Clearly lost the dressing room after the treatment of Sancho. Rashford didn’t lift a leg since
Probably declined his wages in protest
Chelsea fans have started to turn on Sanch, he is a wonderful player but he doesn’t have the pace and power to beat a man in the Prem, he needs to move infield or else have a phenom like Haaland in front of him. How Dortmund use him letting him drift in and work from deep is how he needs to be utilised.
We need someone with a good head of hair at least. Cant get behind a slap head
Lads have they acted too hastily here?
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The inside story of Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United exit
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Dutchman’s tenure at Old Trafford began well but — as players soon lost faith, results dipped and new Ineos owners became unhappy — club ran out of patience
Ten Hag managed United for two full seasons and leaves with the club 14th in the Premier League
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Monday October 28 2024, 1.00pm GMT, The Times
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Dominate. Intimidate. Regenerate. Every time that Manchester United’s players have been in the gym at their Carrington training base for the past two seasons, these three words have been staring them in the face.
The words appear on electronic boards which detail the training plans for the day. They are, in effect, instructions to the players. Their mission statement.
They were installed in the summer of 2022, the same period in which Erik ten Hag took charge, after a recommendation from the senior leadership team, who wanted to “embed performance elements” in the minds of the players. Ten Hag gave his approval to the plans.
Sunday’s 2-1 defeat by West Ham at the London Stadium would prove Ten Hag’s final game in charge of United
JUSTIN SETTERFIELD/GETTY IMAGES
United players must, they are told, dominate the training environment and the pitch during matches. They should intimidate their opponents physically and tactically. And they should also regenerate as quickly and as fully as possible so they can start the process over again.
The FA Cup final victory over Manchester City aside, when was the last time that Manchester United dominated and intimidated an opponent?
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When Tottenham Hotspur came to Old Trafford at the end of September, they were the team that dominated the game and intimidated United so much that they collapsed to a 3-0 defeat that could have been much heavier.
• Erik ten Hag sacked as Manchester United manager
“The problem with this Manchester United team,” one Spurs analyst said as he packed away his laptop. “Is that they love to run forward, but they hate to run back.”
Given that Ten Hag’s reputation as a coach was built on getting every last drop out of his players, it was a damning indictment of the Dutchman’s stewardship.
Was that entirely his fault though? He was on the touchline at Old Trafford that day, urging his players to track back and graft for each other. It was the same a few days later when United drew 3-3 to Porto in the Europa League.
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“The players just don’t listen to him any more,” one dressing room source said recently.
Ten Hag’s authority diminished over the summer, partly because United finished eighth but also because Ineos had started interviewing candidates to replace him. How could he command the respect of his players when it was an open secret that the club had spoken with five or six candidates about the possibility of replacing him?
The defeat by Tottenham in September laid bare United’s issues
MICHAEL REGAN/GETTY IMAGES
Less than two months after the sporting director Dan Ashworth and chief executive Omar Berrada declared their support for Ten Hag in a briefing with journalists in the Old Trafford boardroom, they sacked the United manager after the club slipped to 14th in the Premier League after an away defeat by West Ham United.
The decision surprised some Ten Hag loyalists within the club — after all, we are only nine league matches into the season and the club triggered a one-year extension to his contract in the summer. They blame United’s poor start on the players’ lack of desire and focus. As Sir Jim Ratcliffe said, Ten Hag is “a very good coach” who implemented innovative new ideas at Carrington, and worked extremely hard and studiously during his time at the club.
Some players and staff were relieved, though. They had been baffled by his recent team selections and signings — although his superiors should also take a portion of the blame for this — and felt that he gave preferential treatment to some players.
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Here, we look at how Ten Hag’s stewardship at Old Trafford unfolded and eventually unravelled.
Courtship and optimism – how it began
Just before 1pm on April 18, 2022, a suited passenger wearing a facemask got up from seat 1F of Easyjet flight 1837 and made his way through Amsterdam Schiphol airport, where a car was waiting for him.
The man in question was John Murtough, the United director of football. He had flown to Amsterdam with Ten Hag’s contract, which he signed that week.
