Manager of the year? Ten Hag's Man Utd miracle

Paul Macdonald

• 26 Feb 2023 19:05 GMT
• 4 min read

Erik Ten Hag is proving that it’s about more than just personnel when it comes to creating a winning team.

It’s fitting that Manchester United triumphed in the League Cup final against Newcastle on the same day that Chelsea produced one of their worst performances in years.

It’s because the collective unit and the tactics in which they are deployed are often infinitely more valuable than the players that fill them.

READ MORE: €70m rip-off? Casemiro doesn’t play finals, he WINS them

Ten Hag’s United in terms of the quality of the team remains a real work in progress. There are cogs in the wheel here which will likely be reduced to bit-part players or be gone altogether as he evolves the team.

But at the moment the likes of Fred, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Luke Shaw are fulfilling extremely valuable roles within that cog, and that is all down to Ten Hag.

Average players can be exposed by the illiteracy of the system in which they are being deployed in. But average players can also prove to be dependable, reliable professionals when they know their job and that of those around them, and that is arguably Ten Hag’s finest achievement in a season littered with them.

He’s had to deal with Cristiano Ronaldo and all that entailed. He had to work in a transfer market where the premium attached was as high as ever. He had to rebuild the confidence and belief of a team that had been broken by heavy defeats. And he had to find a way of playing that he and the team were capable of.

In eight months he’s done all of this and turned United into a unit that - and whisper it - remind you of a late Sir Alex Ferguson team, in which the sum of the parts were competing in Champions League finals despite having a lack of standout talent beyond Wayne Rooney.

Moments where players shuffle back into position to defend space, to rebuild the shape, to shuffle right to left in harmony, these sound like straightforward elements but they aren’t. Where substitutes enter and they’re coming on for a reason, with a task in mind, rather than simply hoping they’ll do something. And where the team goes out believing they’ll win. That mentality has been forged by Ten Hag and it’s impressive indeed.

And that’s before we mention Casemiro - one of United’s best signings in a decade. An absolute colossus who answered the defensive midfield problem that everyone could so obviously see and yet refused to act upon until the Brazilian was acquired. Fred and Scott McTominay as a duo are weak, but either played alongside Casemiro looks like they can stroll through games. That is his impact, a natural-born winner brought in to create winners of everyone else.

And then there’s the revival of Marcus Rashford, who feels valued, confident, and is producing the best form of his life. These aren’t coincidences, they have been achieved in the environment in which Ten Hag has cultivated. And for him to have done it after countless others have failed since Ferguson departed for good in 2013 is truly a remarkable achievement.

Manager of the year? He may well be at the end of the season.

United are not world class yet. There’s still talent to be added. Take away Rashford’s goals and they still look light in attack. Full-back areas can certainly be upgraded. But it’s far easier to insert them into a structure when the foundations are sound.

And for a long time, that’s all United fans desired - their team to be competitive and give them confidence that they will do everything to win. They proved that emphatically against Barcelona over two legs in the Europa League. And they proved it against a Newcastle team where a win meant everything to them.

United aren’t back, not yet. But the movement of travel is hugely promising. This is a team to be scared of once again.