United’s transfer policy has to improve under ten Hag, says Ferdinand

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Erik ten Hag reportedly has an agreement in principle to join Manchester United as the club’s new long-term manager.

The Dutchman has seemingly been the leading candidate for a while and the negotiations have moved on since United’s 1-0 defeat at Everton on Saturday.

United have been in limbo since the dismissal of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and Ralf Rangnick has been unable to steady the ship or mount a meaningful challenge for silverware.

Rio Ferdinand has reacted to the latest on ten Hag on his FIVE YouTube channel, reeling off who he thinks the new manager will be speaking to before he takes over and underlining the need for recruitment to improve at Old Trafford.

“He’ll be having conversations,” said Ferdinand. “He’ll be speaking to people like Rene (Meulenstein), Robin van Persie, Jaap Stam and Edwin van der Sar about what it is like at Manchester United.

“I know the people who are there right now are working diligently to get a structure in place for the new manager and have a real good go at getting the right talent.

“It’s about that conversation with ten Hag and the people that run the club on how the recruitment is done.

“The key conversation is who is that driven by? Is it the manager who’s incoming or the recruitment staff, saying ‘this is the player, this is the DNA’. These are the conversations I’m sure are happening.”

No manager in the modern game has the completely unchecked control over transfers they would ideally love, but United have to get the balance right.

That might be more in terms of players ten Hag says isn’t right for him. The club has got to offload them and get some money through the door for them, rather than have them sitting around not playing and draining wages.

The long wait between Solskjaer’s sacking and the naming of his successor means that the club has had to do homework on summer targets without really knowing if they will fit the new man’s ideas.

Ten Hag getting closer means that there is more of a vision United are working towards, but it might be that there is a disconnect between the players the club have been looking at and what the Dutchman wants.

He needs to get that across and the club need to start looking at players who fit his philosophy or who he says he wants as soon as possible, to make up for lost time.