The Times - UK (2022-04-08)

66 Friday April 8 2022 | the times

SportFootball

it was far too simplistic to think that

Ten Hag or Pochettino could alone

put everything right.

“I keep hearing about Man United

needing a top coach to make the

difference,” Moyes said. “Man United

have had Mourinho and Van Gaal,

who are two of the best coaches in

the world ...”

He went on to talk ruefully of how

he was led to believe that his

appointment was about continuity

when, in fact, everything was going to

change. Everything had to change.

What is frightening for United is

that, approaching nine summers later,

so much still has to be overhauled. No

wonder Ten Hag has a list of

demands. Dream move? It is a risk for

him too.

while handling a scale of scrutiny and

expectations he has never

encountered, but to shift this wider

culture. To put “football club” front

and centre.

One Old Trafford source says that

a reason that Ten Hag has emerged

ahead of Mauricio Pochettino in the

interview process is the Dutchman’s

willingness to fit into a “flat”

hierarchical system at United — one

cog in the machine — but he will

need to show that he is by far the

most significant voice or he will be

compromised like his predecessors.

As one of those coaches who

discovered that he had taken on far

more than he realised at United,

Moyes was interviewed recently by

The Athletic and made the point that

‘E

rik ten Hag wants

assurances from

Manchester United

about the direction of

the club after he emerged

as the favourite to become their

next manager.”

So declared this newspaper’s back

page yesterday morning and, happily,

The Times has had exclusive access to

the assurances that Ten Hag is

seeking. According to the back of an

envelope found on the forecourt of

Old Trafford — excuse any

mistranslation from Dutch — the

initial list of demands includes:

1 Declan Rice. At any cost.

2 The words “Football Club” returned

to the crest on the front of the United

shirts to remind everyone what the

institution is actually for — just as the

Glazers promised to do years ago.

(Memo to self — are they bad at

keeping promises?)

3 Harry Kane. But not at any cost.

4 Joel Glazer by my side at the first

press conference so someone takes

responsibility for the mess I am

inheriting.

5 An explanation of a recruitment

system that can look at 804 right

backs and still come up with the

wrong one in Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

6 Abolition of the phrase “United

DNA” — especially now the aim is to

pinch the Ajax DNA.

7 Ralf Rangnick as consultant? Don’t

we have enough of those already?

8 Why all these investment bankers?

Dysfunctional United

pose a huge risk to

Ten Hag’s reputation

Isn’t this a football club?

9 A five-year contract — to be paid

up in full if sacked in the first three

years. Just in case.

You would want to make these

demands, and many more, given what

the job has done to the reputation of

some highly regarded managers, and

to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Ten Hag and United would both be

taking a risk with this appointment,

but the difference is that the

Dutchman has a status, a glowing

reputation to lose, and perhaps a

once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to

make the big move, the right move.

United are a club who, for all their

extraordinary heritage, at this point

mostly offer proven dysfunction and a

need for someone to come along and

clear up a mess that has been a

decade in the making.

Is Ten Hag that man? He has

undoubted abilities as a coach. At

Ajax, he has kept a dynamic team on

a high despite losing such brilliant

players as Hakim Ziyech, Frenkie de

Jong and Matthijs de Ligt — making

a net profit of about £170 million on

transfers, which will feel strange if he

ends up at a club which could blow

that in one haphazard splurge.

To listen to Steve McClaren talk

about Ten Hag is to hear only

gushing praise about the man who

was his assistant in his first season at

FC Twente. McClaren talks of a coach

who is highly organised, detailed and

with impressive clarity about the

structure he wants from a team.

Give Ten Hag time to instil a

pattern — and to move on from a

hotch-potch squad that has still not

found a proper use for Paul Pogba, a

world champion, after almost six

years — and, perhaps, he represents a

step in the right direction.

But so, supposedly, did Rangnick —

like David Moyes, Louis van Gaal,

José Mourinho and Solskjaer.

Everyone knows that a coach is just

part of a much bigger fix.

The challenge is just as much about

resetting a club who were so deluded

that they thought that appointing

Solskjaer could be a magic cure.

Solskjaer played under Sir Alex

Ferguson! He won the Treble! He

must know how to put United

back on top!

When a hierarchy is so foolish to

think that Solskjaer’s past alone was

the solution to the post-Ferguson

convulsions then you have to

approach any new move, or promise

of a fresh start, with heavy scepticism.

When a club have put together a

convoluted technical team without

the certainty that any of them are

best in class then we cannot assume

that recruitment is about to match the

leaders in the English or European

fields. The proposed Rangnick

consultancy is just another part bolted

on to a clunky construction.

A club that seemed so reluctant to

move into the 21st century on the

technical side, thinking bankers could

run the football operation, are still

playing catch-up.

Then there is the warning Van Gaal

gave to his compatriot, Ten Hag,

about taking on a coaching role at a

“commercial club” with such

misguided priorities that the owners

think nothing of sapping United of

another £23 million in annual

dividends in the last annual accounts

yet only now, belatedly, wake up to

the need to upgrade a stadium that,

like so much else, has been left behind

by savvier rivals.

Ten Hag will need an impressive

strength of character not only to

enforce the necessary, radical degree

of adjustment on the playing side,

Matt Dickinson

Senior Sports

Writer

Get used to splashing the cash!

Ten Hag will be working with a

considerably bigger budget at Old

Trafford than at Ajax, where he was used

to the club cashing in on their

biggest assets

Ajax transfer spend under Ten Hag

Ajax transfer sales

Man Utd transfer spend in same period

Man Utd sales in same period

£184.9m

£352.1m

£517.8

£176.3

Five biggest Ajax buys

Sebastien Haller (West Ham, 2021)

£20.2m

Antony (Sao Paulo, 2020)

£14.2m

Quincy Promes (Seville, 2019)

£14.1m

Dusan Tadic (Southampton, 2018)

£12.3m

Razvan Marin (Standard Liege, 2019)

£11.3m

Five biggest Ajax sales

Frenkie de Jong (Barcelona, 2019)

£77.4m

Matthijs de Ligt (Juventus, 2019)

£77m

Donny van de Beek (Man Utd, 2020)

£35.1m

Sergino Dest (Barcelona, 2020)

£18.9m

Kasper Dolberg (Nice, 2019)

£18.5m