Erik ten Hag was supposed to give Manchester United something they’d sorely lacked: an identity. Instead, the Red Devils capitulated 3-0 to local rivals Manchester City at Old Trafford on Sunday. In doing so, they showed a lack of any real identifying tactical characteristics against a team extremely well-drilled in what they do.
The Ole Gunnar Solskjaer era was criticised for coasting on the brilliance of individual performances with no clear tactical plan. The Norwegian’s ideas primarily surrounded counter-attacking, but it was felt his wider structure wasn’t clearly defined enough. In the era of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool and Manchester City under Pep Guardiola dominating with bespoke ideologies, counters and individual brilliance was seen as a naive approach.
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Ten Hag was the antidote. Ralf Rangnick endured a rotten interim tenure, ironically finding it difficult to implement his very specific tactical concepts at Old Trafford. But Ten Hag was supposed to be the clean slate appointment. Someone who could take the prized ‘Ajax way’ and implement it in the Premier League. Only, he hasn’t.
Ten Hag’s pledge to play out from the back with patient, possession-based football lasted as long as it took for Brentford to hammer United 4-0 in their second game of last season. The Dutchman acknowledged then that he didn’t yet have the players to play his style of football. The problem is, despite spending a reported £407 million on transfers since taking the job, he still doesn’t have a team that can play it.
This has seen the brave new world of Ten Hag’s rebuild give way to a dissatisfying halfway house. During pre-season, Ten Hag spoke of how “We want to be the best transition team in the world.”. When pressed further he listed traits that he believed United need to display. “We want to surprise, we want to play dynamic, we want to play with speed, we want to play aggressive, out of a very good team spirit, because that is United.”
Is this not just what Solskjaer was doing three years ago? The reactive approach that we were told could never work at a top club with title ambitions? That would be left in the dust by clubs like City, Liverpool and even the likes of Brighton & Hove Albion nowadays? Clubs with proactive plans that don’t rely on the toss of a coin as much as a transition-first side does. Ten Hag might very well be attempting to become the “best team in transition”, but he’s doing a worse job of it than Solskjaer did.
Ten Hag’s predecessor as permanent manager may have left things up to the footballing gods a little too much, that is true. But lest we forget he rode that gamble to a Premier League runners-up spot in 2020/21 with a creditable third place the following year. Ten Hag’s promising first season brought a third spot too, and something Solskjaer couldn’t deliver in an EFL Cup triumph. But Ten Hag has now regressed. Last season was a grace period to get his ideas across. Now with more time to implement his approach and more of his own signings to do it with, United have sharply regressed.
Seven wins and seven defeats in all competitions this season tells its own story. But even digging into the wins, hardly any have been satisfying performances. Andre Onana was the only thing that stood between United and a humiliating draw with Copenhagen, after his injury time penalty save kept it 1-0. The same player was a lucky boy not to concede a penalty on the opening day, when the Red Devils squeaked past Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0. Every victory seemingly has come with caveats.
One area Ten Hag has excelled in so far is discipline. From making the team run eight miles the day after the Brentford defeat to his no-nonsense handling of Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho; the former Ajax boss has distanced himself from the permissive Solskjaer era. But such displays of authority will only continue to land if the manager is bringing results on the pitch. In that category, suddenly the laissez-faire Solskjaer days don’t seem so bad.
Ten Hag needs to figure out what he wants Manchester United to be. The “best team in transition” stuff has failed to convince. Mason Mount is already looking like the new Donny van de Beek, a big midfield signing the manager doesn’t trust. Victor Lindelof and Bruno Fernandes toiled out of position against City while players who can play those roles sat on the bench. Casemiro and Marcus Rashford can’t get near their levels from last season. Rather than building on what he achieved last season, Ten Hag has watched it erode.
Post-match, Ten Hag conceded that the tactical style he has previously employed will never see the light of day at Old Trafford. ‘This is also not why I came here. We are playing different football than I showed at Ajax because I have to, because I can’t play the same way.” But then one wonders why the 53-year-old was hired.
After an uncertain approach under Solskjaer, Ten Hag was supposed to be the tactically-astute antidote. The man to give United an identity. So far he has failed to do so. The 20-time league champions had an identity under Louis van Gaal. They played patient, often drab, possession football. They had one under Jose Mourinho, the same pragmatic approach he divides opinion with at every club. But under Ten Hag there is nothing. No plan beyond a vague fealty to “transition”. Ten Hag might not be able to implement what he had at Ajax with United’s players. But he has to implement something approaching a tactical identity, lest his club continue to plummet. The losses are excruciating and the wins flatter to deceive. Whatever this Manchester United is supposed to be, it isn’t working.
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