Ten Hag does know that Manchester United management still believes in him despite his lapses. That's why he keeps reminding everyone that he should be judged by the end of the season not by what the present condition of Manchester United is "poor performance".
I believe that's what Ten Hag is letting everyone know. And it's like he wants Manchester United management to agree to that, let's see whether they will or not, to accept that. To wait until the end of the season before they could make a final decision on Ten Hag's fate.
It's always a rare case for a club to wait until the end of the season before they can decide on the fate of a coach who is having a poor performance in the team. It's always end up as sacking the coach without having prolonged issues. However, let's see how Manchester United handles this with Ten Hag. I just think it will be in the interest of Manchester United.
Knowing that the management has still got some sort of confidence in him has made him almost not really sorry about all of his errors, he's beginning to be bold because at the end of almost every season, he gets to come back with some sort of trophies and then look like he actually achieved something for the season and maybe that's one of the things he's planning on doing and that's why he keeps talking about judging him at the end of the season forgetting that the management may get tired of his failure and terminate his job before the end of the season he's been speaking off in awhile now.
Let's see whether he will win any single trophy this season if that's the case. Ten Hag should know by now that this season is not for him to survive another stay in Manchester United as their head coach by winning the FA Cup or Europa League title for them at least. As he has been lucky all this while, he can find himself not to be lucky this time around. He's forgetting to note that, being lucky in a season to lift any league title doesn't happen all the time as anticipated. There will be seasons when you thought you have the league titles under your control, you end up losing it due to unimagining circumstances. This is what Ten Hag don't seem to understand. He thinks this season would be like last year.