Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Samuel Luckhurst

Erik ten Hag footage shows he is about to give Manchester United something they desperately need

The footage is nearly two-and-a-half years old but worthy of inclusion in the Erik ten Hag brochure the Manchester United decision-makers sifted through.

It is seven days before Christmas in 2019 and Ajax are playing in front of 5,000 fans at second-tier SC Telstar in the Dutch cup second round. Only 17 days earlier, Noa Lang became Ajax's first player in 60 years to score a hat-trick on their full league debut.

If Lang, 20 at the time, felt he was entitled to be cut some slack from his manager he was in for a shock.

READ MORE: Rangnick responds to Lingard's comment on 'disastrous' United dressing room

"Noa, you have to run deep," Ten Hag barks. Lang, 29 years Ten Hag's junior, has the brass neck to complain.

"You have to shut up," Ten Hag retorts. "You have to listen. You just need to do it. No, cut it out. It's our game, not just yours." The camera cuts to Lang, completely cowed.

A month after his encounter with Ten Hag, Lang was farmed out on loan to Twente. There is maybe a reason Lang is now at Club Brugge permanently. He has had such a fertile impact Louis van Gaal deemed him worthy of inclusion in the Netherlands squad in October and Lang has attained three caps, although he was omitted from the squad last month.

Lang was ushered out of the door as Ajax had signed Ryan Babel. Ajax's XI at NEC Nijmegen on Saturday consisted of another six Premier League cast-offs. One of them, Daley Blind, is still in touch with people at United and assured them Ten Hag is firm.

Ten Hag's voice sounds hoarse in the clip with Lang and he may lose it hollering at Bruno Fernandes. Fernandes has become querulous without the quality for most of this season and deserving of another demotion.

Initially, Fernandes's lip was refreshing at United. He was on the case of teammates on his debut against Wolves and memorably silenced Pep Guardiola in the final Old Trafford match before the Covid-19 pandemic forced football's shutdown.

Fernandes was not two months into his United career then and lifted a team from Europa League fodder to Champions League qualifiers. His presence was totemic and he backed up the verbals with matchwinning moments, creating something out of nothing.

That knack has dried up this season. Fernandes's advisers would invoke that horrendous new phrase in the football lexicon, 'goals and assists', of which there have been 22. It can fool a football club's hierarchy into doling out an unnecessary contract but not the punters. A player is guilty as sin of underperforming whenever that stats-padding phrase is uttered.

Fernandes' carping has become tiresome. At Arsenal, he engineered a short corner with Alex Telles in the first-half only to endanger spectators with an overhit cross. Fernandes had the gall to berate Telles.

Telles does not appear truly invested in playing for United, content with his quota of matches so long as he remains in the Brazil squad. He stayed mum. There have been umpteen occasions where a teammate has stayed silent after a verbal volley from Fernandes.

Could Fernandes back it up? Not with crowds back. He is the best - or worst - example of a United player who thrived in the sterile training ground atmospheres of behind-closed-door matches only to wilt with turnstiles reopened. Fernandes converted 19 penalties and missed one with stands empty. He has missed both in regulation time with them packed again.

Had United started the season with a credible coach, the challenge for Fernandes would have been to control games. That is patently beyond him. That skill separates the truly world-class players and Fernandes relinquished that status some time ago.

You sense some in the United dressing room would not have felt any sympathy for Fernandes when he teed up Granit Xhaka 13 minutes after his casual penalty. With the armband strapped to his bicep on Saturday, Fernandes flailed like Harry Maguire until he was hooked.

Roy Keane noted at Anfield there are 'no characters' at United. Harry Maguire is as media-trained as an MP and Aaron Wan-Bissaka is so quiet he might never have spoken to some teammates. David de Gea speaks frankly but looks afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder playing this long for United.

Ten Hag may view Fernandes as a contender for the captaincy next season, should he strip Maguire of it. Unlike the England Test team, United lack an obvious short-term fix and there is a compelling case to share it around a new leadership group, or deliberately dilute its significance and hand it to De Gea, should he survive the squad cull.

At least United should have another manager prepared to puncture players' egos inflated by the starstruck Ed Woodward. Ralf Rangnick has started to throw players under the bus and only stopped short of naming names.

Rangnick has eight more press conferences to attend, and rather than the Family Circle biscuits laid out at Carrington, popcorn would be a more suitable confectionery.

"In the pressing moments, whenever we pressed Arsenal today we caused problems to them," Rangnick said. "But we did not do that often enough, we should do that more often, with more intensity, with more players involved. If all of the players sprint against the ball it has a higher effect than it had today."

Ten Hag will demand more running.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.