Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sir Alex Ferguson have arrived at Villa Park ahead of Aston Villa's welcoming of Manchester United this afternoon. Villa entertain United a matter of days after edging out Bayern Munich in the Champions League, in what is their final game before the coming international break.
Villa, who have only dropped five points in the opening stages of the new Premier League season and have a 100% record in Europe and the EFL Cup, are likely to be in the mood after such an impressive win in the week, but for United - who scraped a 3-3 draw at Porto on Thursday night, having been 2-0 up - the pressure is mounting after a slow start.
Erik ten Hag's future as manager is likely to be the subject of conversations in meetings planned by the Old Trafford hierarchy next week and Villa could land a potentially critical blow to the Dutchman's tenure with victory here. Both Ratcliffe, and Red Devils legend Ferguson, are in attendance and have landed in B6.
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"I don't want to answer that question. I like Erik," Ratcliffe told the BBC this week of Ten Hag's future. "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, but that team that's running United has only been together since June or July.
"They weren't there in January, February, March or April - Omar [Berrada] and Dan Ashworth, they only arrived in July. They've only been there, you can count it in weeks almost. They've not been there a long time so they need to take stock and make some sensible decisions. Our objective is very clear. We want to take Manchester United back to where it should be, and it's not there yet, obviously. That's very clear."
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