INEOS scouted for replacements to Erik ten Hag after that special FA Cup final win against City as part of end-of-year review, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe even interviewing Thomas Tuchel in Monaco. It is thought that Brailsford in late February explored the possibilities of Gareth Southgate, Thomas Frank and Mauricio Pochettino when going was tough for Manchester United. With no convincing choice and Southgate sticking with England for the Euro's, Erik ten Hag was approached while on vacation to commit on a new contract. Erik ten Hag deliberated and took his time to ultimately settle for extending the existing terms of a deal where he will have a final say on all players and coaching staff. No manager after Ferguson has survived the dreaded 3rd year that ten Hag now enters into!
Meanwhile INEOS continued to further the plans on finalizing the future of Old Trafford by formulating a committee to be headed by Sebastian Coe, Gary Neville and Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham, who have supposedly suggested to retain a 30,000-seater Old Trafford for Women's and Youth matches while developing a brand-new stadium for Men's team at the adjacent site to the existing stadium. Final report is awaited in December. If true, this will assuage all sections of the fan base who are split between building a new stadium and redeveloping the century old marvel of Archibald Leitch, Old Trafford. Presently Carrington is getting a facelift and the Tunnel at Old Trafford has a new look.
United faced the maximum number of shots on goal for a top tier team over the course of last season. That number was embarrassingly high, crossing the 200 mark. This forced changes in the backroom staff with long time assistant Mitchell van der Gaag leaving, also 2-time goal keeping coach across two decades in Richard Hartis, Steve McLaren left to become coach of Jamaican national team, forwards coach Benni McCarthy has been released, Eric Ramsey became a coach with an MLS side. Sounds like a total clear out. In comes United legend Ruud van Nistelrooy who was available after being released by PSV Eindhoven despite winning the Dutch Cup in May, 2023. Rene Hake resigned from his position as Head coach at Go Ahead Eagles to join and has overall 15 years of experience while Jelle ten Rouwelaar is the new Goalkeeping coach from Burnley. Ruud, Rene, Jelle are all Dutch. Perhaps the most important one is that of Andreas Georgson who was managing Lillestrom in Sweden while previously being an technical set piece coach at Southampton (under Jason Wilcox), Arsenal and Brentford.
In the last days of June, the year end for most of Premier League clubs Manchester United struck a deal with Newcastle to relieve their Technical Director Dan Ashworth and join the reds immediately. Deal making ability of Sir Jim to the fore. Next they hired the out of work Transfer Specialist formerly at Chelsea and Red Bull group in Christopher Vivell to lead the recruitment on a short term basis. Despite this appointment they had to take the services of super agents Jorge Mendes and Kia Joorabchian to secure the services of Leny Yorro (18 years) and Joshua Zirkzee (23 years) respectively. Yorro is thought to be a generational talent who had his heart set on joining Real Madrid, except that his club Lille were not ready to accept a 30million fee nor allow him to run down the last year of his contract to leave on a free transfer. Both players are deemed for the future, while this is a welcome move as supposed to going for an experienced players over the age of 30; it comes at a staggering cost of 62 million plus 42.5 million amid spending restrictions due to Profits and Sustainability Rules (PSR). United's main problem lies in midfield, someone who can win the ball back and this was not deemed as first priority to fix by the esteemed hierarchy of INEOS! Optimistically let's bracket it as 'seizing the market opportunity'. Second priority would have been left-sided centre-back as a cover for injury-prone Lisandro Martinez in Jarrad Branthwaite.
Perhaps Christopher Vivell has indeed made good progress in selling Mason Greenwood (26 million), Aaron wan Bissaka (17.6 million), Willy Kambwala (10 million), Alvaro Fernandez (6 million), Donny van de Beek (initial 500k) thus generating about 60 million in revenue from player sales. Previously United have brought players paying over odds and sold at fire-sale rates to be in perpetual and heavy loss. United are still open to selling Casemiro, Maguire, Lindelof, Sancho, Hannibal, Pellistri, Eriksen and McTominay. After long deliberations with Bayern Munich, two players who had previously worked under Erik ten Hag at Ajax have agreed to join: Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui. de Ligt was the youngest captain of Ajax side under Erik ten Hag who reached the Champions' League semi-finals and is still 25 while Mazraoui can play as full-back on either flank giving that extra flexibility. As per Fabrizio Romano, United have agreed terms with Uruguay midfielder Manual Ugarte of PSG as first choice, Sander Berge at Burnley as second choice and Sofiyan Amrabat of Fiorentina as third choice to fill the midfield role. This multi-pronged approach to pursue targets of interest is something that is completely different than the one transfer at a time strategy which used to fail at the end leaving United to go for very expensive, often wrong alternatives at a short notice. This is indeed a long pending and welcome change to transfers. United are in talks with Arsenal to agree terms for transfer of 16-year old sensation Chido Obi-Martin.
United's preseason took them to Norway, Scotland and USA. They lost their first game to Rosenberg 0-1, beat Rangers 2-0, lost to Arsenal 1-2, beat Real Betis 3-2, lost comprehensively to Liverpool 0-3. Once again there were no new players in preseason training except Leny Yorro, who after making a brilliant debut at Ibrox sustained a major injury to his metatarsal against Arsenal to be ruled out for minimum of 3 months. Yet again United are not ready for the new season as rightly called by the Gaffer. Fulham beat United at Old Trafford last season, and it's the season opener Friday night fixture. Players who impressed in the preseason tour were Toby Collyer, Harry Amass and Ethan Wheatley from the youth academy and Amad Diallo in the senior squad who is continuing his good form into next season. After Garnacho and Mainoo in previous two years, this season Erik ten Hag could hand Collyer his breakthrough.
United lost the curtain raiser of the new season in the Community Shield, losing to City 7-8 on penalties after the game ended 1-1 in normal time. Alejandro Garnacho scored the goal late in second half and United conceded an equalizer 2 minutes from time. Despite slow start United grew into the game and Rashford, Amad had good chances to win the game outright. Performance wise it was a departure from last season and hope this continues through the rest of the campaign. It's always gives good vibes if clubs best player and Captain, Bruno Fernandes commits his future by extending his contract. With Liverpool in post Klopp era and Chelsea having a new coach yet again, it's a good opportunity to finish in top 4 with City, Arsenal, Villa, Manchester United as my top 4 predictions. But finally, fans will be eagerly waiting for the team to play a style of possession based attacking football consistently. This may be realized as Erik ten Hag has his first-choice centre-back pairing from Ajax days back in Lisandro Martinez-Matthijs de Ligt, only if they get good protection in front of them and injuries are manageable.
