Manchester United have had a great season so far under the leadership of Dutch coach Erik ten Haag. The Red Devils are already in third place in the league below Arsenal and Manchester City, are in a good position to progress to the round of 16 in the Europa League, but above all they are showing happy, engrossing and consistent football, one that the crowd has not experienced for a long time at Old Trafford.
In an extensive interview that he gave in Malka, the team’s liaison, Bruno Fernandes, revealed the changes the coach has instituted since he arrived at the club last summer, talked about his demanding demands, and why, among other things, Cristiano Ronaldo was sidelined. In addition, the Portuguese talked about the negative image that was created for him as the captain of the team, and what he thinks about it.
“Eric ten the elder demands a lot from the people under him. He arrived for the first time and from the very beginning he said – ‘Either you do what I say, or you are out,'” said the Portuguese, “Everyone wondered at first if he would really do what he said, and what if, for example, a great player does not do so, will Will he sit on the bench? And in the end he certainly did it quite a few times, also with Cristiano Ronaldo, also with Jadon Sancho and even with Marcus Rashford.”
The Dutch coach, as I remember, left Ronaldo on the bench quite a few times and even out of the squad, until they jointly decided to release his contract after the interview he conducted with Piers Morgan before the World Cup held in Qatar. At the same time, the English winger, Jaydon Sancho, was also sent to a personal training camp in the Netherlands and was absent from the first part of this season after experiencing physical and mental difficulties.
Fernandez also spoke about the negative image that was created for him as the team captain: “Sometimes when I shout, from the outside it looks like I’m saying something bad to my teammates, but it’s the other way around. It only seems that way because I talk a lot with my hands. Sometimes I do it well, but they think it’s not so because I wave my arms.”
He also said: “When I think they did something wrong and they had a better option that they didn’t do it, I will yell at them in a bad way, because we have to do things for the team. On the other hand, if I see someone with low confidence that things are not going their way – I will shout at them in an encouraging way.”