Sacking Erik ten Hag will make Sir Jim Ratcliffe seem a villain – but he must still do it

As a blissful delirium washed over the red half of Wembley, Erik ten Hag looked briefly like a man reborn. He had arrived here fearing he would walk the plank and ended this FA Cup final walking on water, hoisted aloft by Lisandro Martinez as if he were some cherished mascot. But if you looked closer at this wild scene, certain details suggested his joy would be short-lived. His royal box handshake from Sir Jim Ratcliffe, for example, was curiously perfunctory for a man who had just engineered this jolting upset against the champions. There was no embrace, only the thinnest of smiles. Manchester United’s co-owner showed greater warmth to Pep Guardiola.

In business, Ratcliffe has not become a multi-billionaire by shirking tough decisions. He once earned the moniker of “Dr No” among union chiefs at Grangemouth oil refinery through his obstinate refusal to compromise. Little compares, though, to the difficulty of the call he must now make on Ten Hag. Few stock values have ever fluctuated as violently as the Dutchman’s. The United manager entered this match a condemned man and he finished it an apparent tactical genius, with his players all imploring him to have his moment with his trophy.

Ratcliffe’s task, essentially, is to separate the immediate sugar rush from the longer-term ambition. It is to revive United into a force where glory becomes a habit, not a seismic shock. But in the fraught days ahead, this logic will be hard to square with the warm, fuzzy feelings of the fanbase. Ten Hag is now the figure who has brought the all-conquering Manchester City to heel, becoming only the second manager, after Thomas Tuchel, to beat Pep Guardiola in a major final. After last season’s Carabao Cup success, he has now won more silverware in two years at United than the universally-lauded Mikel Arteta has done in five at Arsenal.

Except Ratcliffe looked here as if he grasped the truism of one swallow not making a summer. Granted, the 13th FA Cup triumph in United’s history represents a majestic high, especially when it comes at the expense of the noisy neighbours. But there was little in Ratcliffe’s words or body language to suggest he saw this achievement as testament to the brilliance of Ten Hag. While he hugged Andre Onana for his heroics in goal, he kept the manager at arm’s length. Measuring his post-match statement carefully, he said only that United played with “total commitment and skill” and that he was “very proud” of the players and staff.

Any name-checks of Ten Hag were conspicuous by their absence. There was no crowing reference to putting one over his critics or earning the right to carry on next season. Nobody in the United hierarchy has said anything to kindle even faint hope of him being given the benefit of the doubt. And that was what made this experience for the club so peculiar. This should have been the peak of the turbulent years since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, with the 82-year-old Scot surveying the revelries at the final whistle like a satisfied godfather. But instead the joy mingled with uncertainty, a sense that a great feat merely prefigured further carnage.

With defeat, the notion of sacking Ten Hag would have drawn barely a murmur of dissent. With this most unexpected victory, the equation is starkly different. By jettisoning the manager, Ratcliffe risks being cast as a villain on a par with the unseen hunter who killed Bambi’s mother. The brutal firing of Van Gaal, dispatched to his Portuguese villa just a day after winning United’s last FA Cup in 2016, was an ending that most fans could tolerate. The football had been ghastly to watch and the beaten opponents in the final were Crystal Palace. Ten Hag, by contrast, has cemented his place in supporters’ affections by removing the inferiority complex against City.

That is a precious gift, but Ratcliffe is unlikely to be swayed by sentiment, and nor should he be. Why did United leave it until the last game of the domestic calendar to produce the type of sumptuous one-touch football that yielded Kobbie Mainoo’s decisive second goal?

Where had this electrifying version of Marcus Rashford, previously prone to indolence, been for the past nine months? Why did Sofyan Amrabat wait for perhaps his farewell appearance to show that he could be effective in front of the defence?

Amid United’s thrill at toppling City, these will seem minor cavils. But they will loom large in Ratcliffe’s thinking as he considers how a team with 14 defeats in a single league campaign can still reach giddy heights when the mood takes them. The problem is that few at United are inclined to take kindly to such questions at this auspicious juncture. Their happiness was so off the charts that one of the club’s social media staff ran on to the pitch even before the whistle had been blown.

Ratcliffe will understand the dangers of being depicted as the ultimate killjoy. Ten Hag, once deemed dispensable, now enjoys a certain protected status for making Manchester red again. It is this fickle shift in public opinion that complicates the next step. On the surface, this jubilant spring day offers nothing but the balm of vindication for Ten Hag. Ratcliffe’s failure to recognise him explicitly, however, hints at an ill wind blowing his way.