Ten Hag Says Man Utd Broke Their Promises and Sold Scott McTominay

• Erik ten Hag has spoken at length for the first time after his October 2024 sacking and says Manchester United failed to keep the promises made to him in Ibiza.
• He says he was assured that Scott McTominay would stay, and describes himself as “very embarrassed and disappointed” when the midfielder left for Napoli.
• Ten Hag says Cristiano Ronaldo “let the team down”, that he fought to sign Harry Kane, and that sacking Michael Carrick is “100 per cent not” the answer now.

Ten Hag Breaks Two Years of Silence and Defends Carrick

Erik ten Hag has said nothing about Manchester United in the two years after the club sacked him in October 2024. Now, in the first part of a two-part interview with The Athletic, the Dutchman says the people above him broke their word.

“They promised me loyalty, they promised me backing, they promised communication, that we get aligned,” he says. “We spoke about the issues. But the promises, they didn’t keep.”

Ten Hag still speaks warmly about the club and its supporters. “I enjoyed every minute in Manchester United; I have such wonderful memories,” he says. “I really want United to win.” He spent two evenings with The Athletic in his hometown of Enschede, where he now works as technical director of FC Twente, the club he supported as a boy.

He also has a message for the man in the hot seat at Old Trafford. Ten Hag believes United would be wrong to dismiss Michael Carrick if results stay poor. “It is not the solution to dismiss him. 100 per cent not,” he says. “Fans will demand this if results don’t improve – it is coming out from the stomach, from the emotion. You have to make rational decisions.” He points to Carrick’s coaching at Middlesbrough and last season, and says he has a good staff.

What Was Promised in Ibiza

Ten Hag looked set to lose his job on the eve of the 2024 FA Cup final, with United’s talks with possible successors such as Thomas Tuchel and Roberto De Zerbi already public. A 2-1 win over Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City changed the club’s mind. Two weeks later, talks on Ten Hag’s holiday in Ibiza triggered the extra year in his contract.

He says he would not have carried on with a single year left. “I said, ‘I need an extra year and we have to do it together’,” he recalls. One promise, he says, was that McTominay would stay. The midfielder had scored 10 goals that season. He left for Napoli that summer for €30.5million, with the money helping to fund the purchase of Manuel Ugarte.

“In Ibiza, we agreed. I said, ‘No selling Scott McTominay’,” Ten Hag says. “I make an argument, a reason: we don’t have scoring abilities. Scott brings scoring abilities and great mentality. He has United in all his veins. So when they bring up the subject, ‘No’. And in the end they sold him. I got, of course, very embarrassed and disappointed.”

Ten Hag blames much of the confusion on the takeover by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS. “The takeover process brought a lot of noise, uncertainty with the people, and disruptions,” he says. He says that after his first meeting at Carrington, Ratcliffe started talking about how the manager should be a head coach, and that he “never heard anything” more. “With them there was no communication,” he adds.

United were 14th in the Premier League with 11 points from nine games when he went, the day after a 2-1 defeat at West Ham. Ten Hag still calls the timing “quite weird”. He argues United were alive in every cup competition and that “all the data was showing we are good”. He also says people, “maybe even in the team”, knew what was coming.

Ronaldo, Rashford and a “Toxic Culture”

Ten Hag is blunt about Cristiano Ronaldo, a player he inherited. “He let the team down, and he let me down,” he says. He flew to Portugal before taking the job to explain his plans, and says he respected Ronaldo as one of the greats.

According to Ten Hag, Ronaldo pulled out of training sessions, did not raise his heart rate to the required level and completed only two of the three laps of the run Ten Hag ordered after the 4-0 defeat at Brentford in August 2022. “He ran neither in possession nor out of possession,” Ten Hag says. He adds that Ronaldo told teammates to “save your legs at the training”. The Athletic put the comments to Ronaldo’s representative and had no reply when it published.

On Marcus Rashford, Ten Hag says he always showed trust but that “sometimes you have to make corrections”. He felt unsupported when he tried to impose discipline on several players, including Jadon Sancho. “They are continuing the toxic culture; they fuel it, they give the power to the players,” he says.

He ties that to the row over Lisandro Martinez, who was fined internally for his comments after last week’s 2-0 defeat by Atletico Madrid and then made available for selection. Ten Hag will not discuss Martinez directly. He does say the “Madrid connection” of Casemiro, Raphael Varane and Ronaldo brought in the idea “that players are powerful and they want to decide”.

The Players He Wanted and Never Got

Ten Hag says his biggest problem in all three years was goals. He wanted Frenkie de Jong first for midfield, but the Barcelona player declined to join. He then pushed for Declan Rice, who went to Arsenal for a package worth £105m. “I think we could have done more to test,” he says of West Ham’s refusal to sell.

The name he really wanted was Harry Kane. “I said to them, ‘I want only one player – and you know who’,” he says. “I fought for it.” He says he never spoke to Kane and does not know how the decision was made. Ten Hag was told no. Kane moved from Tottenham to Bayern Munich for €110m and has scored 155 goals in 157 games for the German club.

Ten Hag also tells The Athletic that Danny Welbeck was an option when he was 33 and at Brighton, and that Brian Brobbey was a target in 2022 to support Ronaldo. He says United needed players of the calibre of Kane, Rice and Bruno Fernandes to guide the young signings, who “are not the finished product”.

Part two of the interview appears on Wednesday, with Ten Hag covering his offer to help United’s data department, the rise of Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho, and why Sevilla was the turning point of his reign.