Peter Schmeichel believes INEOS chiefs should’ve parted ways with Erik ten Hag at the back end of last season – and they’re now paying the price for sticking with him.
It’s been just over three months since it was announced that the Dutchman would retain his place in the dugout. Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his entourage conducted an end-of-season review following a campaign in which Manchester United recorded their lowest-ever Premier League finish in history, yet had their minds swayed by the side’s FA Cup triumph.
As such, they can’t act too surprised that now league action is back underway, United have sustained two defeats in their opening three matches. They enter the international break in 14th place, having just been comfortably overturned by arch-rivals Liverpool 3-0 on home soil.
Treble-winner Schmeichel reckons the new co-owners missed the most suitable opportunity to relieve Ten Hag of his duties – after the 4-0 loss away to Crystal Palace last term.
Schmeichel has his say
“I still don’t know, and it’s probably one of the most disappointing things is that we’ve had these opportunities now,” the former goalkeeper responded (via the Metro) when asked if he could define United’s play style under Ten Hag.
“He comes in, Erik, he comes in with a really, really good reputation. He’s allowed to spend a lot of money. He’s bringing Antony and Casemiro in, which changes the whole club. The structure of the club changes because of that. I think part of the reason that the sale happened was because they had to finance those two players. So from that moment on, the club changed.
“Then you have somebody coming in running the club, and there have been opportunities to make those changes, make those really, really big statements, say, ‘these are our standards. We will not tolerate any less than this’.
“When we lost to Crystal Palace, towards the end of last season, when that game was lost, that was the opportunity where they could’ve said, ‘we will not tolerate this’.”
