The last chance for Manchester United and their owners, the Glazer family, is Erik ten Hag. The club won the Premier League title in May of 2007; if Ten Hag becomes the fifth permanent manager to fail to recapture those heydays under Sir Alex Ferguson, United and the Glazers will be left with no other option.
Ten Hag is the only person United and the Glazers are counting on to be the right choice, and with their Premier League campaign set to kick off on Sunday with a home game against Brighton & Hove Albion, we are about to find out if he is the real deal or just another overhyped hire who will suffer the same unfortunate fate as his predecessors.
Sources have told ESPN that after interviewing Ajax coach Ten Hag and former Paris Saint-Germain manager Mauricio Pochettino as the final two candidates for the position earlier this year, the Glazers decided to hire the 52-year-old as a manager because they felt Ten Hag had a “buzz about him” and was a man on the rise.
Ten Hag has also received support from his superiors in his efforts to instill a stronger sense of discipline in the playing group. His outspoken remarks about Cristiano Ronaldo’s “unacceptable” decision to leave Old Trafford before the conclusion of last Sunday’s friendly against Rayo Vallecano suggest that the Dutchman has been given the go-ahead by his managers to take tough measures against any player who doesn’t live up to his high expectations.
But in the post-Ferguson era, we’ve seen and heard all of this before with United. Every new coach has been heralded as the club’s savior only to discover that the experience of leading the team has left him exhausted.
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