New Era For Manchester United as Erik ten Hag agrees to join the Red Devils

Manchester United have appointed Ajax coach Erik ten Hag as their next manager.

The 52-year-old Dutchman will take over from current interim manager Ralf Rangnick at the end of the season.

Hag, has been given a three year deal which can be extended by a year. Rangnick, who replaced previous manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in November, is set to move into a different role at the club.

Ten Hag will become United’s fifth permanent manager since Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement back in 2013.

The Dutchman has had plenty of experience managing in Europe in the Dutch League where he was assistant manager at PSV Eindhoven as well as assistant under manager Steve McClaren at FC Twente.

He has had a successful reign as manager at Ajax since his appointment in 2017, having won the Eredivisie twice in 2018-19 and 2020-21.

However, taking on the position at arguably one of the biggest clubs if not the biggest clubs in the world, will undoubtably be his biggest and toughest challenge yet.

His footballing philosophy has always been to attack and create things on the pitch, rather like the DNA of Pep Guardiola and Johan Cruyff.

He will come across as a bit obsessive, which players will have to adjust to, but when they do I am sure he will produce the best out of a current side that are clearly lacking confidence.

The Dutch media claim that his man management skills are excellent and players that have worked under him claim they have learnt a lot from him.

Ten Hag is a manager who will spend a huge amount of time on the training pitch and will want to develop not just the so-called superstars at Old Trafford, but other squad members.

He will face a lot of problems in the hot seat at Old Trafford. What does he do about the likes of Christiano Ronaldo and Paul Pogba. Two huge names that were bought in to improve United’s fortunes.

The likes of Jesse Lingard, Edison Cavani and Juan Mata are all out of contract. Phil Jones’ deal runs until 2023 but has only featured just twice in two years.

Clubs are looking at the likes of Dean Henderson, Eric Bailey and Marcus Rashford as players who could be signed.

Anthony Martial, Donny van de Beek and Brandon Williams were all out of favour with the current regime, with the chance that they wont be featuring in Ten Hag’s future plans.

You would feel that the Dutchman will be given a sizeable budget to get United back to where they should be, because at the moment the side desperately needs strengthening, with some dead wood being given the boot.

The difficult task for the new manager will be to try and convince players that to play for United would mean something special, a task which at the moment is proving difficult for the current batch of players wearing the red shirt of Manchester.

To get this great club back to the lofty heights of challenging for major honours is going to be a massive task for Ten Hag.

The solution won’t happen overnight and it is going to take time, but as always in football, will the new incumbent at the helm be given enough time?

Fans will warm to the Dutchman and his playing plan, if the team start winning again and players start showing the right mentality.

Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt