Manchester United head coach Erik ten Hag will be under no illusions about the task in front of him as he battles to turn their season around, with one candidate coming highly recommended by Paul Scholes and Glenn Hoddle waiting in the wings if he were to be sacked by the club. The Dutchman has overseen one of United’s worst starts to a season in 37 years after a dismal run of form and may be facing the threat of the axe with doubts circulating about his future.
Speculation is rife that the United squad are far from happy under Ten Hag, which was compounded by their 3-0 defeat to Manchester City at Old Trafford last Sunday. And he will be looking nervously over his shoulder at other bosses eyeing up his job.
The 53-year-old has been in charge since June 2022 after he was appointed to replace interim boss Ralf Rangnick. Prior to Ten Hag’s appointment, ex-England midfielder Scholes had earmarked then-Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl as a potential candidate for the job due to his relationship with Rangnick, who was preparing to move upstairs as a sporting director.
“I’ve always thought the football he plays at Southampton with not the best squad. The type of football has worked for them. His teams have been good to watch; I think it comes across really well,” Scholes said on BT Sport in 2021.
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“This [managing Manchester United] would be a different kind of pressure; I think people around this club, and fans especially, are thinking more of possibly [Mauricio] Pochettino or an Antonio Conte and what people have been at the bigger clubs. The more I think about it, I don’t think it would be a bad thing. The way he goes about his business, he looks good.”
His fellow BT Sport (now TNT Sports) pundit Hoddle agreed, adding: “Would that not be a good fit? For me, if they’ve worked so closely together, if he’s going to be the sporting director eventually – that works.”
In Hasenhuttl’s first season in charge, Southampton survived relegation by finishing 16th and in his first full season, he guided the Saints to 11th. He recorded back-to-back 15th-place finishes in 2020-21 and 2021-22, earning the plaudits for managing to keep the South Coast club in the top-flight with a modest transfer budget and coping with the departure of key players such as Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Dusan Tadic.
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As well as this, the Austrian assembled a young squad at St Mary’s with a bright future, acquiring talents such as Armel Bella-Kotchap and Tino Livramento for small fees. That was before their unfortunate plight into the relegation zone forced the club to relieve him of his duties in November 2022 after nearly four years in charge. Under the management of his former assistant Ruben Selles, the club were relegated to the Championship.
Hasenhuttl has remained out of work since then, having watched talks with Bundesliga club Hoffenheim fall through earlier this year. And even with Ten Hag’s precarious situation at the club, the chances of him landing the United job – even on a temporary basis – appear to be highly unlikely now that Rangnick is no longer at Old Trafford.
He had been appointed on an interim basis with the idea of moving upstairs at the end of his reign, before those plans were scrapped and Rangnick took a job with the Austrian national team.
There would be other more high-profile candidates on the list before Hasenhuttl if United were to ditch Ten Hag less than 18 months into his five-year contract. However, it is understood the former Ajax coach’s position is not currently under threat.
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