United was never this bad, they were always good enough to win, they were good enough to be at a better place than this as well. I just believe that they ended up playing badly to get him fired. Not that ETH is a good manager, he sucks and part of the reason is he lost the locker room and that's why he got fired.
You have a point mate. I am also surprised that the same players and almost the same playing style are bringing good results now. This shows that the players don't like Erik Ten Hag or they are not well motivated. We saw a Manchester United team that has improved and is hungry for goals. There have been cases where players agree to underperform to make the club sack a coach so I wouldn't doubt if this is the same strategy that the players adopted. The club refused to sack him when it was clear that his performance had dropped, rather they gave him a new contact. We might not know what went wrong in the locker until a player opens up.