Manchester United might finish this season as Europa League champions but nobody is mistaking it for a successful one, and Erik ten Hag had a role to play in it as well before his sacking.
Erik ten Hag was sacked about three months into the season and, if anything, Man Utd’s condition since then has somehow worsened dramatically.
While there are mitigating factors, United’s fate has done no harm to Ten Hag’s reputation, even rebuilding it to some extent that major European clubs are interested in him.
Fellow Dutchman Edwin van der Sar has now launched a defence of Ten Hag’s tenure at Old Trafford with a pointed Sir Jim Ratcliffe remark.
Photo by Manchester United/Manchester United via Getty Images
Photo by Manchester United/Manchester United via Getty Images
Edwin van der Sar defends Erik ten Hag
It is fair to say that managers at Man Utd have such a bad history since Sir Alex Ferguson retired that it’s conventional wisdom that they are not the biggest problem.
Even so, Ten Hag’s tenure by the time it ended had become extremely sour due to some blatant tactical mistakes and refusal to acknowledge those mistakes.
The way the team’s form dipped after the first season was beyond anyone’s expectations and once Sir Jim Ratcliffe came in with his own team and structure, the Dutchman always stuck out like a sore thumb.
In an interview with Dutch outlet Voetbal Primeur, Edwin van der Sar has claimed that Ten Hag’s sacking was ‘written in the stars’ once the structure around him eroded, something he relied upon heavily at Ajax.
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He said: “Everything stands or falls with a policy that is simply supported by everyone. I think that has not always been the case in all those years (since Sir Alex).
“It was the same in the early period at Ajax (for Ten Hag). Erik also had a difficult period then. He overcame that with the people around him. I actually expected that at United too.
“Only because, I think, there was another power vacuum…The club was put up for sale or partially sold, which gave James Ratcliffe 50% of the shares and the sporting part.
“In addition, a new CEO and a new technical director came, who often want to appoint a manager in their own line. So yes. It was actually almost written in the stars that it would happen like this.”
Erik ten Hag didn’t help himself at Man Utd
While Van der Sar is correct when he says that executive changes at Man Utd made Ten Hag’s position untenable, the manager didn’t help himself either.
Ultimately, regardless of the changes, results speak the loudest and they were simply not there to fall back on, especially since he wasn’t Ineos’ man.
Furthermore, his public interactions left a lot to be desired, a major reason why Ruben Amorim is being given a longer rope despite having factually performed worse than the man whose job he took.
It was “written in the stars” that he would be sacked only because he showed a stubborn refusal to change anything about himself on or off the pitch.
While Amorim is also refusing to move away from his tactical model, there have been layered tweaks that have seen the likes of Casemiro and Joshua Zirkzee come back from the brink.
That provides hope, something which had completely eroded under Ten Hag. It was written in the stars, Ineos’ arrival just accelerated it.