Ten Hag’s ‘two trophies’ line is true – however it’s not the one measure of progress

It was about as shut as an FA Cup-winning supervisor has come to a mic drop.

In a room of journalists who had spent the last few days reporting on his bosses’ plan to exchange him, a bruised, embattled however belligerent Erik ten Hag defended his report as supervisor of Manchester United.

“Two trophies in two years isn’t unhealthy,” he stated. “Three finals in two years isn’t unhealthy. In the event that they don’t need me, then I am going someplace else to win trophies as a result of that’s what I do.”

It was a very good line, price repeating, which he did. After Ten Hag’s contract was prolonged and his future settled, he sat down with MUTV in July and reiterated his “two trophies” level.

Then he stated it once more just a few days later in Trondheim after United’s first pre-season pleasant, including: “Other than (Manchester) Metropolis, that’s greater than some other membership in English soccer.”

He repeated it once more after the pleasant towards Rangers in Edinburgh.

Then once more on the tour of the USA.

That was simply pre-season. For the reason that begin of the marketing campaign correct, Ten Hag has referenced his two home cup wins in six exchanges with journalists throughout pre- and post-match press conferences, to say nothing of interviews with broadcasters.

The newest occasion, after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool, got here amid a tense trade with one journalist who Ten Hag invited to call the “errors” his group had been accused of constructing. After the journalist rattled off a protracted record of repeated errors, Ten Hag retreated to his previous devoted.

“I’ve a distinct imaginative and prescient. I feel we received, after Metropolis, probably the most trophies in English soccer,” he stated. “I’m sorry for you.”

He’s proper, after all. It’s as true now because it was at Wembley. However three video games into a brand new season, an argument with which he neatly skewered his critics in Could is quick turning into a crutch to fall again on.

On Friday, having simply repeated his favorite level, Ten Hag added: “There’s just one factor in soccer and that’s on the finish of the season if you happen to win prizes, trophies, or not.” However as others have famous, that view is in stark distinction to that of his predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

“Any cup competitors may give you a trophy however typically it’s extra of an ego factor from different managers and golf equipment to lastly win one thing,” Solskjaer stated in March 2021.

“It’s not like a trophy will say, ‘We’re again’. It’s the gradual development of being in and across the high of the league and the consistency and the odd trophies. Typically a cup competitors can cover the very fact you’re nonetheless struggling slightly bit.”

Solskjaer’s phrases are these of a supervisor who had the other downside to Ten Hag. Underneath the Norwegian, United’s league finishes steadily improved — from sixth to 3rd to second — however the trophy cupboard was naked.

Solskjaer was defending his report by claiming that the league is a real barometer of progress, simply as Ten Hag is defending his report by pointing to silverware. As to which view is right, opinions will range.

Ten Hag together with his different trophy, the Carabao Cup (Julian Finney/Getty Photographs)

As important because it was for Solskjaer’s United to qualify for the Champions League on the ultimate weekend of the 2019-20 marketing campaign, do you bear in mind who they beat that day? Do you bear in mind the rating? Perhaps you do, however that 2-0 win behind closed doorways at Leicester Metropolis is hardly a end result that can echo by way of the ages.

Equally, recollections should not made by being runners-up within the league. Solskjaer’s facet completed 12 factors adrift of champions Manchester Metropolis the yr they completed second, in 2021, having not topped the desk from late January.

The one trophy United got here near profitable that yr was the Europa League. Talking earlier than the ultimate in Gdansk, Solskjaer maintained that silverware typically “hides different details”. However after United misplaced to Villarreal in a penalty shootout, he admitted he couldn’t contemplate the season a hit having didn’t ship silverware.

Ask some who’ve identified the inside workings of Outdated Trafford over time and they might say you can not survive as United supervisor with out profitable trophies. Solskjaer’s spell in cost is arguably proof of that, whereas Ten Hag’s proves the inverse: ship a trophy plus the best day of United’s post-Sir Alex Ferguson period and you may survive something, even the worst-ever Premier League end.

There was additionally the 4-3 quarter-final win over Liverpool, after all — one in all Outdated Trafford’s greatest video games and atmospheres this century. Add the Carabao Cup victory on high, and the previous two years have given supporters indelible recollections, highs to steadiness out the lows.

However Solskjaer’s view is far nearer to how efficiency is coldly assessed on the elite degree in fashionable soccer. A league marketing campaign over 38 video games house and away is undeniably a more true gauge of a facet’s high quality, in addition to sometimes the gateway to profitable Champions League qualification, which impacts budgets in a method the FA Cup can not.

United would be the second-most profitable facet in English soccer over the previous two years, as Ten Hag factors out, however no one would sincerely argue that they’ve been the second-best group.

Nor would anyone counsel United are nearer to difficult Metropolis for main honours than Arsenal, regardless of Mikel Arteta solely including a Neighborhood Defend to his honours record since Ten Hag’s appointment.

That’s the actuality. In a quieter second, exterior the adversarial nature and pitched battles of a press convention, even Ten Hag would agree that trophies should not sufficient. You want each pots and factors.

United’s decade-plus of underachievement will solely have ended when the membership are recurrently competing for Premier League titles and reaching the latter levels of the Champions League once more.

There have been mitigating elements final season — accidents, off-field turmoil, takeover uncertainty, the absence of a longtime left-back — however United had been under customary within the competitions that matter most.

That, regardless of home cup success, is why their supervisor is beneath stress to show progress has and may nonetheless be made, and why he’ll solely be capable of level to his two trophies for therefore lengthy. When not staring down a room of journalists and tv cameras, even Ten Hag would settle for that.