“I told him as a friend and as a coach like me”: Ange Postecoglou revealed the advice he gave Eric Ten Haag for Manchester united and he refused to take it but now he’s full of regrets [Full Details]
Erik ten Hag might feel another set of eyes on him at Old Trafford this weekend when Sir Jim Ratcliffe takes his seat in the directors’ box for the first time since INEOS agreed a deal to become minority owners of Manchester United. Ratcliffe and Ten Hag met at Carrington last week and had a productive discussion, along with INEOS’ head of sport Sir Dave Brailsford, but as much as they might have discussed a vision for the future, the predicament Ten Hag currently finds himself in is inescapable.
We are in mid-January and this is still a United team that has lost more games than it has won in 2023/24. They are closer to 13th than they are to fourth. Yes, Ten Hag has had injuries to deal with, but some of the criticism levelled at the manager has been increasingly fair this season.
One of those is that 91 games into his reign at Old Trafford, there is no discernible style of play or overarching philosophy. United’s success last season was built on an excellent defence and an in-form Marcus Rashford, but tactically this is a side that hasn’t progressed this term.
And those criticisms have only been accentuated by the impact of his opposite number this weekend. Ange Postecoglou has taken charge of 22 Tottenham games but this is unmistakably his side. It has been a team playing in the Aussie’s image since the very first game of the season.
That style has been maintained despite injury issues of his own. Tottenham have been without Micky van de Ven and James Maddison for a couple of months, two of their most important players, while Christian Romero has missed games through suspension and injury. So stretched have Spurs been that Postecoglou has had to play full-backs in central defence. But still he has had his team commit to that high line and attacking philosophy.
It threatened to unravel in the wake of the 4-1 defeat to Chelsea at the start of November, the start of a run of five games without a win and a night when his tactical approach was also questioned. That was the game in which Postecoglou lost Romero, Van de Ven and Maddison and in the next few weeks there was a suggestion of naivety in asking players to do things they weren’t comfortable with.
But perseverance paid off. Tottenham have won five of their last six games and are eight points better off than United are after 20 league games. It’s worth recounting what Postecoglou said in an interview with the Daily Mail a few weeks after that Chelsea defeat and his views on why he won’t compromise on style.
“In the broad church of football philosophies, I have stayed really strict to one religion. I went into a library of football books and got stuck on one section that was about attacking football,” he said.
“It’s the only space I feel comfortable in. If you asked me to set up a team to get a point by playing defensive football I could probably do it but I wouldn’t have anywhere near the conviction as if you asked me to try and win 3-0.
“I actually understand what people are saying about that night [against Chelsea]. If I was on the outside I would be saying the same thing.
“But this is the test for me, isn’t it? The amount of times I hear managers saying: “I would like to play this way but I don’t have the players…”
“I just think: ‘Just do it mate…”
Maybe Ten Hag could have taken on those words, because 18 months in it isn’t yet clear what his football philosophy is. At least it’s not clear at United. At Ajax, it certainly seemed he was dedicated to attacking football.
He might have felt he doesn’t have the players to do it at Old Trafford, but that hasn’t been an impediment to Postecoglou in north London. If anything, it doesn’t reflect particularly well on Ten Hag, who pointed out in his press conference on Friday how quickly his opposite number has changed things.
“He changed the environment there, they’re really proactive, very enjoyable to watch them with a lot of dynamics, very proactive, they combine it with good results,” he said.
Ten Hag also discussed United’s trip to Spurs for that was Postecoglou’s first home game, correctly citing they had “dominated” the game for 35 minutes, but they lost their grip on it. Looking back, perhaps that was an opportunity wasted to beat Tottenham, but there’s also an argument that win was crucial for the Postecoglou project, injecting early belief into the players.
Belief has been washed away at Carrington of late. Ten Hag hasn’t managed to kick on from his first season in charge. Another defeat this weekend, to a side transformed in just six months, won’t be a good look.
