It hasn’t been an easy start to life at Manchester United for Erik ten Hag. Actually, it’s been f***ing miserable.
Already it is clear that the new manager is struggling to imprint his philosophy on this United squad. We know from his time at Ajax that he likes to play on-the-front-foot, attacking football, collectively pressing from the front, with a high defensive line.
“We want to play a proactive style of football, on the ball and off the ball,” Ten Hag said in an interview with United’s website shortly after taking over. “Trying to do that has to be our intention. The coaches bring it over to the team that we are, in every situation, proactive. We are brave and willing to have the ball, to give each other options. But also off the ball, to get the pressing style is what we’re working for together.”
The evidence of the first two games highlights just how much work the manager has to do. Is it an impossible job? We’ve picked out five – for now – barriers between Ten Hag and the vision he has for United.
We’ll start at the back and work forward…
1) David De Gea is a reactive, not a proactive, goalkeeper
It’s been a wretched start to the season for the United stopper, but his most glaring errors have been technical – it doesn’t matter what style of goalkeeper you prefer, they all have to be able to stop Brentford’s opener on Saturday.
The second goal was more of a worry for Ten Hag. The manager wants his team to play out from the back, which relies on the goalkeeper not only possessing an expansive range of passing but also making sound decisions. The outfield players can make all their prescribed moves but De Gea must be responsible for his choices. Christian Eriksen was clearly in no position to receive it and the obvious pass was a longer one into an attacker while the full-backs were pushed on, having taken out the first line of the Brentford press.
Maybe it’s understandable, if not acceptable, that De Gea’s head was a mess at that moment, coming so soon after his horrible error for the opener. The way he set a wall for a free-kick shortly afterwards suggested his confidence was in tatters.
It’s been 10 years since United hand-picked De Gea when a large part of the attraction to a waifish teenager was his ability in possession. But in the decade that has followed, other goalkeepers have surpassed De Gea in that aspect of his play to the point that the Spaniard almost looks uncomfortable.
When it comes to…
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