SIDESHOW BOSS
Sir Jim’s comments belittle Ten Hag role
IT’S THE kind of backhanded compliment that will feel like a slap across the face to Erik ten Hag.
In a damning assessment of the state of Manchester United, co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe demeaned Ten Hag without even realising it.
“The coach isn’t the central issue at Manchester United,” said Ratcliffe. Who’d have thought it, eh?
Ten Hag has gone from being the perceived problem to the possible solution.
“It’s a sports club (United),” said Ratcliffe. “It needs to be competitive, it needs a degree of intensity, but with a supportive side to it, because you are dealing with players who are relatively young.
“It hasn’t had that type of environment historically.”
But Ratcliffe (inset) is missing the point. It’s true that some of the problems at United are self-inflicted, and were there long before Ten Hag arrived in Manchester.
But it’s also true that the manager of a football club should ALWAYS be the central issue/figure when it comes to achieving success.
In a previous time, United became the most successful side on the planet because of one man – Sir Alex Ferguson. A football team is a direct reflection of the person in charge of it. If Ten Hag is the right man to lead United forward into a new era, how come Ratcliffe and his INEOS chiefs conducted a review into his performance last season?
Yet Ratcliffe is suggesting there are more important things to deal with. That Ten Hag is a kind of irrelevance.
Which might explain why he went behind his back to interview Thomas Tuchel then. At least Ratcliffe is more honest when it comes to assessing how tough the task is when it comes to getting United back to the top of the game.
He said in an interview with Bloomberg: “There’s room for improvement everywhere we look at Manchester United, and we will improve everything.
“We want to be where Real Madrid is today, but it’ll take time. It will take two or three summer windows to get to a better place.”
Then there is the issue of the financial constraints imposed on clubs like United by the Premier League.
United have gone from blowing hundreds of millions of pounds to not being able to afford Jarrad Branthwaite.
He added: “We’ve got more accountants than we’ve got sporting people at United. If you’re not careful, the Premier League is going to finish up spending more time in court than it is thinking about what’s good for the league.”