Manchester United legend and treble winner, Dwight Yorke, has called out Erik Ten Hag for what he perceives to be an underwhelming season at Old Trafford. Yorke, who played for the club between 1998 and 2022 believes that the Dutchman hasn’t come under the same scrutiny as his former teammate, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, did when he was at the helm at Old Trafford.
Despite winning the Carabao Cup earlier in February, the wheels have come off in recent weeks and the Red Devils are now in a battle to finish inside the top four – something that seemed a formality just a couple of weeks ago.
The club were in seventh place when Solksjaer was sacked last season and failed to win a single trophy in nearly three years under the watch of the Norweigan but Yorke believes there is still a long way to go until Ten Hag can say progress has been made. Speaking to King Casino Bonus, the 51-year-old said:
“If you are a Manchester United manager, you will always be scrutinised for little details or mistakes. There’s nowhere to hide.
The results have not been good enough this season, Manchester United are looking over their shoulder and are desperately trying to hold onto fourth place, I’m not sure that’s where the club wants to be. Ten Hag gets the praise when the team is playing well, he has to take the criticism when it goes wrong too.”
Solskjaer comparisons
Yorke was also quick to point out that United have lost more games domestically this season than they did under Solskjaer’s two full seasons at the club. However, he failed to take into account the fact that large parts of those two seasons were played behind closed doors due to the pandemic and that Solskjaer’s United wilted when fans returned to football stadiums.
?? Defeats under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer:
2019/20 – 8
2020/21 – 6?? Defeats under Erik ten Hag:
2022/23 – 9Man United have lost more #PL matches under Ten Hag than they did in both seasons under Solskjaer ? pic.twitter.com/g1NDsvMz6k
— SPORTbible (@sportbible) May 8, 2023
Speaking about Ten Hag in relation to his former teammate, Yorke said:
“Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had a better record than Ten Hag in his full two seasons managing the club, people talk about the progress we’ve made and the better style of football being played.
Manchester United have reached the FA Cup final, won the Carabao Cup, and made it far in the Europa League so that is progress, but Ten Hag losing more Premier League games than Solskjaer in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons has to be called out.”
A make-or-break month ahead
A couple of weeks ago, the notion of someone saying that the Manchester club hadn’t made significant progress under Ten Hag would have been seen as ludicrous. To many, it still will be, however, a strong finish is necessary if they are to mark this season as a successful one after a string of bad defeats in recent times.
While the Carabao Cup victory ended the club’s six-year trophy drought, finishing outside the top four after sitting in it for most of the season would be a real sucker punch.
If they can stand firm and finish inside the top four and beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final at the start of June then it would go down as the club’s best season since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. If they fall out of the top four and take a battering at the hands of City at Wembley, then people may start to take Yorke’s point of view more seriously.
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