Manchester United’s dressing room is split over the potential appointment of Erik ten Hag as the club’s next permanent manager.
The Ajax boss is the favourite to land the role ahead of other candidates including Paris-Saint Germain manager Mauricio Pochettino.
The Manchester Evening News have reported that while some players are excited about the possibility of being coached by Ten Hag, others in the dressing room view him as an ‘underwhelming’ replacement to interim boss Ralf Rangnick.
As reported by Sportsmail in February, a number of players at the club would still like to see Pochettino get the role.
This is despite PSG’s recent collapse in the Champions League which saw them get get knocked out of the Round of 16 by Real Madrid.
Former players including Gary Neville and Nicky Butt have also given their backing to Pochettino getting the role, despite the former admitting that Ten Hag is the heavy favourite.
Despite some feeling that Pochettino should get the job, the club’s hierarchy is edging closer towards Ten Hag to become the club’s second Dutch permanent manager following Louis van Gaal.
Ten Hag has already spoken with United about a potential move to Old Trafford and the two clubs enjoy a healthy relationship with former keeper Edwin van der Sar the chief executive at the Dutch side.
Current frustrations within Old Trafford are ever growing, with interim boss Rangnick unable to turn their fortunes around after the shocking start to the season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Some decisions have left players baffled including the one not to start Marcus Rashford during the 1-1 draw with Leicester on Saturday.
Rashford, is lacking in confidence and game-time and was expected to start against the Foxes with the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani.
However, he only came on as a 55th minute substitution, with attacking midfielder Bruno Fernandes almost playing as a centre forward with the lack of one on the pitch.
Last week, Ten Hag described United as a ‘great club with great fans’ in an interview conducted after Ajax had given him permission to speak to United.
‘Everyone knows each other in the industry,’ Ten Hag told Sport1. ‘There are always talks with representatives from other clubs, that’s normal.
‘Manchester United is a great club with great fans. But I can only repeat myself: My full focus is completely on Ajax. We are already planning for the new season.’
Rangnick meanwhile has indicated the club had interviewed more than one candidate for the managerial post, believed to be Pochettino. ‘I know they have spoken to some people but so far we haven’t spoken about the experience and the impressions they have got from those meetings.’
The German is set to take on a consultancy role at Old Trafford in the summer and he has already made recommendations to the club’s board about how a long-term rebuild should be structured.
Manchester United are seventh in the Premier League and currently looking like they will miss out on Champions League football next season.
Rangnick has warned it could take as much as 18 months to fix the club’s many issues in a damning assessment of the team after their draw with Leicester.
‘Manchester City and Liverpool… have been built together and recruited over a period of five or six years – all of them under the premise of how the coaches want to play,’ Rangnick said. ‘I told the board this is what has to happen [at United].
‘Whenever the new head coach is clear, it has to be: how does he want to play and what kind of players do we need for that? Then we come back to DNA, speed, physicality, tempo. What do we need? This team does not lack technical players, it can do with more physicality.
‘It takes right decisions and [clarity over] where you want to go: what kind of players, what kind of manager and then, in every transfer window, try to get the best possible.
‘This is not rocket science. It has to be done and, if that happens, it does not necessarily need three or four years. Maybe in two or three transfer windows, then the situation could be different.’
United’s physicality issues were highlighted in their draw with Leicester, as Kelechi Iheanacho opened the scoring with a free header from eight yards out after no one tracked his run and the Foxes had been allowed to burst forward down the left hand side and deliver a cross.
In a damning assessment of the team’s current problems, Rangnick blasted the ‘DNA’ of players and how they needed to be more aggressive.
‘There were quite a few moments where I just felt we could have been more dynamic, more physical, more aggressive but we weren’t.
‘It has to be a bit in the DNA of a player to be honest. It is difficult to challenge a technically great player into a physical, aggressive one and we have a lot of people who are technical players.
‘Leicester were aggressive and physical in many parts of the game and we had problems with them. It is difficult to change. I do not think it is to do with mindset – it is to do with the DNA of the players.’