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Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has admitted he needs his young players to make a direct impact this season despite the team being in transition.
The United manager has come under-fire recently as club legend Cristiano Ronaldo re-opened his feud with him and claimed he lacked ambition by saying the Red Devils couldn’t win the league or Champions League.
He has also been tipped to be sacked by numerous pundits with Stan Collymore and Jason Cundy claiming on talkSport that the manager is likely to be fired in the not so distant future.
Speaking to Rio Ferdinand for TNT Sports ahead of United’s Saturday lunchtime kick off against Southampton, Ten Hag once again reiterated he has a team in transition despite spending lavishly for the third straight summer.
“At the start you have to construct a team, but definitely this team again is in a transition period,” he said.
Ten Hag has already claimed that he knows results must improve but speaking to Rio Ferdinand he explained “we have to integrate some players, that’s the truth. That [injuries] makes it difficult because you plan to integrate players slowly but of course in a methodical way.”
“But when the injuries are coming from the current squad, you have to throw them in immediately.”
The United manager referenced the rapid use of signings like Zirkzee to cover for the injured Rasmus Hojlund and now Mason Mount.
“That is an advantage because now he [Zirkzee] gets quicker used to our principles and rules, but of course it has an effect because he doesn’t know all the patterns and the automatics we have in our team.”
Ten Hag then commented on his happiness with the brand-new coaching team which in a complete overhaul saw the likes of Mitchell van der Gaag and Steve McClaren replaced by Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake.
“They do brilliant,” he said. “Of course we had pre-season and the first weeks of the season. The pre-season is you can learn [about] each other, of course we know each other but for the first time we collaborate.
“The pre-season you use for this, and now the season starts and they’re doing very well, they are integrated very good in the club and in our squad.”
The manager also praised the introduction of new positions such as a sporting director and technical director and whilst claiming it was a positive thing, he also warned that it will take time to get used to these different structures.
Ferdinand then pushed the manager on the balance of recruitment seeming to have evolved towards a younger focus, with players like Joshua Zirkzee, Manuel Ugarte and Leny Yoro all being under 23.
This is added to the fact that some of United’s most important players like Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo are both younger than 21 years old.
“We still want to win the league, but we need players for longer term. Yes they are young players, but always you look for is ‘what is the right balance’?”
He then listed players such as Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire and Casemiro as players on the other ends of the scale to add experience to a young group.
“So we have a lot of experience, but we bought many players who are young who have a long future, but also the players who can be there directly, already directly have an impact on results.”
“We bought some very young players, it’s good for the future and there we have to build. But we start our conversation ‘we are in a transition period’, and now we have to to build this, construct this.”
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