Erik ten Hag is sporting a white baseball cap and a red and blue club tracksuit while discoursing in a private room at UCLA, and his steady eye contact and composure under questioning augur well for Manchester United’s new season.
The Dutchman has proved a cool customer since signing on as the manager two years ago but after suffering the slings and arrows of Ineos’s beauty parade of potential replacements, a deeper confidence is evident. After Jim Ratcliffe’s football department decided that, actually, Ten Hag remained the man for them, a new contract was agreed. Yet as this was for only two years it hardly suggested unequivocal backing.
“No, I wanted this,” the 54-year-old says. “So I think two years in football is already a long time and in two years we will see what we have built on top of what we have achieved now.”
Ten Hag smiles when pressed that four years would provide more financial certainty. “No, I don’t need that. I don’t need that security,” he says. “It’s important that we are together and that we are working together, and when you work together you are in good moments together but also in bad moments. When it’s being questioned [his support] in the surrounding [externally] then of course that will flow into a team and is not helpful in achieving success. I don’t need this because I have enough security in my life and in my career and I have enough belief that I know when I have a team I will achieve success.”
Ratcliffe has employed Omar Berrada as his chief executive, Dan Ashworth as sporting director and Jason Wilcox as technical director, with Dave Brailsford providing executive oversight. Because Berrada and Ashworth had not yet joined, Wilcox led the drive to assess who might replace Ten Hag.
A cute response is offered by Ten Hag when asked how it felt to know Thomas Tuchel, Kieran McKenna, Mauricio Pochettino, Gareth Southgate, Thomas Frank and others were sounded out.
He says: “I want to collaborate. So togetherness, because I know when you are together you achieve more success and I am here to win. But we want to win, so I have to feel this and when I feel this, we will win. We have good people. With highly competent people, they will contribute to more success and I don’t think negative. So regarding your question, I don’t think negatively. If this or if this.
“I feel positive and I feel very aligned. They are here, we are building those relationships and, as I said, we have to prove this point during the season and the next coming years: how strong we are.”
Is he confident the club’s support will remain if United endure a dip? “I feel that we built something and that the people who are around me are in the same boat. But of course it’s always a proven point when the case is there – but what I hope is that we avoid this [a dip].”
United’s 2-1 FA Cup final triumph over Manchester City in May was a major factor in Ten Hag being retained. After claiming the previous year’s Carabao Cup, this was a second trophy in two years, and Ten Hag offers a bright assessment of where his team are compared with the champions and other rivals who include Arsenal, Liverpool and Aston Villa.
“We caught up and we’re capable of competing with the best teams in England,” he says. “Then you are trying to compete with the best teams in the world – some teams like Real Madrid of course, who are a very good team. But the Premier League is at a very high level and we are capable of competing with them, which is very good. But our challenge is now to do this more consistently. How we do it has a lot to do with culture – a winning culture, to build this. I feel that we built a foundation now, with the new leadership group, with the coaching staff and with new players coming in.”
For United to rebound from last season’s dismal eighth place, an A-list act such as Marcus Rashford has to rediscover his mojo after the club’s highest earner contributed a paltry eight goals. Ten Hag, in his way, concurs while also defending the player.
“Of course, but he has to prove his point,” he says. “We will set the conditions [give him all support] and [then] he is very capable of doing this. The season before he scored 30 goals, so when he is in the right vibe, then he has such a high potential. And when he is really in that mood, he [can] again score 30 or even more goals.”
The “vibe” comment requires challenging so Ten Hag is asked whether it is not Rashford’s job to always be in the “mood”. He says: “He should fight to be, but we are not robots. We are dealing with human beings. And everyone – you [for example] are not always at your best.”
After speaking, Ten Hag and his squad flew to South Carolina to play Liverpool in Saturday’s final match of the US tour. In the trip opener, a 2-1 loss to Arsenal at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium, Leny Yoro, the new £52m flagship signing, broke a foot, so the defender is out for three months, and Rasmus Højlund, the first-choice No 9, sustained a hamstring injury that excludes him for six weeks. Rashford then limped out of Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Real Betis, although Ten Hag says that injury is “not too bad” and he expects the forward to “progress quickly from this knock”.
After last season’s 66 injuries the setbacks for Yoro and Højlund are particular blows but Ten Hag, who thinks Tyrell Malacia may be available in two months, offers a shrug when quizzed about their impact. “I’m waiting for this question, of course,” he says. “But that’s part of football – top football especially – that you come into a game, you go to the edge; every player has to go to the edge and yeah, then injuries are not avoidable. We have to be ready as a club and as a team to cover this and the players are dealing very well with this setback. They are very positive, they are already recovering and they will return.”
Given the summer’s tight buy-to-sell budget no replacements will be bought. “No,” says Ten Hag. “This will not change anything. We have a plan and we stick to the plan – and we will execute the plan, how we have that in our minds.”
United’s other new recruit is Joshua Zirkzee, a £35.3m buy from Bologna, who as a centre-forward is Højlund’s obvious replacement for next Saturday’s Community Shield against City. Ten Hag says: “We have to assess next week where we are. Joshua has played in the Euros [for the Netherlands], then had his break and now started training this week, so next week we have to assess and pick a team that is capable of winning against Manchester City.”
Casemiro, whose salary is only marginally lower than Rashford’s approximately £365,000 a week, is one player United will sell for the right offer. Ten Hag dropped the defensive midfielder for the FA Cup final win. “You have to make choices – what was needed for that particular game,” he says. “But he is a very important player. He is a leader and he can make a difference for our team. No one can play every game. It’s impossible.”
Regarding Casemiro’s future, Ten Hag says: “All the players who are here, if they want to play for us, want to play for the bench, and they have the quality, then I hope they keep contributing to our team. We have seen that Casemiro in his career is so successful.”
For United to be the same, patience is needed from Ratcliffe and his Ineos coterie, particularly as Højlund, and his fellow starlets, Kobbie Mainoo, Alejandro Garnacho and Yoro, are a young core.
Ten Hag says: “They are really Manchester United players. Players who have an X-factor but are young. They already have the experience of how to win a trophy and we have to build on that, but with young players it will go with ups and downs and we have to realise that.
“Everyone has to realise this in this club internally but also you [the media] should realise this externally. Sometimes they will have a drop off and then it’s about: do they have the character to bounce back and to achieve against high levels?” Last season Ten Hag did precisely this, so is a fine example and inspiration.
