Ryan Babel doubts whether Erik ten Hag showed the tactical adaptability to succeed in England with Manchester United.
Ten Hag was sacked by United in October after the club's poor start to the season, with the Red Devils bringing in Portuguese coach Ruben Amorim as his replacement.
Former Liverpool winger Babel played under Ten Hag during a brief loan spell at Ajax in 2020 and hailed him as a "great coach" but said that Ten Hag's approach, which worked so well in the Eredivisie, was perhaps not suited to the Premier League.
"I experienced Ten Hag at Ajax, and he was very clear on his vision and on how he wanted to play," Ten Hag told Instant Casino. "Over the years I've seen managers succeed and managers fail and that's not because they are bad managers all of a sudden.
"You have the arguments as to why it didn’t work out for him at United. Did he spend money? Yes, he did, but I also think that he missed out on some of the players that he really, really wanted while he was at Manchester United.
"There were occasions where he couldn’t get his top targets and he had to divert to plan B, plan C. Maybe the players he was presented with couldn’t execute the type of football he wanted to play.
"I do know that he is a great coach, he has a great vision, he has a great eye for football but, again, the Premier League is a different ball game to the Dutch way of playing. It is not always suitable in the Premier League to play with those principles.
"In the Premier League, you need to be able to adapt. You need to have a plan B for strategy. I'm not sure if he had that. I think he was too wedded to his plan and tried to make it work even when it was turning against him. That's what I believe happened. It's sad of course to see a fellow Dutchman go down like that, but I'm sure he will bounce back."