It was about as shut as an FA Cup-winning supervisor has come to a mic drop.
In a room of journalists who had spent the last few days reporting on his bosses’ plan to switch him, a bruised, embattled however belligerent Erik ten Hag defended his report as supervisor of Manchester United.
“Two trophies in two years isn’t unhealthy,” he stated. “Three finals in two years isn’t unhealthy. In the event that they don’t need me, then I’m going some other place to win trophies as a result of that’s what I do.”
It was an excellent line, value repeating, which he did. After Ten Hag’s contract was prolonged and his future settled, he sat down with MUTV in July and reiterated his “two trophies” level.
Then he stated it once more a number of days later in Trondheim after United’s first pre-season pleasant, including: “Other than (Manchester) Metropolis, that’s greater than some other membership in English soccer.”
He repeated it once more after the pleasant towards Rangers in Edinburgh.
Then once more on the tour of the USA.
That was simply pre-season. Because the begin of the marketing campaign correct, Ten Hag has referenced his two home cup wins in six exchanges with journalists throughout pre- and post-match press conferences, to say nothing of interviews with broadcasters.
The newest occasion, after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool, got here amid a tense trade with one journalist who Ten Hag invited to call the “errors” his crew had been accused of creating. After the journalist rattled off a protracted checklist of repeated errors, Ten Hag retreated to his previous trustworthy.
“I’ve a distinct imaginative and prescient. I feel we gained, after Metropolis, essentially the most trophies in English soccer,” he stated. “I’m sorry for you.”
He’s proper, after all. It’s as true now because it was at Wembley. However three video games into a brand new season, an argument with which he neatly skewered his critics in Might is quick changing into a crutch to fall again on.
On Friday, having simply repeated his favorite level, Ten Hag added: “There’s just one factor in soccer and that’s on the finish of the season for those who win prizes, trophies, or not.” However as others have famous, that view is in stark distinction to that of his predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
“Any cup competitors can provide you a trophy however typically it’s extra of an ego factor from different managers and golf equipment to lastly win one thing,” Solskjaer stated in March 2021.
“It’s not like a trophy will say, ‘We’re again’. It’s the gradual development of being in and across the prime of the league and the consistency and the odd trophies. Generally a cup competitors can cover the actual fact you’re nonetheless struggling slightly bit.”
Solskjaer’s phrases are these of a supervisor who had the alternative drawback to Ten Hag. Below the Norwegian, United’s league finishes steadily improved — from sixth to 3rd to second — however the trophy cupboard was naked.
Solskjaer was defending his report by claiming that the league is a real barometer of progress, simply as Ten Hag is defending his report by pointing to silverware. As to which view is appropriate, opinions will fluctuate.
Ten Hag together with his different trophy, the Carabao Cup (Julian Finney/Getty Photos)
As crucial because it was for Solskjaer’s United to qualify for the Champions League on the ultimate weekend of the 2019-20 marketing campaign, do you bear in mind who they beat that day? Do you bear in mind the rating? Possibly you do, however that 2-0 win behind closed doorways at Leicester Metropolis is hardly a outcome that may echo by way of the ages.
Equally, reminiscences aren’t made by being runners-up within the league. Solskjaer’s facet completed 12 factors adrift of champions Manchester Metropolis the 12 months they completed second, in 2021, having not topped the desk from late January.
The one trophy United got here near successful that 12 months was the Europa League. Talking earlier than the ultimate in Gdansk, Solskjaer maintained that silverware typically “hides different details”. However after United misplaced to Villarreal in a penalty shootout, he admitted he couldn’t think about the season successful having didn’t ship silverware.
Ask some who’ve identified the interior workings of Previous Trafford over time and they’d say you can’t survive as United supervisor with out successful trophies. Solskjaer’s spell in cost is arguably proof of that, whereas Ten Hag’s proves the inverse: ship a trophy plus the best day of United’s post-Sir Alex Ferguson period and you’ll survive something, even the worst-ever Premier League end.
There was additionally the 4-3 quarter-final win over Liverpool, after all — one among Previous Trafford’s finest video games and atmospheres this century. Add the Carabao Cup victory on prime, and the previous two years have given supporters indelible reminiscences, highs to stability out the lows.
However Solskjaer’s view is way nearer to how efficiency is coldly assessed on the elite degree in trendy soccer. A league marketing campaign over 38 video games residence and away is undeniably a more true gauge of a facet’s high quality, in addition to sometimes the gateway to profitable Champions League qualification, which impacts budgets in a method the FA Cup can not.
United stands out as the second-most profitable facet in English soccer over the previous two years, as Ten Hag factors out, however no person would sincerely argue that they’ve been the second-best crew.
Nor would anyone recommend United are nearer to difficult Metropolis for main honours than Arsenal, regardless of Mikel Arteta solely including a Neighborhood Defend to his honours checklist since Ten Hag’s appointment.
That’s the actuality. In a quieter second, outdoors the adversarial nature and pitched battles of a press convention, even Ten Hag would agree that trophies aren’t sufficient. You want each pots and factors.
United’s decade-plus of underachievement will solely have ended when the membership are often competing for Premier League titles and reaching the latter phases of the Champions League once more.
There have been mitigating components final season — accidents, off-field turmoil, takeover uncertainty, the absence of a longtime left-back — however United had been under normal within the competitions that matter most.
That, regardless of home cup success, is why their supervisor is below strain to show progress has and may nonetheless be made, and why he’ll solely have the ability to level to his two trophies for therefore lengthy. When not staring down a room of journalists and tv cameras, even Ten Hag would settle for that.
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(Prime photograph: Erik ten Hag with the FA Cup; by Alex Pantling by way of Getty Photos )