Dan Ashworth and Omar Berrada
Manchester United chief executive Omar Berrada insists he has “absolute” belief in manager Erik ten Hag and stressed the club is “fully backing”
The Dutchman speaking ahead of the 3-0 Premier League home defeat to Liverpool , Berrada and sporting director Dan Ashworth talked at length about United’s transfer window activity and touched upon working with Ten Hag, whose contract was extended until 2026 on July 4. Berrada started as chief executive on July 13 and Ashworth took over on July 1 – after the United regime had decided to keep Ten Hag as manager.
Omar Berrada said “So, in terms of the contract, that was a decision that was taken prior to both of our arrivals. But as I said before, we’re very happy with that decision. Erik has our full backing and we have worked very closely together in this transfer window. We’re going to continue working very closely with him to help him get the best results out of the team.”
When asked whether the hierarchy would still believe in Ten Hag if United lost to Liverpool and had a bad run of results,
Omar Berrada stressed: “Absolutely. We think Erik is the right coach for us and we’re fully backing him.”
Ashworth downplayed any issue in inheriting a manager as sporting director, citing his past experiences at Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion: ”
Dan Ashworth said “Very rarely do you go into a job as a sporting director and there’s no manager in place.”
When asked if he had any say in the decision to retain Ten Hag,
Dan Ashworth clarified: “I didn’t start until July 1, so none whatsoever. All I can do is reiterate what I remember saying, I’ve really enjoyed working with Erik for the last eight weeks. I see my job is to support him in every way I possibly can – whether that’s operationally, whether that’s with recruitment, whether that’s with medical, whether that’s with psychology, whether that’s training ground flow, it’s just to take as much of that off him to allow him to fully focus on the training pitch and the match tactical plan to deliver success for Manchester United .”
United retained Ten Hag despite finishing eighth and bottom of their Champions League group last term. They salvaged the campaign with an uproarious FA Cup final victory over Manchester City that also secured qualification for the Europa League . However, United have lost two of their three league games this season, scoring two goals and conceding five to leave them with a -3 goal difference. Ten Hag presided over a third 3-0 home defeat within a year on Sunday In a wide-ranging Q&A,
Berrada, who was previously the chief operating officer at Manchester City , stressed: “I’m very excited and very optimistic at what we have in front of us. I think we’re starting to put the right pieces in place and I’m absolutely convinced that we’re going to be successful.”
United signed five first-team players in the summer transfer window, committing £206.06million in fees. Noussair Mazraoui, Matthijs de Ligt and Joshua Zirkzee started in the 3-0 drubbing by Liverpool, centre back Leny Yoro is recovering from a fractured metatarsal and midfielder Manuel Ugarte was introduced to supporters at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Dan Ashworth said “The target positions we wanted to strengthen, the players we’ve brought in, the depth and options when everybody is fully fit that Erik has, and we have as a club, I’m pleased with that. From July 1, there’d already been some decisions made about key areas of the pitch to strengthen. We’d already lost two or three key players: Varane, Martial and Amrabat, from memory, had all gone so there was a centre back, a central midfield player/six, and a centre forward were the key and we felt we probably would need another centre back as well. “
They were the four key positions we really wanted to strengthen in this window and we’ve done that by bringing in Zirkzee, bringing in Ugarte, bringing in Yoro and bringing in De Ligt, so that was the, fundamentally, as I walked in, the pre-agreed positions. Partly because of the exits and partly because of the view they were areas we wanted to strengthen our depth and quality.
Dan Ashworth said “Mazraoui and (Aaron) Wan-Bissaka was one where Aaron had a year left on his contract, had an opportunity to move on, so we were able to freshen it up and trade that position.”