It was not his first visit to Amsterdam, nor would it be his last. For a few weeks Murtough would fly to the Netherlands to meet Ten Hag on Wednesday afternoons, the only gap that the Ajax head coach had in his schedule.
Ten Hag and Van der Gaag, his assistant, had already planned the first two months of training by the time of their arrival at Carrington
ASH DONELON/MANCHESTER UNITED VIA GETTY IMAGES
The pair would discuss everything from transfer targets to the set-up at the training ground. Murtough was impressed by Ten Hag’s organisation, passion and work ethic. By the time that he arrived at Carrington for the first day of pre-season, he and his assistant, Mitchell van der Gaag, had already planned the first two months of training.
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Year one – press-ups, rollockings and success
The initial signs were promising. In pre-season there was an emphasis on discipline, standards and fitness. Ten Hag introduced a passing drill in which the players on the losing team had to do press-ups.
Both senior and younger players got it in the neck in pre-season if they underperformed in training. Staff got the same treatment too, if everything was not up to scratch. Ten Hag complained that the lifts in the five-star Athenee Hotel in Bangkok were “shit” and “too slow” — which is one of the reasons that Alejandro Garnacho gave for being late to breakfast one day. Ten Hag showed him no remorse and kept him on the bench for the entirety of the four-match tour to Australia and Thailand.
Back in Manchester, Ten Hag and his wife, Bianca, settled into their new Cheshire home. They explored Altrincham on bike rides and liked to eat at a number of restaurants in Hale, such as Cibo, where he celebrated the 2-1 derby win over City in January last year.
The 2022-23 season, Ten Hag’s first in charge, was promising and the manager was praised for his ruthless treatment of Ronaldo
CARL RECINE/REUTERS
Changes were made to the training ground, too. A new video theatre was built on the second floor of the first-team building where the players analysed games and coaches gave their pre-match instructions to players.
The club installed individual cooking stations, manned by chefs, so they could cook exactly what the players wanted. They got the idea after visiting the training ground of Cádiz during a mid-season break in Andalusia.
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Ten Hag is big on nutrition. The closest you can get to a fizzy soft drink at Carrington is a zero-sugar drink called Dash — Ten Hag is a fan of the raspberry flavour.
Overall, Ten Hag’s first season was a success. Marcus Rashford broke his goalscoring record, ending the campaign with 30 goals; Bruno Fernandes shared his manager’s philosophy and drive; and Lisandro Martínez looked a solid buy despite initial concerns about the 5ft 9in centre back’s height. Ten Hag won the Carabao Cup and finished third in the Premier League, and they would have put up a stiffer fight against City in that year’s FA Cup final had the punishing schedule not caught up with them; they played 62 matches in total.
Ten Hag was also praised for the ruthlessness he showed in dropping (and effectively engineering the exit of) Cristiano Ronaldo, a club legend but a player who, in his late 30s, was deemed not to fit into the way the new manager wanted to play.
Here comes trouble
“If Real Madrid or another big club came in for him now, he’d go,” one source said just after the 2023 FA Cup final.
It went largely unnoticed at the time but, at this point, Ten Hag started to have doubts about the United project, mainly because of the lack of information that he was receiving from his superiors about the sale of the club, which had been put on the market by the Glazer family in November 2022.
Ten Hag is perceived to have shown favouritism towards Antony, who followed his manager from Ajax in an £85m deal but scored only one league goal all season
STU FORSTER/GETTY IMAGES
In the end Ten Hag received no offers but he also became annoyed at the club over their recruitment. Ten Hag had wanted a senior striker, such as Harry Kane or Victor Osimhen, and a young striker, such as Rasmus Hojlund, to learn from them. In the end the club bought only Hojlund, for £72 million, and claimed that they did not even ask Tottenham Hotspur about the possibility of signing Kane.
As was the case with the transfer of Antony, who cost £85 million when he joined from Ajax, and Martínez, who was bought for £55million, eyebrows were raised about why United had spent such a large amount of their budget on the Atalanta 20-year-old Hojlund, who was talented yet very raw. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had been a fan of Antony but had told the club that he was not worth more than £30million.
