The searing question for Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sir Dave Brailsford can be simply framed: is Erik ten Hag two or three signings from transforming Manchester United or does a new manager need hiring because the Dutchman is culpable for the disjointed play, points dropped deep into added time and the flatlining performance of Marcus Rashford and others?
As Ratcliffe, who executes United’s football policy, and his key lieutenant, Brailsford, assess whether Ten Hag is the manager for them there is a body of evidence to work through that takes in serial injuries, the Mason Greenwood and Jadon Sancho sagas, Antony’s “off-field issues”, the powderpuff structure they inherited and a chronic scattergun recruitment policy.
The view here is that all of the above clouds the picture of Ten Hag’s candidacy.
Clearer is what the Dutchman achieved last term when Greenwood, Sancho, Antony and the injuries were non-issues. Contending, still, with an unfit-for-purpose back-of-house operation Ten Hag broke a six-year trophy drought in claiming the Carabao Cup, reached the FA Cup final and finished third.
This came, too, despite the mess of the previous season bequeathed to Ten Hag which featured Ole Gunnar Solskjær being sacked, the caretaker manager, Ralf Rangnick, declaring the club needed “open heart surgery” and United ending in a dire sixth position, 35 points behind Manchester City.
After sifting through this and weighing their importance as factors, Ratcliffe and Brailsford can turn to a squad that requires reinforcements and decide how the right ones could aid Ten Hag.
Profitability and sustainability rules mean limited funds, so even mirroring the three £40m-plus additions of last summer may not occur. But if this can be replicated then Ten Hag would benefit most from a centre-back, central midfielder and goalscorer. A case can be made, too, for a goalkeeper, full-back and winger. But, being realistic, strengthening a defensive structure that has allowed a Premier League high 224 shots (the most by eight) is a burning priority.
In central defence Lisandro Martínez, Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelöf, Jonny Evans and Raphaël Varane are either injured too frequently or perform inconsistently, or both. Of this quintet only Martínez is good enough in the drive to make United contenders once more but he is out, again, for four weeks or so with a muscle problem. This follows previous layoffs of a month, five months and a month because of foot and knee injuries.
Maguire is a first choice after the club failed to sell him last summer. As quaint, in a different way, is the presence of the 36-year-old Evans. Currently injured, he was signed on a free after a summer trial, which points to the financial belt tightening Ten Hag contends with. Of Varane and Lindelöf, the former is one-paced and physically infirm, and Lindelöf lacks the aggression and conviction to dominate forwards.
On any defensive linchpin target wishlist could be Everton’s Jarrad Branthwaite, Bayern Munich’s Matthijs de Ligt and Lille’s Leny Yoro. Playing fantasy football for a moment, if one of these were signed and fielded alongside an always fit Martínez, with Luke Shaw (again no longer a treatment room fixture) at left-back and Diogo Dalot at right-back, an upgrade is achieved.
Moving into the engine room, where Casemiro is ageing, an ideal partner for Kobbie Mainoo would add flair and guile as well as the defensive nous of, say, Newcastle’s Bruno Guimarães. Sign, also, a proven forward to support Rasmus Højlund – West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen, who has 15 Premier League goals and operates wide or centrally, for example – and United could line up thus: Onana; Dalot, Yoro, Martínez, Shaw; Mainoo, Guimarães; Bowen, Fernandes, Garnacho; Højlund.
Rashford, Casemiro, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Willy Kambwala, Scott McTominay, Amad Diallo and Mason Mount would push this XI from the ranks. And with the new chief executive, Omar Berrada, in place alongside, possibly, the incoming football director Dan Ashworth (dependent on the compensation agreement with Newcastle), Ratcliffe and Brailsford would feel Ten Hag has been given every chance of success.
In this scenario it would be “over to you Erik – show us what you can do”. But the opposite view has Ratcliffe and Brailsford blaming the Dutchman for a major part in or all of the team’s ills. His role in signing the underwhelming Casemiro, Mount, André Onana and Antony. The bitty style. A lack of in-game management and the apparently weak mentality that cost five vital points in the hunt for Champions League football via Thursday’s added-time defeat at Chelsea and Saturday’s added-time draw at Brentford. Rashford’s slump in form and errant off-field conduct. The puzzling recasting of Maguire and McTominay from for-sale players last close season to vital components in this one (the latter is United’s joint-top league scorer).
From this thicket of competing factors, Ratcliffe and Brailsford can be excused for wondering what is the best way forward. They may feel clarity will be offered should the FA Cup not be won (United face Coventry in the semi-finals) or Champions League football not achieved.
Equally, they could decide regardless that Ten Hag, with two years’ experience in English football’s hottest seat, represents their best hand and that it would be better to stick than twist with a new manager who may disappoint.
Ratcliffe’s 27.7% buy-in of United was protracted, partly, because of the time required to thrash out the terms of his demand to control football matters. The 71-year-old has this now, and is experiencing exactly how devilish is the nature of the hydra-headed beast he grapples with.
