverpool, having lost one of the games they’d played 2-1 to Brighton, Manchester United presented Casemiro before an adoring crowd at Old Trafford. At the weekend, before their third game of the season, against Liverpool, having lost one of the games they’d played 2-1 to Brighton, Manchester United withdrew Casemiro before a despairing crowd at Old Trafford. Two years ago, United won 2-1; on Sunday, they lost 3-0, and it could have been a lot worse.

It was, frankly, painful to watch: a player who once commanded games, who has won four Champions Leagues, been integral to one of the most successful sides in history, reduced to a player so devoid of confidence even the basics looked a challenge. The early signs this season had been promising. There was a sense that Casemiro was sharper again, that the concerns about his fitness that had plagued last season might have been surmounted. But on Sunday his pass accuracy was just 73%, way off what is acceptable for a defensive midfielder, and his errors cost the opening two goals.

And yet there is a context. Eleven minutes in to the second half, Kobbie Mainoo was dispossessed leading to Liverpool’s third. Manuel Ugarte, who was presented before kick-off after his £42m ($55m) move from Paris Saint-Germain, must have wondered what he’s got himself into. The United holding position is like the Siege Perilous in Arthurian legend; eventually one will come who is worthy of achieving the Grail but until then whoever takes that position is doomed.

It’s not just about individuals. United now seem to be in a similar position to the pre-Mikel Areta Arsenal. The structure has failed and so hopes are placed in individuals. Which is daft enough when the player involved is as talented as Mesut Özil, but eventually you end up believing Nicolas Pépé is the answer to your prayers. Ugarte may turn out to be an upgrade on Casemiro, but no one player can ever be the answer.

Ugarte will need a better system around him and that’s where the focus begins to shift and the camera comes to rest on Erik ten Hag. Even with allowances for the position they inherited, how can it be that, three games into his reign at Anfield, Arne Slot has created a more coherent midfield than Ten Hag, now in his third year at Old Trafford, has managed. How can it be that, of all the former Ajax players in the pitch on Sunday, the best was Ryan Gravenberch?

In this dramatisation of the 1958 Munich air disaster, the author’s previous brushes with controversy seem to have stifled artistic licence

You could see Peace’s new book as his third in a series of novels centred on football bosses – the Manageriad? – after The Damned Utd (about Brian Clough) and Red or Dead (Bill Shankly). It unfolds more than three months after the Munich air disaster of 1958, when the plane carrying Matt Busby’s Manchester United home from a European
Cup tie in Belgrade crashed after a stop to refuel, killing 20 of the 44
people on board, with three more dying later in hospital.

Writing in the third person but from the point of view of dozens of those involved – players, journalists, families – Peace dramatises the crash, its aftermath and how United, then reigning champions, managed to complete the remaining third of the season under Busby’s assistant, Jimmy Murphy, miraculously reaching the FA Cup final. It’s a tale of duty, guilt and blame, with the day-to-day commitments on the pitch and boardroom fulfilled amid the burying of the dead and nagging questions about why the plane crashed. A voice inside the head of goalkeeper Harry Gregg, tormented after saving fellow passengers from the wreckage, asks why no one on board spoke up about not taking off in bad weather. “Because like all people,” he replies, “we’re afraid to lose face in front of our friends.”

It’s a stirring proposition but there are doubts about Peace’s handling from the start, with an on-the-nose epigraph from James Joyce’s The Dead introducing a prologue in which the United players, a month before the crash, enter the pitch at Arsenal in white away kit, emerging “out of the tunnel like a ghost train”, a line I winced to read – and that’s before the first line proper, in which Bobby Charlton’s mum is worrying
that “something was wrong, she just didn’t know what”. Her friend agrees: “Can you not sense there’s something in the air … ?”, just as Peace cuts to the wreckage.

Yet the fault in Munichs isn’t artistic licence – rather, its lack. After The Damned Utd, former Leeds midfielder John Giles sued Peace for his portrayal as “a scheming leprechaun” (Giles’s words), and it’s hard not to feel that Peace has been wary of taking liberties ever since, portraying Shankly from the outside in Red or Dead and doing similar here. One funeral procession after another is described via names of roads on the route; unremarkable action is narrated to imply troubled psychological states, as when we see Murphy in his garden “out in the cold, damp morning, pacing up and down… holding his rosary, its beads and its crucifix in his hand, rubbing at the figure and face of Christ on the Cross as he paced, as he prayed, first asking for forgiveness, then asking for comfort, comfort for others, asking for strength, strength for others, then strength for himself, the strength to help others, the strength to go on, to somehow go on.”

Jack Grealish on the comeback trail, Iliman Ndiaye offers Everton hope and Declan Rice appears unruffled

While Mikel Arteta fumed at the perceived injustice in Declan Rice’s sending off against Brighton, there was a far more measured response from the England midfielder. Despite admitting he had been “shocked” to see the referee, Chris Kavanagh, show him a second yellow card for obstructing Joël Veltman from taking a free kick, Rice acknowledged that a first dismissal on his 245th Premier League appearance had cost his team victory as they head into the first international break already playing catchup to Manchester City. “I just wanted to apologise to my teammates, which I’ve done, and to the fans,” he said. “When you get sent off, it’s never nice, you get a sense of guilt over you, and I was lucky that my teammates really helped me out and we didn’t lose the game. I’ll learn from it.” Ed Aarons

Match report: Arsenal 1-1 Brighton

Match report: West Ham 1-3 Manchester City

Match report: Manchester United 0-3 Liverpool

Match report: Newcastle 2-1 Tottenham

Match report: Ipswich 1-1 Fulham

Match report: Everton 2-3 Bournemouth

Match report: Chelsea 1-1 Crystal Palace