Erik ten Hag says Ralf Rangnick “was absolutely right” when the he said Manchester United needed the equivalent of open heart surgery to fix a broken club “culture”.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Ten Hag’s side finished eighth last season – their lowest in the Premier League era – and were set to miss out on European football before victory over Manchester City saw them qualify for the Europa League.
The Dutchman may well have lost his job had he not won his second piece of silverware in two seasons at the club following the arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe as the new head of football operations after the INEOS owner bought a 27.7 per cent stake in the club.
But Ten Hag instead signed a one-year contract extension to June 2026 earlier this month and is helping to oversee significant personnel changes at the club ahead of the new season.
Rangnick spent six months as caretaker boss at Old Trafford following Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s dismissal and before Ten Hag’s arrival, and claimed the club required a complete overhaul and ten new signings.
In an interview with AD Sportwereld ahead of the new season, Ten Hag says the now Austria boss was spot on and insists they are still “a really long way away” from Premier League or Champions League glory.
“Rangnick was absolutely right. We’ve been working very hard on that for two years, but he said it just right: it’s a thorough, very complex operation,” Ten Hag said.
“And I knew when I started that it was going to be a tough job. There are a lot of people who have advised me. Louis van Gaal [the former United manager] too. We want this club back to where it was more than a decade ago, to a club that wins the Premier League, which can win Champions Leagues. We are really a long way away from that, I think.
“I think we’ve taken steps since then, otherwise we wouldn’t have won two prizes [the FA Cup and Carabao Cup] either. But we are not yet so far that a ‘winning culture’ already prevails here in all respects. Our standards, our norms and values, still need to go up.
“I was not shocked [by what I inherited]. But the culture, the mentality was really not good. To win, to really achieve top performance every week, we had to change a lot.”
New signing Leny Yoro made his first appearance and Jadon Sancho took to the field in a Manchester United shirt for the first time in 11 months in Saturday’s 2-0 pre-season friendly victory over Rangers in Edinburgh.
Both players played the first 45 minutes at Murrayfield before Ten Hag changed his entire outfield 10 for the second period of a match settled by goals from Amad Diallo and Joe Hugill.
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Just 48 hours after United paid more than £50million to secure his services from Lille, 18-year-old French defender Yoro was pitched into action, partnering Jonny Evans – a man twice his age – in the centre of defence.
The United supporters among a crowd of 56,574 at the home of Scottish rugby were equally excited to get a glimpse of England attacker Sancho for the first time since he patched up his differences with manager Ten Hag following their breakdown in relations last season.
The 24-year-old spent the second half of last term on loan at his previous club Borussia Dortmund after claiming on social media that he had been made a “scapegoat” following criticism from the United boss.
This was Sancho’s first outing in Manchester red since a substitute appearance in the 3-2 home win over Nottingham Forest on August 26 last year.
With several of their main men unavailable – including new signing Joshua Zirkzee – after their recent exploits at Euro 2024, Andre Onana, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Casemiro, Evans and Mason Mount were among the other notable names in United’s starting XI, along with Diallo, who had a spell on loan with Rangers in 2022.
While the United side had a relatively unfamiliar look to it, Gers boss Philippe Clement sent out a team made up of established names, along with summer signings Jefte, Connor Barron and Oscar Cortes, a fortnight ahead of their Premiership opener at Hearts.
However, as had been the case for the friendlies against Standard Liege and Ajax in the Netherlands earlier this month, James Tavernier and Todd Cantwell remained absent from the squad amid speculation they are close to leaving Ibrox. The club insist both players are still recovering from injury.
Diallo, who made 13 appearances during an underwhelming loan spell with Rangers just over two years ago, broke the deadlock in the 39th minute when he cut in from the right, getting away from Jefte all too easily, and fired a low shot beyond Jack Butland from just inside the box.
Ten Hag – whose side have another four weeks before they kick off their Premier League campaign against Fulham – rang the changes for the start of the second half.
Jack Fletcher, the 17-year-old son of United coach and former Scotland captain Darren Fletcher, and Will Fish, swiftly back in Edinburgh after spending the previous two seasons on loan at Hibernian, were among a relatively inexperienced batch of players entering the fray.
Hugill, 20, sealed the Old Trafford side’s victory with an emphatic 70th-minute strike in off the underside of the crossbar.
