Cold hard truth is that it may be too little too late for Ten Hag...
IT was a privilege being at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon. A drab March day when the rain came and went in sudden showers was made glorious by a match sent from the heavens, an FA Cup tie between two giants who reminded us how much joy the game can bequeath to those who love it.
Being there exaggerates the emotions, I suppose, but perhaps because there were so many things riding on the outcome, because it ebbed and flowed, because the result was a shock and because it was two kids who combined for the Manchester United breakaway goal that won it in the dying seconds, it felt like one of the greatest of all cup ties.
Old Trafford has seen some momentous occasions, but of the matches I have seen there in the last years, I’d put it in the same bracket as United 3 Barcelona 0 in a 1984 European Cup-Winners’
Cup quarter-final, United 1 Everton 0 in the FA Cup quarterfinal of 1983 and United 4 Real Madrid 3 in a 2003 Champions League quarter-final.
Anyone who was lucky enough to have been at one of those matches came out of them feeling as if they were walking on air, either because they were a United supporter or just because they loved the tumult, chaos and joy of football, its ability to make people forget and its ability to make people happy.
On Sunday, I heard that in the guttural roars of the crowd and saw that in the face of the boy who the television cameras picked out in the moments after Amad Diallo had clipped the United winner in the 121st minute of an amazing game, his face creased with tears of wonder and exultation, not quite able to believe the emotions it had unleashed in him.
So how much can a match like that change things? It will always be remembered as one of the greatest FA Cup ties in history, but how much power will it have to alter the destiny of the embattled United manager, Erik ten Hag?
Can one match change the minds of men like United’s minority owner Jim Ratcliffe and his lieutenant, Dave Brailsford, who sat stony-faced in the directors’ box for much of the game?
If United had lost on Sunday, there was little chance that Ten Hag would have lasted beyond the end of this season. They have only an outside chance of making the top five and qualifying for the Champions League.
Elimination from the FA Cup would have meant their season was over and, regardless, there is a suspicion Ratcliffe and Brailsford want a more dynamic leader than Ten Hag anyway.
But there is precedent for big moments changing the course of history in football, particularly at United.
Most famously, of course, it happened in January 1990 when the club went into an FA Cup thirdround tie at Nottingham Forest with the suggestion that Alex Ferguson would be sacked if they lost.
United had finished 11th the season before. They had been annihilated 5-1 by Manchester City at Maine Road a few months earlier and banners at Old Trafford berated the manager and bade him farewell. Many fans had given up on him. ‘Ta ra Fergie,’ one sign said.
But United beat Forest 1-0. Mark Robins scored the winner and, even though United only won two of their next nine league games and finished 13th, they went on to win the FA
Cup that year and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup the following season. The ball was rolling and the rest is history.
Can that happen to Ten Hag? Can that victory over Liverpool really be a turning point for him and the club after the decade of turmoil since Ferguson left? Can it be the moment that saves him, the game that changes everything, the game that throws him a lifeline in the same way winning at Forest threw a lifeline to Ferguson?
The cold, hard answer is that it probably can’t.
It is one thing for a United supporter or a neutral lover of the game to be swayed by being at a match like the one that unfolded on Sunday, but Ratcliffe and Brailsford are dispassionate businessmen who do not make spur-of-the-moment decisions.
The FA Cup still has great significance for many of us, but its position in the football firmament has fallen in the last 30 years. In the 1980s, and perhaps even the early 1990s, winning it still carried much of the same kudos as winning the league, which was why it helped save Fergie.
Winning the FA Cup is not transformative any more. Louis van Gaal won the FA Cup for United in 2016 and was sacked the next day.
It is still an important trophy, but the hierarchy at United may not consider it as important as finishing fourth or fifth, if that is what it takes to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
The reality is that a run of league wins that sees United climb above Tottenham or Aston Villa, or both, is more likely to save Ten Hag’s job than a memorable win in an FA Cup quarterfinal. United may well beat Coventry — managed by Robins — in the semi-final but, let’s face it, they will probably lose to Manchester City in the final.
AND then, an emotional win in March will count for little unless the weeks ahead bring the kind of victories in the league that suggest not only that United can make the top four this season, but that they can fashion a title challenge next season.
Thus far, there has been nothing to suggest United are closing the gap on City, Liverpool or Arsenal in the league. They are also-rans. In that context, it is probably more important for Ten Hag’s future that United beat Liverpool in the league next month than the result they secured in the FA Cup.
It is also possible that Ratcliffe and Brailsford have already decided to make a change and Sunday’s win over Liverpool was too little, too late.
Ten Hag’s problem is that he is running out of time to prove the corner has been turned. Yes, Sunday was a game that will live long in the memory, but there have been false dawns before in the years since Fergie left. Remember the Champions League win at Paris SaintGermain under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 2019?
United are back, everyone said then. But they weren’t.