Why defeat for Man Utd or Chelsea in crunch clash could be catastrophic for either manager

Manchester United v Chelsea is almost always a big game – but Wednesday’s evening’s showdown at Old Trafford feels all the more important for the relative struggles the two sides are enduring. Amid discontentment in both the stands and the dressing rooms, two managers face each other needing a win to ensure that the perception of their reign is one of progress, not of regression. Defeat will heap pressure upon pressure for either.

Erik ten Hag probably has it worse. United took the drastic step of banning journalists from some publications from the pre-match press conference, after stories were published alleging the Dutch head coach had lost the confidence of half of the dressing room. United have been keen to play down the supposed leaks – but nothing makes them look more truthful than shutting out the people who wrote the stories.

It feels like an age since United had a dressing room that lived up to the club’s name. There has been a steady trickle of stories of discontentment, frustration and clashing egos ever since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, and the latest reports suggest that rifts have not been healed during Ten Hag’s tenure. Any armchair psychologist can see the problem that the repeating cycle presents, with sour moods leading to poor performances and poor performances inculcating sourer moods still. Ten Hag needs to break the cycle, and that means either taking a pickaxe to the dressing room and weeding out anything up to half of the squad, or getting wins under his belt.

That, at least, has been happening lately in the league, even if United have been dreadful in cup competitions – but both players and managers will know that the results have been flattering, not least the 3-0 win at Goodison Park in which Everton were plainly the better, if less clinical, team. That important players have either been dropped or persisted with despite poor form is unlikely to help keep Carrington a happy place.

Chelsea might be at their lowest ebb since the turn of the millennium, but their name still holds weight and taking their scalp this evening would feel significant, certainly more so than, say, a 1-0 win over Luton Town did. Beating Chelsea would put the defeat to Newcastle United in the rear view mirror and make the form guide look rather healthier, as well as proving that this United side can beat teams stronger than Fulham. Lose, however, to a mid-table team that has struggled desperately to string two wins together and the narrative will only trend in the wrong direction, especially if some of the reporters exiled from the press room take the slight personally. When you need the story to shift, journalists reporting on your side are not typically the people you want to provoke.

With new management supposedly imminent at Old Trafford when Sir Jim Ratcliffe eventually takes over footballing operations at the club – assuming that doesn’t become the latest Glazer-related deal to collapse – Ten Hag’s performance as manager will be under the microscope immediately. He will have new paymasters to impress and needs hard proof that his apparently divisive methods carry weight. This season has not offered much evidence of positive progress, but tonight is a chance to provide some. Passing on that chance would be problematic for the Dutchman.

Of course, Ten Hag isn’t the only coach feeling the pinch in the Premier League as results continue to teeter between the impressive and the awful. Mauricio Pochettino has not been at Stamford Bridge long but it still feels as though he has failed to put a strong stamp on his team, and there remains a lack of identity and consistency in Chelsea’s performances. One week, they are excellent and tongues wag about their exciting and expensive young signings. Another, they collapse in a heap and everyone wonders what should happen next.

So far, the Chelsea board have remained patient with Pochettino, but they did not extend a great deal of grace to Graham Potter last season – and it is unrealistic to expect high-rolling venture capitalists to wait too long before getting a substantial return from their record-breaking investment. Pochettino needs his tenth-placed team to turn a corner and put a run of results together to demonstrate that his own methods are working as intended. In beating Brighton & Hove Albion at the weekend, they gave themselves a good win to build upon, but they have not made use of previous potentially foundational results.

Just as with United, a defeat at Old Trafford would go down as yet another disappointing showing against a side who look eminently beatable on current form – but just as with United, a win would be seen as a strong outcome against a side who have plenty of quality in their ranks. The headlines turn, often unfairly, on these kinds of games, ones in which you can find both hyperbole and the extension of prevailing storylines regardless of which way the game goes.

Pochettino can at least point to some extenuating circumstances for a jittery start to his reign. He has taken over a club awash with new players, a dressing room filled with strangers, and has had to cope with a raft of injuries. Neither Christopher Nkunku nor Romeo Lavia have yet played a game for their new club, and they will also be without Conor Gallagher, Malo Gusto, Wesley Fofana, Noni Madueke, Ben Chilwell, Trevoh Chalobah, Lesley Ugochukwu and Carney Chukwuemeka tonight – hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of talent unavailable. All good excuses for a defeat on paper, but also ones which won’t wash easily when the players that are fit and ready to go are so good in theory and so expensive themselves.

Pochettino is fundamentally a manager who works on vibes at least as much as he does on tactical detail – he needs to get his own good mood rolling and quell murmurings about a stuttering first act at Stamford Bridge, and to turn the headlines into happy stories about a string of good results. Professional players in dressing rooms experience the same flow of narrative and read the same articles as the rest of us, and if the perception of a manager in the stands and the media turns sour, then they feel it too, perhaps even more acutely.

It's possible to use negative press as positive fuel, of course. Some managers have made a career out of building a siege mentality, driving their players on with an attitude of 'they think we're rubbish, do they? We'll show em' - but neither Ten Hag nor Pochettino are that kind of manager, and in any case, players don't come to United or Chelsea preparing to be embattled and under the cosh. They come to win trophies and make their names. That's part of the reason that dressing rooms at big clubs seem to turn so easily when things go south.

These are two managers, and two clubs, who don’t just need good results to build upon, but need their players to feel like they are a part of a project that is heading towards success. Win tonight, and Ten Hag and Pochettino can start to work towards that end and force the press to begin writing the right kind of stories to get their dressing rooms on side – lose, and those pens will turn poisonous. When that happens, the players usually follow. Narratives may seem ephemeral, but they are anything but - they influence supporters, players and club directors alike. Stories have power, and the two coaches on the touchline at Old Trafford tonight need the next chapters to tell a tale that they like.