We can choose one of two broad judgments here, one generous and the other cynical. The generous take is that Manchester United – by which we mean the hierarchy of the club and Ineos – see Erik ten Hag as the long-term answer.
And so the destiny is fulfilled, as it was written long ago: Mark Robins (and a marginal VAR-inspired offside line) shalt save another Manchester United manager and he shalt become The Chosen One that stops everyone talking about The Cliff like it’s Narnia crossed with Mordor.
The cynic – and probably a hefty proportion of realists too – would conclude that Manchester United spoke to five other managers who either did not impress enough or were not impressed enough. And so United have stuck with Ten Hag until something better comes along or they have solved more of the 782 other problems within the club and thus the manager nudges higher up the to-do list.
United’s entire existence is powered by these two conflicting theories. The suspicion is that the club’s match-going supporters will be fairly content with this news, albeit caveated by United’s own limitations. If you know that your club is unlikely to win league titles again yet or soon or goodness knows when, the formation of your experience immediately shifts to cherishing individual moments or matches.
Ten Hag has fitted that brief. Winning the EFL Cup in 2023 was something, but beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final as emphatic underdogs was as close to everything as United have come since Fergie left (although beating Ajax in the Europa League final in 2017 came close). It saved his job, but it also presented Ten Hag to supporters as someone capable of rising up to meet their highest standards. For now, for many, that’s enough.
And then the cynical view rushes back in. Had Thomas Tuchel expressed a strong public call-to-arms about taking Manchester United forward, or Zinedine Zidane decided that he was ready to end his sabbatical, do we honestly think that Ten Hag staying would have been as popular? Rough translation: have Gareth Southgate linked to your superclub and sit back as the current incumbent rises in the opinion polls.
At the root of this tussle is an ironic truth. Ten Hag’s life at Manchester United has irrefutably been made more difficult by the state of the club in general, first decaying under pure Glazer ownership and now in flux as Ineos aims to change the structural framework. And yet this structural mania is the only thing that has saved him. Were everything else in position, you would not keep the coach who oversaw the worst league finish since 1990. There’s the slogan for the advertising campaign: “Ten Hag – hey, he’s not the biggest problem yet”.
More than anything, this saga reflects upon just how bizarre life must be as the manager of a flailing superclub fallen on self-inflicted hard times. In the space of five weeks, Ten Hag has gone from rock bottom, a 4-0 defeat at Crystal Palace, to a report that claimed he would be sacked whatever the result of the FA Cup final.
He was then on top of the world after winning that final, pushed into an extensive performance review without his input, heard his employers talking to potential replacements and was then being backed and potentially being offered a new contract. All the while, everything is in the public eye and every movement over-analysed as proof of your excellence or brainlessness. Those of a nervous disposition need not apply.
Perhaps we’re looking at this all wrong, then. For all those interminable “this is Manchester United we’re talking about” punditry auto-reactions that discuss 1995 as if it were last Wednesday, if United are anything at all they are a highly expensive mess that occasionally flickers into life before the wastage drags everything down to expose the long-term reality.
Having a manager who has won trophies but failed in the league, who even after two full seasons we can’t work out if he’s any good or not, who perennially feels no more than six weeks from the sack, isn’t an oddity. It’s the perfect fit for Manchester United in the 2020s. Give him a new deal now and then get rid of him in six months. Let us never know what is happening next and yet still angrily disagree over all of it.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/bLWgpfs
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