Erik ten Hag has paid the price for not recruiting well at Manchester United
For Manchester United fans the pattern is wearisomely familiar. A new manager comes in. There is immediate uplift, results improve. At the end of an uplifting first season he signs a new contract, there is talk of at last finding a proper successor to Sir Alex Ferguson. Then in the second season, fissures appear. Instead of expected improvement, there is sustained deterioration. This accelerates to the point, early in their third season, when the axe falls. And so the process starts all over again. Though this time, we are told, the directors will get it right.
Now Erik ten Hag has been sacked, a total eight managers have taken control of matches in the eleven years since the great man moved from the touchline to the directors’ box. And none of them have come close to matching his win rate of 65.2 per cent, sustained over an astonishing 810 matches in charge.
