Having endured the worst start to a Premier League season, it looks like the writing may be on the wall for Erik ten Hag at Manchester United.
The Dutch manager has won two trophies during his tenure at the club, but the Red Devils’ league form has been a cause for concern over the past 12 months and has shown no sign of improvement despite the huge amount of money being spent have shelled out for new players.
With Ten Hag seemingly running out of time a Man Utdwe at 90 minutes decided to take a look at the list of currently unemployed managers to see who could appoint the club next.
Manchester United currently have two big problems:
1. They don’t score enough goals.
2. They concede too many goals.
While Massimiliano Allegri wouldn’t do much to fix the former, he would certainly fix the latter. The Italian manager is a notoriously brilliant defensive strategist, making Juventus almost impenetrable during his two spells at the club (especially the first).
The statistics prove it. His teams have kept the second-best clean sheet in Serie A history and he has enjoyed two spells in which Juve have not conceded a goal in ten consecutive games. In comparison: Man Utd only kept nine clean sheets in the entire 2023/24 Premier League season under Erik ten Hag.
And even if his football is not beautiful, he must Series A and the Coppa Italia winners’ medals he has in his trophy cabinet are proof that he is effective.
A favorite of Dan Ashworth, Gareth Southgate was linked with a possible move to club management with Man Utd at the end of last season.
And while many English Man Utd fans might not be too happy with the appointment, given the amount of Southgate’s stick tactics in international level received: The manager’s counter-attacking set-up would probably work at Old Trafford.
As we’ve seen previously, the likes of Marcus Rashford and Bruno Fernandes excel in a counter-attacking system, which would make the most of United’s best players, something the Ten Hag have explicitly failed to do over the past 18 months.
Another manager who has been heavily linked with the Man Utd takeoverThomas Tuchel would certainly be a high-profile appointment.
The German has managed some of the best clubs in the world at Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund, winning trophies at each of them.
He might be a little prickly, but maybe that’s exactly what Man Utd’s squad needs – a manager who takes a no-nonsense approach.
The easiest appointment of the lot, Ruud van Nistelrooy is already at the club and currently works as an assistant manager at Man Utd.
Having won the KNVB Cup as head coach of PSV Eindhoven a few years ago, Van Nistelrooy has shown promise as a coach in the past.
It could be another Ole Gunnar Solskjaer-esque interim appointment for the club which, given how well the Norwegian has done in his first few months in charge, may not be a bad thing.
