Six reasons Sir Jim Ratcliffe shouldn’t sack Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag

Erik ten Hag has now won two trophies in two seasons as Manchester United manager and has at the very least delayed the swinging of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s axe, which was sharpened ahead of the FA Cup final.

The Dutchman was bullish after the Red Devils’ 2-1 victory over Manchester City and the tide appears to have turned among the fanbase, the majority of whom now want to see what Ten Hag can do with some stability next season.

Sir Jim’s got a decision to make, and we’re here to lend a hand with five reasons why Ten Hag should be given more time, starting with the obvious…

Two trophies in two seasons
“At the end of the day it’s about winning trophies,” Ten Hag said after his side claimed victory on Saturday, before pointedly adding: “If they don’t want me any more, then I go anywhere else to win trophies because that is what I did my whole career.”

It’s a great line, and one that will have played well with the Manchester United supporters, who have been to Wembley on five occasions in two seasons under Ten Hag, and have watched their side win two trophies.

Only Manchester City fans have seen their team claim more gongs in the last two campaigns. If we look at the Premier League table and United’s performances this season, even the most blinkered Red Devils fans would struggle to claim they’re in any position to mount a title challenge against City next season, and yet they have more to show for their failure to usurp the top flight behemoths than Arsenal, Liverpool or anyone else.

Manchester United have beaten Manchester City to win a trophy, what have the other so-called challengers to Pep Guardiola’s behemoth done since Ten Hag has been at Old Trafford? Sweet f*** all.

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Uninspiring alternatives
Manchester United appeared to spend a fair while initially scouring soho coffee shops for latte-sipping, company men who look good in a suit and won’t rock the INEOS boat to replace Ten Hag at Old Trafford.

The only surprise on the back of reports of interest in Graham Potter, Gareth Southgate and Gary O’Neil was that Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s apparent obsession with hiring obediant English sycophants didn’t lead him to Eddie Howe, despite what we assume is as exemplary a LinkedIn page as the other candidates.

Changing the job title from ‘manager’ to ‘head coach’ is a very good indication of the shift in control that’s coming under the new owners next season, with everything other than what happens in training and on matchdays no longer under the purview of whoever that happens to be.

At least Ten Hag, after two years at the helm and two domestic trophies under his belt, would have some power with which to push back against what looks set to be Ratcliffe’s autocratic regime, and that may well be one of the reasons he’ll ultimately be shown the door, with Kieran McKenna more likely to fall into line.

Mauricio Pochettino’s parting of ways with Chelsea may have come at a very good time for Ineos, while Thomas Tuchel has also been linked. But both would be a surprise given they each left Stamford Bridge over disagreements with a structure that looks remarkably similar to the one being built by Ratcliffe and his team at United.

Injury woes
Other teams have had similarly terrible injury problems, but few – if any – have been hit so badly and so frequently in one specific area of their squad.

£55m summer signing Mason Mount barely playing hasn’t been great, and others in midfield and attack have had the odd niggle, but it’s the problems in defence that have provided game-by-game headaches for Ten Hag.

They conceded more goals (58) than ever before in the Premier League, when in Ten Hag’s debut season – without the ludicrous defensive absences – only Manchester City and Newcastle had a better defensive record.

They also faced more shots (660) in the Premier League than everyone but the worst defensive team in history Sheffield United (671) than any other team. Hang on though, this is why Ten Hag shouldn’t be sacked.

The Dutchman’s preferred back four from last season of Diogo Dalot, Raphael Varane, Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw started just one Premier League game together, the win over Wolves at the start of February, with midfielder Casemiro operating at centre-back for the last six Premier League games.

Tyrell Malacia aside, who’s missed the whole season, the United defenders have been absent for 89 Premier League games between them through injury. That’s an extraordinary amount, and the spread and regularity of those problems also means there’s very rarely been consistent selection from one game to the next.

Off-field distractions
Jadon Sancho throwing a strop and Marcus Rashford’s various benders pale in comparison in the distraction stakes to the cycling bloke’s ‘strategic review’ of the club.

With the darn media claiming Ten Hag was ‘basically an interim manager’ from the point it started, it’s hard to imagine a more pressurised environment for a man already in one of the most pressurised jobs in world football to operate in.

There wasn’t really an alternative: the review was necessary and they’ve already made great strides to establish a much-needed structure above the manager (or head coach), and obviously couldn’t go so far as to guarantee Ten Hag his job next season.

They could though have avoided what we have to assume were purposefully leaks of interest in the many other alternatives – including McKenna on the eve of the FA Cup final – with the primary aim of gauging the fans’ response, when we all could have told them it would be luke warm at best without them further ramping up the stress on their current boss.

Faith in youth
Looking at Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo now it’s easy to dismiss Ten Hag’s role in their rise to become arguably the two best players in the Manchester United team with claims that they are simply too good for any manager to have ignored, or that their introductions to the first team were forced rather than by design as a result of their competition for a place being so entirely rubbish.

But Ten Hag’s faith in the youth was also a huge part of his success at Ajax, where Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt and Donny van de Beek among others thrived under his stewardship, and there are plenty of managers who value fast transfer fixes over academy graduates.

With Jason Wilcox arriving as technical director with a view to building the Red Devils academy back up to a point where it can compete with the Manchester City equivalent that he played a huge part in nurturing, young stars recognising that there is a path to the first team will be crucial to that development.

The sack would be costly
The Athletic claimed last month that ‘ideally, those in the INEOS regime do not want to rip it up and start again’. At that point at least they believed ‘the changes going on above him’ – Omar Berrada as CEO, Dan Ashworth as sporting director and Wilcox as technical director – are ‘enough for one summer’.

That’s presumably in part because some sort of stability, given there is also likely to be significant changes among the playing staff, is seen as a good thing for the smooth running of the football club, but money is perhaps more the key to their stance.

Newcastle want £20m in compensation for Ashworth, Southampton reportedly baulked at the offer of a year’s salary for Wilcox and got signiciantly more, and Ten Hag and his staff will have to be paid several millions of pounds if they’re to leave the club this summer, while hiring a replacement is also a consideration given both the implications of profit and sustainability rules and their hopes of revamping the squad.