The stat that proves Ten Hag is Man Utd's best manager EVER

Tom Hancock

• Updated: 14 Apr 2023 09:41 BST
• 3 min read

Erik ten Hag took charge of his 50th game as Manchester United manager on Thursday night – and his record to date makes for impressive reading.

The Dutchman won’t have been best pleased to see his side throw away a 2-0 lead late on to draw 2-2 at home to Sevilla in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie – but avoiding defeat ensured he reached half a century of matches with a win rate of exactly 50%.

Ten Hag has overseen 35 victories, seven draws and eight losses in all competitions since taking over last summer, giving him the highest win percentage in Man Utd’s 145-year history.

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Of course, it’s still relatively early days in Ten Hag’s Old Trafford reign, but Ten Has has made a fine start to his longer-term mission to transform Man Utd’s fortunes.

If Man Utd make it to the Europa League and FA Cup finals, they will have 15 more fixtures in league and cup this term; even if they were to lose all of them, the 53-year-old would still finish the campaign with an overall win rate of 53.8%.

That would keep him well within the top 10 on the all-time list of Man Utd bosses, ahead of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal.

Still a long way to go

In fact, Moyes – the immediate successor to Sir Alex Ferguson – lasted only 51 games at the helm, finishing with a win percentage of 52.9% (admittedly, he wasn’t handed a £200m war chest to rebuild the squad as Ten Hag was).

It’s fair to say that, barring an unfathomable nosedive in form, Ten Hag should spend immeasurably longer than Moyes in the Old Trafford dugout.

But he’ll probably do well to emulate the legendary Ferguson – who managed a whopping 1,500 games over 27 years, winning just under 60% of them (59.6%, to be precise).