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Erik ten Hag ON VERGE of being SACKED by Bayer Leverkusen
Carlo Garganese
- 31 Aug 2025 14:00 BST
- 5 min read
News
Erik ten Hag is on the verge of being sacked as manager of Bayer Leverkusen just weeks into the Bundesliga season.
The Dutchman only took charge of Leverkusen earlier this summer after several months out of work following his sacking by Man Utd in late October 2024.
Ten Hag succeeded Bayer legend Xabi Alonso, who had led the club to an unbeaten domestic double in 2023/24.
However, Ten Hag has endured a disastrous start to life at Leverkusen.
Ten Hag to be sacked?
After a poor pre season, Leverkusen have picked up just one point in their first two Bundesliga games.
They drew 3-3 at Werder Bremen at the weekend despite being 3-1 up against 10 men.
Kicker reports on Sunday that Ten Hag is on the verge of being sacked by Leverkusen.
Ten Hag has been under increasing pressure amidst reports of a rift between him and the club's management.
Leverkusen and their managing director Simon Rolfes have refused to publicly back the manager.
There has been no vote of confidence and Kicker believes this could spell bad news for Ten Hag, especially with a long two-week international break.
Kicker had already described the situation as 'critical' before the Bremen clash, and things are now at breaking point.
The View from German football expert Ronan Murphy
German football expert Ronan Murphy has summed up what a disaster Ten Hag has been at Leverkusen so far.
"Coaching Bayer Leverkusen should have been the perfect comeback experience for Erik ten Hag," says Murphy.
"The factory club in the industrial city gets much less attention than Man Utd, and he should have been able to rebuild his career out of the spotlight. They had just finished second in the Bundesliga after winning the title the previous season, so the squad he inherited looked strong enough to have a solid season again. But then B04 decided to cash in massively and sold almost every key player they had, most notably Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong to Liverpool, but even veteran Granit Xhaka was moved on for profit. Now, instead of a genuine German challenger, Ten Hag was coaching a club in a massive transition.
"Gone was the easy task of rebuilding himself out of the limelight, instead he had the challenge of rebuilding a whole team as well as his own reputation. Pre-season began poorly with an embarrassing 5-1 defeat to Flamengo's Under-20 side, but wins over lower league teams from Germany gave some hope, as did a convincing 4-0 away cup win, albeit over a fourth-tier side. Then, the real games began and Leverkusen looked a shadow of their former selves, losing 2-1 at home to last season's hopeless Hoffenheim on the opening day.
"Rumours began to swirl that Ten Hag was running out of time, but surely he could help himself with a trip to Bremen to face a Werder team whose own captain was slating their lack of activity on the market and predicting a long season. Patrik Schick gave Leverkusen the perfect start after five minutes, new signing Malik Tillman doubled their lead meaning a Romano Schmid penalty looked to be a mere consolation as Ten Hag headed for his first win as a Bundesliga head coach. When Leverkusen scored a penalty and Bremen had a player sent off just after the hour mark, three points looked a certainty. And then things fell apart. Again. Bremen somehow scored twice in the last 15 minutes to earn a point despite playing with 10 men and the writing on the wall got much larger for Ten Hag."
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