Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s man for the long term or his patsy if next season nosedives? There are two schools of thought about why Manchester United did not sack Erik ten Hag at the end of last season.
The first suggests that the Dutchman’s slick FA Cup final tactical dismantling of Manchester City impressed Ratcliffe, the trophy claimed despite an injury-riven season. And that after clocking on as United’s sporting director on 1 July, Dan Ashworth wants time to assess the manager.
The second take posits that the scale of this summer’s squad overhaul has given Ten Hag breathing space and should United struggle again, then he will be the fall guy. Ashworth’s first appointment to the hottest of managerial seats will inherit a far stronger squad than at the start of the window.
Ten Hag surely understands his predicament. After witnessing Ratcliffe’s beauty parade of potential replacements that had the technical director, Jason Wilcox, countenancing candidates that included Thomas Tuchel and Kieran McKenna, the Dutchman knows he remains on trial at Old Trafford.
Does this matter? Is this not the way of the football manager, who is always in the owner’s crosshairs when results go south? The new contract Ten Hag signed last week that runs until 2026 underlines this. This was no four-year vote of confidence. Ten Hag retained his status as manager and a veto on transfers but each have a whiff of so-what about his retention of that title.
Ratcliffe’s football department holds a veto too, and is a beefed-up operation under which Wilcox and Sir Dave Brailsford will offer Ratcliffe executive oversight. The suspicion is that should Ashworth present a transfer target to Ten Hag it will be a fait accompli. Would the same be true in reverse in Ten Hag’s favour? That appears unlikely.
So he remains on borrowed time: as any manager, at any level, knows, three straight defeats and the axe may fall. What fascinates is how, with his cucumber cool persona, two trophies claimed in his two seasons and the new football structure, Ten Hag might fare this season.
The Carabao Cup triumph in his opening season and last term’s FA Cup victory offer a clue that Ten Hag may succeed where his predecessors David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjær failed and finally make United the consistent title challengers they have yearned to be since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
Ten Hag would like to think so, and in his pre-season primer with MUTV more than once referred to the “six-year” trophy drought before his arrival.
“We are up for more and for higher titles, like the English title and even more, like going into Europe. That’s a process that takes time, and we’ll work on it, but I know with the setup at the club, with the changes to the structure we will be ready for the future,” he said.
Ashworth, Wilcox and the rest have been hired to support Ten Hag in this quest. Ashworth’s modus operandi appears to be to recruit slickly and early, so multiple players are being pursued. At centre-back, where two are wanted, there is cash for only one (sales are required to buy the other), yet three are been targeted: Jarrad Branthwaite of Everton, Matthijs de Ligt (Bayern Munich) and Leny Yoro (Lille). In midfield Paris Saint-Germain’s Manuel Ugarte is being considered and, as competition for Rasmus Højlund, the Bologna striker Joshua Zirkzee is all but secured.
A war chest of £40m to £60m means Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelöf, Casemiro, Antony, Marcus Rashford, Scott McTominay and Aaron Wan-Bissaka are those who the Ten Hag-Ashworth axis would countenance selling to finance further player purchases.
United may have previously gone after more than one footballer for a single position, so we may discover how good Ashworth is. Since Ferguson retired, the summer windows have been mostly farcical, though Ten Hag’s first was perhaps an exception.
Then, under John Murtough, Casemiro, Lisandro Martínez, Antony and Tyrell Malacia were signed. What followed was a third-placed Premier League finish, the Carabao Cup win and optimism that a second summer would further elevate the Ten Hag project.
At this juncture, despite Antony underwhelming and Malacia failing to dislodge Luke Shaw after beginning Ten Hag’s opening campaign as the first-choice left-back, the Dutchman’s standing at the club was never so strong. However, perhaps, the window of a year ago became the latest of United’s missteps in the transfer market.
David de Gea was allowed to leave when a new No 1 was hardly a priority, and in came André Onana (a £47.2m buy), who proved a point-costing goalkeeper. Factor in Mason Mount (£60m) enduring a nightmare injury-wrecked term, Højlund (£72m) being starved of service and Antony again disappointing, and Ashworth has a low bar to raise.
Should, say, De Ligt, Branthwaite and Ugarte arrive this summer, Ashworth will have enhanced his reputation. First to sign these; secondly to sell two or three of those mentioned above to generate the requisite funds. The window, then, is a test of Ashworth’s acumen and a pointer to where the Ratcliffe era may be heading. If it is executed as wished Ten Hag must be both thankful and wary because then he will have no excuses.
