Erik ten Hag’s third season as manager of Manchester United has had a rough start to the season. The club’s new CEO has now talked about how long it might take to get the Red Devils back on track.
Omar Berrada, the new CEO of Manchester United, says it’s hard to say when the team will be ready to compete for big trophies again.
Since Sir Alex Ferguson left United in 2013, the last time they won the Premier League, they have not even come close to competing for the title. Then, United won the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the Europa League. But they haven’t been able to compete for the Premier League or the Champions League.
Since Ferguson left, Erik ten Hag is United’s fifth stable manager. However, after Sunday’s embarrassing 3-0 loss at home to rivals Liverpool, he is still no closer to making the team a title candidate. After leaving United’s local foes Manchester City in July, Berrada was asked how long it would take to make the club a big force again, but he wouldn’t say.
“Anyone who has worked in football for a long time will tell you that it’s almost impossible to give you a time frame,” Berrada said.When you look at teams that have been successful for a long time, you can see that they have the right coach, they have signed the right players, and they have the right structure around the coach and the players. You also need to make good decisions over and over again for a long time to get to the point where your club can make money and compete to win every competition, which is where we want to be.
“We don’t want to earn one Premier League title and be done with it.” The team we want to build should be able to consistently compete for the Champions League, the Premier League, and the local cups.
This window shows what we need to do more of in order to build that. Priority jobs were found very early on, and we were able to fill them in a way that didn’t break the bank.
“We were very strict about how much we thought the new players were worth.” We didn’t change those prices. I believe that Dan Ashworth, who is United’s sports director, and the team did a great job during the talks.I say that because if you make a mistake, like spending too much or getting a person who costs too much, it can set you back. That’s why you need to be able to make the right choices over time if you want to win most of the time. It’s normal to make mistakes because there are some things we can’t change or avoid.
After Sir Jim Ratcliffe took over as manager of the football operations side of the club, United spent £200 million on players in their first transfer window. They also made close to £100 million by selling players.
“Well first of all, I didn’t inherit it,” Ashworth said when asked how he felt about the team he took over when he joined United on July 1. Because Manchester United is a team, we did this. As of July 1, decisions had already been made about how to improve key parts of the pitch.Raphael Varane, Anthony Martial, and Sofyan Amrabat were three important players we had already lost. A centre back, a central midfielder/No. 6, and a centre forward were the most important players, and we thought we might need another centre back as well.
“Those were the four most important positions we wanted to improve during this window, and we did.” By adding Joshua Zirkzee, Manuel Ugarte, Leny Yoro, and Matthijs De Ligt, those were the key positions that had already been agreed upon when I arrived, partly because of the exits and partly because we thought those were areas where we could improve our depth and quality.
“Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Nassair Mazraoui were a good matchup because Aaron had a year left on his contract and could move on, so we were able to trade for him.”When you first get to the group at the beginning of the season, players have already left, and there may be others who want to leave. It’s then about trying to carry out the club’s plan as much as possible in those key spots. In addition, I want to bring up the financial rules and laws that you should follow.
“So we can’t just change everyone, and we don’t want to. We need to make smart choices in the next few windows to make the most of our resources and the talent we already have in the team and the talent that’s coming through the system.”
“From my point of view, you have to be brave and make choices you might not want to make, but you can’t have a big squad with players who just want to play football.”You want the team to be lean but have enough strength.The schedule is pretty tough, especially with the new Europa League setup. So we want to make sure we have enough backup so that we don’t have an over-sized team and can keep the players who want to play because they think they have a chance. It can go wrong if you run with too many people.
And the second thing is that the rules and laws have changed, which is why you have to make brave choices. You need to stir. As a player trade point of view and a business point of view, you have to make some money in order to spend that money back.
Berrada said, “Clearly, for the ins and outs, we had a very clear idea of what we wanted to achieve, both in terms of the positions of the players and from a financial point of view.” He was talking about United’s desire to sell well in the summer window, which is something they have not done in the past.
“It’s true that we’ve been more willing to structure the contracts in a way that can benefit us both now and in the future. For example, we’ve added higher sell-ons and more realistic contingents to almost all of the players who have left, from young players to older players.”
“We’ve also tried to make rules that will keep us safe in the future.” We can buy back a star, like Willie Kambwala, if he does really well. We’ve done that again with a lot of other young guys. In other words, it just spells out in a very clear way what the rules are for any discussion. Dan and his team have done a great job with the ins and outs.
