McCarthy recalls being offered Man Utd job by Ten Hag

Benni McCarthy has recalled being offered is coaching job at Manchester United.

The former South Africa striker has just completed his first season with United.

"Erik ten Hag came in and he spoke to my agent Rob Moore about one of the players that was playing in Holland and he asked Rob about an American player that Rob also managed," said McCarthy, speaking to 947 Joburg. "They were just speaking about that and once the conversation had ended, he said to him, 'By the way, how's Benni? How is Benni doing? Is he still working in South Africa?'

"Rob told him that I had left and was living back in Scotland. He then asked Rob to tell me to give him [Ten Hag] a call and if I could go and see him in Manchester. That is how it came about.

"When Rob told me that the manager wanted to speak to me and wanted me to go and see him, I had a massive lump in my throat. I had just read, a couple of weeks prior to that, that he had joined Man United and I wondered what would he possibly want with me? I called him, spoke to him and he asked me to come down to Manchester and deliver a training session.

"He was looking for key members of his team to be part of his team and work with the attackers, but he needed someone who knew what they were doing and had been in the shoes that most of these players are now. He also knew that I could coach and that he had seen my CV from my time in South Africa. He also wanted to see me firsthand."

McCarthy continued: "We arranged a day for me to go down to Manchester, I went down and I took the reserve team players, which had Alejandro Garnacho and Amad Diallo. I had all of the youth reserve players and I gave a knock-out-the-park session, a good attacking session that the players enjoyed.

"You saw good ideas of attacking football and when you are going forward the strikers are involved, scoring lots of goals and chances were created within the session. He [Ten Hag] loved that as that was exactly his philosophy and his way of wanting to play, as well the fact that I was very attack-minded.

"He said to me that he would get in touch with me and let me know once they had come back from pre-season. But by the looks of things, with the way the session has gone, he said the job was mine if I wanted it.

"Oh my God, I literally stood still. You can imagine the disbelief. First I had to process it. Once I drove back home to Scotland, the whole way back I was trying to replay what had just happened."