Ten Hag reaches Reds landmark

Bruno Fernandes struck in stoppage time to settle a tight encounter of few chances in what was the Dutchman's 79th match in charge of United.

This is the joint-quickest it has taken any manager to rack up a half century of victories for the Reds, with Ten Hag equalling a landmark which, incredibly, has stood for 118 years.

Ernest Mangnall, who led the club to its first major trophy in winning the 1908 First Division title, also registered 50 wins in his first 79 games, crossing the milestone in 1905 when United beat Blackpool 1-0 at Bloomfield Road.

Back in those days, teams only played in the league and the FA Cup, but Ten Hag's victories have been split across five different competitions.

Thirty have been achieved in the Premier League, with United finishing third in his debut season, while the former Ajax boss also has seven League Cup and four FA Cup successes to his name, of course winning the former competition at Wembley in February and getting to the final of the latter in June.

We've won nine of our 15 European games with Erik in charge, eight of those coming in last season's Europa League and one in this term's Champions League.

Jose Mourinho came closest to matching Mangnall before Erik, as the Portuguese took 81 games to make it 50 with a 2-0 victory over Benfica in the 2017/18 Champions League.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (95), Sir Matt Busby (96) and Ron Atkinson (97) all have remarkably similar records, but Sir Alex Ferguson didn't pass the half century until his 105th fixture, a 3-0 beating of Millwall in 1989.

"We have to win every game," said Ten Hag in west London, when asked about the record. "With this win, it's OK. We take it with us [for] 24 hours. Then we focus on the next game and it is an important game in Copenhagen."