Erik ten Hag\u2019s reflections on his Manchester United spell did not end with one interview. In a follow-up conversation with The Athletic, the Dutch coach offered further detail on a turbulent period that still invites scrutiny.<\/p>\n
One of the more striking claims concerned Jadon Sancho and the knock-on effect it had on United\u2019s recruitment. Ten Hag said Sancho\u2019s preference for playing on the left created a problem and contributed to the club moving late, adding: \u201cThere came up a problem because Sancho didn\u2019t want to play on the right side; he said that,\u201d Ten Hag explained. \u201cWhich was very weird; he played often on the right. He said he felt more comfortable on the left. So there we had an issue, and we were late.\u201d That delay, he suggested, helped push United toward the signing of Antony for more than $115 million (\u00a386 million). Antony\u2019s return over two-and-a-half years was 12 goals in 96 appearances.<\/p>\n
Ten Hag also pointed to the club\u2019s pre-season tour in the United States as a major factor in United\u2019s poor 2023-24 campaign. \u201cThe tour was so much expectation on the players,\u201d Ten Hag fretted about a schedule that took in New York, Houston and Vegas. \u201cWe got exhausted from all the kilometers. We started in New York, we played in Houston, we played in Vegas, went back, we gave them a couple of days off, and then we didn\u2019t train proper tactical and physical work for 10 days because they were totally killed … We were never fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that injuries and constant reshuffling made consistency almost impossible. \u201cSo it\u2019s almost impossible to get automatism in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The interview also revisited Alejandro Garnacho, whom Ten Hag helped develop. \u201cI regret where he is now,\u201d Ten Hag admitted. He praised the winger\u2019s qualities while noting the need for discipline and trust.<\/p>\n
Ten Hag defended his relationship with players and former professionals in the media, and he also highlighted Marcus Rashford\u2019s best season under his management, stressing Wout Weghorst\u2019s role in that form. \u201cWout was one of the reasons Rashford was so important,\u201d Ten Hag insisted.<\/p>\n
He ended by standing by his broader view of what might have followed. \u201cWe could have won the title if we had continued on building,\u201d he claimed, with a straight face. \u201cBut in that time we were not consistent enough; the squad was not good enough to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ten Hag revisits his Manchester United reign, from Sancho and Antony to Rashford, Garnacho and pre-season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1162,180],"class_list":["post-21874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-analytics","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}