Erik ten Hag has received his strongest backing yet from Sir Jim Ratcliffe after the Manchester United minority owner labelled the Dutchman “a good coach”.
Ineos approached replacements for Ten Hag before the FA Cup final and in the two weeks after the victory against Manchester City, before deciding to keep faith with the 54-year-old. Ten Hag oversaw a desperately disappointing season last term, finishing eighth in the Premier League and bottom of their Champions League group, but victory against City in the cup final helped convince Ineos to grant him a third season.
That only came after a thorough end-of-season review that also saw them sound out other bosses, including Thomas Tuchel. Ten Hag is now expected to agree a new contract at Old Trafford.
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Speaking at The Times CEO Summit, Ratcliffe has given his most vocal backing yet to Ten Hag, having previously kept his counsel when asked about the club’s manager. Ratcliffe, who owns 27.7% of United, refused to comment on Ten Hag after his £1.25bn investment into the club was confirmed in February.
He then released a congratulatory statement after the cup final that didn’t mention Ten Hag by name and United didn’t release any public comments to reiterate their backing for the manager when making the decision to keep him last week. Ratcliffe did an interview with Bloomberg when he said the head coach wasn’t the issue at Old Trafford, but speaking at the summit he offered Ten Hag his first note of public praise in his four months as the key decision-maker at the club. Ratcliffe said the decision to keep Ten Hag was made “because he’s a good coach”.
“The man in the street likes to think that the coach is everything and that everything revolves around the coach, and maybe it did in the days of Alex Ferguson,” he added.
“But if you look at those 11 seasons at Manchester United we’ve had a whole series of coaches, and some of them are very good ones, we’ve probably had seven coaches and none of them have succeeded at all.
“You can’t prescribe the root of the problem to the coach. It’s the environment they’re working in. That’s where we are putting our efforts — the management, the practices, the quality of the people, all those types of things that we have to address at Manchester United — which is what we would do in [any] business.”
Ratcliffe also expanded on his comparison between United and Real Madrid and their divergent paths in recent years. In the Bloomberg interview he had said he wanted United to be like Real Madrid and now explained the progress they have made in the Spanish capital.
“If you compare, since the day that Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill [the former United chief executive] retired 11 seasons ago, Manchester United with Real Madrid, they have consistently performed well and performed where Manchester United should be performing today,” he said.
“The net spend on players at Manchester United is £1.1billion and at Real Madrid, rather surprisingly, it’s £200million.
“We’ve got some really good players at United, some really good young players. But let’s be blunt. If you look at the squads of Real Madrid and United, Real Madrid have seven players that are valued at over €100million if you look at Transfermarkt [a website that calculates footballers’ market value]. United do not have any players over €70million or €80million.
“With the £900million [saved on net spend compared with United] Real Madrid built the best football ground in the world, the new Bernabeu. It’s absolutely spectacular.
“So there we are, 11 seasons, they’ve got a better squad and have managed to [re]build the Bernabeu, and we’ve got a ground — you probably saw the headline the other day ‘The third-highest waterfall in Britain’.”
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
