Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has been criticised for talking too much to Red Devils winger Alejandro Garnacho ahead of bringing him on in the Europa League game against FC Twente.
Man Utd had another difficult game as they could only draw 1-1 at home to Twente, which followed a disappointing 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace in their last Premier League game.
The spotlight will be on Ten Hag as many fans and pundits will have been surprised to see the Dutch tactician survive as United manager this summer, even if he ended a disappointing campaign last season with a memorable victory over rivals Manchester City in the FA Cup final.
Former manager Ruud Gullit analysed Ten Hag’s antics with Garnacho and was clearly unimpressed as he felt the former Ajax boss was probably giving the player too many instructions and making him think “dude, leave me alone”…
Ten Hag’s Man United struggles continue
Some managers can be quite controlling with their players and micro-manage them to an extent, but it’s never a good look for a manager if it’s not combined with better results and performances.
Garnacho is a fine young player who’s had a good impact in the United first-team, so he probably doesn’t need too much in the way of tactical advice, and might have done better to just enter the pitch and play with some freedom, adding some much-needed spark to this struggling MUFC side.
At the same time, this is just Gullit’s observation and it might not be accurate, with the other argument being that Ten Hag has clearly managed Garnacho quite well so far, with the talented young Argentina international playing some great football after becoming more of a regular in the first-team under this manager.
We’ll never know for sure how Garnacho really reacted to Ten Hag here, but the main thing is that United’s manager surely needs to turn things around fast or he’s not going to have much sympathy from the board, who have given him both plenty of time and a lot of expensive signings to try to improve the team’s situation, without seeing any return on their investment so far.