According to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Manchester United made the decision to retain Erik ten Hag as manager after concluding that the Dutchman is not the cause of the team’s issues.
Prior to Ratcliffe’s post-season evaluation, Ten Hag’s position was seriously in question; in fact, some stories even claimed that the decision to fire the former Ajax manager had been made weeks before.
After holding discussions with several possible alternatives, including Thomas Tuchel, United decided not to pursue their interest and committed to Ten Hag, who is currently negotiating a contract extension.
Ratcliffe gave The Times CEO Summit an explanation for the decision to continue with Ten Hag, saying, “We kept Erik ten Hag because he’s a good coach.” At Ajax, he excelled.
“The average person likes to believe that the coach is everything, and perhaps Sir Alex Ferguson once thought the same way.
Since then, we’ve had a tonne of excellent coaches, but none of them have been successful. The milieu surrounding the coach is the real issue, not the coach himself. That’s what our current focus is on. We need to take care of that surroundings.”
Ratcliffe recently discussed this topic in an interview with Bloomberg.
“The coach isn’t the central issue at Manchester United,” he stated. It’s a club for sports. Since you are playing with relatively young players, it must be competitive and intense to some extent, but it also needs to have a supportive element. That kind of setting hasn’t existed there in the past.”
Ratcliffe and his group have been working hard behind the scenes to restructure United. Next month, Omar Berrada will take over as chief executive, and Jason Wilcox has started as the new technical director for the team.
Dan Ashworth is the desired sporting director, but he and Newcastle United have not yet come to a compensation deal, thus Ashworth is currently on gardening leave.
