If he received it 24 hours ago, he’s probably just starting to run away.
3 Likes
He’s literally a bomb scare
decent article on the athletic:
Ten Hag should not be judged against Klopp and Guardiola: Manchester United are miles behind Liverpool and City
Apr 21, 2022
192
We all know what is coming next. The statement will try to be as upbeat as possible. The same copy-and-paste methods as always, some media-friendly soundbites and the general message that, this time, they are convinced they have the outstanding manager to bring back the good times. The usual good-vibes-only lines, the overwhelming sense of deja vu.
Presumably, Manchester United will try to rush through the announcement of Erik ten Hag’s appointment as quickly as possible. Goodness knows they need some positive news to try to manipulate the headlines and change the mood for the better. In their world of PR and diversionary tactics, what better than the arrival of a new manager to let everyone know that, honestly, it will all turn out OK?
Unfortunately for United, it doesn’t really wash anymore when the evidence is growing that this is the worst team since the infamous mutiny in 1989 led to sections of Old Trafford campaigning for the pre-knighted Alex Ferguson to be removed as manager.
Nobody should be suckered into thinking that Ten Hag’s arrival from Ajax will put a stop to Liverpool and Manchester City from having all the fun, unless he is some kind of miracle man. Not yet anyway, and probably not for as long as Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola remain in their current positions. The gap has grown too big. United’s problems run too deep. Realistically, it will take years to fix.
If that sounds slightly defeatist before Ten Hag has even checked in, perhaps a brief refresher might help.
United have finished, on average, 22 points behind the champions in every season since Ferguson passed the team to David Moyes. This season, once again, they are just a speck in the wing mirrors of the two sides that are going for the title. The gap to City is 23 points and to Liverpool, it’s 22. United have their lowest tally at the 33-game mark of any season since the Premier League’s inception 30 years ago. They have just lost 9-0 on aggregate, home and away, to Liverpool, the club they always measure themselves against first. For context, there has been only one occasion when United have suffered a more emphatic double in their entire history — 0-11 against Sunderland in 1892-93.
All of which means we should probably re-assess what ought to be expected of Ten Hag and what, in turn, might be unreasonable when it is his turn to make some sense of this baffling club, its tangled priorities and the culture of excuses and buck-passing that exists in the dressing room.
The Ralf Rangnick experiment has failed. The dalliance with Moyes failed. So did, on different scales, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Is it really fair to expect that Ten Hag can immediately sprinkle some magic on whatever has been left? Or should we take into account that United’s prospects under their new manager are also heavily dependent on what happens next with Klopp and Guardiola and, specifically, how long they intend to stick around? Because this doesn’t feel like a wild prediction: United are not going to win another title as long as these two remain in the Premier League.
Rangnick has failed to lift the mood at Old Trafford (Photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
The scariest thing for United, perhaps, is that we are talking about two managers who have already qualified as genuine greats of their profession and neither is at an age when their energy supplies seem to be diminishing.
Klopp is 54, which makes him younger than Bob Paisley before the most successful manager of Liverpool’s history took the job from Bill Shankly and started accumulating all those trophies in the 1970s and 1980s. Guardiola is 51. Klopp’s contract has two years to run, Guardiola’s expires at the end of next season. Liverpool and City will do everything they can to convince them to stay longer. United must be terrified, absolutely terrified, that it works.
This is probably the most alarming part of United’s predicament: the gap could conceivably keep growing for as long as Klopp is patrolling the touchline at Liverpool and Guardiola is shaping the way City go about their business.
Erling Haaland might be wearing a blue shirt in the next Manchester derby and that alone is an unnerving thought for those United supporters who have seen the city’s football landscape change in a way they would never once have felt possible. Haaland’s signing from Borussia Dortmund appears to be moving closer. Imagine him running at Harry Maguire and the rest of United’s accident-prone defence. Imagine how many goals Haaland could greedily accumulate as the spearhead of City’s attack. A player with his penetrative qualities should expect to average 25 a season in a Guardiola team.
At Old Trafford, meanwhile, what does it say for the modern-day United that David de Gea looks a certainty, once again, to win the club’s player-of-the-year trophy?
