Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag had four meetings with rival club

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Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was the number one target for French outfit Nice before leaving Ajax for the Premier League giants instead. 

If Sir Jim Ratcliffe is successful in his attempt to free United from the shackles of Glazer ownership, then the British billionaire will finally find himself working alongside one of the planet’s most highly-rated tacticians at Old Trafford.

Ratcliffe’s Nice side tried and failed to hire Ten Hag during the summer of 2021. The straight-talking Dutchman was still at the helm of Dutch powerhouses Ajax at the time, and held a grand total of four meetings with the Allianz Riviera outfit.

At least, that is according to Nice’s former sporting director, Julian Fournier.

“My first choice before (hiring) Christophe Galtier was Erik ten Hag,” Nice’s former sporting director Julian Fournier tells 90Football.

“We met four times. When I say a meeting, it’s not drinking a coffee and saying; ‘how are you?’”

Nice missed out on Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag

Fournier does not explain why Ten Hag did not end up at Nice. Perhaps the one-time Bayern Munich reserve coach felt that Les Aiglons were something of a sidewards step after Ajax.

Ten Hag, even 12 months before his arrival at Old Trafford, was starting to attract admiring glances from some of the biggest clubs in some of the biggest leagues after all, even if talks with Tottenham Hotspur broke down due to Ten Hag’s ‘lack of charisma’, per the Daily Mail.

Now, he may lack Jose Mourinho’s easy charm and his penchant for a headline-grabbing quote. But Ten Hag more than makes up for that supposed ‘lack of charisma’ with a tactical mind sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel.

Manchester United’s 2-0 triumph at Nottingham Forest was his 36^th in just 51 games. A 70.59 per cent win rate, meanwhile, makes Ten Hag by far and away the most successful in United’s entire history, in terms of pure statistics.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s win rate, by comparison, was 59 per cent.

“We approach it game by game. We have to win. We’re Manchester United,” Ten Hag said in typically forthright fashion after Antony, Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes enjoyed a Sunday stroll through the Forest.

“That has to be the approach. I know it will not always work out. If you play so many games sometimes you get setbacks. But you have to learn from the mistakes you make. And, today, it was a concentrated and focused performance.

“That is what we need, especially when you go to the end (of the season). As I said before, the points are more expensive in this period of the season because they are all finals. (Teams) are really battling against relegation and they are battling for their lives. Or they’re going for the top, so you have to really fight for every point.”