Ruben Amorim is one step away from winning his first-ever European title after guiding Manchester United to the Europa League final but a bold Erik ten Hag claim has been made that takes away some lustre from his feat.
Manchester United coasted to the finals after their 4-1 win vs Athletic saw them beat the Basque team 7-1 on aggregate.
They will now face Spurs in an all-English final that is sure to get the debate raging since both teams are struggling immensely in the league.
Ruben Amorim deserves immense credit for picking up the pieces of a broken season and putting it all together en route to a generational run to the finals, free-scoring and undefeated.
However, he’s been faced with an uncomfortable Erik ten Hag question ahead of the final by the Dutch press.
Erik ten Hag claim made about Man Utd’s Europa League run
Manchester United have played 14 games in the Europa League so far under three different managers.
Erik ten Hag managed the first three games, all draws, including two tough away trips to Porto (3-3) and Fenerbahce (1-1).
The real “bad” result was the draw at home against FC Twente. Ruud Van Nistelrooy took over for the 2-0 win vs PAOK at Old Trafford before the Ruben Amorim era began.
In 10 games under the current Man Utd manager, United have won eight and drawn two, scoring a remarkable 25 goals in the process.
He’s done all this with a team that’s not his and was a tactical mess when he took over, but the Dutch press has claimed via Robert Maaskant for Sportnieuws that Erik ten Hag would be looking at this campaign and think he could have led United to the final as well.
Maaskant said: “It is his [Erik ten Hag’s] team that is there. And I think they can also win the final. With all due respect to Spurs, but they are even worse this year. He must think, I could have done this too.”
Erik ten Hag was a dead man walking at Man Utd
It is easy to look at Man Utd’s results and diminish Amorim’s accomplishments but the only thing true in that statement is that his is Erik ten Hag’s team.
In fact, it was a Ten Hag team in the worst possible way, correcting which took Amorim a few months before it finally started clicking.
It is impossible to argue with a hypothetical which is why it’s not worth dissecting Maaskant’s claim that Ten Hag would think he could have reached the final too.
Having said that, it is often forgotten how much of a lottery each game had begun under the Dutch manager, with the team structure having gaping holes everywhere.
Those exact issues have been fixed by Amorim and recently, even the defeats have been encouraging because United are dominating games that they never once did after the first season under Ten Hag.
Ten Hag is probably not as bad a manager as the Man Utd squad made him look, but at the same time, saying that he would be thinking he could’ve replicated Amorim’s European run is disingenuous.
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