Man Utd: Ten Hag comments on Rangnick prove Ratcliffe on same page
Knowing a bit about how football clubs brief their managers, there are only two possibilities when a boss comes out and says a club needs to be ripped up and started again: either a) they already know theyâre on their way out, or b) that message has been approved by their bosses.
Ralf Rangnick was in the former camp when he said it about Manchester United in 2022; Erik ten Hag very much in the latter having told the Dutch media last week that Rangnick was right.
Co-owner and chief string-puller Jim Ratcliffe has made no bones about that, either, suggesting before the FA Cup final that he expected it to be years before United were back where they feel they rightfully should be.
Having just run the 42km London marathon, Ratcliffe said United were âprobably in the first 10kmâ and that it might take âsix months to a year or 18 monthsâ before the club started seeing the benefits of the ongoing backroom revamp.
Presumably, that was at least part of the thinking behind keeping on Ten Hag when it would have been very easy for them to get rid. That unexpected FA Cup win may or may not have gone some way to the Dutchman earning that reprieve, but the ultimate decision seems to be one of âweâve got enough change going on without making one in the dug-out tooâ.
And now, reports have claimed that ten Hag has not been given a âfinish top four or youâre goneâ ultimatum by United, in recognition of just how much work they have to get through both on and off the pitch before Champions League football can be viewed as the minimum expectation.
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That all adds up to a fairly consistent message from United, which is an encouraging start. In truth, as much as antsy fans may not want to hear it, there is merit in that approachâŠand Ratcliffe is probably spot on in saying that six months in, the club are still less than a quarter of the way through their renovations.
Greater competition and increasingly tight financial regulations mean that the days of catapulting a club to the top at breakneck speed a la Blackburn and Chelsea have been in the past for quite some time.
It took FSG four years to get Liverpool challenging for the Premier League title, and even that 2013/14 tilt came unexpectedly; they only started consistently pushing eight years into their revamp.
Manchester Cityâs story was similar following Sheikh Mansourâs 2008 takeover. Their first league title was delivered after four years, but they only truly became the all-conquering force they are today in 2017/18.
Stan Kroenke took over a drifting and directionless Arsenal in August 2018, and again four years is the magic number: they stayed outside the top four until taking back-to-back silver medals in the past two seasons.
It seems doubtful that United see Ten Hag as their forever manager. The man who just happened to be there when they arrived probably isnât their platonic ideal of what they would want from their gaffer.
But keeping Ten Hag in situ and, for now, on a limited but reasonable brief, helps United to separate the valuable data from the confusing noise. Change manager, and youâve introduced another new variable that has to be considered when assessing where things are going right or wrong. Keep him, and you keep at least something on a like-for-like basis at the core of the changes going on around him.
United will know, though, that they can only talk about their need for change for so long before it starts to feel like yet more empty promises, and that time may well already have arrived. They have made ambitious-looking moves both in the back room and the transfer market; now they probably need to shut up and show they have more than just words to offer.
