Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has outlined what he expects from his team in order to make Old Trafford a fortress again.
Every season brings high expectations for the Red Devils given their long-standing history of success and silverware. The club have now entered a sixth year without a trophy – a streak that the manager is keen to end imminently.
The United supporters are positive that Ten Hag is the man to bring the glory days back to the red side of Manchester, and he is going the right way about it.
United are currently two points off of third place in the Premier League and remain in every competition. They are in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup – a trophy that they have not lifted since the 2016/2017 campaign.
On the prospect of silverware, Ten Hag told MUTV: “It’s always about trophies. It’s not about looking too much to yourself, it’s about looking to your family and looking to trophies. That’s what I did and always will do, so looking back, I’m happy and I’m happy with my family – we are satisfied and settled in Manchester so I’m happy with that. But when I look at sporting [highlights] then it’s definitely trophies and that is also what we aim for in 2023.”
Ten Hag on winning at Old Trafford
The Theatre of Dreams is maybe not as feared as it once was, back when teams crumbled at the prospect of facing the treble winners on their home turf. But it remains the ground with the best support in England and potentially the whole of Europe.
Having won the last six home matches, the Dutchman adressed the need for Old Trafford to be a “fortress” under his management. He said: “Definitely, it has to be [a fortress]. We want to be resilient and we want to be playing with discipline in our game, we expressed that with 11 in attack and 11 in defence.
“It’s about doing your job, being hard to beat in every duel as a team, in every game, and we are heading in the right direction. So we are happy with that, but we can’t be satisfied as we don’t want any laziness and laziness means the performances will drop. So we have to keep focused and keep improving on details and keep getting better every day because good is not good enough.”
More must-reads: