Gary Neville believes Erik ten Hag’s future “dependent” on FA Cup victory | OneFootball

Manchester United legend, Gary Neville, has claimed that his former side’s season and Erik ten Hag’s future, is dependent on one factor.

The Red Devils have suffered a tumultuous season where they find themselves in seventh place in the league and possibly with no European football for the coming season.

Ten Hag’s men also suffered the embarrassment of finishing last in a Champions League group containing Copenhagen and Galatasaray.

After such a promising debut season, Ten Hag’s decision to switch to “chaos ball”, a system based on endless transitions, has hardly borne fruit.

As a result, many pundits and fans are of the belief that the Dutchman’s days are numbered and even an FA Cup win would not save his job, much like Louis van Gaal, who was sacked the day after winning the cup in 2016.

However, Neville is of a different opinion.

This coming Sunday, United take on Coventry City at Wembley, looking to make their second consecutive FA Cup final.

Speaking on the Gary Neville podcast the pundit asserted, “they have to win next weekend. The season would be completely over if they didn’t”.

“Erik ten Hag, I think, has got to look at this season now as being a season whereby he could finish his first two seasons at Manchester United with two trophies in the bag, winning one in each season, and obviously he has still got a chance of that. That should never be sniffed at because in years gone by, you always said if you won a trophy a season you were okay”.

However, the commentator did admit that there was no hope for the league campaign.

“I don’t think there is anything left to say about some of the league performances that we are witnessing and some of the things that we are watching. The tweets, the ‘likes’ and the body language… all that stuff, we have said it so many times before. There is no point going over that again”.

“What we can say is that Ten Hag’s future is largely dependent on the FA Cup, because the performance levels in the league have gone. They are like this and they are not going to change now”.

The Red Devils will hope that in spite of only winning one of their last seven games, the players will be able to lift themselves for the reward of an FA Cup final versus Manchester City or Chelsea.

Lose, and Ten Hag could be lucky to see out the season as manager of Manchester United.