Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag faced an uncertain future at the club after the end of last season.
The Red Devils had just finished eighth in the Premier League but ten Hag had the FA Cup win in the bag to prove to the club’s new co-owners that he is the right man for the job.
The club officials had started talks with other managers to potentially replace ten Hag at Old Trafford but it all ended with the manager ultimately staying at the club and receiving the backing of the owners.
It was widely reported that United had indulged in talks with Thomas Tuchel and Mauricio Pochettino to consider their options.
The Dutch manager has now opened up on what happened during his talks with INEOS in Ibiza that decided his future at Old Trafford.
He told Algemeen Dagblad:
“It’s not like I panicked. Why? It’s a decision that wasn’t in my hands. I just waited for it. At that moment you just think in two scenarios: whether we continue, or not. It’s that simple and I’m level-headed enough to look at it that way.
“They didn’t say ‘we still want to go on’, but: ‘we want to go on.’ The argument they gave was in a short summary: we looked at everything and put it next to each other, but we think we already have the best manager in house.
Then I said: ‘then we have to discuss a number of things, about how we interact with each other and work together.’
We had a good, honest, but also confrontational conversation about that. As it should be at the top. I also said to them then: ‘if you think this is not the way, then we just have to break up.”
The club have now backed the manager in the transfer market this summer by signing a new striker in Joshua Zirkzee and a new defender in Leny Yoro.
More signings are expected to join the club soon but it remains to be seen if it will be Bayern Munich defender Matthijs de Ligt or Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Manuel Ugarte.
The Red Devils want to build on their impressive FA Cup win against Manchester City and provide the manager with all the resources to challenge for the biggest trophies in the game.
Now it is up to the manager to prove himself and repay the faith the owners have shown in him.
The Man United boss will be first and foremost hoping to bring consistency to the team and develop a football identity on the pitch.
