Feisty, strategic, scattergun, unwitting – Erik ten Hag was definitely disenchanted after Manchester United’s 1-0 loss to Rosenborg on Monday. The manager seemed to take aim at Marcus Rashford, Casemiro, Jonny Evans, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Mason Mount who all played the first half of the pre-season friendly in Trondheim, the 15 academy outfield players deployed throughout, his coaching staff, his medical department plus, inadvertently and clumsily, himself.
“We play pre-season but at Man United the standard is you win games and definitely don’t lose,” the Dutchman told MUTV. “The performance is more important and the performance was below standards. We can make good on everything that was bad, but I am not that guy. As an individual you must make sure you are fit. I know you cannot be match fit, so we need these games. They [young players] are looking to listen and want to transfer that – it didn’t work.”
A standout line is “as an individual you must make sure you are fit”. By not citing who exactly has returned from their off-season break with a metaphorical paunch, Ten Hag has allowed suspicion to fall on every player (bar the goalkeeper Radek Vitek, who played the full 90 minutes). It is curious, too, because physical conditioning should presumably have been discovered through preliminary medical tests conducted since the group began returning to work the previous Monday, as well as by observing who wheezed through training.
Is Ten Hag suggesting his medical department is culpable? If so, this is hardly the finest start to the new season after the previous injury-ravaged campaign, especially given United’s head of sports medicine, Gary O’Driscoll, is determined to avoid a repeat. And, in his assessment that the young players are “looking to listen and want to transfer that” but “it didn’t work”, some may conclude Ten Hag has been less than happy with the club’s academy coaches’ ability to develop players able to meet the elementary demand of any footballer: execute in-game instructions.
As manager – a status he fought hard to keep – Ten Hag is ultimately responsible for all of the above, which may interest Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his sporting director, Dan Ashworth, who lead United’s new football structure. Ten Hag’s statement that “the performance was below standards – we can make good on everything that was bad, but I am not that guy” may prick the ears of Ashworth, particularly, who after starting his role on 1 July now has the authority to scrutinise the manager at close quarters.
More than anything, Ten Hag’s verbal volley feels needless. Certainly at face value. To lose 1-0 to a Rosenborg side 16 games into their domestic season via an added-time winner in what was United’s first pre-season outing with a finishing XI that contained no recognised first-team squad members seems a bagatelle. Yet beyond the regulation demand to keep players on their toes, Ten Hag’s words may signal a valid frustration. After last season’s debilitating campaign, and holding a new contract which in being only a year longer than his previous deal is hardly an emphatic show of support, an intent to set the tone for the forthcoming season was thwarted in Norway. To help this bid as pre-season continues to unfolds, Ten Hag is perhaps working hard to reestablish his authority and, very likely, ensure there are none of the off-field distractions that began to beleaguer him this time last year.
First came uncertainty regarding whether Mason Greenwood would be available for the season. Then, at the start of September, came Jadon Sancho’s exile from the squad. Later that same month, Antony’s personal issues put him out of action for around four weeks.
As Ten Hag takes his team to Murrayfield for Saturday’s friendly with Rangers, the slate is clean. Greenwood has signed for Marseille for £26.7m and Sancho may don a United shirt for the first time since last August having returned from exile last week. The odds of the winger doing so beyond the transfer window’s close are long, though. With United needing to sell to buy, a 24-year-old who has failed to dazzle since arriving in summer 2021 is high on the potential sale list, particularly given he called Ten Hag a liar after being dropped from the squad that lost at Arsenal, which led to his exclusion and subsequent return to Borussia Dortmund on loan.
This makes Sancho’s re-entering the fold as pragmatic - for Ten Hag, the club, and the player - after his public denial of the manager’s explanation for dropping him for the defeat at Arsenal allowed Ten Hag’s dressing room management to be questioned. Added to the side’s dismal form and doubts about a discernible pattern of play, it cast the Dutchman as veering close to the loss of team control, a managerial quicksand that usually ends in going under.
Joshua Zirkzee’s £35.8m arrival from Bologna means an extra forward is now on the books, further reason to lose one or more from the ranks. Marcus Rashford is also vulnerable in this regard after last season’s paltry return of eight goals in all competitions, which continued a pattern of inconsistent returns. Zirkzee describes himself as a “bit unpredictable at times” so Ten Hag’s hope will be to add a fresh dimension plus goals to an attack that last term lacked the latter. Twenty-six was the contribution from a cohort of Rashford (seven), Sancho (none), Alejandro Garnacho (seven), Antony (one), Amad Diallo (one) and Rasmus Højlund (10) to the total of 57 in the league, as United ended the campaign with a goal difference of minus one.
Zirkzee is on a break having been part of the Netherlands’ squad at Euro 2024 and, as such, will not feature against Rangers. But Leny Yoro, who completed his £52.2m move from Lille on Thursday, is in contention to play, and for United’s new chief executive, Omar Berrada, the French defender can be held up as an era heralding acquisition: a planting of United’s flag in the territory of slick and smart recruitment.
Yoro, like Zirkzee, has to perform to prove this status. As does Ten Hag to show it was the right call for him not to be sacked, his status at Old Trafford essentially saved on the back of winning the FA Cup in the very last game of last season. But after the self-proclaimed letdown of Rosenborg, what could the Dutchman say on Saturday if United go down to Rangers?