Injuries, a drop in standards and perceived favouritism – the beginning of the end
Some members of staff had to rub their eyes on the night of September 20, 2023. They had just got back to the away dressing room at the Allianz Arena after United had lost 4-3 to Bayern Munich and some players were high-fiving each other and congratulating the team on their performance. United had not been helped by André Onana, who had a shocking game, but they only reduced the margin of defeat to one goal because of two fortunate and scrappy late goals from Casemiro. That the players were celebrating such a display rang alarm bells.
United players complained of too much running during training under Ten Hag, with many finding it difficult to move the day after sessions
DARREN STAPLES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Worse performances followed. By the end of the Premier League campaign some players could not even look Ten Hag in the eye when he spoke to them after matches. Their misgivings about their manager stemmed from two factors: first, some thought the players were running too much in training. One said that on his days off, he needed to spend all day recovering because he was so stiff. Upon leaving a national camp earlier this season one senior player from a rival club poked fun at a United star, telling him in front of his team-mates: “He doesn’t want to go back because all they do there is run.”
The other factor was Ten Hag’s perceived favouritism towards his signings, especially Antony, who scored one league goal all season. Amad Diallo, by contrast, struggled to earn a place in the team.
There was a perception that Ten Hag was too stubborn to change a tactic or substitute a player even if they were not performing well, although ironically his change in formation and approach were key to the FA Cup final win.
Morale and confidence began to crumble within the squad a few months before the end of the league season but Ten Hag received sympathy from some of his colleagues, who felt that the players should have looked at their own performances rather than turn on the manager. Ten Hag also grew exasperated at the number of injuries he had to deal with.
The Dutchman had to cope with more than 60 separate cases of illness or injury that season. He started the campaign with five senior centre backs, but by the end he was playing Casemiro there.
The injury record of Martínez, who started only 11 games because of injury last season, denied Ten Hag of arguably his best defender
MICHAEL REGAN/GETTY IMAGES
On seeing that Harry Maguire, whom Ten Hag stripped of the captaincy, and Jonny Evans would start against their team, one senior executive of an opposition club quipped it was like “we’ve gone back in time”.
Martínez, who started only 11 games because of injury this season, was the biggest miss. “When Martínez isn’t there, that is one of the quietest dressing rooms I’ve ever been in,” one coach told a friend.
Ten Hag had to deal with a lot of off-field issues. There was the club’s U-turn on Mason Greenwood and the ill-discipline of Jadon Sancho, whom Ten Hag looked after greatly the year before, giving him three months off to improve his physical and mental wellbeing.
Antony’s mind was distracted too by the allegations of assault made against him by an ex-girlfriend. Ten Hag gave the Brazil winger a couple of weeks off so he could speak to the police in São Paulo about the allegations, which he denied.
New faces, sniping and the hairdryer treatment
After Ineos took charge of football operations in February, Sir Dave Brailsford and then Jason Wilcox, the new technical director, moved into Carrington, taking offices on the same floor as Ten Hag and his team. He held encouraging conversations with both, and Ratcliffe. He even discussed transfer targets and organised the summer tour to the United States, but behind the scenes, Ineos started looking at alternatives after a cluster of woeful performances.
Remember, after buying his minority share in the club, Ratcliffe had promised enterprising football. There was no evidence of that in the 4-0 loss to Crystal Palace or in the period towards the end of April where United scraped into the FA Cup final on penalties after surrendering a three-goal lead against Coventry City in the semi-finals and then narrowly defeated bottom club Sheffield United in the league three days later. On seeing Ten Hag praise his players in the media after the match, one highly regarded former player shook his head and said: “We’ve essentially just scraped past two Championship teams.”
United flirted with humiliation against Coventry, with the game leaving many connected to United furious
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER BRADLEY ORMESHER
Ten Hag went to war with elements of the media, prohibiting beat reporters from the Daily Mirror, The Sun and the Manchester Evening News from asking questions in press conferences for a week or so. “What’s he doing that for?” one surprised board member asked.
Ten Hag felt that the trio of reporters had disrespected him by suggesting that his future would be in doubt after the Coventry game. That said, Ten Hag was furious with his players after the semi-final win, tearing into them in the dressing room.
