Manchester United certain to sack Ten Hag now worse manager has ‘piled pressure on’
Erik ten Hag has survived atrocious results and performances over more than two years as Man Utd manager. But Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has signalled the end.
Keane eye for detail
Mediawatch should have anticipated this after Thursday’s slight but considerable misrepresentation of a Roy Keane quote by click hoarders who ought to know better but crucially could not care less.
But in a quiet midweek lull, newspapers inevitably grasp at the opportunity for the juiciest possible back page about a game which took place five days ago; Manchester City and Arsenal have both played since and yet here we still are.
It is still huge news by Friday, with the Daily Mirror leading the way by sticking the eye-catching ‘DINOSAURS’ quote in their headline. That one is absolutely fair game but twice they repeat the “a small team with a small mentality” line while unfortunately omitting the “like a” preface which really is a quite important part of what Keane said and can’t just be ignored.
‘Roy Keane branded Arsenal “dinosaurs” and a “small team with a small mentality” in a savage blast at the Gunners’ safety-first tactics,’ writes Mike Walters.
Except Keane did no such thing; he said “if Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce or Neil Warnock set up a team like that for the second half, they are ‘dinosaurs'”. Again, it is only a slight misquote but it changes the context entirely. He did not ‘brand’ Arsenal “dinosaurs” at all, he just said the perception of their performance would have been different in different circumstances.
Yet that is better than sister publication the Daily Star‘s effort, which uses Walters’ words too but pretends that a subhead of ‘Mikel’s a dinosaur snarls Keano’ is an even vaguely accurate representation of something that has actually happened.
Sol searching
The Sun choose an entirely different sort of back-page nonsense: the obvious statement dressed up as earth-shattering breaking news.
‘SOLSKJAER: I’D LOVE TO BOSS UNITED AGAIN’ is a daft enough headline to this particular Neil Custis story – manager currently out of coaching work would take back elite-level job from which he was sacked at club he has spent most of his career at, thank you very much – but the idea this in any way ‘heaps pressure’ or ‘turns the heat up’ on Erik ten Hag is laughable.
Solskjaer is behind Ange Postecoglou in the race to become next Man Utd manager based on bookies’ odds. It is a role he has already proven is beyond his capabilities. If finishing eighth does nothing to impact Ten Hag’s position at the helm then it doesn’t feel like someone who hasn’t coached in any meaningful capacity since being sacked from the same job in November 2021 saying he’d take the job back changes much either.
As for Solskjaer ‘revealing he would love to return as Manchester United boss,’ again, are we supposed to be surprised? Of course ‘he would love to return’ to a job entirely above his station. Come back to us when someone whose only previous posts were at Man Utd reserves, Molde and Cardiff says he would turn down a Man Utd job which will not be offered to him again.
Hell, the only thing Solskjaer even said was that “if the family [United] asks, I would say yes every day of the week”. That “if” is doing a ludicrous amount of heavy lifting in this imaginary scenario. He’s basically said he would accept a job offer which does not and will not again exist.
It is such big news, by the way, that it isn’t deemed worthy of appearing on The Sun website‘s homepage whatsoever.
MORE ON THE MAN UTD MANAGER SITUATION FROM F365
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Price of admission
The Daily Mirror website take that ball and run with it into the distance.
Top of their football homepage – this is the biggest story in the entire sport, remember – is this offering:
“FOREVER WELCOME!” Man Utd statement on Solskjaer’s chances of return speak volumes – but would Ratcliffe deliver on promise amid Ten Hag pressure?’
That ‘Man Utd statement’ was delivered upon his sacking almost three years ago, when the club said that ‘Ole will always be a legend at Manchester United’ and ‘he will forever be welcome back at Old Trafford as part of the Manchester United family’.
It ‘speaks volumes’ about the fact he played 366 and managed 168 games for them. It says nothing about his ‘chances of return’ in any capacity beyond something ceremonial or as a supporter. To imply it pointed to some sort of future comeback as a manager is beyond misleading.
As for the ‘would Ratcliffe deliver on promise amid Ten Hag pressure?’ question: nope.
Another story focuses only on Solskjaer’s comments with this headline:
‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer opens door to sensational Man Utd return if Erik ten Hag is sacked’
The slight issue being that the door isn’t really Solskjaer’s to open.
And the first paragraph exposes something of a theme:
‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted he would love to return as Manchester United manager if under-fire Erik ten Hag leaves his post.’
Someone has ‘admitted’ they would take back a job into which they were grossly overpromoted in the first place before eventually being sacked from it? How did they manage to extract that confession?
Pushing down on me, pushing down on you
And then there is this from the MailOnline:
‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer piles pressure on Erik ten Hag by opening the door for sensational Man United return three years after Old Trafford sacking’
Ten Hag has survived all manner of atrocious results and performances over more than two years. But yeah, a manager who already failed in the same post has really ‘piled pressure’ on by stating the obvious.
This just in
Writes Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail:
‘On Wednesday night at Anfield, an under pressure Premier League manager lost a game 5-1 and managed to injure himself while urging his team on from the technical area. He then appeared in the post-match press conference on crutches. It’s a proper story, that.
‘Yet it wasn’t Julen Lopetegui and West Ham who were leading sports bulletins that night or featuring heavily on the back pages of the newspapers the next morning. No, those slots were reserved for Manchester United. Just as they were on the BBC football homepage, the talkSPORT website and the rest.
‘United had drawn a rather mundane Europa League tie with FC Twente 1-1 at Old Trafford. Not much had happened. There were no major incidents in the game. No managers on crutches. But United hadn’t won and when that happens the biggest football club in the land tends to find its way to the very top of the news agenda.’
Spoiler alert: Man Utd would have led sports bulletins or featured heavily on the back pages of the newspapers the next morning if they had won, drawn, lost or simply just existed. It’s because they are Man Utd and they tend to dominate the reporting regardless. It’s weird that a prominent journalist of rather many years might be surprised by this.
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