Erik ten Hag has somehow made things even worse for Man Utd by winning the actual FA Cup; Kevin De Bruyne, Erling Haaland and Manchester City were awful. 1) Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence.
Three times is Man Utd being hilariously incompetent and winning in spite of their own best efforts. Erik ten Hag is not the first Man Utd manager whose last match involved the procurement of silverware. He isn’t even the first Dutch coach to do it in an FA Cup final.
Louis van Gaal warned his compatriot against taking the Old Trafford reins and might be suffering flashbacks of his own downfall. Jose Mourinho was installed as Van Gaal’s replacement almost as soon as the final whistle blew and Alan Pardew’s dreams were dashed at Wembley in 2016. Little over two years later, the Portuguese’s preparations for a Premier League game against Newcastle were dogged by speculation surrounding his future, with it claimed he would be sacked ‘whatever the outcome’ of that match.
Man Utd scored three goals in the final 20 minutes of a 3-2 victory because that is how these things work. It granted only a stay of execution: Mourinho was gone two months later . And that is relevant for Ten Hag because one result and performance – and both were sensational in triumphing over Manchester City – cannot nullify an entire season’s body of work which has pointed to him no longer being the best individual for this role, especially in the context of the INEOS takeover and new regime.
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