Delaying the inevitable
The clubhouse at Bon Boys football club in Haaksbergen in the east of the Netherlands was silent but for the voice of Ten Hag, who was addressing the first team in a video ahead of their title decider.
It was the end of July and Ten Hag, who used to play for Bon Boys, was in his pomp, urging the players passionately to be brave in their final match of the season, which they won to become champions.
At this stage of the summer Ten Hag was full of optimism. The previous few weeks had been difficult. He and his United players drank into the early hours of Sunday morning in the ballroom at the Marriott Hotel in Mayfair after winning the FA Cup, but nobody knew if Ten Hag would be back the following season. For that reason it was, according to one staffer present, “a weird occasion”, like a boozy farewell party.
Ten Hag gets a lift from Martínez after winning the 2024 FA Cup final but too much damage had been inflicted during the regular season for Ten Hag to survive much longer
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
As the United hierarchy debated Ten Hag’s future in the few weeks that followed, he was left in the dark. “It is strange behaviour,” one friend said. “Why don’t they just be honest with him?”
In the end United decided to stick with Ten Hag, partly because the other coaches that they interviewed either did not want the job or would have cost too much in compensation.
The triggering of a one-year extension to his contract was still enough to boost Ten Hag’s morale, also because it allowed him to retain significant control over transfers. The highly-regarded Ashworth insisted that the recruitment of players was a “joined-up” process involving Ten Hag, the scouting system and his staff. Two of the five players he signed, Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs de Ligt, used to play for him at Ajax. Seven of the 23 signings made by Ten Hag had already played for him at previous clubs.
Ashworth raised around £90 million in sales, which was a good return, but there was tension around one of the departures, that of Scott McTominay. Darren Fletcher, the first-team coach, was stunned to hear that United had sanctioned McTominay’s £25million move to Napoli. His view was shared by a number of staff, who highlighted McTominay as one of the best trainers at the club, but Ten Hag was told that if he wanted to sign Manuel Ugarte and satisfy Financial Fair Play rules, McTominay had to be sold.
Ratcliffe and Brailsford had started to explore alternatives to Ten Hag after dismal performances towards the end of last season
MIKE EGERTON/PA WIRE
United’s pre-season tour was planned by Ten Hag to ensure that he could get the most out of his players. They trained on the perfectly cut pitches of the University of California and after grumbling from the players the previous year, there was less travelling.
Ten Hag was aided by his new assistants, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake, both of whom he recruited.
But once the season started the same problems continued — a lack of tracking back, poor finishing and terrible game management. Despite rumours that he was about to be sacked Ten Hag remained calm and tried to keep his staff morale up. Recently he took a few members of staff out for dinner near where he lives.
Maintaining morale has been difficult though, partly because of the results but also because of the cuts brought in by Ineos. Unprompted, Evans spoke openly about the topic to the national press after a pre-season tour match in Los Angeles. “A lot of people are in danger of losing their jobs,” he said. “It’s been difficult to see. The new owners feel that’s the direction that they want to go. But it’s not been easy for everyone at the same time.”
About 250 people were laid off, some of them long-serving and dedicated professionals. One of them pointed out that by sacking him, the club had saved the equivalent of a day’s wage for Antony, the misfiring winger.
Ten Hag clung on to his job after drawing against Fenerbahce in Istanbul last week. The hosts were not impressed by United. “How is this guy still in a job?” one Fenerbahce director said of Ten Hag.
Four days later Ratcliffe pulled the trigger, leaving United looking for the sixth permanent manager of the post-Alex Ferguson era.
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Will they bring back banquo now?
Emergency podcast from Joe molloy And the second captains
That Andy Mitten is one heck of a weirdo fanboy
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An absolute fucking dweeb. Any lad who sets up a fanzine has to be.
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He didn’t miss a European away game until Thursday night for 17 years or something
His granduncle was a club legend from the 20s or 30s or something. Charlie Mitten. He featured in the history of Manchester united video that gave me my lifelong love of the club
That was the only two good things ten hag did
I actually burst out laughing. The Liverpool posters day is ruined by one of their own.
Predicting a bald Dutch manager to be sacked by October 
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You’ve been absolutely mugged off by that utter cunt carragher 
