Man Utd Boss Ten Hag Insists Garnacho And Mainoo Prove “Game Model”

Erik ten Hag asserted that Manchester United’s steady approach to play is demonstrated by the achievements of Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo.

This season, the Red Devils have come in for a lot of flak for both their lacklustre play and Ten Hag’s lack of a cohesive playing philosophy. Even though top Premier League teams like Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool claim to operate according to a particular philosophy, many people feel that the Dutch manager hasn’t been able to give United a distinctive character after leading the squad for nearly two seasons.

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However, Ten Hag refuses to agree to the aforementioned sentiment. Instead, he has argued that the revelation of academy players like Mainoo and Garnacho at the highest level is an indication of a well-drilled structure already prevalent at the club, where the academies closely follow the footprints of the senior team while adopting a style of play.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Ten Hag said: “There is a game model here. How do you think [Alejandro] Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo are able to come up? That’s because it was one of my objectives from the previous leadership team to bring that in.

“It was already going, they were already improving the academy. You can see they won the FA Youth Cup, the academy teams are becoming champions and that is the structure that was laid out a couple of years ago. Now you see some revenues from it, and the best is by bringing players [into] the first team like Kobbie and Garnacho.”

Jason Wilcox was lured away from Southampton by United and appointed as the new technical director of the team. “The role of a technical director, working on a game model, is the right choice,” Ten Hag stated, adding that he thinks it’s a positive move given how quickly things are developing and the need to constantly improve. This is a base, and the evidence is present there as well.

“Initial meetings are good… now we have to take things quickly because the summer is coming. It’s a very important period where you come into a window. We want to make the next step into our squad and make plans to create an environment that avoids this year’s problems in injuries.”

If Ten Hag can’t lead United to a European position, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Co. may take the axe in May, which will serve as a litmus test for him. He has five games remaining to guarantee his future, which include an FA Cup final matchup with Manchester City, his longtime adversaries. The first one is a league match on Monday night at Selhurst Park against Crystal Palace.