Why Erik Ten Hag Would Be The Right Man For The Manchester United Job

Manchester United started looking to next season almost as soon as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was fired as manager in November. With the installation of Ralf Rangnick as an interim boss until the end of the 2021/22 campaign, the Old Trafford club essentially made a public acknowledgment that a rethink was needed.

This process has recently accelerated with the reported interview of Erik Ten Hag as a candidate to take over on a permanent basis this summer. The Dutch coach has achieved great success at Ajax and is widely believed to be willing to leave for the Premier League at the end of the season. Manchester United could be his destination.

Mauricio Pochettino is another name strongly linked with the Old Trafford vacancy with Julen Lopetegui and Luis Enrique also reportedly on Manchester United’s managerial shortlist. All three coaches are elite level operators and would make a statement about United’s ambition to get back to the top of English and European soccer.

However, Manchester United must learn from the many mistakes they have made in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson age with their next appointment. Instead of being reactive, instead of hiring a manager that has already reached the top of the sport, they should opt for someone whose upward trajectory has still to peak.

In this regard, Ten Hag fits the bill better than anyone else. At 52, the Ajax coach couldn’t be called young, but his ideas are fresh and there’s a sense he could help define the next era of soccer at the elite level. The style of play he has imposed at Ajax, as well as some of his tactical methods, highlight this.

Ajax might have made only the last 16 of this season’s Champions League, but their exit to Benfica came as something of a surprise. Until then, the Dutch champions had won all six of their group stage games and had even been tipped by some as challengers to go all the way in the competition.

It’s not just in the success Ten Hag has enjoyed at Ajax (he also took the club to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2019) that his Manchester United candidacy is strong, it’s in the way his team plays. They are dynamic, entertaining and tactically well-structured. Ajax under Ten Hag are the antithesis of everything United have been in recent times.

Of course, Ten Hag would inherit a group of players assembled by other managers before him at Manchester United and so it might take him some time to communicate his ideas. This is certainly something Rangnick, a sharp tactical thinker in his own right, has experienced since taking over at Old Trafford.

Nonetheless, Manchester United must attempt to predict where soccer is going next with the appointment of their new manager rather than react to where it has already been. Their approach of the last nine years hasn’t worked. It’s time to try something new and the appointment of Ten Hag would represent this in a number of ways.