Aside from his obvious tactical nous, Man United manager, Erik ten Hag, appears to have everything in his armoury to be a brilliant man manager too.
The Dutchman didn’t blink when it became clear that Cristiano Ronaldo was going to leave. There was no fawning over the Portuguese and trying to win him round. He was gone.
That one act would’ve arguably had one of the biggest impacts on a dressing room who will almost certainly have noted with interest that if their manager was going to stand up to one of the greatest players to have ever played the game and pull on the red shirt, then he would have no problem being direct to every other member of his squad.
There are no grey areas with ten Hag.
One only needs to also look at the way he’s stripped Harry Maguire of the Man United captaincy and reneged on a deal that the club had agreed with David de Gea.
The man means business, and he’s offered an olive branch of sorts to one of his wantaway stars.
Dean Henderson spent last season on loan at Nottingham Forest, and the City Ground outfit are believed to want him back on a permanent deal.
“We have a group of keepers and, as everyone else, you have to fight for your position,” the Daily Mirror quote ten Hag as saying.
“I think that’s normal when you’re at United. And he (Dean Henderson) is a good goalie, he has to fight and we have to see when he can return to team training.”
The Dutchman is building something decent at Old Trafford by the looks of things, and whilst Forest will hope to acquire Henderson, he really needs to ask himself if he would rather play more often at a club expected to battle relegation again, or fight for the No.1 spot at a club that are clearly going places.
The ball looks to be in the keeper’s court.