Erik ten Hag came across pretty well this week. And of course he did, because anyone would look and sound a little wiser when they’re not in the process of being passed through the bowels of a bloated, belching beast.
Thankfully for Ten Hag, he has long since wiggled free of Manchester United. Like Andy Dufresne, having crawled through 500 yards of sewer to escape Shawshank, he has found redemption on the other side and is enjoying the cold rain of freedom on his face.
Those two trophies United won under him? They’re ageing better by the hour. His body of work? Almost two years to the day after his sacking, it no longer seems too shabby.
And so he is cutting loose. In an interview with The Athletic, he went to town on his former club, detailing everything from broken promises and toxic cultures to Cristiano Ronaldo’s work-rate and the voids of communication within the vast, dysfunctional Ineos machine. Withering stuff.
Settling scores into an open goal, he took his chances. Good on him. And good for the Ten Hag brand, too, because for the first time in a while he was able to sound like the smart man in the room. As in, who else could possibly deliver two trophies with so many monkeys loose in the rafters of this circus?
Erik ten Hag struggled for answers during the end of his Manchester United tenure but had plenty to say this week in an interview about his time at the helm at Old Trafford
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s narcissism wasn’t behind the £72m wasted on Rasmus Hojlund. That was Ten Hag’s wish
Here’s the problem, though: Ten Hag’s football was dreadful. For the second half of his reign, he stank the place out. With £600million spent on the squad, his final season saw United fall from third in 2023 to eighth in 2024. When the trigger was finally pulled, they were 14th after nine games and that wasn’t all a symptom of his environment.
Sir Dave Brailsford, an over-promoted chancer, didn’t drive the spending of £82m on Antony. Ten Hag did. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s narcissism wasn’t behind the £72m wasted on Rasmus Hojlund. That was Ten Hag’s wish as well. And Jason Wilcox, the latest bug-ridden update to a broken operating system, wasn’t even there when Liverpool put seven on United at Anfield.
The point being, Ten Hag had plenty of cock-ups, too many to list, but there is no greater gift to an error-prone manager than the whole world knowing that those above you were incompetent. There is no thicker shield and no insurance policy so favourable.
In other words, I don’t buy into the idea that United are too toxic for a serious manager to touch. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Several excellent arguments have been made this week about why it would be an impossible job, assuming it is vacated in the near future by Michael Carrick. If Bournemouth resemble Como on Sunday, that change might even be imminent, and Bayern Munich’s CEO, Oliver Kahn, has spoken for many in his warnings to Julian Nagelsmann: ‘Essentially every (United) manager in recent years has failed.’
That is true, of course. If we are to invoke Sir Alex Ferguson, as we seemingly must in these discussions, we would remember his time-worn wisdom to other managers: ‘Pick your owner.’
But if you can’t pick a good one, there is presumably some benefit in ownership so very bad that they absorb responsibility for your own shortcomings. We could call it the Ten Hag phenomenon.
Ruben Amorim landed the plum job of AC Milan manager despite his woeful run at United
Jose Mourinho has somehow argued his way to another stint at Real Madrid
The depths to which United have fallen are such that Carrick’s replacement, whoever it may be and whenever that might occur, would arrive with a pre-packaged case for mitigation. A free swing and a free pass.
If you fail, collect your pay-off and blame the monkeys. If you succeed, you’re the genius who saved United; it’s either a golden ticket or a golden parachute.
To date, no one has unwrapped the ticket, but nor has anyone shattered their legs on landing. It hasn’t been terminal to any who tried.
David Moyes is back at Everton and thriving. At West Ham, he won a European trophy. Jose Mourinho has somehow argued his way to another stint at Real Madrid. Ralf Rangnick has taken Austria to a European Championship and World Cup.
Ruben Amorim landed at AC Milan, Louis van Gaal got another crack with Netherlands, and Ten Hag was gifted Bayer Leverkusen, one year after they won the Bundesliga.
He lasted three games, as it happens, and today he has another gig as technical director at FC Twente. Reading that interview with The Athletic, he seems happy. If there is one outlier in the list, it is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but even he got another go with Besiktas.
In summary, Old Trafford isn’t Chernobyl, and United’s financial power means someone ought to get it right eventually. The queue to be that person is already forming and no second-rate chumps among them.
Eddie Howe is a serious, ambitious man who has always valued his reputation. But the word on the grapevine is that he is happy to stand as a candidate
So is Antonio Conte. He could have an argument in an empty room and fill another with his trophies, but he also fancies a trip to the United roulette table
Eddie Howe is a serious, ambitious man who has always valued his reputation. But the word on the grapevine is that he is happy to stand as a candidate. So is Antonio Conte. He could have an argument in an empty room and fill another with his trophies, but he also fancies a trip to the United roulette table.
Nagelsmann, too. He has had multiple options for his next step post-Germany but likes the sound of United.
The grandest delusion of all might be the one that coaxes any of them into believing it will be different under them. That they have the clout and nous and force of personality to tame all those monkeys.
But there is an advantage to operating at a club that is forever finding new ways to lose: failure is now so common that it doesn’t kill a reputation. Part of the shambles of the modern United is that such twisted logic might now be a saving grace.
