During pre-season Erik ten Hag seemed satisfied with the team's performance, thus reducing his desire to recruit players. But unfortunately, pre-season and the actual league get a very significant difference, with an incident like this, of course, Erik ten Hag and also the management will panic because it is not easy to recruit players who already have good experience. The reason is only one as I said before, with the situation and conditions of Manchester United that are not conducive it will make players will reconsider if they have to join Manchester United. Maximizing the existing players will also be difficult, because every change of coach at least they always try to maximize the existing players but the results are not always as expected.
Results in pre-season are good enough and it positively sheds light of hope. Then Premier League comes and wipes it out just after first two matches. Losing first two matches are not the worst. The worst is how their players shown in these matches. Very bad psychologically with it, I believe they will fall deeper in form.
Recruiting new players need both good offers in salary for them and good chance to play in top leagues like Champions League and have chances to compete for titles. In United, targeted players don't see such chances so they more easily to reject offers from United.
Man United is a former champion team that is currently losing their fangs but I believe that one day Man United will return to being a solid team and they will have the potential to win many trophies. It won't happen anytime soon, it will take at least 2 or 3 seasons to see that change because their current condition is really messy. This is a weight that Ten Hag has to bear but I think it will pay off if all the people who were part of the Man United team give full support to Ten Hag.
They have tradition of champions but now most of their players don't have this habit and this psychology. They are losers and very weak to response to conceded goals. When they get a conceded goal, they can not response well against it. Then they get more conceded goals and likely surrender too easily.
They have not too bad players but something is wrong as a whole team. No leader, no winning mood, no fighting intention. Mistakes can be made by players but as a whole team, they must response well and fix mistakes, equalize the match and beat opponents. I don't see it now at least first two matches in Premier League.