An FA Cup-winning manager has never come closer to a microphone drop.
In a room full of journalists who had spent the previous days reporting on his bosses’ plan to replace him, a bruised, combative but combative Erik ten Hag defended his record as Manchester United manager.
“Two trophies in two years is not bad,” he said. “Three finals in two years is not bad. If they don’t want me, I’ll go and win trophies somewhere else because that’s what I do.”
It was a good line, and one worth repeating, which he did. After Ten Hag’s contract was extended and his future settled, he sat down with MUTV in July and reiterated his point about the “two trophies”.
A few days later, he said it again in Trondheim, after United’s first pre-season friendly. He added: “Apart from (Manchester) City, that’s more than any other club in English football.”
He repeated it again after the friendly against Rangers in Edinburgh.
And then back on tour through the United States.
That was just the preparation. Since the start of the campaign itself, Ten Hag has referred to his two national cup wins in six conversations with journalists during pre-match and post-match press conferences, not to mention interviews with broadcasters.
The latest incident, after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool, came amid a tense exchange with a journalist who invited Ten Hag to list the “mistakes” his team was accused of. After the journalist rattled off a long list of repeated errors, Ten Hag retreated to his old stomping grounds.
“I have a different view. I think we’ve won the most trophies in English football after City,” he said. “I feel sorry for you.”
He is right, of course. It is as true now as it was at Wembley. But three games into a new season, an argument he used to slyly mock his critics in May, has quickly become a crutch to fall back on.
On Friday, having just repeated his favourite point, Ten Hag added: “There is only one thing in football and that is at the end of the season, whether you win prizes, trophies or not.” But as others have noted, that view is in stark contrast to that of his predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
“Every cup competition can give you a trophy, but sometimes it’s more of an ego thing from other managers and clubs to finally win something,” Solskjaer said in March 2021.
“It’s not like a trophy says, ‘We’re back’. It’s the gradual progression of being in and around the top of the league and the consistency and the odd trophies. Sometimes a cup competition can mask the fact that you’re still struggling a little bit.”
Solskjaer’s words are those of a manager who had the opposite problem to Ten Hag. Under the Norwegian, United’s table improved steadily — from sixth to third to second — but the trophy cabinet was empty.
Solskjaer defended his record by claiming that the league is a true barometer of progress, just as Ten Hag defends his record by pointing to silverware. Opinions will differ as to which view is correct.
Ten Hag with his other trophy, the Carabao Cup (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
As crucial as it was for Solskjaer’s United to secure Champions League qualification on the final weekend of the 2019-20 season, do you remember who they beat that day? Do you remember the score? Perhaps you do, but that 2-0 win behind closed doors at Leicester City is hardly a result that will resonate for the ages.
Likewise, memories aren’t made by finishing second in the league. Solskjaer’s side finished 12 points behind champions Manchester City in the year they finished second, in 2021, after failing to top the table since late January.
The only trophy United came close to winning that year was the Europa League. Solskjaer insisted that silverware sometimes “hides other facts”. But after United lost in a penalty shootout to Villarreal, he admitted he could not consider the season a success because he had failed to deliver silverware.
Ask anyone who has known the inner workings of Old Trafford over the years and they will tell you that you cannot survive as a United manager without winning trophies. Solskjaer’s time in charge is undeniable proof of that, while Ten Hag proves the opposite: deliver a trophy plus the best day of United’s post-Sir Alex Ferguson era and you can survive anything, even the worst ever Premier League finish.
And then of course there was the 4-3 quarter-final win over Liverpool — one of Old Trafford’s greatest games and atmospheres this century. Add to that the Carabao Cup triumph and the last two years have provided fans with indelible memories, the highs to offset the lows.
But Solskjaer’s view is much closer to how performance at the elite level of modern football is coldly judged. A league campaign of 38 home and away games is arguably a better measure of a team’s quality, and usually the ticket to lucrative Champions League qualification, which cuts budgets in a way the FA Cup cannot.
United may be the second most successful team in English football over the past two years, as Ten Hag points out, but no one would honestly deny that they are also the second best team.
Nor would anyone argue that United are any closer to challenging City for a major trophy than Arsenal, despite the fact that Mikel Arteta has added just one Community Shield to his list of achievements since Ten Hag’s appointment.
That’s the reality. In a calmer moment, away from the hostile nature and battles of a press conference, even Ten Hag would admit that trophies aren’t enough. You need pots as well as points.
United’s decade-plus of underperformance will only be over when the club is back in regular contention for the Premier League title and reaches the final stages of the Champions League.
There were mitigating circumstances last season – injuries, off-field unrest, uncertainty over a takeover, the lack of an established left-back – but United underperformed in the competitions that mattered most.
That, despite the domestic cup success, is why their manager is under pressure to prove that progress has been made and can continue to be made, and why he can only point to his two trophies for so long. If he weren’t staring at a room full of journalists and TV cameras, even Ten Hag would accept that.
GALLING DEEPER
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(Top photo: Erik ten Hag with the FA Cup; by Alex Pantling via Getty Images)
