UNTIED
Like the shock you get when you touch an electric fence deliberately, Erik ten Hag’s dismissal from his role as Manchester United manager was entirely predictable but still came as a bit of a surprise. Binning off the Dutchman is certainly the most significant decision the new breed of Ineos go-getters have made since Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought his stake in the club, doubling up as an embarrassing admission that they could scarcely have got their previous biggest decision more wrong. While United’s FA Cup final win might have been impressive enough to cover over a multitude of gaping fissures, it seems that only Ratcliffe and the kind of “world class” high-performing executives with which he likes to surround himself were too dumb to see that offering Ten Hag a new contract in July was ever going to end in anything other than salty tears.
