Erik ten Hag Proves United Have Manager Worthy Of The Role

By Tyrone Marshall –

It always felt slightly bizarre in recent seasons that on Manchester United’s biggest days of the year it would be Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the opposite dugout to Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp.

Solskjaer was a likeable man, a United legend and a reasonable manager, who did actually achieve some notable results in those fixtures, but in an era when the best bosses in the game have flocked to the Premier League, it always felt like the club were missing a trick by sticking with the Norwegian.

The 49-year-old has now been out of work for 13 months since leaving United and there doesn’t seem to be an obvious route back into the very highest level of the game at the moment. Solskjaer was replaced by Ralf Rangnick, who is now in charge of Austria, and neither is in high demand.

Ever since the sacking of Jose Mourinho in November 2018, this has been a club lacking elite-level leadership from the very top, but with the appointment of Erik ten Hag, they look to have finally bucked the trend.

The decision to hire Ten Hag in the summer was the first time United have recruited an up-and-coming manager approaching the peak of their powers since Sir Alex Ferguson left. It felt like the best days were behind Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho when they got the job, but that is most certainly not the case with Ten Hag.