Gary Neville defends INEOS’ handling of Erik ten Hag decision | OneFootball

Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville has claimed that INEOS were within their rights to look at replacing Erik ten Hag but have ultimately come to the right conclusion.

The lead-up to the FA Cup final and the aftermath of United’s fantastic triumph were dominated by debates over Ten Hag’s future at the club.

The question was settled, at least for now, when it was announced that the Dutchman would be staying at the club and was in talks to extend his contract.

Yesterday during Dutch media’s coverage of Euro 2024, Ten Hag was acting as a pundit and spoke out publicly for the very first time on INEOS’ end-of-season review where he claimed that he knew the club were in talks with Thomas Tuchel and that he had been told that they came to the conclusion that they already had the best coach for the job.

Moreover, Ten Hag claimed that whilst this type of thing is “not done” in the Netherlands, he had to accept it in England and hinted that INEOS’ inexperience led them to conducting themselves in such a way as he claimed they are “new to football”.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Neville admitted the process was far from ideal but United’s new owners had every right to conduct the process in the way they did.

“I think it’s one of those things that it’s not perfect, waiting two and half weeks after the end of the season to make a decision on the manager.

“Obviously they were flirting with other managers in the media in the meantime but I do believe because Erik ten Hag has had such a disappointing season in the league, the club are well within their rights to see what was out there in the market.”

Whilst he could understand why Ten Hag would be irked by the process, Neville claimed that the former Ajax boss should be happy with the outcome due to the eighth place finish in the Premier League.

However, the Sky Sports pundit asserted that United did eventually make the right decision due to the complexity of the manager market this summer.

“As we all know, the market this summer has been difficult for a number of top clubs in Europe. I’m happy that they have maintained the stability into next season. I think they have come to the right conclusion in the end.”

Neville then spoke about the need to maintain some sort of continuity due to the sweeping changes happening across other levels of the club.

Elaborating on this need he stated, “United have changed their owners, CEO, sporting director, technical director, CFO, five or six major positions, so to have some stability on the football side for 12 months is probably a sensible thing to allow them to build the foundations underneath.”

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