Erik ten Hag has a huge test – but also has a plan, and Melbourne Victory will be among the first to see it unfold, writes Tom Smithies.
It only lasts for about 12 seconds, but the first video of Manchester United’s new manager, Erik ten Hag, on the training ground tells you a lot about the detail going into his Red Devil rebuild.
At United’s Carrington training ground, the clip shows the newly arrived Dutchman putting in place the building blocks necessary for the team to play the up-tempo football he wants – of the kind this team has signally failed to produce on a regular basis for far too many seasons, and the sort that Liverpool and Manchester City unfurl as a matter of course.
Ten Hag is drilling his players on the importance of each pass arriving on the recipient’s correct foot – not necessarily their strong foot, but the one that will allow them to move forward with the ball, and pass it on, most quickly.
It sounds simple enough to be in an Under-10s training session, but it goes to the core of what those who have observed Ten Hag up close call his “plan” – the pass-and-press methodology on which the 52-year-old is banking his efforts to reverse a near-decade of decline.
If the first signs of its implementation were positive, in a 4-0 friendly defeat of Liverpool on Tuesday night, more will become clear when his side face Melbourne Victory at the MCG on Friday.
If United’s supporter base in part received his appointment with tepid enthusiasm, despite his achievements with Ajax, it may be because of what Pascal Bosschaart calls “the one thing missing” from Ten Hag’s CV. Nine years after he left Sydney FC, Bosschaart is assistant coach at SC Cambuur in the Eredivisie, and was head coach for several months last season in the absence through illness of Henk de Jong.
Those roles have given Bosschaart a compelling vantage point frpm which to watch Ten Hag’s four and a half years at Ajax, in which he took the Dutch champions to the semi-final of the Champions League and beat Real Madrid and Juventus along the way.
Ten Hag also won three Dutch championships, and while that is not much more than par for the course at a club steeped in domestic success, Bosschaart believes Ten Hag added an enviable layer of flourish to Ajax’s football.
“Ajax are already for years a big club, they have the capability, the money, so they can do whatever they want,” Bosschaart told KEEPUP. “They can build their own team, they can buy good players; but still I think, the way they play, that’s the hand of Erik ten Hag.
“He has a plan, and he won’t go all the way left or all the way right (away from his plan). Maybe sometimes a little bit left, or a little bit right, but every week he sticks to his plan. So in pre-season, then in the first few weeks in the Premier League, he will do well.
“The only problem for him is his name – he does not have a big name in football yet. But 100% tactics-wise he’s one of the best coaches I’ve ever seen. He’s not an international name; he has coached Ajax on an international level (in the Champions League) but he doesn’t have a name like Mourinho. That’s his only concern.”
Bosschaart has been intrigued to see those clips of Ten Haag’s first training sessions at United, not least because they show his “plan” is instantly in full swing.
“I saw a few drills and it opened also my eyes; I try to do something similar with Cambuur and I know exactly what he is trying to do with those exercises,” Bosschaart says. “In football, when the ball is (coming) on your wrong foot it costs you maybe one second; then the step forward is another two seconds or three seconds. (But) if all those balls are on the right feet, then the pace can be good.
“He’s hammering on those little details; his main goal is that the transition with the ball from Player A to Player B to Player C must be quick and everything on the right feet and at the right pace.
“I think he will (do well at United), because as a coach he’s not (inclined) to panic, he knows his job and exactly what to do. He has a plan, that’s what he always talks about in interviews – he sticks to his plan.
“When he coaches Ajax, he wins almost all the matches of course so that may be different, but he’s one of the coaches who doesn’t get nervous. It is a big club still, though since Sir Alex (Ferguson left in 2013) they haven’t done so well. But he can bring them back to that level.”
Supporters who question Ten Hag’s pedigree would do well to follow his apprenticeship, that began at FC Twente in Holland when he retired as a player; initially working with the youth teams, before assisting the likes of Fred Rutten and Steve Maclaren at PSV Eindhoven and FC Twente respectively.
During their respective playing careers Bosschaart had come up against Ten Hag several times on the pitch, and notes his leadership even then; Ten Hag also locked horns more than once with a moustachioed Australian striker, Graham Arnold.
It’s illuminating that Ten Hag’s playing career didn’t feature many star names as team-mates; for the first time at United he will have to manage top-level egos, in a dressing room that has form for briefing against some of his predecessors.
Bosschaart believes his compatriot can face down any internal suspicion, and corral a collective of players buying into his methods – as well as staying true to himself.
“He already did a great job (of asserting himself), because I saw he sent the (United) boys in the off-season an email with a plan – everyone starts from scratch,” he said. “The players will think, ok, he’s not a big name but he has a plan and everybody must go within that plan.
“If you don’t want to, there’s no place for you. There’s a saying in Holland – you put the poles in the ground already (to map out the course ahead). There’s no room for the players to go left or right, this is the plan – if you don’t want to stay between the lines, then find another club.
Manchester United v Melbourne Victory
Friday, July 15
Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne
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“He’s a very friendly guy, open for discussions; tactically very well educated. Clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, they always like to have big names. When he does well in Manchester, his coaching name will be massive.
“He’s a really normal, laid-back person. He will not walk with his chest puffed out. He won’t change his behaviour – he’s very active on the sideline, trying to give his players a good feeling. He’s maybe the best coach I’ve seen in Holland but a normal person as well.”
