Manchester United’s decision to keep Erik ten Hag – Andy Mitten argues with himself once again
By Andy Mittenand Andrew Mitten
Andy Mitten and his alter ego, Andrew, don’t often agree on much.
After Manchester United’s 4-3 win over Liverpoolin the FA Cupquarter-finals back in March, they argued about Erik ten Hag’s future. Then, a month later, they fiercely debated the United manager’s position again.
Now that the club have chosen to stick with Ten Hag, he has had another argument with himself. Have United made the right call or made a grave error of judgement? Over to you two…
Andy:Ten Hag stays. It’s the right decision for now, the one United fans overwhelmingly wanted.
The Athletic’s own poll showed 75 per cent support for him staying. I did one myself a few minutes after the FA Cup final and 85 per cent of the 60,000 who voted wanted him to stay. It was that emphatic right from the start, and I showed Ten Hag my phone with the early results after I’d interviewed him. He gave a big smile. And when I asked him to name a politician in the world who would object to those approval ratings, he gave another smile. He wanted to stay.
I honestly wondered whether it would be the last I saw of Ten Hag as he disappeared through the doors to board the team coach back to their London hotel and a victory party. I don’t think heknew whether he was staying or going, and I felt elements of the build-up to the final had been unfair on him, focussing on whether he’d lose his job.
I asked him about this and he said he wasn’t bothered, but his players could have been.
As for those players, I spoke to several about the manager off the record. There are issues, as there is in any dressing room, in which players look out for themselves and their mates. David de Gea was popular and then he was let go last summer at the end of his contract, which didn’t please his friends. Jadon Sancho will have his perspective, which won’t be the same as his manager’s, but the boss is the one who makes the decisions.
The ones not playing as much as they hope to want to play more and none of them want to be in a team as bad as United were last season — yet no one said Ten Hag must go, when they could have. They pulled together for the FA Cup final and they did so for themselves and their manager. That was a positive sign and was followed by arguably the club’s best post-Alex Ferguson moment. And if it’s so easy to win trophies, why did United not manage it for six years until Ten Hag arrived?
Andrew:I’m sorry, I don’t share your enthusiasm for a team that came eighth — United’s worst finish since 1990. And putting a poll out in the warm afterglow of a surprise FA Cup final win is pathetic. What did you expect people to do? Vote for him to be sacked?
Andy:A) I did it because I saw people in the media opining that fans wanted a change and that wasn’t how I saw it standing on the street outside the ground before the final two home games of the season. Only one angry fan approached to say, “Tell them lot at the club that Dutch managers don’t win trophies.” (They do.) And fan sentiment can be telling, even in victory. Most United fans still wanted Louis van Gaal to be sacked after winning the 2016 FA Cup final. (He was.) Some even shamefully booed their own manager when Van Gaal was shown on the big screens inside Wembley that day.
B) I was supportive of Ten Hag before the FA Cup final, a game I firmly expected United to lose and a game I can’t even say I enjoyed because it was all so tense. Those final 20 minutes were pain rather than pleasure but the buzz of victory continues to this day, and now there’s European football next season too.
Andrew:You’re wrong. The football was often awful, tactically inflexible, and we had a chance to change the manager. Do you think Barcelonaor Real Madridwould keep a manager who finished eighth? He’s been undermined because the people in charge are not convinced. That’s why they didn’t back him publicly and why they spoke to numerous other managers.
Andy:It’s not ideal that the club have spoken to others, but then nor is finishing eighth. Finish first or second and no such talks would have taken place, but that didn’t happen, so I don’t have an issue with the club weighing up their options to see what’s out there.
It’s awkward for Ten Hag but it’s also diligent. If Pep Guardiola had been available, I dare say United would have moved for him, but the market is where it is and the grass, as recent history has shown, isn’t necessarily greener. It’s also expensive to change managers, something INEOS is aware of as it makes deep changes at the club in a short space of time.
When Jose Mourinho was available in 2015-16 after leaving Chelsea, United fans were desperate for him but those same fans were burned by appointments they considered right at the time, so Ten Hag benefits from a reluctance for another change: allowing someone to pursue their project beyond two years.
