Man United needs nothing but a radical approach to make things work- MINTAH Writes

The Manchester United-Liverpool rivalry is the biggest in England. Even in the face of Manchester City’s rise to prominence in recent years, Arsenal’s remarkable run under Arsene Wenger and Chelsea’s rise some years back under former owner Roman Abramovich, the Red Derby between The Red Devils and The Reds tops every game in England.

As such, seeing Jurgen Klopp’s now viral reaction to Manchester United’s 0-3 loss to Newcastle United in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup highlighted the wretched run Man United is in to the extent that the manager of Man United’s biggest rival couldn’t help but empathize with his contemporary on the opposite side.

Looking at Man United’s form guide this season, one might just be tempted to tag it as the debut season for Ten Hag at Old Trafford considering United has rotated wins and losses as sharply as a wind turbine thus far in the campaign.

From bagging a 2-1 win over Sheffield United in the league and registering a 1-0 win in the Champions League over Copenhagen, to losing 3-0 in a limp performance to Man City and following it up with a sham display against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup.

It was a poignant moment as United lost its title defence of the Carabao Cup in an embarrassing form since the competition summed up the Red Devils in Erik Ten Hag’s first season.

In that season, Man United under the Dutchman looked well coached, played better as a unit with individuals (notably Marcus Rashford) doing same and most importantly, looked like a side on the verge of becoming the elite team it was for several years under legendary trainer Sir Alex Ferguson.

Times have changed so quickly that at the time of writing this piece, anything you can think of and everything you can think of is wrong with Man United. Man United’s performance has been next to no semblance to what transpired last season and the reason(s) is as varied as ever.

With little need to rehash well-documented problems with Man United this season, the best solution to this crisis ought to be something the team isn’t used to and needs to be as radical as possible.

Radicalism is in vogue looking at the rise of controversial figures such as former US President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Ghana’s political landscape could be on the verge of having its fair share of radicalism looking at the background of a presidential aspirant whose flamboyant and colourful ways of handling issues have had him likened to the man behind the “Make America Great Again” moniker.

Back at Old Trafford, the vicious cycle of managers starting out strongly only to fall off in subsequent seasons and ultimately get sacked needs addressing beyond what has been doled out over the years. Louis Van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have suffered this fate and Ten Hag is likely to join the list.

The very unpopular David Moyes bagged the Community Shield and started on a good run before results bottomed out leading to his departure.

Even Man United legend Gary Neville acknowledged this trend and suggested Ten Hag could be gone sooner than expected.

While all these changes have taken place, the much-maligned and loathed Man United owners The Glazers are the constant piece in all this chaos and in some quarters, this is the reason Man United continues to struggle.

Blaming the Glazers for Man United’s recent struggles is as mundane and lame as possible considering the level of investment they have made to correct a lot of wrongs they committed in past years.

The Glazers have been doing well to improve the playing squad’s quality by pivoting away from players usually old players grabbed from the scrap heap of the transfer window to younger players of high quality who are of prime transfer interest in the football shopping season.

However, looking at how things are turning out, the Glazers need to do something they haven’t done since Sir Alex Ferguson left the managerial role and that is to pick the manager over the players.

Picking an individual (who is the more replaceable component in this mix) over a group of individuals (players) is an insane decision to make -that’s why this is a “radical” approach in the first place; However, that is the best approach to get United out of its terrible slump.

Picking the manager means backing him by signing players he wishes to have, doing away with the players he doesn’t want in his team and most importantly embracing his strict disciplinarian style that is needed to whip a collection of overpaid players in line.

Despite ostracizing Jadon Sancho over the Englishman’s petulance, there is a strong push to have the former Borussia Dortmund player drafted back into the team.

Ten Hag’s success at Ajax and in his debut season with Man United means he has enough cash in the bank to be entrusted with patience to forge The Red Devils into a spitting image of his managerial philosophy that is built on repeated game sequences in training and strong football coaching principles.

Ten Hag had this at Ajax and FC Utretch as a head coach and as an assistant during his time at Bayern Munich but is yet to have the same level of stability to fully roll out this system.

Last season’s success was arguably down to Man United’s simplified style of play especially in attack where the team looked (for long stretches) like an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer team that inspired this piece. In Year 2 of the Ten Hag project, his attempts to instill his style are facing a lot of problems and push back. (Click highlighted text to read full story)

Man United’s problem isn’t a coaching problem or an owners’ problem but squarely a player problem considering some players are missing through injuries (Lisandro Martinez, Tyrell Malacia, Luke Shaw and many others) while others have forced themselves out of the picture through their behaviour or attitude (Sancho, Mason Greenwood) and others like Antony, Mason Mount and Rashford have flat out failed to produce.

To straighten Man United out, Ten Hag needs a radical approach to bench guys who aren’t not stepping up and the team owners need to adopt a radical approach by backing the manager through this crisis, which is something they haven’t done in past years.