Erik ten Hag faces urgent test after Manchester United assemble top team

Erik ten Hag believes he can work with the new incoming Manchester United appointments

Erik ten Hag believes he can work with the new appointments (Manchester United via Getty Imag)

New co-owner, new chief executive, new sporting director. If part of Erik ten Hag’s task is to ensure that the wind of change at Manchester United does not blow in a new manager as well, he is making a point of welcoming the new regime, both definite and prospective.

United are preparing an official approach to Newcastle for Dan Ashworth, their sporting director and a man who could prove Ten Hag’s immediate boss; perhaps not immediately, though, because while United would want Ashworth to start straight away, he could serve a lengthy period of gardening leave. United, conscious Newcastle have little leeway within Profitability and Sustainability Rules, are in no mood to ease their financial situation by paying them £10m in compensation. Meanwhile, Omar Berrada, the chief operations officer for Manchester City, will become CEO once he completes his own period of gardening leave. The first in the building will be Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose £1.3bn deal for a 25 percent stake in the club, and control of footballing operations, should be complete next week.

There will be seats on the board for Jean-Claude Blanc, the former Juventus CEO, and Sir Dave Brailsford, the mastermind of a period of unparalleled success for British Cycling and Team Sky. If the attempt is to construct an off-field outfit who represent the best in class, Ten Hag relishes the aspiration. “You feel that ambition and it brings a mood and brings a spirit in this club,” he said. “I think the players and the staff are very aligned with the ambitions of Ineos because that’s why are here, that’s why we’re playing for Manchester United. We want to win and achieve the highest. We are very aligned, we have to make strategies and we have to execute strategies to prove the ambitions.”

It places a burden of proof on both him and his side after a season of underachievement that is only partly explained by injuries. Rather than achieving the highest, United are currently in sixth.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is looking to do big things at Old Trafford (Martin Rickett/PA) (PA Wire)

The changes at executive level will impact Ten Hag – even assuming a manager with a three-year contract remains in situ for the last year of his current deal – but he will have no input in the choice of a sporting director. “I talk with the new sporting organisation but it is not up to me,” he said. The highly-rated Ashworth, however, is known well to Brailsford. Jason Wilcox, Southampton’s director of football, has a fine relationship with Berrada and is an option to work with Ashworth.

The transfer specialists are yet to arrive but Ten Hag is involved in discussions about what comes next. “My focus point at this moment is on this team,” said the Dutchman. “We plan in this construction what we have in the club and for the future. We have a look and now the window closed in January, we are working on the plans for the summer.”

Ashworth had an excellent record in the transfer market at Brighton. Ten Hag’s return at Old Trafford is more mixed. Some £400m has been spent in his reign with the success of Lisandro Martinez offset by the expensive failure of Antony. Rasmus Hojlund is starting to score a goal a game, but Mason Mount has barely played and is still weeks from a return.

Mason Mount has not had an ideal start at Manchester United (Getty Images)

A theory is that Ten Hag has been afforded too much influence in recruitment by football director John Murtough. Yet he worked well with director of football Marc Overmars at Ajax. He argued he can team up effectively with others. “I have worked in several situations where sometimes I was alone in charge, sometimes I had cooperation,” he said. “You need people around who are on the same page, working on the same targets to achieve the high ambitions. It’s very important to have very good communication so you get the right players but also the right characters. That means you have to be aligned. It’s a long process to get the right players in.”

For United, it has tended to be an expensive one, too. Some £1.5bn has been spent on players since Sir Alex Ferguson retired and United have not mounted a title challenge since then. They have not been a byword for the best in the last decade. Ten Hag tried to channel Ferguson’s ethos but arguing that whatever United do, it should never be enough. It may have been a message designed for a select audience: of Ratcliffe, Brailsford, Blanc, Berrada and Ashworth.

“In a club as Manchester United you can’t do everything alone, it is impossible, you need very good people around you,” he said. “I am happy but a club like Manchester United also have to look for better, never be satisfied. Good is not good enough, always look for better and always try to every day to do better than the day before.”

With the injection of ambition above and around him, it was Ten Hag’s case to be part of the new team off the pitch.