None of the names linked with the job particularly excited most United fans. There was some support for Thomas Tucheland much anger at the suggestion that Gareth Southgate would take over. One club legend was at a recent fans’ dinner where a show of hands was sought on whether supporters would like Southgate as United manager. He was taken aback when nobodyraised their hand, and the legend said he’d tell the powers that be at United.
So Ten Hag survives — though I can’t see him keeping his job if United are eighth again coming up to Christmas. Remember, Mourinho lost his job in December, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in late November. But Ten Hag would get all that. He’s not daft.
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Andrew:Things must change after last season. I can’t face another year of not enough goals scored and too many conceded, of watching mid-table teams batter United at Old Trafford, and of them being unable to hold onto two-goal leads and doing nothing in Europe.
When Ten Hag (then Ajax coach) had his meetings with (United football director) John Murtough in early 2022, he was tasked with filling three criteria: 1) lifting the mood, which was rotten and being decisive in the trading of players — moving out difficult ones and moving in better ones; 2) playing attractive and attacking football, and reaching the Champions League; 3) staying true to the club’s history by bringing through emerging talents from the academy.
It’s true that Ten Hag said he would need several transfer windows to achieve this, but he has been mixed in achieving those aims so far. Players have tried to undermine him or simply don’t respond to him in the way he’d like — though, it’s not an easy dressing room for anyone to manage. His signings have been mixed, too.
He didn’t reach the Champions League for next season and his team were out at the first attempt after he reached it last season, so what would you change?
Andy:I’m not qualified to tell a professional football manager how to do his job tactically, no more than I am how to tell a heart surgeon what to do in an operating theatre, but I know a few of the areas in which changes could be based from what I hear and see.
You can’t ask someone to be who they are not, but I’d like Ten Hag to be more charismatic. He’s a hard-working football obsessive but there is a hinterland to him. He goes on holiday to Ibiza — probably because Ibiza’s team were one of the few still playing in June (in the Spanish third division) and he could study them.
Granted, he handles the immense pressure of being United boss well. He also has a sense of humour that people don’t see. It’s only football; there is space for fun. United fans mocked Liverpool’s ones for their cult-like worship of Jurgen Klopp and him having more concerts in May than Taylor Swift, but Klopp’s connection was genuine.
His press conferences aren’t an environment that encourages conviviality but sometimes, Ten Hag’s answers need more depth.
Ahead of last season’s final home game against Newcastle United— a must-win — I asked him in the pre-match press conference about what he wanted from the fans. The answer was a mediocre one when, for me, he should have been banging the table. Then again, the following night after the game, he was on the pitch talking fantastically to the fans, who cheered his every word. He always salutes the fans at the Stretford End, and gets support back.
And there’s other stuff: even if he’s busy, he will pop over to the academy and have a cup of tea with the coaches and young players. But mostly, it’s all about results. Wins. If he’s winning every game 1-0, then no matter how poorly the team are playing, all the other noise wouldn’t matter.
Andrew:He’s been undermined by his own bosses! There’s an uneasy truce and you know it. Does he even have the power that he had before?
Andy:Is it a problem if he doesn’t? If he’s surrounded by a still-changing structure, which is supposedly going to be an improving, better one, then he should benefit. Everyone in it wants United to do well — and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be at the club — so what’s the issue? He should work with these new overlords, not against them.
The situation he was in was weird anyhow. He had almost all the power in recruitment, which is not how it works at most big clubs. Critics point to the waste of money on Antony, to the non-playing Tyrell Malacia, but Andre Onana, who was hammered before Christmas, does not look like a bad signing now. Casemirocame because Frenkie de Jongdidn’t.
A fit Lisandro Martinezis a top player, while the fact that Ten Hag promoted and persevered with Alejandro Garnachoand Kobbie Mainoodeserves praise. Make a few key signings this summer — a central defender, midfielder and striker — and the outlook will be brighter.
