Chris Sutton has come down hard on Erik Ten Hag, insisting that Ange Postecoglou would not stand for the lack of effort from some of the Manchester United players if he was in charge at Old Trafford.
Postecoglou has been referenced a lot over the last few days in the criticism levelled at Ten Hag for failing to employ a clear style of play at Man Utd.
Jamie Carragher was one of many to point to how quickly the Australian has got Spurs playing attacking, front-foot football (Sky Sports).
To push back against Carragher’s point, Neville suggested that unlike Ten Hag, Postecoglou and Unai Emery went into stable environments at Tottenham and Aston Villa respectively.
This suggestion has been laughed off by many Spurs fans, who pointed out on social media that the Lilywhites were in turmoil when the Australian arrived in the summer.
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Erik ten Hag should be more like Postecoglou
Sutton has now stated that Ten Hag is fully deserving of criticism, stating that the likes of Postecoglou, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp would not accept the current standards at United.
The former Celtic man said on It’s All Kicking Off podcast about the Red Devils: “They have players in their team who can’t run and they have players in the team who won’t run. That is an issue.
“I thought Danny Murphy’s analysis was really brilliant on Match of the Day in terms of bang on. In terms of if these players played for Pep, Klopp or Postecoglou, they wouldn’t pick them.
“If you don’t run, then you don’t play. That’s such a basic thing in football. Ten Hag has been in long enough now where that is on him.”
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While there is no doubt that Tottenham were in turmoil on the pitch when Ange arrived, Neville’s point was about Man Utd’s issues at boardroom level.
Even though Paratici had to officially resign from his position at Spurs after FIFA’s ruling, he continued to work as a consultant at the club and the recruitment department at N17 continued functioning as it was.
However, that is not the case at Man Utd, with Ten Hag seemingly being given free rein to choose his transfer targets and the Dutchman has got his recruitment decisions wrong.
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