Visionary Ferguson solved Man Utd Ten Hag sack conundrum seven years ago
It’s a wide-ranging Mediawatch today. There’s a very great deal of nonsense about Sir Alex Ferguson and his chosen Erik Ten Hag successor, while elsewhere we bring news of an interesting new Tottenham fan and Frank Lampard turning nasty.
The Chosen One
You might not have noticed, but there’s been a fair bit of chat around about Manchester United this week, and specifically the future of their manager Erik Ten Hag.
There is therefore all manner of noise about potential replacements for the Dutchman. All fair, all part of the game. Let it never be said we haven’t dipped our own toes repeatedly in those particular temptingly warm waters.
But you couldn’t ask for a clearer example of just how much of the noise is complete guff than Wednesday morning’s talk of a supposedly Sir Alex Ferguson-endorsed move for Max Allegri.
We’ll start with the Mirror because they are, to no great surprise, probably the most shameless.
Sir Alex Ferguson tells Man Utd who should replace Erik ten Hag as sack plan emerges
Mediawatch will work backwards, if we may.
The ‘sack plan’ that ’emerges’ on this cold yet mercifully dry Wednesday morn appears to amount to this:
On Thursday they head to Porto in the Europa League having drawn their latest European clash with Twente. The Portuguese outfit are among the favourites to win the competition.
Following that they head to Aston Villa – a side who are likely to be their competition for the top four. Should both results go against United then Sir Jim Ratcliffe and co could be left with little choice but to change, despite only handing Ten Hag a new deal in the summer.
Well… yeah. That’s probably right. It does indeed seem highly unlikely that Ten Hag, a manager who began the season under immense pressure anyway, could survive bollocksing up the unbollocksupable (shut up, it’s a word) new-look Europa League while also losing a third Premier League game against a direct rival in quick succession.
That’s not really a ‘sack plan’, though, is it? That’s just some speculation based on the probable outcome to a specific scenario. There is no-one here from United with details of such a plan or any emergence of anything at all beyond reasoning – as any of us can – ‘Yeah, he’s surely cooked if this week goes badly’.
But that’s not the main thing here, clearly. What’s this Ferguson stuff? That’s always good fun where Manchester United are concerned. And he’s told Man United who should replace Ten Hag, has he? That’s quite forward of him, especially given how the whole Moyes thing went down.
But we’re sure he retains the ear of plenty in the leaky corridors of power at Old Trafford, so if he’s marched in there telling them who to replace that Dutch idiot Ten Hag with, then that’s definitely news.
Hell, even if he’s just given some recent quotes saying Ten Hag should go and identifying his favoured replacement then we’d allow it, even if technically that would only really be indirectly telling Man Utd what to do.
Worryingly, though, there are no quotes whatsoever to be found in this Mirror report. Seems a bit strange.
And the intro immediately backs down a fair bit from ‘tells Man Utd’:
Sir Alex Ferguson is an admirer of Max Allegri and would back him as the next Manchester United boss, according to reports in Italy.
Right, that’s not really the same thing at all is it? He’s not telling anyone anything here. But we do have another clue – reports in Italy.
This in fact turns out to be a single report, with the Mirror growing less bullish about the whole thing the further the story progresses.
His time at Juventus recently ended and the Italian, a serial Serie A winner and two-time Champions League finalist, is understood to have the backing of Ferguson, claims Gazzetta dello Sport.
Two of journalese’s key weasel words – ‘understood’ and ‘claims’ – within eight words of each other is always one to set the ol’ Spidey Senses tingling.
Off to the Gazzetta we go, then. Surely they’ve got an actual quote or something from Ferguson that stops this all being a giant heap of nothing.
Well, no. They’ve got this, with all apologies for Google Translate’s perfunctory skills.
The candidacy of Max Allegri is taking shape, free after the termination of his contract with Juventus. His most fearsome competitor is the German Thomas Tuchel, formerly of Bayern Munich, but also in the past at Chelsea.
And if for the former Borussia Dortmund obviously the experience already gained in the Premier League is valid, the coach from Livorno has an exceptional sponsor on his side: Sir Alex Ferguson, the great sage of the United world.
Always an admirer of our football, in his idea of change there is the name of Allegri, identified as a manager like Ancelotti.
Even with the less than flowing translation, this reads like what it clearly is: a highly speculative column based primarily on the writer’s own opinion. Absolutely nothing specific from Ferguson at all; certainly nothing to indicate that his opinion on Allegri as a manager is a response to the current situation rather than a general respect and admiration for a manager it would be far weirder if he didn’t admire.
The Gazzetta piece even concludes its whole throwaway vibe with a casual ‘We’ll see how it goes’; this is not in any way some grand anointing from Sir Ferg, declaring Allegri as his chosen solution to United’s current specific crisis.
That is literally it.
Remember again how the Mirror headline these few pars of an Italian column:
Sir Alex Ferguson tells Man Utd who should replace Erik ten Hag
And they’re so very, very far from alone.
There’s the Metro.