And I’ve still not given up on Antony.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5572118/2024/06/19/andy-mitten-erik-ten-hag-manchester-united/
Manchester United’s decision to keep Erik ten Hag – Andy Mitten argues with himself once again
By Andy Mittenand Andrew Mitten
Andy Mitten and his alter ego, Andrew, don’t often agree on much.
After Manchester United’s 4-3 win over Liverpoolin the FA Cupquarter-finals back in March, they argued about Erik ten Hag’s future. Then, a month later, they fiercely debated the United manager’s position again.
Now that the club have chosen to stick with Ten Hag, he has had another argument with himself. Have United made the right call or made a grave error of judgement? Over to you two…
Andy:Ten Hag stays. It’s the right decision for now, the one United fans overwhelmingly wanted.
The Athletic’s own poll showed 75 per cent support for him staying. I did one myself a few minutes after the FA Cup final and 85 per cent of the 60,000 who voted wanted him to stay. It was that emphatic right from the start, and I showed Ten Hag my phone with the early results after I’d interviewed him. He gave a big smile. And when I asked him to name a politician in the world who would object to those approval ratings, he gave another smile. He wanted to stay.
I honestly wondered whether it would be the last I saw of Ten Hag as he disappeared through the doors to board the team coach back to their London hotel and a victory party. I don’t think heknew whether he was staying or going, and I felt elements of the build-up to the final had been unfair on him, focussing on whether he’d lose his job.
I asked him about this and he said he wasn’t bothered, but his players could have been.
As for those players, I spoke to several about the manager off the record. There are issues, as there is in any dressing room, in which players look out for themselves and their mates. David de Gea was popular and then he was let go last summer at the end of his contract, which didn’t please his friends. Jadon Sancho will have his perspective, which won’t be the same as his manager’s, but the boss is the one who makes the decisions.
The ones not playing as much as they hope to want to play more and none of them want to be in a team as bad as United were last season — yet no one said Ten Hag must go, when they could have. They pulled together for the FA Cup final and they did so for themselves and their manager. That was a positive sign and was followed by arguably the club’s best post-Alex Ferguson moment. And if it’s so easy to win trophies, why did United not manage it for six years until Ten Hag arrived?
Andrew:I’m sorry, I don’t share your enthusiasm for a team that came eighth — United’s worst finish since 1990. And putting a poll out in the warm afterglow of a surprise FA Cup final win is pathetic. What did you expect people to do? Vote for him to be sacked?
Andy:A) I did it because I saw people in the media opining that fans wanted a change and that wasn’t how I saw it standing on the street outside the ground before the final two home games of the season. Only one angry fan approached to say, “Tell them lot at the club that Dutch managers don’t win trophies.” (They do.) And fan sentiment can be telling, even in victory. Most United fans still wanted Louis van Gaal to be sacked after winning the 2016 FA Cup final. (He was.) Some even shamefully booed their own manager when Van Gaal was shown on the big screens inside Wembley that day.
B) I was supportive of Ten Hag before the FA Cup final, a game I firmly expected United to lose and a game I can’t even say I enjoyed because it was all so tense. Those final 20 minutes were pain rather than pleasure but the buzz of victory continues to this day, and now there’s European football next season too.
Andrew:You’re wrong. The football was often awful, tactically inflexible, and we had a chance to change the manager. Do you think Barcelonaor Real Madridwould keep a manager who finished eighth? He’s been undermined because the people in charge are not convinced. That’s why they didn’t back him publicly and why they spoke to numerous other managers.
Andy:It’s not ideal that the club have spoken to others, but then nor is finishing eighth. Finish first or second and no such talks would have taken place, but that didn’t happen, so I don’t have an issue with the club weighing up their options to see what’s out there.
It’s awkward for Ten Hag but it’s also diligent. If Pep Guardiola had been available, I dare say United would have moved for him, but the market is where it is and the grass, as recent history has shown, isn’t necessarily greener. It’s also expensive to change managers, something INEOS is aware of as it makes deep changes at the club in a short space of time.
When Jose Mourinho was available in 2015-16 after leaving Chelsea, United fans were desperate for him but those same fans were burned by appointments they considered right at the time, so Ten Hag benefits from a reluctance for another change: allowing someone to pursue their project beyond two years.
