The Premier League Panel: How to fix Man Utd and whether Tuchel is right for England

When England appointed Thomas Tuchel as their new men’s head coach, they may have offered Erik ten Hag a stay of execution as well. Things aren’t going well for the Manchester United manager but with the most obvious potential successor out of the picture, he may get even more time to turn things around at Old Trafford. But is he capable of doing it? And how will Tuchel get on anyway? This week’s episode of The Premier League Panel finds out.

As always, host Matthew Gregory is joined for the Shots! TV show by some expert guests – in this case, ManchesterWorld football correspondents Rich Fay and Michael Plant, who offer up their takes on what Ten Hag and Ineos are getting wrong at Manchester United and how Tuchel will get along with the English national side. Watch the full show by clicking here.

Plenty of United fans still believe Ten Hag, should be given time, but our panel wasn’t quite so sure, and there were some scathing views of his work with the club in recent times.

“He’s not entirely culpable but he’s probably the main issue right now at United,” said Fay. “There’s been a new technical director, sporting director, they’ve refreshed their coaching staff and they’ve backed Ten Hag with almost £200m in the transfer window, and the same issues are being repeated.”

Journalist Plant, meanwhile, homed in on his tactical work as a major problem: “His tactics every weekend are simply not good enough. They’re almost non-existent at times.

“You look at this team and think, ‘what is the plan’? They sometimes look like a group of footballers who’ve met in the car park beforehand and just gone out on the pitch together… it just does not look like [Ten Hag] has a plan for how this team could function.

“This is his team. These are his players… If I was sporting director he would have been gone in the summer.”

Not that Ten Hag is necessarily the only problem. Manchester United’s transfer work came in for some criticism as well, with the track record of players like Matthijs de Ligt and Nouassir Mazraoui questioned.

The panel broadly agreed that the push towards signing younger players was a positive and lined up with the philosophy of other successful teams such as Real Madrid, but there are concerns that specific players were often being brought in without enough consideration given to how they might be used, such as with Joshua Zirkzee, or for their injury history, which was the concern with Mazraoui.

One thing that everyone agreed on was that Ten Hag might be a little lucky that England have decided to appoint former Chelsea and Bayern Munich manager Tuchel to be their head coach for the forthcoming World Cup cycle.

“Who could go into Old Trafford now and get an immediate improvement in the squad?”, asked Fay. “He was arguably the one coach who was available who was a better coach that Erik ten Hag. Who else would you go for now if you were to sack Ten Hag?”

Manchester United’s possible loss could, however, be England’s gain, according to Fay: “He’s a serial winner, he’s got the knack in cup competitions. It will suit him, I think, not having that day-to-day role of not having to deal with recruitment and egos… I think it could be the perfect to match to be honest.”

“There will be more tactical discipline… more of a winning culture,” agreed Plant – but he flagged up the question of whether a successful club coach would necessarily be the right fit for the international game.

“International management is just such a different ball game. It’s a completely different set up. That doesn’t necessarily mean I think he will fail, I’m just less certain he will be able to reach the sort of levels he has in the club game.

“He is a character that does fall out with people… I think The FA can be quite difficult to work with as well. I think that could be quite an interesting dynamic… I don’t know, is the honest answer.”

As Plant went on to point out, many of the managers who have succeeded in international football recently came through their country’s set-ups rather than arriving there via the club game – Spain’s Luis de la Fuente, for instance, was the Under-21 manager before winning the European Championship over the summer, and Argentina won the last World Cup with Lionel Scaloni in charge.

Whatever ends up happening with Tuchel’s England reign, the conclusion was that Ten Hag needs to sharpen up his tactics and his transfer dealings, or Manchester United will struggle to get out of the rut they’ve now been stuck in since the start of last season – and that the club may have missed out on the best possible candidate to replace the Dutchman.

The Premier League Panel will be back with more expert guests on Shots! TV (Freeview channel 262) at 10:30pm next Wednesday to discuss the biggest issues in English football, but in the meantime you can watch the full discussion on Manchester United and England via this Shots! TV link.