Man Utd icon believes ‘harsh’ Ten Hag sack came ‘too early’ after awful Ratcliffe decision

Manchester United icon and Erik ten Hag’s fellow Dutchman Jaap Stam thinks the timing of the 54-year-old’s sacking was poor.

Ten Hag lost his job on Monday after the Man Utd hierarchy unanimously agreed his time was up following Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League defeat at West Ham.

The Dutch manager replaced Ralf Rangnick after the 2021/22 campaign and was sacked after winning the Carabao Cup in his first season and the FA Cup in 2023/24.

Sporting head coach Ruben Amorim will reportedly replace Ten Hag at Old Trafford and has already told the Red Devils board to sell four players who ‘don’t interest him’.

Man Utd co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe spoke to several managers over the summer but ultimately decided to extend Ten Hag’s contract by 12 months.

The club’s former defender Stam thinks Ten Hag’s dismissal should have come after the FA Cup final win over Manchester City in May rather than two months into the 2024/25 campaign.

He also believes Ratcliffe failed to show Ten Hag any support after the awful decision to extend his contract and criticised the billionaire for speaking to managers while the former Ajax boss was still at the club.

“If they wanted to remove Erik ten Hag as manager then they should have done it in the summer,” Stam said.

“When you’re looking for other managers and talking to other managers, I don’t think it’s good for the current one.

“If you’re not sure about them the decision needs to be made there – but if you agree to a new deal and still want to go ahead with Erik then you need to follow through and support him in the long term.

“The way it was done at this moment in time was a harsh decision and, for me, done a bit quickly.

“Only two months or so after signing a new contract seems a bit too early to me and I think he should have been given more time.”

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Stam did acknowledge that Ten Hag deserves blame but believes the whole club needs to take responsibility for its current state.

“The United players clearly need to step up and they haven’t been performing at the level they should have been – but this is a whole club thing.

“The manager should take responsibility as he’s responsible for the team but higher up things need to be better too; the recruitment and getting the right players in for the correct system and style of player has been lacking.

“If you want to win trophies and challenge the best sides, you need to be consistent and these players haven’t been.

“They are playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world and need to show it each and every week and challenge their team-mates to be better – but we haven’t seen that happen very much in recent years.”

Meanwhile, former Premier League midfielder Steve Sidwell thinks the Man Utd players will show a “massive improvement” under Amorim.

“I think if that appointment happens, the players will embrace that like you can’t believe,” Sidwell said on Sky Sports.

“I think they’re going to be over the moon with someone that plays forward-thinking, on the front foot, attacking football, dynamic, intensity, aggressive in their possession, aggressive when they haven’t got the ball.

“I think we’re going to see a massive improvement from these players, which is wrong in terms of you shouldn’t have to be motivated to play for any football club, let alone Manchester United.

“That didn’t happen under Ten Hag. Now I think with this man coming in, he’s just going to give them that lift.”