None of the names linked with the job particularly excited most United fans. There was some support for Thomas Tucheland much anger at the suggestion that Gareth Southgate would take over. One club legend was at a recent fans’ dinner where a show of hands was sought on whether supporters would like Southgate as United manager. He was taken aback when nobodyraised their hand, and the legend said he’d tell the powers that be at United.
So Ten Hag survives — though I can’t see him keeping his job if United are eighth again coming up to Christmas. Remember, Mourinho lost his job in December, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in late November. But Ten Hag would get all that. He’s not daft.
ADVERTISEMENT
Andrew:Things must change after last season. I can’t face another year of not enough goals scored and too many conceded, of watching mid-table teams batter United at Old Trafford, and of them being unable to hold onto two-goal leads and doing nothing in Europe.
When Ten Hag (then Ajax coach) had his meetings with (United football director) John Murtough in early 2022, he was tasked with filling three criteria: 1) lifting the mood, which was rotten and being decisive in the trading of players — moving out difficult ones and moving in better ones; 2) playing attractive and attacking football, and reaching the Champions League; 3) staying true to the club’s history by bringing through emerging talents from the academy.
It’s true that Ten Hag said he would need several transfer windows to achieve this, but he has been mixed in achieving those aims so far. Players have tried to undermine him or simply don’t respond to him in the way he’d like — though, it’s not an easy dressing room for anyone to manage. His signings have been mixed, too.
He didn’t reach the Champions League for next season and his team were out at the first attempt after he reached it last season, so what would you change?
Andy:I’m not qualified to tell a professional football manager how to do his job tactically, no more than I am how to tell a heart surgeon what to do in an operating theatre, but I know a few of the areas in which changes could be based from what I hear and see.
You can’t ask someone to be who they are not, but I’d like Ten Hag to be more charismatic. He’s a hard-working football obsessive but there is a hinterland to him. He goes on holiday to Ibiza — probably because Ibiza’s team were one of the few still playing in June (in the Spanish third division) and he could study them.
Granted, he handles the immense pressure of being United boss well. He also has a sense of humour that people don’t see. It’s only football; there is space for fun. United fans mocked Liverpool’s ones for their cult-like worship of Jurgen Klopp and him having more concerts in May than Taylor Swift, but Klopp’s connection was genuine.
His press conferences aren’t an environment that encourages conviviality but sometimes, Ten Hag’s answers need more depth.
Ahead of last season’s final home game against Newcastle United— a must-win — I asked him in the pre-match press conference about what he wanted from the fans. The answer was a mediocre one when, for me, he should have been banging the table. Then again, the following night after the game, he was on the pitch talking fantastically to the fans, who cheered his every word. He always salutes the fans at the Stretford End, and gets support back.
And there’s other stuff: even if he’s busy, he will pop over to the academy and have a cup of tea with the coaches and young players. But mostly, it’s all about results. Wins. If he’s winning every game 1-0, then no matter how poorly the team are playing, all the other noise wouldn’t matter.
Andrew:He’s been undermined by his own bosses! There’s an uneasy truce and you know it. Does he even have the power that he had before?
Andy:Is it a problem if he doesn’t? If he’s surrounded by a still-changing structure, which is supposedly going to be an improving, better one, then he should benefit. Everyone in it wants United to do well — and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be at the club — so what’s the issue? He should work with these new overlords, not against them.
The situation he was in was weird anyhow. He had almost all the power in recruitment, which is not how it works at most big clubs. Critics point to the waste of money on Antony, to the non-playing Tyrell Malacia, but Andre Onana, who was hammered before Christmas, does not look like a bad signing now. Casemirocame because Frenkie de Jongdidn’t.
A fit Lisandro Martinezis a top player, while the fact that Ten Hag promoted and persevered with Alejandro Garnachoand Kobbie Mainoodeserves praise. Make a few key signings this summer — a central defender, midfielder and striker — and the outlook will be brighter.
And I’ve still not given up on Antony.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5572118/2024/06/19/andy-mitten-erik-ten-hag-manchester-united/
