The case for keeping Erik ten Hag at Manchester United

Another interesting, if not dubious, Luckhurstian read – The cases for and against Manchester United keeping Erik ten Hag.

While he starts with a waffle about ten Hag’s urgency to bring Kambwala into the fold – injuries to more senior players were the real deciding factors there, he completely overlooks the reality that Van Gaal and Solskjaer wipe the floor with him when it comes to giving academy kids debuts and showcasing them. He doesn’t delve beyond that, good ol’ Sam, because the detail’s devil is an uncompromising little thing with a nasty bite.

Van Gaal used the earlier cup games cleverly by giving debuts to kids he suspected wouldn’t make it, thus giving interested parties demonstrations of greater value. In this age of tight FFP rules, that sounds a good idea.
However, the cream of the crop also need better quality around them at academy level if they are to flourish properly.

It depends on how much respect is paid to the nuances of football development.
Van Gaal proactively put some of the better kids in the shop window because he lacked faith in them – was that to the benefit or detriment of the remaining academy hopefuls?

Mourinho followed and had little interest in the academy which does beg the obvious question – Was the academy purposely overlooked by the incompetent Woodward during a vital period of structural change at City and Liverpool where they started to snaffle up all the brighter local talents simply because he thought United could just Galactico their way through?

I mean, under Ole there came a renewed focus on the academy once the realisation that United were falling away on all fronts finally slapped that blagging Woodward kipper around the face.

The result of this focus continuing and improving was displayed ruthlessly by our U18s on Saturday, who absolutely mashed Liverpool 9-1.
Irrespective of the lazy, desperate and basic excuses I’ve heard from some, this match in Liverpool was an example of how good things can be if the right attention is paid to the right areas by the right people. It was also a good study of how much better and deeper in quality our academy is than that of Liverpool.

Now, back to Kambwala, along with his fellow PL academy graduate Quansah – I wonder what the narrative would be amongst United fans if the former made a mistake like the latter’s yesterday? Where Luckhurst does make a good point is his assessment of how the player-power scourge has created the mess ten Hag walked into – again, purely the…