Manchester United’s patience with Erik ten Hag was admirable, but misplaced

Manchester Utd

Updated Oct. 28, 2024 12:26 p.m. ET

For at least the last year of Erik ten Hag’s mostly unsuccessful 29-month stay as Manchester United’s manager, the big question was “What will it take?” What will it take for the Dutchman, who last season presided over United’s worst Premier League campaign ever, to be shown the door at Old Trafford?

The answer finally came on Monday, when United — currently 14th in the 20-team Prem standings — announced that it had finally, mercifully parted ways with Ten Hag.

It was the right decision. It was the only one. And in an industry where coaches at the highest level usually don’t get nearly as much rope, it was also a long time coming.

Look at Ten Hag’s tenure compared to Claudio Ranieri, who in 2016 led 5000-1 underdog Leicester City to the English title. Just nine months after overseeing one of the most miraculous achievements in sports history, Ranieri was fired by the Foxes. Tottenham Hotspur whacked Mauricio Pochettino, now the boss of the U.S. men’s national team, just five months removed from the club’s first (and still only) appearance in the Champions League final. It’s crazy. Normal, too.

The current average tenure for a Premier League manager is fewer than 800 days — or around 26 months. That’s actually up from 2022-23, when the 13 Premier League managers let go during that season had been on the job for an average of 1.57 years. A little more than a decade earlier, the average was closer to four.

Legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Fergusson’s 21-season reign skewed that figure, to be sure. And more than 10 years after he stepped away from the sideline, Ferguson’s presence still looms over his former club and their decision-making today.

United ran through coaches after Ferguson first retired. His hand-pocked predecessor, David Moyes, didn’t survive his debut season. Louis van Goal lasted less than two years.

There was a realization that stability was needed after Van Gaal left, though then CEO Ed Woodward had little choice but to move on from the cantankerous José Mourinho midway through the Portuguese’s third season in Manchester after Mourinho alienated players and staff and clashed with Woodward over transfer targets.

When club legend Ole Gunnar Solskjær was dismissed in 2021, he was a month shy of the three-year mark.

Manchester United deserves credit for its patience in recent years, and for sticking with Ten Hag for as long as it did. Clubs are far too quick to pull the trigger these days, and often it’s counterproductive; neither Leicester nor Tottenham have ever come close to duplicating the success they enjoyed under Ranieri and Pochettino respectively.

But the truth is that Ten Hag was never a great fit for the Red Devils, and it became obvious early on. Though he arrived following an impressive four-year run with Ajax that included three Eredivisie titles and the Amsterdam giant’s first Champions League semifinal berth since the 1990s, he wasn’t a big enough name or personality.

Manchester United might not be the world beating titan it was under Fergie, but it’s still one of the planet’s most popular sport’s biggest brands. The spotlight is white-hot whoever is at the helm. Ten Hag never seemed comfortable with that.

It might not have mattered if the results were there. They weren’t. Sure, there were highlights. Nine straight wins during his maiden campaign in 2022-23. A third-place finish that season, plus an EFL Cup. Ten Hag leaves with a higher winning percentage than Moyes, Solskjaer andVan Gaal.

But Ten Hag also lost a higher percentage of his games than all but Moyes. He dropped derbies 6-3 to Manchester City and 7-0 to Liverpool that first season. After his team conceded more goals than it scored in 2023-24, it took an unlikely FA Cup final win over City and Pep Guardiola last spring to save him. Even then, the club waited more than two weeks to announce that it would stick with Ten Hag — and only after its approaches to several other candidates, including Pochettino and former Bayern Munich and Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, leaked in the British press. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Last season’s warning signs turned into a five-alarm fire this fall. United has scored just eight times in nine Prem matches so far. A perennial Champions League contender for much of the Ferguson era, United is win-less through three Europa League contests. Sunday’s stoppage time defeat to West Ham was simply the last straw.

Where does one of Europe’s traditional powers go from here? Pochettino isn’t available now. Neither is Tuchel, who earlier this month was hired to lead England through the 2026 World Cup. Ruud van Nistelrooy will serve as interim boss; the former United striker is also the bookies’ favorite to take the job full-time.

German national team coach Julian Nagelsmann is another possibility, as is former Red Devils midfielder/current Middlesbrough manager Michael Carrick. Graham Potter, late of Brighton and Chelsea, is available. So are marquee names like Xavi, Zinedine Zidane and longtime England boss Gareth Southgate.

Whoever ends up filling one of soccer’s most scrutinized roles, Manchester United must get the pick right first, before lavishing the new man with the support and the time he needs to turn the tide.

Ten Hag, as it turns out, was given only enough rope to hang himself.

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports. A former staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports, he has covered U.S. men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.