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Manchester United icon Gary Neville has insisted that he cannot believe how well Erik ten Hag has dealt with a number of different situations to get the Red Devils back into contention for trophies in less than one full season after a six-year barren spell. The 53-year-old won his first piece of silverware with United on Sunday by clinching the Carabao Cup and remains in with a shout of adding the Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League titles before the campaign draws to a close.
Ten Hag was forced to handle a number of important dilemmas upon his arrival at Old Trafford last year including the immediate futures of Harry Maguire and Cristiano Ronaldo, with the former now playing a back-up role and the latter having left the club to join Al-Nassr on a lucrative two-year contract. The United boss has also been nurturing Jadon Sancho back to full fitness after a difficult period in which the winger trained on his own, while he recovered well from missing out on the signing of Frenkie de Jong in the summer by landing Casemiro and tweaking his chosen style of play.
Neville has since admitted that he has been left stunned by how Ten Hag has managed to get almost every big decision right during his time at United, telling The Overlap: “I think we need to retain our calmness because of what’s happened before, but to deal with Harry Maguire, Sancho, Ronaldo, the poor transfer window chasing Frenkie de Jong.
“We walked into his office in the midst of a massive crisis where fans at that point were angry. Angry on the pitch, angry off the pitch, nothing was going right. I can’t believe what he’s done in six months, I cannot believe what he’s done.”
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Neville went on to pay Ten Hag the ultimate compliment by insisting that he is seeing shades of Sir Alex Ferguson in the way United are playing under the guidance of their Dutch manager, who has successfully adapted to life in the Premier League over the last few months after a hugely difficult start to proceedings at Old Trafford.
“What we saw in that final on Sunday was, for me, what Manchester United was like under Sir Alex Ferguson,” explained Neville. “We’d win games in different ways, it could be electric, it could be counter-attacking. It could be resilient, defensive, deep, compact. It could be nasty.
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“I never want him to change the way we’ve played over the last couple of weeks. There are times when Jose [Mourinho] was at Chelsea and he made substitutions and Sir Alex would do the same thing and you think: ‘What’s he doing?’. And then they would work. Ten Hag’s done that now five or six times in the last few months.
“He’s made substitutions and even on Sunday I didn’t think [Marcel] Sabitzer and [Scott] McTominay would come on. I thought he’d bring a wide player on, [Alejandro] Garnacho or Sancho, and a midfielder. That surprised me but it got Manchester United back in control. Every time he makes a change it has a massive impact.”
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