Mikael Silvestre believes that the "nightmare" season Manchester United endured last year is not necessarily a bad thing for Erik ten Hag - as things can only get better under the Dutchman.
Ten Hag has been handed the daunting task of rebuilding a United side that slumped to their worst-ever finish in the Premier League era under interim boss Ralf Rangnick.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer paid the price for United's shoddy form in November of last year, but Rangnick failed to oversee an improvement during his underwhelming stint in charge. United suffered a number of humbling results and even shipped more goals than ever before in the top-flight - but even though there will be huge pressure on Ten Hag to deliver, Silvestre is adamant that things can only improve under the former Ajax chief.
Speaking exclusively to Mirror Football, the former United defender said: "I think last season was a nightmare with the changing of the manager and finishing sixth. That was a real nightmare, so I don't think [it can get worse]. I think the team will finish in a better position next season. There will be pressure, of course, but [Ten Hag] will be the first one to put pressure on himself; he doesn't want to be seen as a failure. That's normal. He didn't just take the job for the sake of it, he want's to achieve the objective. So I think it's challenging, but for him, he will be given the time to work. It's going to take some work.
"Erik's been successful because he's got his own personality and his own management style. I think for United you have to embrace the culture, so that's something that he needs to do. The work methods he knows, he should to stick to. Stick with what you know best. But he has to embrace the culture and the heritage of the club. When you're addressing the players, when you know what the club is about and the past it will help motivate them. For me, that's key.
"His biggest challenge is to get the team playing the way he wants. That's the biggest challenge, because the players are not used to him and vice versa. It's hard when you are a new coach to achieve it. But if he does, then they will be close to the objective.
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"He won the league in Holland. Okay it's Ajax, who have the biggest budget, but when they reached the semi-finals of the Champions League they played some very, very good football. The challenge for him is to repeat that with different players in a different league, so he is going to be tested."
Ten Hag is set for a baptism of fire, with United due to play Liverpool in just the third game of the new Premier League campaign. United are also set to face Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham by mid-October in a nightmare run of fixtures for the new man. And Silvestre admits that the pressure is now on United to get their transfer business done as soon as possible to give Ten Hag the best possible chance of making a successful start.
The four-time Premier League champion added: "You've got to take the points and confidence before going into Liverpool, so Brighton and Brentford should be games where you establish yourself and regain confidence and apply what you've been working on in pre-season. So get the six points and then when you face Liverpool you are ready.
"Normally with the pre-season, you have enough time to apply yourself and get into what the manager wants to achieve. It's going to be down to how quickly you can bring new players in. If they can be in for the first day of pre-season, then that's ideal. But if they sign later then that's complicated, that's for sure. They need to sign some players as quickly as possible.
"Obviously the manager will be hoping to get his players as soon as possible. You need to be proactive, but before Erik's appointment, it was difficult to move and to engage with players officially. Now they've got two or three weeks to get cracking.
"You've got your list [of targets], you've got your number one priority, your number two, number three and so on - you don't want to be signing number five. There might be problems convincing targets to come, but United are still attractive to a lot of players. Maybe not because of the results last season, but the year before they were second. It wasn't that long ago that they were the best of the rest. And the new manager is coming off the back of his successful time at Ajax, so he has the right tools to sign the best players."
Mikael Silvestre was speaking at the launch of SPITCH’s all new Season Mode. SPITCH is a fantasy football app where you compete against other participating managers for the chance to win cash prizes. Sign up and earn £5 in credit here: SPITCH. 18+ only.
