Johnny Phillips:

There have been various incidents involving players from the squad this season that have bubbled under for some time, but none of it has been helped by some chastening defeats along the way, particularly in Europe. Despite a significant summer transfer spend, Ten Hag’s side have lost 10 matches in all competitions so far this season.

With several senior players reported to have become disillusioned with the quality of some of the summer signings, matters threatened to get out of control for the club’s PR department this week with media talk suggesting Ten Hag’s command of the dressing room was dwindling due to a combination of tactics, training methods and communication with his players.

United deny all this, of course, and so a rather tense build up to Wednesday’s match against Chelsea ensued. The truth is usually found somewhere in the middle. When rumours of dressing room disputes emerge there is often an agenda at the forefront of any revelations and, while it suits some quarters to suggest Ten Hag retains total control over playing affairs it is also the case that others want to make things awkward for the Dutchman.

Certainly the continued omission of Jadon Sancho from the squad – he has not played since August - has raised a few eyebrows as the season has progressed, with no end in sight to that particular stand-off.

Other reports suggesting the players are unhappy with being pushed too hard in training can perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt depending on who leaked them. It is impossible to keep an entire Premier League squad at any big club happy in this era, such is the weight of numbers and size of egos present at any one time.

Ten Hag’s cause certainly wasn’t helped by Gary Neville’s observations in the aftermath of the 1-0 defeat at Newcastle last weekend.

“Manchester United were really poor against Newcastle, really poor,” the former United star lamented. “Inconsistency in every walk of life undermines you, you lose faith and trust in each other. They're so inconsistent, they're so up and down from game to game, from half to half. And there is a pattern of them not turning up in big games away from home now that you can't shake off.

“We've been here before. It feels like groundhog day where the players look a little disinterested, the body language is poor, the performances are average, the manager comes under criticism and the recruitment department start to get battered.”

Perhaps that is the wider point, here. Ten Hag is hardly operating in a climate of stability. There are ownership issues that have been dragging out for months, if not years, and with no sporting director in place recruitment has certainly suffered. It provided an interesting backdrop to the visit of Chelsea to Old Trafford, where Ten Hag could finally concentrate on the football.

The modern-day fan loves a sign, be it to earnestly make a point to players, managers, clubs or administrators, or just to get themselves on the telly. Sure enough, the players had barely walked out of the tunnel when the Match of the Day cameras cut to a glum-faced supporter demanding, ‘Give It Your All! For: The club!! The badge!! The fans!! Yourselves!!’ Aside from revealing themselves to be hugely in favour of exclamation marks, the sentiment clearly expressed was for some unity within the playing camp.

It was perhaps fitting that the 2-1 win over the West Londoners came via two goals from Scott McTominay. It is hard to imagine anyone in the changing room possessing less of an ego than the industrious midfielder. Certainly he would be a long way down the list of any guesses on who the mutineers might be amongst Ten Hag’s troops.

And the player’s view on the manager? “We’ve got full faith and we want to keep pushing and doing well for him,” confirmed the McTominay, as if any other response could be imagined. And at the end of it all, United sit just three points behind City in the table. Not bad for a club in crisis.