WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Erik ten Hag is considered to be a modern coach. He was successful at Ajax and he should, if given time, be successful at Manchester United. Having bought himself a modicum of longevity by winning the Carabao Cup and finishing third in the Premier League, he is now finding out what it’s really like at a big club.

Comparisons with Sir Alex Ferguson in his early days are inevitable yet unreliable. Ferguson’s main problem was the drinking culture which had spread around Old Trafford back in the eighties as well as the form and discipline.

Ten Hag has certainly needed to be strong with the discipline and he now needs to find a way of injecting some form into the team but those are really the only two aspects which bear any comparison.

In Fergie’s early days the club was still owned by Martin Edwards and the manager, within reason, got what he wanted. However, it was still four years before he began to see any fruit for his labours and, a couple of years after that, everything really took off with the rest being history.

The Dutchman, on the other hand, has spent millions on trying to improve the team. In fact in some cases, Antony and Højlund being the prime examples, he has overspent on what he hopes is potential for the future.

He has shown his naïveté in a couple of his deals, particularly when he wanted to sign a striker but was only allowed to bring one in on loan and he chose Wout Weghorst who willingly ran around a lot but actually contributed very little, if anything, to the team during his stay.

He can also consider himself unlucky to have the disgraceful Glazers as owners because, as reports would have it, they refused to sanction the signing of a centre back while Maguire was still at the club. If this was a financial decision then it was a strange one given that they had sanctioned a deal for Mason Mount who, as a midfielder, was hardly a priority and they also sanctioned the signing of Rasmus Højlund, a striker with very little experience of top flight football. Yet a centre back was out of bounds!

Maguire could have helped the situation having agreed a deal to sign for West Ham. Indeed if he hadn’t gone back on his word due to his own sheer greed, (some people would say he was only asking for what he was entitled to but many supporters would argue that he never performed to the level expected), he would now be at the London club and United would have a world class centre back.

Ten Hag has also, rather worryingly because it reminds supporters of a certain Norwegian manager, made some strange looking substitutions but he does at least make them before the 85th minute, unlike said Norwegian.

Off the field issues have also blighted ten Hag’s tenure to date and, again, it is hardly the fault of the manager if the recruitment staff have failed in their due diligence. Not to have flagged, for instance, Jadon Sancho’s ongoing problems which have followed him from Manchester City to Borussia Dortmund, on to England and now apparent at United, is almost criminal yet he becomes another player ten Hag can’t select and needs to sell.

The number of injuries being suffered by United players also brings into question the coaches and the medical team.

As one report stated recently, the club is rotten from top to bottom The only saving grace is that, unlike Nero who fiddled while Rome burned, ten Hag is doing his best to put out the fires, at least in the areas he can have some influence.