Eric Tenhag is now the most promising Manchester United manager next season, with secret archives revealed by the British media showing him ahead of another favourite, Pochettino. Manchester United have completed an dossier analysis of all the candidates and Tenhag stood out.
Britain's "Sun" revealed that Manchester United has conducted detailed background checks on every potential new manager target, especially Tenhag and Pochettino. The club spent weeks putting together their profile and finally decided that Tenhag was best suited to coach Manchester United for the next 5 years and lead the club back to the top of the Premier League and even the Champions League.
United hope to officially announce a new manager before the end of the season, ensuring that next season's manager can participate in the operation of this summer's transfer deal, especially reinforcements. As a result, Chelsea's Tuchel's chances of coaching the Reds are slim, the Germans are reluctant to leave Stamford Bridge and the Blues' sale won't be completed anytime soon, with United fearing that waiting for Tuchel could delay the entire summer and possibly even disappoint. The current Manchester United interim manager Ronnick is also unlikely to be regularized, and he can only try to retain the original consultant role in the contract.
At the same time, United believe that the 52-year-old Tenghag is suitable for age, style and ability, and his appointment will not only help attract suitable new signings to join, but may also retain some uncertain players in the squad, such as Pogba and C Ronaldo.
United's archives show that Tenhag has demonstrated two major abilities during his five years in charge at Ajax: one is to maximize the potential of players who have performed well elsewhere, such as former Manchester United player Daly Blind and former Southampton winger Tadić; the other is to discover young players, which is also a tradition of the Red Devils.
United have many well-known, well-paid players with high transfer fees who can't show the high level of performance they played for other teams, and the arrival of Tenhag may activate them.
Tenhag's biggest disadvantage is that he has never dealt with a big star, but his rival Pochettino has no advantage in this regard, and the Argentine has not managed the superstars such as Messi, Neymar and Mbappe in Grand Paris.
During his time in charge of Ajax, Tenhag won two Eredivisie titles and had a whopping 73.91% win rate, winning 153 of the 207 games he coached. This season, Ajax have led Eindhoven by two points in the league and are well defended, conceding just 13 goals in 27 domestic games.
As a result, in terms of odds for a new Manchester United manager, Tenhag has jumped to the top spot, surpassing Pochettino. Tenhag's odds for coaching Manchester United next season have been reduced from 3/1 to 13/8, while Pochettino is 5/2, Tuchel is 4/1, Conte is 12/1, and the odds of Simon Inzaghi, Diego Simeone, Zidane and others are all more than 20/1, indicating that it is basically impossible to become the Red Devils manager.
Of course, Tenhag also has his disadvantages, he has never coached in other leagues, and he has a low winning percentage against English teams when leading Ajax.
According to the data, Tenhag's team has met Premier League opponents in the Champions League six times, and has won only once. It was in the first leg of the 2019 Champions League semi-final against Tottenham, Ajax scored a small victory away from home with Van de Beek, but the second leg was eliminated by Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 under a 2-0 lead at home.
The following season, Ajax met Chelsea in the Champions League, losing 1-0 at home, and the two were red under the 4-1 lead away, and finally they were equalized 4-4. Last season, Tenhag lost twice to Liverpool 0-1. Calculated, his winning percentage against the top teams in the Premier League is only 17%.
Tenhag's contract with Ajax is still one year away, so United still need to do a lot of negotiation work, but its destruction fee is believed to be 7.5 million pounds, which is not enough to pose an obstacle. David Ornstein, a well-known football journalist in the Premier League, has revealed that Manchester United want to try to complete the negotiations by the end of March, and the purpose of the manager is to choose the manager as soon as possible.
Ornstein said: "United are trying to move forward with the manager selection process as soon as possible and complete the appointment. They hope to conclude negotiations in the coming weeks, ideally at the end of March. So, they accelerated the progress of the selection of managers. United have met with different candidates, reduced the number of people on the list and hope to find the right person as soon as possible so that the next manager can be a key part of the decision-making process."