Football

Manchester United’s Social Media Following Spikes After News Of Erik Ten Hag Sacking

James Chittick Sports Editor

Published18 hours ago on October 29, 2024

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Manchester United’s social media following has spiked significantly since the club announced it had parted ways with former manager Erik ten Hag.

The Dutchman’s two-and-a-half-year stint at Old Trafford ended after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at West Ham in the Premier League.

United have slipped to 14th in the table, with just three wins from their first nine games. Having picked up only 11 points, it’s United’s second-worst start to a Premier League campaign in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era.

This terrible run of form has led United to take action, with Ten Hag’s sacking feeling somewhat inevitable.

Former Red Devils striker and fellow Dutchman Ruud van Nistelrooy has taken over as interim manager.

With growing speculation over who the next permanent United boss could be, the club has attracted even more attention than usual.

So much so that the Manchester United social media following on both Twitter (now X) and Instagram has increased dramatically in the last 24 hours.

Manchester United’s Social Media Following Spikes Overnight

By analysing historical follower data, we can see a significant jump in followers for United across Twitter and Instagram since Monday.

On Twitter, United have gained around 16,000 followers in 24 hours. That’s six times more than the daily average of 2,700 followers gained.

And on Instagram, the spike is even larger. For the past month, United had been averaging a net loss of 2,169 followers per day.

But in the 24 hours since news broke of Ten Hag’s dismissal, the club’s Insta page has gained 26,000 followers. That’s 23,000 more followers gained than any of the last 30 days.