“Please no,He is not what we need at the moment” – Mark Goldbridge reacts to Man United manager rumour he’s heard
Erik ten Hag’s poor start to the Premier League season as Manchester United boss has already seen the Dutchman linked with the exit door at Old Trafford, with the Red Devils sitting in 14th in the top-flight – but Mark Goldbridge has urged new minority owners INEOS to stick with the former Ajax boss.
Ten Hag has had an indifferent tenure in charge of United, recording a club-worst eighth-placed finish in the Premier League last season, though he has won two domestic cups – and after winning the FA Cup final last season against Manchester City, has been given the chance to go again this season. But whlist the Dutchman has had another poor start, leading to calls for his name, Goldbridge has pleaded with United’s owners to keep him in charge.
Goldbridge: Ten Hag Sacking Could be ‘Catastrophic’
Ten Hag has wobbled but Goldbridge says an exit would be detrimental
Posting on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, Goldbridge pleaded with new owners INEOS not to sack Ten Hag – not for the results on the pitch, but with the rebuild needed for United’s prospective new manager likely to cost them millions in what is a repeated cycle. He said:
“We’ve seen this movie before. [Ole Gunnar] Solskjaer started his third season and no one was predicting that he was going to get the sack, but he was gone by Christmas. The same thing happened with Jose Mourinho, so it could easily happen. And I’m not blind to it, but I do feel like ‘surely not’, and I do feel like ‘please no’.
“It’s alright, we’ve all done it. Sack them, get rid of them, but in the modern game you also have to take into account that the sheer volume of money that has been spent around Ten Hag this summer is £200million. To replace him, it will cost to sack him and then bring in a new manager in – and then that new manager probably doesn’t want the players that Ten Hag’s bought.
“We never stop hearing about ‘Oh, it’s another Dutch player’, or ‘It’s another player that has played for Ten Hag’. You give Thomas Tuchel the job or whoever else, they’ve not used these players before – why should they do that?
“And in fairness to the next manager, why should they have to use the previous manager’s toys, like they would want that as well? Man United are not financially great, we have debt and we are not in a great position. So to sack the manager I think would please some United fans, but the longer-term damage that would cause to have to rebuild again could be catastrophic.”
Erik Ten Hag Needs Results Quickly at Man Utd
A tough run of games could see his spell come to an end
Solskjaer did come second with United in the 2020-21 season with a total of 74 points, securing Champions League football for the Red Devils – and a strong start to the 2021/22 season saw the club joint-top of the league in late September after a 2-1 win over West Ham United.
But a run of just one win in seven games in the league from there – which came in the form of a 4-2 battering at Leicester City, a 5-0 home drubbing by Liverpool and a ceremonious 4-1 shock loss at Watford – combined to see Solskjaer sacked just seven games after everything had been going swimmingly well for the Old Trafford club.
Ten Hag, by contrast, had only lost consecutive Premier League games five times in 76 games prior to the start of this season, though the late 2-1 loss at Brighton and the 3-0 hammering at home to Liverpool at the start of the month made that number six.
