Erik ten Hag has not exactly softened his view of Manchester United since leaving, and why should he? In a fresh interview, he has gone straight at the club’s handling of the process around his dismissal, saying promises were made and then broken — with the sale of Scott McTominay the clearest example. That is not a throwaway complaint. It is a blunt accusation that United said one thing in private and did another when it suited them.
The most damaging part is how specific Ten Hag has been. Before the 2024 summer transfer window, he says he and United were aligned in Ibiza and agreed McTominay would not be sold. His reasoning was plain enough: United, in his view, needed scoring ability, mentality and players who understood the club. McTominay, he argued, gave them all of that. Yet United sold him to Napoli anyway and signed Manuel Ugarte as his replacement. Ten Hag says the move left him “very embarrassed and disappointed”.
That reaction matters because this is not just about one transfer. Ten Hag says United promised loyalty, backing, communication and alignment, then failed to deliver on that agreement. He also said he would not have continued with only one year left, and that it was “quite weird” to separate ways when they did. In other words, he is painting a picture of a club that wanted the appearance of stability while making decisions that cut across it.
The McTominay decision is the one that stings
McTominay’s exit now looks even more awkward in hindsight. The article notes that he won the league with Napoli and had scored 10 times across all competitions in his last full season for Manchester United. That does not automatically prove United made the wrong call, but it does make Ten Hag’s argument harder to dismiss. If a manager is telling you the squad lacks goals, then selling a midfielder who has just produced them is hardly a comforting show of joined-up thinking.
Ten Hag has also linked United’s wider problems to a toxic culture and to players gaining too much power, which is a serious charge even if it is delivered through the lens of his own experience. He is not speaking like a man determined to protect the club’s image. He is speaking like someone who believes the internal structure had already begun to fracture long before he walked out of the door.
There is one point that will matter to United supporters more than the rest: Ten Hag says he felt the process was already underway before the end, and that some people inside the club may have known what was coming. That is the kind of claim that invites uncomfortable questions, because it suggests the problem was not merely one bad window or one bad decision. It was the manner in which the whole thing was handled.
Whatever view you take of Ten Hag’s own spell at Old Trafford, this interview does not read like a man revising history for convenience. It reads like a manager who believes Manchester United asked for trust, then failed to show it when it counted. And if the McTominay sale really went against a direct agreement, then United have given their former boss exactly the kind of grievance that never goes away quietly.
