Erik ten Hag is one of the main contenders for the Manchester United manager's job come the end of this season. The Dutchman rose to prominence with Ajax when he guided the club to the Champions League semi-finals, past Real Madrid and Juventus, in the 2018-19 season. Since then, he has been linked with numerous top managerial roles.
However, the Manchester United job is a particularly special one. The level of expectation and pressure is unlike anything else. As a club, United have been unable to move on from Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013. Legends like Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal lasted less than three years, while David Moyes - currently performing miracles with West Ham - lasted less than one.
Ten Hag is high on the list of Manchester United managerial candidates, but how would he fare at Old Trafford? Here, we will dig deeper into his track record and style of football to try and find an answer to one of modern football's most challenging questions.
As a player, Ten Hag spent his entire career in the Netherlands, where he reached a good level and won trophies with Twente before retiring in 2002. Ten years later, he got his first managerial job with Go Ahead Eagles in the second division. He won promotion to the Eredivisie at the first attempt, leading the club back into the top flight for the first time in two decades.
After a successful debut campaign in management, Ten Hag took the role of managing Bayern Munich's reserves, in the fourth tier of German football. He has since admitted to learning a lot from Pep Guardiola, who was managing the club's first team at the same time. After two years there, he moved back to his home country and took charge of Utrecht.
Leading Utrecht to impressive fifth- and fourth-place finishes in his two full seasons, as well as a Dutch Cup final, he left to become Ajax manager in December 2017. At the time, Ajax were on course to go four years without a league title; under Ten Hag, they have won two out of two, not including a first-place finish in the 2019-20 campaign that was concluded early by COVID-19. He also took Ajax to the Champions League semi-finals in 2019 - their best European performance since 1997.
In the last three decades, only two managers have lasted longer at Ajax than Ten Hag - Van Gaal and Frank de Boer. That tells its own story. In a high-pressure environment, the 52-year-old has enjoyed good results over a sustained period, and has rebuilt the team successfully along the way. This would stand him in good stead if he were to take the Manchester United job.
Of course, there's more to the Old Trafford hot-seat than results. Plenty of managers with glittering resumes have failed to enact the desired change at United and been sacked as a consequence. The club demands not only success, but entertainment.
There are some themes that have cropped up consistently throughout Ten Hag's managerial career. Those are: playing as a team; off-the-ball movement; and getting options between the lines. His Ajax side in 2018-19 were a good example of these basic ideas - they were a pass-and-move team with plenty of fluidity.
Here we see an example during Ajax's away win over Real Madrid. Hakim Ziyech picks up the ball and there are three players moving centrally: Donny van de Beek, David Neres and Dusan Tadic. This creates space on the opposite wing. Left-back Nicolas Tagliafico makes a run into this space to receive the cross-field pass from Ziyech.
Once in the final third, Ajax liked to have plenty of options around the ball for quick combination play. There was a real understanding between players, with step-overs, one-twos and third-man runs all part of their attacking puzzle. Below are some pictures from the Champions League quarter-final win over Juventus that show just how many options Ajax got around the ball in these situations - there were often four or five players in close proximity.
After that campaign, talent flowed out of the club, with Van de Beek, Ziyech, Matthijs de Ligt and Frenkie de Jong all leaving in the two years that followed the Champions League run. Ten Hag had to rebuild the team, and there were small changes in the of play. Sebastien Haller, who Ten Hag also coached at Utrecht, came in to offer a traditional, big No.9. He became the focal point of the attack, ensuring more threat on crosses into the box.
Over the years, Ten Hag has generally preferred some version of a 4-3-3 formation. In 2018-19, he used a 2-1 midfield formation with Van de Beek acting as the runner off of the striker. At other times he has used a 1-2 midfield formation with two attacking midfielders getting forward to support the attack. With Utrecht, he sometimes used a 4-4-2 diamond. Throughout the changes in set-up, the focus on options between the lines and movement off the ball have remained constant.
Due to the way his Ajax teams have played, as well as his learning under Guardiola, Ten Hag has been compared to the Manchester City boss. However, he has spoken of being flexible and doesn't like to model himself on other managers. "I am who I am. I'm not a copy of somebody else," he said in August 2020. "You can learn from coaches who inspire you, but the main thing is that you work in a way that fits your personality."
On paper, Ten Hag has plenty of the elements needed to manage a club like Manchester United. However, the reality is not quite so simple. While both clubs want to win titles each year, there are big differences in the way Ajax and United go about their business. Ajax is a stable club with a strong history in developing their own talent and recruiting well from abroad. Manchester United, on the other hand, have lacked any coherent strategy in recent seasons, overloading on attackers without sorting the defence, and signing players past their primes.
If he were to manage Manchester United, Ten Hag would find himself up against the same issues with regards to recruitment and player development that others like Mourinho, Moyes and Van Gaal struggled with in the past. The club's lack of strategy, when mixed with high fan expectations, is more of an issue than the calibre of managers they have hired. It's for this reason that iconic ex-player Ole Gunnar Solskjaer lasted longer than any of the above, despite lacking any top-level track record and despite failing to make any real improvements on results or of play.
Ten Hag has enjoyed success at different levels, and has shown he can work effectively in a high-pressure environment. He has won titles and plaudits along the way. Manchester United are an enigma, and it's almost impossible to predict how any manager would fare in the job. Few, however, are more qualified for the opportunity than Ten Hag.
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