After so much upheaval at Manchester United in the recent past, Erik ten Hag’s arrival has been a breath of fresh air.
The Dutchman appears to be a straight talker who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, as was seen by the way he dealt with Cristiano Ronaldo, and it’s no coincidence that the Red Devils already have one trophy in the cabinet with the possibility of another two to follow.
The first one of those will only be acquired if United can get over the next few hurdles in the Europa League, the first of which is on Thursday night in the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan against Sevilla.
The Andalusians came back from the dead in the first leg of their quarter-final, scoring two late goals to cancel out Marcel Sabitzer’s first-half double.
United therefore have it all to do again but that isn’t something that has ten Hag fazed in any way.
“I think defensively we are good, we have the most clean sheets in the Premier League so our organisation all over the pitch is quite good,” he said at his pre-match press conference, reported by the official Man United website.
“Attacking, yeah we should have scored more goals during the whole season but I am confident as, especially in the last few games, now we have all the players on board, we score in every game.
“So I am confident we can do that tomorrow as well.”
It’s just that type of bullish attitude that rubs off on players and helps them to go out onto the pitch and get the job done.
Sir Alex Ferguson was similar in that respect and it’s been far too long since a manager with such conviction in his own level of performance and that of his playing staff was in the hot-seat at Old Trafford.
It United do happen to exit the competition, it certainly won’t before the want of trying.
I think our intelligent coach and our beloved players know what we want,we are going to semis