What does Erik ten Hag want in a striker at Manchester United?

Manchester United’s pursuit of Marko Arnautovic is dead but hinted at what Ten Hag wants from his centre forwards

Cristiano Ronaldo has expressed a desire to leave Manchester United this summer (Getty Images)

When Marnix Kolder was playing in a side managed by Erik ten Hag, his role was fairly uncomplicated. “I was the ‘escape’,” he told The Independent earlier this year. “When the ball was pressured at the back, the long ball from the keeper or the central defender came to me. I don’t know the word in English – a coat stand? The “kapstok”. It’s a typical word in Dutch. The big person they can play the balls to, then you play to the midfielders or to the side.”

In other words, a target man. Kolder was Ten Hag’s centre forward at Go Ahead Eagles during the first year of his managerial career in 2012-13, which ended in promotion to the Eredivisie. At 6ft 2in in height, and despite being the wrong side of 30, he scored a goal every other game in his only year working under the future Manchester United manager, before Ten Hag left the “kick and rush” of the Eerste Divisie, Dutch football’s second tier, that Kolder describes to take charge of Bayern Munich II and work in the orbit of Pep Guardiola.

You do not usually associate Guardiola with a big, powerful “kapstok” – not until now, at least. But Ten Hag has always had a more pragmatic streak than Guardiola, and has not been averse to playing with a more traditional, powerful centre forward, not just when he was in the Eerste Divisie.