Erik ten Hag’s handling of the Marcus Rashford situation has Sir Alex Ferguson’s fingerprints all over it.
It’s fair to say during Sir Alex Ferguson’s 26-year stint as manager of Manchester United, he had multiple fallings out with key players and delivered the now, almost iconic, hairdryer treatment on multiple occasions.
If the Scotsman was still in charge of the club today and Marcus Rashford had done what he did in Belfast, then you would expect Ferguson would not take too kindly to his behaviour.
In fact, an interview with Robin Van Persie from 2020 has shown that Erik ten Hag may well have followed Ferguson’s lead in dealing with indiscretions.
Van Persie on Fergie’s rage
Speaking to French outlet Sofoot, the Dutch striker, who almost singlehandedly won United their 20th, and most recent, league title revealed how angry Ferguson was with two players for partying late into the night following a 2-1 Manchester derby defeat towards the end of that season, with the title yet to be won.
“The day after the game Sir Alex had photos put up on the dressing room wall of the two players taken during their night out,” Van Persie said.
“He told the entire squad: ‘Boys, if we don’t win the league it’s because of these two ________ who opted to go out’.
“The manager slaughtered them. It was amazing. He’d put up photos documenting where they were, at 2am, 3am, 4am etc, to underline just how stupid they had been.
“He didn’t stop there, but warned us that if he heard of any of us going out before we’d won the league we’d be out of the team. He was merciless, he would say: ‘I don’t care how many trophies you’ve won, if you go out before the end of the season, I’m selling you.'”
Back to the present day, this isn’t the first time Ten Hag has fallen out with a member of the first-team squad with Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho the most high-profile examples of this.
However, fans have been crying out for the setting of some standards by the management team but now Ten Hag is implementing these standards, people seem to have a problem.
Ten Hag following Ferguson’s lead
It seems the Dutchman and the Scotsman have a close relationship as they were pictured together before the Carabao Cup final game against Newcastle United last year.
Whether Ten Hag has had some advice from Ferguson remains to be seen but there is no doubt the 53-year-old is following in his footsteps.
The Rashford saga has now been sorted and if the 26-year-old returns to the United first team and explodes into life, then this would be another shrewd disciplinary decision from Ten Hag.
Ferguson would most likely follow this mantra and if this strong method works, then Ten Hag deserves huge credit.
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