Man Utd analysis: Erik ten Hag sacked, Ruud van Nistelrooy named interim manager
After a dramatic defeat to lowly West Ham at the weekend, Manchester United’s beleaguered manager Erik ten Hag was finally relieved of his duties on Monday.
There is a certain sense of irony in Ten Hag being put out of his misery on the back of probably his best 45 minutes of football since the FA Cup final victory against Man City.
After United’s worst start to a season in decades, however, INEOS could justify the carnage no longer and decided a change of direction was needed.
Attention now turns to who will replace the Dutchman in the dugout.
Sports News Blitz’s Robert Bore recaps the end of Ten Hag’s tenure and discusses what lies ahead for the struggling Red Devils.
Ten Hag sacked
The removals van was ordered for Ten Hag on Monday morning after his INEOS paymasters decided they needed to raise the ship - having listed badly last season, it has been taking on water at a rate of knots this campaign and finally went under on Sunday.
United are a once-mighty vessel sunk after a woeful lack of composure in front of goal during the 2-1 defeat to West Ham. And in this case, the iceberg that breached the hull was not made of ice but rather the equally dangerous VAR.
The blatant lack of potency at the top of the pitch has been stark all season, but it was magnified further as chance after chance went begging at the Olympic Stadium. Eventually, such impotency teed up a stoppage-time defeat that was as inevitable as it was comical.
There is no need to write an obituary on Ten Hag. Enough column-inches have already been written for a man who, despite his foibles, did bring home two trophies and a third-placed league finish during his stint at Old Trafford.
In the end though, that second piece of silverware, seeing off the noisy neighbours in May, was only a stay of execution for the Dutchman.
Ten Hag’s contract extension was ultimately a dice roll by the powers that be, and it has backfired spectacularly with United floundering in 14th place in the Premier League table and struggling for wins in the Europa League.
READ MORE: Man Utd analysis: Erik ten Hag sacked after loss to struggling West Ham
Van Nistelrooy handed the reins
It now falls to one of the club's most revered and feared frontmen, at least in the short term, to uplift the Titanic.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, named Ten Hag's assistant in the summer as his fellow countryman survived a managerial review, is arguably the most deadly finisher in the club's storied history.
Indeed, with United's forward line looking so anaemic, many glassy-eyed Reds would probably prefer their former number 10 up top at the moment.
In terms of managerial credentials, he does not really have any.
One full season (minus the last game of the campaign) in charge of PSV Eindhoven together with various U17 and U19 teams and a sprinkling of national team involvement fills out a sparse managerial CV.
Yet, while managers rarely settle for the players who cost their predecessor their job, even if at United this seems more like the norm, things may be more palatable to Van Nistelrooy considering he was already helping to steer the (sinking) ship.
At the end of the day, it is basically a free hit - the next few months are either going to be a Ruud awakening for United or a rude awakening for their former superstar.
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What comes next
Big-fish suspects are already being linked with the hot seat in M16.
Gareth Southgate (please no), Xavi, Thomas Frank, Graham Potter, and highly-rated Sporting Lisbon boss Ruben Amorim have all been mentioned.
Amorim looks to have committed to the Sporting project, at least until the end of the season, while Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna are a similar price to Zinedine Zidane despite improving their own standings since they left Old Trafford.
United, it is worth noting, are all spent up after spoffing a couple of hundred million on Ten Hag's wishlist this summer and scraping about down the back of the sofa for extra pennies to re-inflate the transfer market with.
And while talk of relegation still feels preposterous, failing to grapple with Europe's bigger boys next season holds financial penalties the Red Devils can ill afford.
INEOS may well have dragged out Ten Hag's life support far longer than they should. They will now be hoping that Van Nistelrooy can provide an instant bump similar to what another United hitman, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, did when he was caretaker boss.
But we all know how that story ended, even if he did end up winning his first eight games.
So we are left with the usual questions: Will Van Nistelrooy get the job permanently? Or will he suffer the same fate as the likes of Ten Hag, David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, and OGS?
Sadly, at United, the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
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