Erik Ten Hag’s Manchester United career is on a knife edge. Inconsistent results and uninspiring performances on the pitch, paired with United’s most seismic off-the-field changes in nearly 20 years mean that the dutchman is unquestionably facing the most difficult time of his short United career.
Based on statistics alone – it is looking pretty bleak for the dutchman. Losses to Crystal Palace and Newcastle that bookended October took united from the comparatively dizzy heights of their worst start since 1989, to their worst start since 1962
Football is not just statistics
The footballing world has become obsessed with statistics. Moneyball, expected goals, Bromley FC hiring a Football Manager TM player with no traditional football experience to be part of their backroom staff. The list is endless.
Stats are the quickest and most digestible way to break down a game of football. Dispensing with any context or expert opinion in favour of the easily shareable “snackable content” that can be used to either help build up or knock down a manager’s reputation at the click of a repost button.
Old-school ideas like leadership and hard work have become outdated and overlooked by a 24-hour, money-for-clicks social media world that algorithmically promotes hit pieces and misguided “tactical deep dives”, regardless of who presents them or what that person’s agenda might be.
But stats aren’t the only things that matter in football.
Because, despite what social media would have you believe, perhaps those out-of-fashion concepts like reputation, confidence, gravitas and the much-misused “passion”, still count for something.
What does Ten Hag bring to United?
Aside from poor league form, United have earned only three points from their four champions league games this season and sit bottom of what was considered a top-heavy but not-all-that-difficult Group A, featuring Bayern Munich, FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray. The stats certainly aren’t on Ten Hag’s side.
So what does Ten Hag have on his side?
His reputation, tactical nous and his willingness to shoulder the heaviest of responsibilities and back himself on very tough decisions. His instinct for instilling discipline, values and a fighting spirit in the psyches of very well-paid young men, who can so easily be led off the path to greatness by a whole host of distractions.
But above all, the will to win – whatever it takes.
Not only did Ten Hag stare down both Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho, coming out of those situations with plaudits from the majority of United fans, he ended a six-year wait for silverware at Manchester United, coming off the back of one of the club’s worst ever campaign in 21/22.
Much-maligned this season as having ‘no plan’; it’s easy to forget the United hierarchy’s rank incompetence in transfers dealings, or the fact that lady luck has stuck two fingers up at United this season, crippling us with seemingly endless injury setbacks.
A proven tactician; Ten Hag’s hard earned, eye-opening Ajax tactics netted three Eredivisie titles in four years (also top of the league when the 2020 season was abandoned due to Covid-19), two Dutch cups and a swashbuckling semi-final run in the 2018-19 Champions League, which included wins against Real Madrid and Juventus over two legs.
These things count. Erik Ten Hag was Europe’s hottest prospect while he was at Ajax and despite the blows he has taken this season, his reputation is still standing.
Suits tasked with huge football decisions
As much as it pains us to admit it, the people you need to keep in your corner aren’t just the fans, it’s the likes of John Murtough, Richard Arnold (for now) and the Glazer Family. They are the ones who decide if you’ve had one loss too many or if your disciplinarian approach to management has annoyed the wrong player late for a team meeting.
And this is where it comes back to reputation. But this time the reputation of John Murtough, Richard Arnold and all of the people tasked with wielding the managerial axe. Murtough came to Manchester United from Everton with David Moyes in 2013, and is one of the few remaining faces from that forgettable era. He had never previously been a football director or sporting director, despite rumours that he would introduce himself as ‘Director of Football’ when he was overseeing the recruitment of the women’s team in 2018. Richard Arnold is a man from an accounting background who hadn’t worked for a football club before his hiring at Manchester United in 2008.
Are these the CVs of two men who have the reputation, credibility and gravitas to make a non-football savvy boardroom trust their opinion, to stick with the manager despite the press scrutiny and the social media frenzy that would come with another loss or two? An early Champions League exit? Can they make the higher-ups see past the statistics to the core of a manager who has the ability and determination to win at any cost, given enough time and support? Do they even realise this themselves?
I’m not so sure. It takes a bold CEO to sack a manager, but it takes an even bolder one to stand by a coach going through the worst run of their career, to stand in front of dissenting voices in the boardroom and say, ‘Ten Hag is our guy, he will come good’.
United’s structure will change – Ten Hag must remain the constant
The conjecture around potential new CEOs and Directors of Football that come with Jim Ratcliffe’s 25% ownership of Manchester United only adds to this uncertainty. Perhaps the best thing that can come with Jim Ratcliffe, Dave Brailsford and the reported Jean-Claude Blanc – a man who has been Juventus CEO and spearheaded PSG’s marketing department to table-topping heights – is the ability to trust their own decision-making instincts, even if the path to success is a bumpy one.
Erik Ten Hag needs time to rebuild a clearly dysfunctional, ill-fitting jigsaw of a squad, cobbled together over a decade by managers with radically different ideas of how to construct a winning team.
But aside from all the noise, the statistics, the opinions and the criticism – the biggest concern lies not with the dutchman himself, but with the ability of those above him to give him the time and resources he needs to make it work.