No goalkeeper won the award in Ferguson’s time at the club and, to put it into context, there were only three occasions during that quarter of a century — Gary Pallister in 1990, Gabriel Heinze in 2005 and Nemanja Vidic in 2009 — that it went to a defender. Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar were greats in their profession but United were such an attack-minded team the votes almost always went to goalscorers or goal-creators. So what does it tell us about United’s period of drift, post-Ferguson, that De Gea is likely to win it for the fifth time in eight years?
What is becoming increasingly clear is that United are looking at a scale of rebuilding that might not have been seen since Ferguson arrived from Aberdeen in 1986 to turf out all the boozers and underachievers and decided, to cite just one example, that Peter Barnes was symptomatic of their malaise. “Everyone was telling me he had such great potential,” Ferguson explained some years later. “But he was nearly 30 years old. It made me dislike the word ‘potential’. That’s a dangerous word in football.” There are several players in United’s squad who should take note.
Mostly, though, this goes to the top of the club and what we are seeing presently is just the hard evidence that in every department, from A to Z, United have fallen miles behind Liverpool and City when it comes to the business of assembling a winning football team.
When Rangnick selected Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic in midfield against Liverpool, he was picking two players who had smoked their United careers down to the nub. Jesse Lingard, who replaced the injured Pogba, is also expected to leave in the summer. Edinson Cavani wants to go. Dean Henderson, Phil Jones, Eric Bailly, Juan Mata and one or two others want to join the exodus and, in some cases, should have the decision made for them.
Pogba has fallen out of favour with United fans (Photo: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Marcus Rashford? That would be a complete failure of everything United are supposed to represent when he has previously shown himself to be an ideal wearer of the club’s colours. Yet how long must Ten Hag have to wait before the old Rashford re-emerges? Rashford’s blip has become a full-on slump and it started a year ago — he is running out of time to reinvent himself.
Rangnick talked about the club needing to sign 10 new players and unfavourably compared their squad to “the 25 formidable racing cars” assembled by Klopp. It was an interesting analogy when his own club are making the noises you might expect from trying to start a rusty old Fiat Uno in a winter frost. You know there is an engine in there somewhere. But it sounds bloody awful.
Unfortunately for United, this is the kickback from all those years of Ed Woodward having control of the recruitment system, wasting all sorts of mindboggling sums and never having the self-awareness to realise that this side of the business was not his forte. Woodward put the dire into director. It is all coming back to bite them now. The damage is substantial and it can feel almost implausible there was so much sympathetic press when the former investment banker left the club earlier this year. His fingerprints are all over this mess.
As for Rangnick, maybe Woodward now realises it wasn’t going to win over this group of players to employ somebody whose name they had to type into Google. Maybe that says more about the players than Rangnick himself. But this is a tough school and Rangnick increasingly has the air of a supply teacher who has gone for a high-five and been left hanging. He was brought in to improve the team and the evidence of it happening is minimal.
Red News, United’s longest-running fanzine, mocked up a page in its last edition to remind its readers that the club’s owners, the Glazer family, view success in all manner of ways. The picture showed United selling a coffee mug adorned with the words: “Social Media Engagement Champions 2021-22”. The sales blurb was straight to the point. “This is the league we really care about,” it read. “We take you for mugs … so now buy one!”
Gallows humour is maybe all that United’s fans have left. The indignities are stacking up, year after year, and those supporters are back in the uncomfortable position of having to decide who they would rather win the league: City or Liverpool?
Most of the away end at Anfield the other night would probably see City as the lesser of two evils bearing in mind another title for Liverpool would be their 20th, which would equal United’s record.
It isn’t inconceivable, however, that Liverpool go beyond that number before Klopp is done. Guardiola is going for his fourth title in five years and, if Ten Hag’s appointment is close to being confirmed, there is no point over-egging what is achievable at a time when United’s two major rivals have taken football in England to its highest level.
Welcome to Old Trafford, Erik, and perhaps it is only fair that we don’t hold it against you if it’s a game of catch-up, chasing two of the managerial greats, you probably cannot win from this starting position.
