Man Utd right to sack Ten Hag despite his fish-shooting barrel spree
Many Manchester United fans will have nodded along with Erik ten Hag on Tuesday morning. The ex-manager was right about a lot of things…
The board are holding back United. Cristiano Ronaldo was A Problem. Scott McTominay should not have been sold. Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were enabled. The recruitment has been poor. He was badly treated. And plenty more besides.
But let’s not pretend United were wrong to sack Ten Hag. In that respect, the club’s mistake was not doing it sooner.
Yes, there was plenty of mitigation for the Dutchman, as there is for any United manager working under INEOS and the Glazers; Ten Hag can score some easy wins just by parroting what so many others have observed about the club in recent years.
But not enough time has passed that Ten Hag can be painted as a wronged party.
He was axed a week short of two years ago, with United 14th in the Premier League after three wins in their opening nine matches and their second-lowest Premier League points tally after nine games.
That Michael Carrick’s side need to win their next two just to equal that dismal benchmark is indicative of the Red Devils’ malaise, but don’t be fooled into thinking that Ten Hag was harshly judged when his time came.
Some of the headlines from his interview with The Athletic will inevitably focus on transfers or rather the players Ten Hag wanted but did not get.
He names a front six that would certainly make for a more creative and potent midfield and attack than was handed to him. Ten Hag wanted Frenkie De Jong and if not the Barca midfielder, then Declan Rice. He insisted on McTominay staying – just one of the promises INEOS broke – while Harry Kane was the striker Ten Hag pinpointed, with Danny Welbeck and Brian Brobbey also on his list.
United showed varying degrees of intent around each one – not enough in the cases of Rice and Kane, if Ten Hag is to be believed. And it certainly tallies with the indecisive manner we know United have conducted their transfer business in recent seasons.
Blaming recruitment, though, is the easiest excuse available to every ex-manager anywhere. There isn’t one in the game who got every player they wanted. Even Pep Guardiola had to hear ‘no’ occasionally, even while City did whatever else they wanted.
For Ten Hag, United spent £564million – £164million more than any other manager since Sir Alex Ferguson. During his tenure, only Chelsea had a larger net spend.
Ten Hag can insist he wanted Kane, Rice and co. But he also wanted Antony, Andre Onana and Rasmus Hojlund. Not surprisingly, Ten Hag makes no mention in part one of his interview of that £200million trio. He cannot pin those catastrophic choices on the board.
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Ten Hag, less surprisingly, does say that he felt he deserved more time.
“I think it was quite weird to separate ways in that moment. All the data was showing we are good. OK, two poor games to Liverpool and Spurs (both 3-0 home defeats). We were starting the process. Let it progress; the gameplay is getting better.”
The manager remembers things a little differently to how many of those outside the Carrington bubble might. Two and a quarter seasons into his reign, progress appeared scarce.
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That he began the 2024/25 season in charge was a consequence of beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final the previous May. As Ten Hag admits, he knew United were making moves to replace him then but winning at Wembley backed the board into a corner it took them five months to escape.
United might have been snide, sounding out replacements behind Ten Hag’s back, but it would have been another dereliction of their duties not to explore options at that stage.
The FA Cup triumph papered over a quite dismal league campaign. After a third-placed finish in Ten Hag’s first season, United finished eighth in 2023/24 with a negative goal difference for the first time in the Premier League era.
By the time the axe finally fell, in all competitions, Ten Hag had lost 31.8% of his games in charge – only David Moyes (32.4%) had a worse record since Ferguson.
United conceded 165 goals on Ten Hag’s watch – only West Ham conceded more in that time – and they conceded three or more goals in 24 different games, the joint most with Bournemouth. Seven times, his side conceded four or more goals in a match.
The two years since he left has demonstrated that Ten Hag was not the problem at United. Nor, though, was he close to offering solutions.
