The Dutchman has once again looked to his former club for solutions and must now get his hand-picked team ticking
New managers wanting to bring people they trust to a new club is a tale as old as time, but Erik ten Hag has taken it to a whole new level at Manchester United. The Dutch tactician has a particular preference for players he has previously worked with, specifically at Ajax, where he had the most success of his career. Failing that, he seems to prefer players from his home country or who have at least some experience of playing in the Netherlands.
Two of his former charges, Lisandro Martinez and Antony, joined up with him in his first summer at United, while the club also spent plenty of energy trying, and ultimately failing, to sign Frenkie de Jong, the breakout star of his great Ajax side. They did sign Tyrell Malacia and Christian Eriksen, neither of whom had worked under Ten Hag but had previously played in the Eredivisie. And the following January, Netherlands striker Wout Weghorst joined on loan.
The next summer the arrival of former Ajax goalkeeper Andre Onana and Mason Mount, who had spent one season at Vitesse, and came up against Ten Hag, turned his penchant for recruiting players with a Dutch flavour into something of a running joke. The joke is being reused in his third summer transfer window after the arrival of Netherlands striker Joshua Zirkzee and especially now following the twin signings from Bayern Munich of Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui, both of whom also worked with Ten Hag at Ajax. Meanwhile, two Dutch coaches, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake, have joined his coaching staff this summer.
It is no longer a joke but fact that Ten Hag has players he trusts and wants. As he approaches his third season at Old Trafford in desperate need of getting the team back into the Champions League, he has no more excuses.
GettyNumbers don't lie
The manager is well aware of his reputation for signing Dutch or Eredivisie players although he was able to politely laugh it off while speaking to fanzine last December.
"It’s a perception. It’s used to make a point,” he said. "Has Casemiro played Eredivisie? Eriksen played in Eredivisie 10 years ago, then for Spurs and Inter. I’ve even seen Mason Mount aligned to the Eredivisie. That was nothing to do with the Eredivisie. And, if you sign players from Ajax, just look at their history. They have delivered many, many players to the top clubs in the world. It’s a long list."
But as much as the manager wants to call it a coincidence, the numbers are hard to ignore. Of the 20 players Ten Hag has signed, either on loan or permanently, five of them played for him at Ajax. The number is six if you include Sofyan Amrabat, who played for him at Utrecht. Four (including De Ligt) are Dutch, while a total of 10 have played in the Eredivisie.
AdvertisementGetty Disproportionate amount
Dutch football has produced some of the greatest players of the game, past and present, and Ajax are its best exponent. The squad that reached the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2019 under Ten Hag was packed with talent and Europe’s top clubs quickly came calling for most of its players.
De Jong joined Barca that very summer, De Ligt moved to Juventus. One year later Donny van de Beek joined United and Hakim Ziyech went to Chelsea. Still, Ten Hag’s leaning on Ajax players feels disproportionate. One or two signings of former players would make sense, but five?
The club have spent around £250 million ($319m) just on players from the Amsterdam club, plus a further £8.5m ($10m) on the one-season loan fee for Amrabat. So a considerable proportion of the £570m ($728m) United have spent under Ten Hag has been on players he has worked with.
Getty ImagesQuestion marks
De Ligt and Mazraoui could prove to be good additions, and the transfer fees are more than reasonable. And yet there are question marks about both of them. De Ligt had a difficult spell at Juventus, especially considering he cost the club €85m (£72m/$92m).
In his first season he made a number of individual mistakes and briefly lost his place to Merih Demiral until the Turkish defender’s campaign was ended by injury. Juve won the title but in his second and third season, they finished fourth. The Old Lady eventually decided to take a hit on their investment and sold De Ligt to Bayern Munich for €67m (£56m/$73m) in 2022.
De Ligt was a regular in his first season in Bavaria and won a third career title thanks to Borussia Dortmund's incredible bottle job in 2023. But Bayern wanted to bolster their defence that summer and did so by signing Kim Min-jae.
They strengthened again in January this year by signing Eric Dier, and ultimately De Ligt started less than half of Bayern's matches in all competitions, also struggling with injuries. And Bayern, like Juve before them, swallowed a substantial loss in order to get rid of him.
Getty ImagesMartinez a roaring success
Mazraoui, meanwhile, has a concerning injury record. He had 10 separate periods of absence in two years at Bayern, including missing two months at the start of 2023 after inflammation around the heart following complications from Covid-19. He started only 26 Bundesliga games out of a possible 68, coming on as a substitute in a further eight. Given United suffered more injuries than any other team in the Premier League last season, that is cause for concern.
Only time will tell if they prove to be good moves. But we can already pass judgement on the other Ajax players Ten Hag has signed. Lisandro Martinez is the only player who has been an all-round success since swapping Amsterdam for Manchester to link up with the manager.
The Argentine is United’s best defender, if not their most important player of all. He has the best pass completion rate in the team and his personality is equally important. During his absence for most of last season, Ten Hag’s coaching staff said there was a glaring lack of vocal voices in the team.
It is no coincidence that United lost so many games in that period and that when he returned just in time for the FA Cup final, they staged their best performance of the season and became the first team in almost six months to beat Manchester City.