Thus ends a 115-year season as fruitless as any for a club destined to perform in the top echelon of the Premier League. When the much vaunted new executive group, the best in the school and who were about to make the great Manchester United once again stay on course against suitability, came to the conclusion that Erik ten Hag’s commitment must prolonged, did you really believe that it would have a much more indisposed design than at the end of October? If this is the case, they have been a giant minority.
It’s at least controversial if, in fact, they believed Ten Hag would get much sicker in the design. After all, spending weeks traversing Europe looking for someone you might like more is almost never a ringing endorsement of your starter’s qualities. Thomas Tuchel is understood to have held talks with INEOS minority homeowners. Gareth Southgate had his admirers, according to CBS Sports resources. Brentford’s Thomas Frank is another well-known name who has been on United’s radar from then until now.
If the right man was not available, there are compelling arguments to limit oneself to what one already has; the same Liverpool manager awaits the availability of Virgil van Dijk. The compromise within the club is that United were looking to see how Ten Hag fared in what they hoped would be a better, more organized structure. Once again, a noticeable nobleman. What none of that should force the club to do is extend the starter’s commitment well into the future, tying them to a stuttering supervisor until 2026.
Less than four months after that announcement, with just 13 games played, United have a significant promise to pay up. The terms of Ten Hag’s travel promise are unknown, but he is known to have earned just under $12 million in earnings going forward. A club that reported a loss of approximately $150 million for the twelve months to June 30 has saddled its balance sheet with a much larger-than-necessary strike, the kind that could consume an immense chunk of the money if stored through rate and activity, reducing the measures instituted through the new control group.
The balance sheet problems don’t end there. Re-engaging with Ten Hag on his current promise was intended to allow him to secure the veto over transfer matters that had been given to him when he arrived from Ajax in 2022. The incessant argument of this current mandate used to be how much influence the executive had. in the recruits who have so often been withdrawn from the Eredivisie. Ten Hag’s own agent, Kees Voss, was very interested in the deals made in the summer of 2023. One future behind his defense was to insist that the signings of Matthijs De Ligt, Noussair Mazrouai and Joshua Zirkzee were collective decisions.
On the contrary, it is irrelevant if these are signings defended through the executive. They appear to be additions compatible with a profile established by a supervisor who had been hanging on by a rope. Ruud van Nistelrooy and his eventual permanent successor must decide what to do with a central striker who fails to score goals, a central defender whose immobility was automatically discovered at Juventus and Bayern Munich and the selection of combined skills with which United had moved away from the ruling six. Even for a club like them, loading the squad and the balance sheet in a presentation when its football identity had not already been prepared, either by the executive or its superiors, is a great waste of money.
What were those 115 days worth for United? Many injuries this season are shaping up to be a wasted future similar to 2021-22 or 2018-19, years in which a goalkeeper had a great presence to confirm that yes, in fact, the man from before had really made an ear of pig. out of all this. The new regime has been much quicker in handing out Ten Hag than the Glazers were in handing out José Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. After once again, they are a long way from fourth place with far fewer games played, seven points from fourth place, seven points from 18th place. The development that there has been this season is rarely so profound as to indicate that it will rush the rest not to a clever coaching feature to propel United into a big push for Champions League qualification in the Premier League.
This team has spent a lot of time playing in what would generously be described as mid-table football: by the end of the final season, they had lost a relegation significance of 1.7 non-penalty expected goals per game. Those nine games have made it clear that their normality has calcified, a team that no longer has the same miserable xG profile it had in the past and is now settling into the top tier of the Premier League. A Europa League run already looks like the most credible route to the Champions League.
In what might seem like the blink of an eye, United wasted a huge amount of money and prepared to do the same for the remainder of the 2024-25 season. As Worn Trafford’s hierarchy look for the executive they couldn’t find in the summer, they will have to know one thing – it will take more than 115 days to deal with the attrition that has been completed since Ten Hag signed his extension. .
