My Saudi sacking shows football’s a cut-throat business and bossing Utd is toughest of all... but Ten Hag must stop his moaning and deliver
IT DOESN’T matter what Erik ten Hag says in public – in private, he knows his Manchester United job is on the line.
That is modern football. It’s a ruthless results-based business, and this whole concept of giving managers time is completely outdated.
I’ve heard people defending Ten Hag (below) by saying Alex Ferguson only finished 11th in his third season at Old Trafford. It’s just not relevant. That wasn’t just a different age, it was a different bloody planet.
Manchester United is a business. A multi-billion pound business. I did an interview with Jurgen Klopp a few years ago, and we spoke about him being approached by United. He told me he’d had an ‘interview’ of sorts.
But it left him cold, because they talked all about business, and not about football.
That wasn’t for Klopp, he turned them down flat, but it is what United are all about.
Being a manager there is a bit like being the creative director of a massive multi-national corporation. You bring in the dollars or you’re history. It’s cut-throat.
You don’t take control at a huge multinational corporation and then get years to settle in and take your time to deliver success.
It’s not just Manchester United, it’s every professional football club the world over.
And I should know – I’ve experienced it myself in what I’d say was, in some ways, much more extreme than even Ten Hag is experiencing. With my club in Saudi Arabia, Al-qadsiah, we’d had nothing but success this season. We didn’t lose a single game in topping the Saudi First Division League, and I won the manager of the month award.
The only game we lost in my entire time there was in the King Cup, where we were narrowly beaten by Al-taawoun, who were not only a league above us, but were top of the Pro League at the time.
And we missed a penalty. On another day we’d have beaten the side who were top of the best league in Saudi. And yet apparently it still wasn’t enough. To be honest, I’m still a little hurt and baffled about the reasons why I lost my job.
I can only say that there seemed to be an agenda going on, and it wasn’t my agenda. They appointed a new manager within hours of announcing my departure, so I guess people can draw their own conclusions.
So I’m not going to extend much sympathy to Ten Hag, or start calling for patience and understanding. That’s not the world we are operating in any more. It’s a pretty simple world, really, and especially as far as Ten Hag is concerned – deliver success, or pay the price.
Or in my case, even if you deliver success you could still pay the price!
You can probably ask me, or Ten Hag, at this stage, why bother then? Why even try to get on the management merry-goround if you’re going to be thrown off so viciously?
Well, the answer is simple, it’s a helluva thing to be part of.
I’m disappointed and upset to have to leave my team behind at Al-qadsiah. We had something special going on there. I’m 100 percent certain we would have won promotion to the Pro League, and 100 percent certain we’d be successful there. And crucially, so were the players.
Has it bruised me? Not really. It was an incredible experience, and in just a few months, myself and the brilliant staff turned a club that was floundering into one that can become a force in Saudi football.
Which is why I still believe in my talents, and still believe I can deliver that success somewhere else.
I’m sure Ten Hag feels the same. I’m sure he still believes in himself, but I’m also sure that he knows, deep down, he hasn’t delivered, and all his moaning about not having the players to deliver the style of football he wants is not going to cut it.
I didn’t have all the players I wanted at Al-qadsiah, didn’t have certain types of player I wanted with pace, to deliver the fast, exciting football we wanted, but we still worked hard to ensure we were a really effective unit.
And that’s what must happen at Manchester United now.
Ten Hag has to stop moaning, stop making excuses, and work with what he’s got to deliver an effective brand of football…even if it can’t be quite the brand of football he’d prefer to play.
Do what Klopp did at Liverpool. He inherited a terrible team in his first year, but still took Liverpool to two finals, and in his second year was pragmatic enough to deliver Champions League football.
He knew principles are one thing, but in football only results count.
Ten Hag knows that too, and if he’s going to keep the Manchester United job even as far as Christmas, then it’s simple – start winning. No excuses.