Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s exit from Old Trafford last November resulted in Manchester United appointing Ralf Rangnick as interim coach until the end of the season.
The Red Devils now need to appoint a new permanent manager and Ajax’s Erik ten Hag and Paris Saint-Germain coach Mauricio Pochettino are the two main candidates.
Last week, Algemeen Dagblad reported the first talks between the Premier League side and the Dutchman took place on March 21st. On Monday, we covered claims from Foot Mercato that the Manchester club have also had a meeting with Pochettino.
With Ten Hag [and the former Tottenham Hotspur manager] heavily linked with the Old Trafford job, Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal, who managed the English club between 2014 and 2016, discouraged the Ajax boss from joining a ‘commercial club’ like Manchester United.
De Telegraaf journalists Valentijn Driessen and Mike Verweij were not happy with Van Gaal’s advice to Ten Hag.
Verweij used Van Gaal [and Solskjaer’s] tenure at Manchester United as an example to explain why moving to Manchester could be best for Ten Hag.
“Louis van Gaal could also have said: it is a club where they have a lot of patience with trainers,” Verweij told De Telegraaf podcast, relayed by Ajax Showtime.
“He was in a period where they failed to score seven times in a row. He was allowed to stay. Solskjaer has also been sitting for a long time. I do think that the risk of injury for Ten Hag is very high at United. It’s a very difficult club.”
Driessen backed Ten Hag to have good possibilities should he take the United job.
“There is an awful lot to gain. Every trainer is convinced of himself. What could be better than being in the final of the Champions League with Manchester United? The possibilities are almost limitless,” Driessen explained.
