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“Football is a results business” is a long-time cliche but it’s cliche because it’s true.
Erik ten Hag’s second season hasn’t seen the results that everyone expected and just like any workplace, murmurs of discontent among the employees, players in this case, started cropping up.
Although the manager has batted away these questions till now, a huge update from Andy Mitten says otherwise.
In an article for The Athletic, Mitten writes that some players have “lost belief and confidence” and have “issues with the way the club has been run”.
He says that players believe strategic review, which recently concluded with Sir Jim Ratcliffe finalising his 25% stake, hasn’t helped matters and created a cloud of uncertainty.
Furthermore, there is a damning indictment of Ten Hag in the report, with one leading agent quoted as saying that the manager “misjudged” the qualities needed to play in the Premier League.
While no names were taken, it is not hard to look at players like Antony, who looked like world-beaters at Ajax but got painfully exposed at Old Trafford.
The recruitment has been scattergun and expensive duds have piled up which United are struggling to shift.
The agent says that the key to Ten Hag’s success at Ajax was a strong Sporting Director in Marc Overmars who took the lead on transfers.
An aligned view on transfers helped Ten Hag concentrate more on the coaching side of things which is where he flourishes.
John Murtough at United is hardly a beacon of success, to put it politely, and probably wouldn’t get that job anywhere else but at Old Trafford.
However, with a new person in the offing for the role, undoubtedly more qualified, and the strategic review concluding, players don’t have much excuse now.
More importantly, with injury troubles subsiding soon and a proper sporting structure expected in the near future, Ten Hag has nowhere to hide either.
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