Erik ten Hag can’t afford to lose against West Ham and a win will quiet the noise and free Ineos from the temptation to change manager, writes CHRIS WHEELER

Manchester United flew straight to London from Istanbul for Sunday’s match with West Ham, where Erik ten Hag found himself in familiar territory.

Back in the capital, in trouble again, and again with his back to the people who would decide his future.

The news that club co-owners Ineos are once again weighing up their options and sounding out potential candidates should not come as a surprise to Ten Hag, given his poor start to the season and his failure in the summer.

He arrived in London for the FA Cup final in May amid intense speculation over his job and revealed that Ineos had spoken to a number of other managers about replacing him.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe met with Thomas Tuchel in Monaco. Thomas Frank, Kieran McKenna and Marco Silva negotiated. Gareth Southgate and Graham Potter have been linked. Ten Hag survived, but he was perhaps the only one at United to do so.

His coaching staff has been completely revamped, as has United’s management. In total, 250 employees lost their jobs. Not even Sir Alex Ferguson was safe from Ineos’ axe. Ratcliffe’s reputation for ruthlessness is well deserved.

So Ten Hag has every reason to feel vulnerable as he returns to London after Thursday night’s draw with Fenerbahce, with his future in doubt again after it emerged United had spoken to the former Barcelona manager » Xavi Hernandez and nominated Ruben Amorim, Edin Terzic and Frank again among the list of possible targets.

His team is in the bottom half of the Premier League and 21st in the 36-team Europa League, in which Bodo/Glimt and FC Midtjylland are in the top ten. This is not the progress United were hoping for when they allowed Ten Hag to keep him this summer and backed him with another £200m in the transfer market.

The Dutchman appears to have reached another crossroads in his United career. He is unbeaten in four games as defeat to Tottenham plunged him into trouble again. The victory over Brentford and away draws with Fenerbahce, Aston Villa and Porto are a decent result.

With a win on Sunday, United will once again be aiming for the top half of the table and a top-four finish should still not stand in their way. Lose and it will be one win in eight games.

United will play four home games in a row – against Chelsea and Leicester in the Premier League, Leicester again in the League Cup and PAOK Thessaloniki in Europe – before the international break, which will again give Ineos the opportunity to make changes.

They abandoned it during their last break earlier this month after a long-awaited board meeting.

However, it has now emerged that the decision had been made to start exploring other options and that is how CEO Omar Berrada ended up leading a four-man delegation to Barcelona to speak to Xavi and began looking for other candidates. Ten Hag insists he is on the same page as senior management, although what happened over the summer should at least make him wary of what senior management is doing behind his back. It’s a lesson other United managers have learned the hard way.

David Moyes was convinced a six-year contract gave him some degree of protection until he woke up one morning in April 2014 to news headlines that United boss Ed Woodward was sacking him just 10 months into the job.

Louis van Gaal did not heed his wife Truus’s warnings that he was in trouble until she alerted him to reports that he had been sacked on the day he won the FA Cup. Unlike Ten Hag, success at Wembley did not provide salvation.

Jose Mourinho thought he was meeting with Woodward to discuss transfer targets for January when he took the bullet in December 2018.

Ten Hag can only hope that victory over West Ham on Sunday can quiet the recent noise and rid Ineos of the temptation to change managers over the next few weeks.

United confirmed Anthony has a sprained ankle.

Allaying fears, the Brazilian winger suffered a more serious injury after being carried off the pitch in the Europa League clash with Fenerbahce. Anthony missed United’s training at Leyton Orient on Saturday but Jonny Evans was available to take part.