Erik ten Hag cut a smug figure a few weeks ago after it was decided by the INEOS Group, {statorium_team tid=7 text="Manchester United’s"} minority owners in charge of the football at the organisation, that he would continue on as the men’s team manager. However, in his first match of the 2024/25 pre-season preparations, he fell to {statorium_team tid=151 text="Rosenborg BK"} of the Norwegian Eliteserien, spurring talks of his actual readiness to change things.
Before the match, the former AFC Ajax Amsterdam manager said, "It's always exciting going into a new season and with the first match of a season, you're looking forward. We had one week of training and we want to see what we put into training transferred into this match."
That statement did not age well and fans took to social media to express their concerns over the Dutchman’s team. Some of them even asked INEOS to go after Gareth Southgate, who announced his exit from the Three Lions of England after failing to win his second-straight UEFA European Championships final.
That request is dead on arrival according to multiple sources, who claim that INEOS have decided to throw everything into backing the Dutchman at the club this season. The sources, as cited by Daily Mail, also revealed that the first name on their list if things go south with ten Hag is former Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Bayern Munich boss Thomas Tuchel and not Southgate.
Ten Hag, meanwhile, did not hold back his thoughts on the state of his team after their defeat to the 11th-placed team in the Norwegian top-flight.
The United boss said to MUTV: "The result is not secondary. Our performance as a team is by far not good enough. This is not the standard for top football. We can’t be match fit at this moment. They have a much higher fitness level but we are Manchester United we must perform better."
“Of course we play (at the moment) in pre-season, but at Manchester United the standard has to be winning games and definitely not to lose games."
“If you can’t win, don’t lose the game, but we did (lose) in the end, in the last seconds of the game. Of course, the performance is more important, but we know the performance was below (the) standard.”
This was not received well by fans either, with some claiming he should bear sole responsibility for how the team played in pre-season.
United also got to see their team’s new dugout which had Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake, This change, though exciting, is a bad omen for ten Hag according to pundit Phil Thompson.
“I think he [Ten Hag] is going to have a hard season. His position now at Manchester United reminds me of Liverpool,” Thompson said on talkSPORT. “When Brendan Rodgers was there they got rid of two of his coaches. That’s exactly what’s happened at Manchester United."
“Surely the coaches are doing what Ten Hag tells them to do. To me, he’s a dead man walking."
“Have they got someone else in mind? We know that they were looking at so many other managers quite openly and I thought it was disrespectful to Erik ten Hag.”