In a poll of almost 60,000 supporters conducted by Manchester United fanzine United We Stand last weekend, Erik ten Hag gained an approval rating of 85 per cent. The mood around Wembley after the FA Cup final victory over Manchester City was off-the-scale euphoric. That any thought retaining Ten Hag might be a bad move was the real surprise on concourses awash with hope and sunshine.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his new football hierarchy are charged with assessing Ten Hag’s value not on the basis of 90 minutes, but nine forgettable months. A review is said to be under way, one which must set aside Saturday’s vibe to reach a clear-eyed perspective on the past two years.
The issue is complicated by the vacancy at Chelsea for which the same characters, bar Stamford Bridge exes Mauricio Pochettino and Thomas Tuchel, are contending. Nothing would scream old United more than a panic buy, prematurely appointing A N Other to prevent him falling into the hands of a rival. United are understood to have contacted Roberto De Zerbi, Kieran McKenna, Tuchel, Thomas Frank and Pochettino. Now that Southampton’s Russell Martin is a Premier League manager, maybe he will be hearing from United too.
The point is to arrive at the right candidate via a thorough process, even if that risks losing out on a hot-ticket item. United have had their share of them. One such, Jose Mourinho, fell short citing the absence of structure and engaged leadership. Ratcliffe’s frequent observations coalesce around the same sacred principle, that decision-making must be data-driven and follow a rigorous process conducted by experts.
The compulsion to act is thus tempered by reasoned calculations that the club needs to identify the right person for the job. Ten Hag believes that to be him, of course, and could not have crafted a more persuasive argument than Saturday’s vibrant scenes, which erased all that had gone before, conveying a sense of purpose and harmony almost entirely absent during a season replete with examples of how not to play football.
The response of some players, particularly Lisandro Martinez in the immediacy of victory, and Jonny Evans on leaving the stadium, were suggestive of deep bonds and trust. Pictures emerged from the dressing room of happy players spraying champagne and posing for pictures. Ten Hag was at the centre of things, embracing, pointing, laughing, all suggestive of unity and respect.
He used the match-winning displays of Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, the only teenagers to score in the same final in more than 150 years of FA Cup competition, as examples of his capacity to identify and nurture talent. This is significant at a club predicated on bringing forth academy players. Mainoo has been the find of the season. Garnacho, who arguably scored the season’s most spectacular goal at Everton, has continued his impressive rise.
United’s second goal against City hit a striking note, the quality of which even the champions recognised. Ten Hag jumped on this as evidence of what might be when he has a full complement of players. The pass from Marcus Rashford, epic in scale and execution, in the build-up was matched for art and craft by Bruno Fernandes, who slipped a no-look reverse pass into the path of Mainoo to finish United’s finest goal for many a year.
This created the impression that a Rubicon had been crossed, that we were witness to a moment of significance in the development of Ten Hag’s outfit. That United saw it out to claim a famous victory against the team of the age, reinforced the feeling. However, the review must look beyond the emotion of Wembley to dissect the season.
United were thrashed twice by City in the Premier League, and the second half at Wembley followed the same pattern. City rained shots on United’s goal. Erling Haaland pinged the frame of goal, Julian Alvarez failed to work the keeper from two excellent positions and Andre Onana made a couple of outstanding saves from Kyle Walker.
Had City taken any one of those chances a porous United might easily have been overwhelmed by the better, more evolved, team. And it wasn’t just City who mulched United. Ten Hag oversaw a record 19 defeats, 14 of them in the Premier League. For the second season in succession United failed to score 60 league goals and finished eighth with a negative goal difference.
Not all of that can be explained by injuries. None can say what a Ten Hag team looks like. There is no obvious style of play, no consistent features that connect his team to the attacking tradition he is supposed to uphold. All of these are factors to be considered and carry more weight than one day in the sun, however profitable it was.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/M5rF0hb
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