Yahoo News Erik ten Hag taking the rap for those who have let Man Utd drift
Erik ten Hag must know by now that it will take a miracle to navigate his way out of this Manchester United era – the club that launched the biggest takeover sale in the history of professional sport 13 months ago, and ended it with the same people in charge.
No firm news yet on when the Sir Jim Ratcliffe acquisition will take place. It was tentatively scheduled for the week before last, then last week and now perhaps this week. In the meantime, United are so firmly locked into the stalemate that even Ten Hag has started referencing the “strategic review” in the absence of any other explanation. That would appear to be Ineos executive Sir Dave Brailsford asking the medical department to review itself and lining up potential sporting directors.
In the meantime, Ten Hag has Liverpool at Anfield and a strategic review of his available centre-halves tells him that, once again, the wrong ones are injured. Two months ago that would have meant Harry Maguire but now he has crossed back into favour, Maguire is out and Ten Hag is back to picking someone else – Raphael Varane – he would sooner not have done.
The loop never seems to end – recycled players, amended takeover plans, the constant re-evaluation of a recent past that United want desperately to put behind them but cannot stop from invading the present. Just when one thinks Ten Hag has exhausted all options he wins manager of the month. Then he loses at home to Bournemouth and finishes bottom of the Champions League group. It has become ever harder to discern at any one moment whether the team are in crisis or triumphant resurgence, and one can often interrupt the other in the space of the same week.
Difficult to imagine Glazers handing all power to new partners
If that feels confusing imagine what the experience must be like for the man involved. A serious, process-driven Dutchman from the rural east of the country, and scion of a family of wealthy estate agents, he is accustomed to dealing in certainties. Yet Ten Hag never quite completes. Someone keeps handing him back the survey and pointing out an unresolved boundary issue, historic subsidence, the long-term sitting tenancy of Jadon Sancho.
What club entrusts the minority shareholder – 25 per cent in Ratcliffe’s case – with 100 per cent of the football decisions? The one at Old Trafford, it would appear to be for now. It still feels difficult to believe that the Glazers who remain, chiefly Joel, are to hand all that power over to the new partners. Or indeed that this shared enterprise will have the stability required. Most of all, however, you have to wonder whether anyone will ever be given the authority to drive it through.
While Brailsford is destined to be a key figure everyone knows it is the sporting director that counts. That was a position that Liverpool, for instance, resolved to the general satisfaction of all concerned in the early Jurgen Klopp years, and despite a series of departures in the last 18 months, the club have steadied their recruitment strategy.
What United’s proposed strategy looks like is the Glazers and Ratcliffe on top, with Brailsford somewhere one tier down and then two further levels starting with a figure not dissimilar to Dan Ashworth at Newcastle United – or potentially even the man himself. After that, a sporting director such as Paul Mitchell or Dougie Freedman to handle the nuts and bolts of recruitment. Other candidates at that level include Lee Congerton, currently of Atalanta; Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara, both formerly of AC Milan, and Atletico Madrid’s Andrea Berta. There is no shortage of bright minds well capable of marshalling the recruitment – the question is the control afforded.
Who is going to take responsibility for United? Currently Ten Hag does so stoically, accepting blame, ushering players in and out of favour and picking his fights internally and with the media. Not always wisely it should be said, but he is at least trying to make decisions. He obviously requires a strong recruitment partner given the mistake of spending £82 million on Antony. Sometimes managers need saving from themselves.
Most of all, the utter lack of urgency on the part of those who own the club shows what they consider most important – and it does not feel like Ten Hag is the priority.
A win over Liverpool on Sunday afternoon will give United the fleeting dopamine hit that the 73,000 still show up for every week – but what will it signify? Nothing has changed since Bayern Munich on Tuesday when United delivered the perfect performance for these strange times. Which is to say, on the face of it — acceptable. It just lacked the bit where they tried to win the game. Not just any game — a game that determined their European future this season, and a significant part of the financial budget.
In other words, United omitted the part that gave the evening any point whatsoever. They never forced the issue or pushed Bayern in any way that was meaningful. There was something about the lack of jeopardy — the plod towards another conclusion that added up to nothing much — that felt like the players reflecting the position of the ownership back at them. Lots of effort expended, and the notion of a big occasion, but at the end of it nothing changes.
Great teams at great clubs thrive on that momentum that drives them from one big game to the next. No one is confused over which direction they are heading. When it ends, they change and start afresh. Yet at United the change is always next week. The takeover. The strategic review. The new sporting director and in the meantime, it is a manager left to hold it all together.