Sir Alex Ferguson recommends Massimiliano Allegri to Manchester United as possible Erik ten Hag replacement
And Goal.com
Sir Alex Ferguson picks out ideal manager to replace Erik ten Hag as struggling Dutchman given ‘two games’ to save his job at Man Utd
And, with their customary commitment to brevity, the Mail…
Sir Alex Ferguson ‘has chosen Erik ten Hag’s replacement at Manchester United’: Bombshell report in Italy claims legendary manager has had his say as pressure mounts on under-fire boss
And a formerly good football website:
Ferguson personally endorses leading manager at Man Utd as Ten Hag replacement
And The Sun:
Sir Alex Ferguson ‘recommends six-time league-winning manager’ to succeed under-fire Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag
For what it’s worth, the most recent actual quotes Mediawatch can find from Ferguson in praise of Allegri are seven years old, talking about Juventus’ defeat to Real Madrid in the 2017 Champions League final; quotes that have, we suspect, themselves gone through our old friend Google Translate and back again to leave the gist, if not quite Ferguson’s actual words:
“Juventus in Cardiff made it a great first half, then they gave up. But he is an extraordinary coach and has a group that guarantees continuity.”
Ferguson is a man of rare talents, but we don’t think even a visionary of his standing was telling Man United what to do about the Erik Ten Hag situation in 2024 when speaking about Juventus at a coaching convention in Nyon in 2017.
MORE ON THE MAN UTD MESS FROM F365:
👉 Man Utd bungle Ten Hag sack and four other Premier League summer mistakes
👉 Chelsea 4th), Fenerbahce 3rd): Man Utd’s next ten games ranked on likelihood of forcing Ten Hag sack
👉 Ten Premier League managers who outstayed their welcome includes Ten Hag and Wenger
Arrested Development
A lot of other timely and breathless headlines around this morning.
There’s this one from The Mail, for instance:
Manchester City footballer Matheus Nunes ARRESTED and sent to police cells in Madrid after £53m star ‘stole a phone from a fan in a nightclub toilet’
And The Sun:
Man City star Matheus Nunes ‘arrested on suspicion of stealing mobile phone in Madrid nightclub’
And The Daily Star:
Man City star Matheus Nunes ‘arrested on suspicion of stealing mobile phone in nightclub’
A shame, then, that not even the Mail with its fondness for absurdly long headlines found space for ‘almost a month ago’ or ‘released hours later’ until later on.
What’s also interesting here is that the El Mundo story every single UK tabloid is excitedly working from is nowhere to be found on the sport or football homepages on their website. Its publish date reads ‘Updated October 2’ while the copy itself contains the phrase – thanks again, Google Translate! – ‘last Sunday, September 8’.
So what we’ve seemingly got here is a Spanish newspaper quietly and incompletely updating a three-week-old story on their website, and because one UK tabloid happened to notice, they’ve all traipsed in behind to report this breaking, weeks-old news.
We look forward to reading the equally prominent copy they churn out if/when nothing comes of it all.
Also, and without wishing to in any way prejudice any future justice in this very serious case, Mediawatch is rather of the view that when one person is taking pictures of people in nightclub toilets and another person snatches their phone off them for taking pictures of people in nightclub toilets, it’s the person taking pictures of people in nightclub toilets who would appear to have more questions to answer.
Two vaginas, no cups
Mediawatch challenges you, dear reader, to locate or even imagine a more Daily Star intro than this.
Tottenham Hotspur has many famous fans from John Cena, Adele to Tom Holland but the club has now welcomed another supporter who is famed for having two vaginas.
Mediawatch has many, many questions to go with its further ruined internet history (imagine how embarrassing it might be if Mrs Mediawatch goes on our laptop and discovers we’ve been looking at Spurs content again).
Mainly, though, we are tickled by the way the phrasing and lack of punctuation after ‘another supporter’ here means one could read that sentence as implying any or indeed all of John Cena, Adele and Tom Holland also have two vaginas.
Frank talking
It is with some sadness we must report that Frank Lampard has gone over to the dark side. No more light-hearted Lampardian Transitions now – he’s become an actual savage. As the Daily Express put it in their headline, erring if anything on the side of caution.
Frank Lampard savages two Arsenal players as Chelsea legend gets ruthless
Make no mistake, he really has been brutal here. He definitely, as the Express have it, ‘could not bite his tongue’ when absolutely tearing William Saliba and Gabriel to pieces after some unnamed joker suggested they might be among the Premier League’s best ever defensive duos, like John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho.
We include Lampard’s quotes in full here only because this kind of behaviour simply cannot be brushed under the carpet. It must be exposed in order to be eradicated. We would warn readers of a more sensitive disposition that it may be unwise to continue lest the sheer savage terror of Lampard’s lashing tongue cause an attack of the vapours.
Warning duly issued, let us with great trepidation proceed into this teeming nest of unpleasantness.
Asked if Saliba and Gabriel are comparable to his former teammates, Lampard told Amazon Prime Video Sport: ‘No, not yet.
‘If they go and win two or three Premier Leagues and a Champions League then maybe you can compare them.
‘Listen, I’m not putting them down. They are fantastic, young and they’re growing all the time. It’s not fair to make that comparison because this is all ahead of them. But at this point, no. But what they’re doing at the minute is great things. But yeah, win some stuff, boys, and you can get in that conversation fully.’
We hope you – and above all Saliba and Gabriel themselves – are okay after exposure to such wanton savagery.