If Manchester United are to appoint Erik ten Hag, they will do so after the Ajax boss had his head turned by RB Leipzig.
Mirror Sport revealed that the Bundesliga giants have made an audacious attempt to coerce the 52-year-old manager from under United’s nose. Considering current interim manager Ralf Rangnick helped lay the foundations for Leipzig’s spectacular ascent ad consolidation as regular Champions League participants, such a move would be a painful irony.
As things stand, Leipzig will be able to offer Ten Hag the opportunity to compete in the Champions League with a young and ambitious squad that plays a style not too dissimilar to his Ajax side. But above all else, Ten Hag’s current reluctance is also understood to be attributed to the level of influence he feels he would have in player recruitment.
Further reports from the Times understand Ten Hag is concerned about the level of overhaul currently required at Old Trafford, as well as the level of say he will have in their incomings and outgoings. Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Edinson Cavani, Juan Mata, and Tahith Chong are currently set to leave on a free transfer at the end of the current campaign.
Many more want to follow those aces out of the door, including but not limited to Anthony Martial, Donny van de Beek, Dean Henderson, and Eric Bailly. An entire starting eleven of players are either departing the club or want to and no manager in world football would want to arrive at a club with few players.
Except, this picture is the current proposition on show to Ten Hag and Paris Saint-Germain manager Mauricio Pochettino, who is still a genuine possibility. Whoever becomes the club’s first permanent manager since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will need to have an enormous say in the player who fill this void.
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The philosophy underpinning United’s transfer strategy since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement has so far only brought one FA Cup, the Europa League, and the League Cup. This is before divulging into the growing list of potential departures.
As fierce rivals Liverpool and Manchester City continue to surge even further ahead and their current top four rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur grow even stronger, United are seemingly being left behind. The only positive they can take from recent weeks is that Arsenal’s shock defeats to Crystal Palace and Brighton and Hove Albion have kept United in the race for the top four.
But even if United are somehow able to drag their way into the top four at the end of the season, the very fact that Ten Hag is even considering a move to a side which was only founded in 2009 over the Reds, should ring numerous alarm bells. Ten Hag is still believed to be the favourite for the United job and could still come through the Old Trafford doors at the end of the campaign – but this series of events needs to be the catalyst of a major reconsideration at Old Trafford.
