During his time as Manchester United manager, Erik ten Hag had a number of high-profile clashes with his players.
While Ten Hag appeared to be supported by the majority of the squad, there were a few players he was at odds with.
Most notoriously, Ten Hag and Cristiano Ronaldo had a falling out which led to the Portuguese forward leaving by mutual agreement in November with his contract torn up.
Ronaldo has hit out at Ten Hag repeatedly, which makes us wonder just how badly the pair fell out. The situation repeated itself a year later when Jadon Sancho and Ten Hag very publicly fell out.
Sancho was training with the academy for the first half of last season as a result before heading on loan to Dortmund and then Chelsea.
Last week, while discussing his time under Ten Hag, Varane had harsh words about the Dutchman.
Erik ten Hag responds to Raphael Varane criticisms
Varane suggested Ten Hag sought conflict during an interview last week with The Athletic, revealing he and the Dutchman had also had their differences.
In this, Varane expressed shock over Ten Hag surviving at United last summer. Now, a week later Ten Hag has spoken for the first time since his exit, with his agency’s YouTube, SEG Stories. In this interview, Ten Hag appears to respond to the comments from Varane.
“This generation for example they usually finds it difficult to deal with criticism. Criticism really gets to them”, Ten Hag explained.
“The generation that I grew up in had much thicker skin. You could be much more direct.”
One prime example of this was how Sancho reacted to Ten Hag’s critique of his training. Now, the Dutchman seems to have been proven correct as the Englishman has struggled elsewhere.
Ten Hag made correct decisions for Manchester United
While the toxicity that Ten Hag attracted at the club could be done without, the decisions in terms of criticising players and the falling out were actually not terrible.
Sancho was called out and has failed to impress elsewhere – with Marcus Rashford similarly called out by Ruben Amorim.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s falling out saw the United legend head to Saudi Arabia where he is playing at a level and in a style which would not improve United.
These decisions were spot on for the club by Ten Hag and really the conflict which he had – at least in Sancho’s case – was not needed as it was the player who made things worse.
There may be more examples in which Ten Hag was in the wrong. But from the outside the manager has explained himself well.
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