Refreshing change: How Ten Hag rebuilt his backroom staff for a new start

LOS ANGELES — For most clubs, the summer transfer window is about refreshing the playing squad. For Manchester United, it’s also been about clearing out manager Erik ten Hag’s coaching staff and pretty much starting again.

Aside from bringing back one of the greatest goal scorers the club has ever seen, most noteworthy about the changes is that the new arrivals are not really backroom staff at all.

New assistant manager Ruud van Nistelrooy, who scored 150 goals for United between 2001 and 2006, was boss of PSV Eindhoven from 2022 to 2023. Rene Hake left a head coach job at Go Ahead Eagles to move to Old Trafford. Even new set-piece coach Andreas Georgson was in charge at Norwegian side Lillestrom before getting the call.

You could have thrown in a fourth in Steve McClaren, who has managed eight clubs in three countries and spent a year in charge of England, before it was announced on Wednesday that he was leaving Old Trafford to lead the Jamaica national team. McClaren’s departure means the United training sessions will be run by completely new faces, other than Ten Hag himself.

It’s tempting to question the wisdom behind bringing together four men all used to getting their own way and asking them to work together. But club sources insist it’s not a coincidence that the three coaches now at the club have served as managers in their own right.

Given the chaotic way in which Ten Hag kept his job at the end of the last season, it’s also tempting to think that if it doesn’t go well for the Dutchman next season, United will have a number of ready-made replacements.

That, though, is not the view inside United. They believe the moves only strengthen Ten Hag’s position by surrounding him with big personalities and good coaches.

“I think having Ruud come back has been great, especially for myself,” defender Jonny Evans said. “I grew up idolising Ruud and the way he used to play. It’s good to have someone of that calibre and respect in the squad already. It’s been great and it’s always good to freshen up.”

According to sources, Van Nistelrooy, Hake and Georgson are all aware of their specific roles in the setup with areas of particular responsibility. More importantly, sources insist the players will be under no illusion that Ten Hag has control. Any suggestion that his authority has been eroded by the lengthy INEOS-led end-of-season review or by the new coaching appointments has been swiftly knocked down by sources inside the club. He’s retained his title of “manager” and is still in charge.

The official explanation about why the changes have been necessary is that INEOS felt the coaching staff needed to be “refreshed.”

Mitchell van der Gaag and Benni McCarthy, who arrived with Ten Hag in 2022 as assistant coach and first-team coach respectively, have gone and there’s now a distance between last year’s disastrous campaign and the new season, even if the manager remains the same.

“I was sad to see Benni and Mitchell leave,” midfielder Christian Eriksen said. “I had a good relationship with both of them and they are both incredible guys. It’s tough but with Ruud and Rene I’m sure it’s going to go well.”

Sources have told ESPN that both Ten Hag and INEOS director of sport Sir Dave Brailsford left their talks in Ibiza after the FA Cup final win over Manchester City feeling there needed to be a “reset” after a poor season, when United finished eighth in the Premier League. The new appointments are designed to give the players the feeling of a fresh start to mirror the one happening off the pitch since Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s takeover.

“I think they’re [the new coaches] going to be active and sort of them all taking a share of it [the responsibility],” goalkeeper Tom Heaton said. “With Ruud, you’d be forgiven for thinking, he’s a United legend coming in, is he just a face for it. But his level of detail, and I’ve been in a couple of meetings that I’ve listened to, and he’s been outstanding. It’s the same with Rene.”

It’s been noticeable during United’s training sessions at UCLA that Hake has been at the centre of almost everything.

On Friday, he was explaining the rules of a 7-vs.-7 game and took on the role of referee to ensure the rules — defenders had to make first-time passes to each other before playing the ball through the lines into midfield — were strictly followed.

On the sidelines, Van Nistelrooy and Darren Fletcher, now assistant first-team coach after being replaced as technical director by Jason Wilcox, shouted encouragement to individual players while Ten Hag watched closely. So too did Wilcox, new sporting director Dan Ashworth and Brailsford, who sat together on the bleachers at Wallis Annenberg Stadium on the UCLA campus.

At the end of each small-sided game, Ten Hag wouldn’t let the next one start until the club photographer had run onto the pitch to take pictures of the winning team. Boosting morale during the tour of the U.S. has been a priority and has prompted Ten Hag to change approach with regards to his preparations for the new season. This came after some players felt isolated on last season’s tour, sources told ESPN.

Last summer, the training camp at The Pingry School in New Jersey was miles from anywhere, leaving the players with nothing to do during their free time. This year in Los Angeles, the club have picked the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills — a far cheaper option than the Beverly Wilshire Hotel used on previous tours — close to downtown.

The 10-day training camp at UCLA has meant less travel, more time to relax and players have been allowed to leave the hotel and visit Rodeo Drive during afternoon rest periods between double sessions.

Eriksen has said this summer’s tour is already “feeling better” than last year, a view backed up by Evans. “It’s been good,” Evans said. “We’re staying close to downtown L.A. and we’ve had a chance to go out and have a coffee.”

Evans and the rest of the defenders have been working closely with Van Nistelrooy, who’s keen to be viewed as a rounded coach rather than just someone brought in to work with the strikers. He started working with defenders toward the end of his playing career at Malaga under Manuel Pellegrini and since his return to United, he’s been passing on tips on what strikers like and don’t like to come up against. Former Chelsea and Italy forward Gianfranco Zola gained a good reputation for working with defenders for the same reason.

“I think he learned a lot [under Pellegrini] and he saw real value in it,” Evans said. “He’s probably himself quite obsessed about defensive structure and as a striker, I’m sure that was always quite interesting in terms of where he could score his goals.”

Van Nistelrooy, who won the Dutch Cup during his time in charge of PSV, began the summer looking for a manager’s job and spoke to Burnley after Vincent Kompany left for Bayern Munich. However, sources close to the Dutchman have said that once United got in touch, he couldn’t turn down the chance to return.

Another new appointment is Jelle ten Rouwelaar, who has replaced Richard Hartis as goalkeeper coach. Ten Rouwelaar had only just joined Ajax from Burnley, but United were so keen to bring him in they agreed to pay the Dutch side €100,000.

According to Heaton, Ten Rouwelaar’s sessions are more “cognitive” and designed to help the team build from the back more effectively, starting with the goalkeeper.

“Teams are very structured in terms of what they do in their press, whether they press with one man, two, three,” Heaton said. “So you’ve got to work it out, you’ve got to count their numbers, you’ve got to count the numbers in the back line.

“Are we going big, are we going short? Where are they coming from? Who’s looking to jump? So, I think it’s more based around being more perceptive of what’s in front of you.”

United are hoping their summer of change off the pitch will help facilitate a change in fortunes on it.