Erik ten Hag has been warned by Manchester United interim boss Ralf Rangnick that this season could be the harsh reality for the club going forward after being heavily beaten 4-0 by Liverpool at Anfield on Tuesday night. United are currently sixth in the league - 25 points off the summit.
Ajax manager Ten Hag has just been unveiled as the new man in charge for next season at Old Trafford as United remain on course for their worst ever campaign in the Premier League era. The newly-appointed manager as a huge rebuild job on his hands.
Rangnick believes losses like the two given to United by bitter rivals Liverpool - 5-0 at Old Trafford and 4-0 at Anfield - make Ten Hag's job easier with all of the sides problems exposed this season by the heavy defeats.
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“We have to face the current situation,” said Rangnick, ahead of United's clash at top-four rivals Arsenal on Saturday lunchtime. "We lost on aggregate against Liverpool 9-0, we lost against Manchester City 6-1 on aggregate. The team even lost against Watford 4-1 and a team like Everton, who were not full of confidence, 1-0. This is just the reality, the sad reality. It also makes sense to have a sense of reality.
"We have to acknowledge this reality and this will also help Erik. We spoke about other clubs being in a similar position as United five or six years ago. So if the right lessons are being learned from what's happened this season, this could be one of the good things from what we’re going through right now.
“At least we know what kind of screws we need to turn, which things we need to change and, if that happens, why should Erik not be as successful as he was at Ajax? It’s not just the manager’s quality, it’s about changing all the other things.”
Rangnick is convinced Ten Hag is the best coach that United could have appointed in this moment and thinks Jurgen Klopp's success at Liverpool can be used as inspiration.
“I'm pretty convinced Erik is the best possible coach you could get right now,” added Rangnick. “But obviously he needs the assistance of the whole club, all the people inside the club. I think he will get that and have the chance to mould a new team, together with the scouting department and the board.
“With all respect to Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, I’m sure that they didn’t do all those things themselves. There were also other people involved in those two clubs, people in certain positions, no matter what area it was, in order to rebuild and build something that we want to build here. In all areas, you have to have top people and they have to work together in a very close and very reliable way.”