(Top photos: Getty Images/Design: Sam Richardson)
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Daniel Taylor is a senior writer for The Athletic and a four-time Football Journalist of the Year, as well as being named Sports Feature Writer of the Year in 2022. He was previously the chief football writer for The Guardian and The Observer and spent nearly 20 years working for the two titles. Daniel has written five books on the sport. Follow Daniel on Twitter @DTathletic
192 COMMENTS
Mans X.
11h ago
22 likes
Just wish previous managers were allowed the same lee-way 
.
Nenda F.
9h ago
24 likes
Especially for Ole. The criticism for him are often too harsh
Anthony F.
8h ago
10 likes
@Nenda F. As a Swansea fan I can genuinely say I wish he was still manager of Cardiff. Absolutely awful. But even he had no chance with the circus in the background being ran post- David Gill
Nenda F.
8h ago
5 likes
@Anthony F. TBF, according to one of his biography, Ole often unable to pick his squad at Cardiff. Fergie warned against him to take the job due to the ownership
Donough O.
3h ago
3 likes
Why do you wish for that? The previous managers contributed to getting United to this position. It was Moyes who vetoed the signing of Thiago in favour of overspending on Fellaini. Louis Van Gaal was given multiple signings he asked for, Blind, Rojo and so on, whilst sanctioning the sales of useful players, Evans (still better than every centre back at the club), Chicharito, Welbeck, and so on. Mourinho was allowed to sign Matic who was already immobile when signed, Pogba for insane money (despite the misgivings that had allowed him leave United before), along with Dalot and he played his part in the Lindelof and Bailly signings. It got worse under OGS, he signed Maguire for £80m, AWB for £50m, signed Sancho for the right but played him on the left. There have been signings you’d doubt managers asked for across all of those managers, Di Maria, Falcao, Ronaldo, etc… usually with Jorge Mendes as their agent, as Woodward seemed incapable of working with agents, but each previous manager contributed significantly to the current mess. Some of the previous managers particularly OGS were given far too much time. A case could have been made to get rid of most of them within 3-6 months, bar maybe Mourinho who took longer to sour but curdled worse than the others in the end.
Karl M.
18m ago
@Nenda F. It wasn’t, we were clueless and all he did was defend the very players who were so happy to stab him in the back. “Great bunch of lads” - clearly not.
Niall K.
9m ago
@Nenda F. He was given 3 years and possibly the biggest transfer spend in Utd’s history. I’m sure Ten Hag, or any manager, would be happy with that kind of support
Roy R.
10h ago
163 likes
“Woodward put the dire into director.”
Kevin F.
6h ago
2 likes
Boom!! 
Gboyega B.
10h ago
18 likes
So who should he be judged against? Sean Dyche?
Nick S.
8h ago
4 likes
First and foremost… Ole, Ralf, Jose LVG and Moyes.
Daniel S.
8h ago
14 likes
Daniel getting the excuses in early.
1 Like
The new manager has a 2 billion war chest
He really has to hit the ground running
Moysie was ran inside 9 months. There’ll be no honeymoon period. Coach Ten Hag will be expected to deliver straight away. It’s instant gratification or bust at Old Trafford.
1 Like
And you’ll be front and centre of it
1 Like
Any word on his backroom team?
It is. This is big boy stuff now. Managing a crowd of talented kids to win a Mickey Mouse domestic league against the likes of Go Ahead Eagles, Breda, Willem II and Heracles is all well and good. This is a serious step up from anything he’s ever experienced.
2 Likes
Link? £2bn is a lot of zeros….Has Elon Musk taken over at the Madhouse?
Welcome to the big leagues Ten
Ten fags 
3 Likes
His goal against villa was the best goal ever scored in the premier league.
1 Like
Xabi Alonso v Newcastle in 2006 would be one.
Negative that just bounced before the line
1 Like
Shane Duffy v Denmark (1-5) in 2017 could be another one. I’m sure there’s plenty of route one goals which haven’t touched the surface in the opposition half.
Van Persie vs Spain 2014?
Negative
@BruidheanChaorthainn skillfully diverts the thread away from the current and future problems of Manyoo to discuss potshots from 60 yards.
Keep on message here, opponents of the Manchester franchise have their boots on their throats…
2 Likes