caughtoffside
·29 October 2024
In partnership with
Yahoo sportscaughtoffside
·29 October 2024
Despite winning the FA Cup and Carabao Cup during his two full seasons at Man Utd, Ten Hag is widely seen as having failed at the club, with so many poor results and performances in the Premier League in that period.
Some of Ten Hag’s biggest issues seemingly came in the transfer market, with EPSN reporting that the Dutch tactician was handed a lot of control in that department, but made a number of poor choices.
The report states that the Red Devils brought in Casemiro as a bit of a panic buy, while Ajax were surprised at how much they seemed ready to over-pay to sign Ten Hag’s former player Antony.
Jadon Sancho struggled under Erik ten Hag (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Most embarrassingly of all, however, was when Jadon Sancho started to shine in the Champions League during a loan spell at Borussia Dortmund last season.
Remarkably, ESPN claim that Man United representatives ended up having to message high-profile pundits asking them not to praise Sancho’s form for Dortmund too much as it would make the club look bad.
Ten Hag notably forced Sancho out and the report from ESPN makes it clear that many inside the club felt the manager was being a bit too harsh on the player.
It seems there were similar issues with Cristiano Ronaldo, with Ten Hag viewed as trying to humiliate these players.
Perhaps fittingly, the Sancho saga ended up being a bit of a humiliation for Ten Hag as United desperately tried to influence media coverage to hide what a mess had been made with the former Manchester City youngster, who joined Chelsea this summer.