Former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag says modern players aren’t capable of accepting criticism and that his generation have a “much thicker skin”.
The Dutchman was sacked by the Red Devils in October last year after failing to build on the previous season’s FA Cup success over Manchester City.
Ten Hag’s successor, Ruben Amorim, hasn’t fared any better at Old Trafford, with United stuck in the bottom half of the table after collecting just 30 points from 26 Premier League games. Luckily, the bottom three – Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton – are a long way adrift and a relegation battle is not on the cards.
Cristiano Ronaldo revealed in September that he did not respect Ten Hag after their time working together, and the criticism has continued in recent weeks after Raphael Varane said the dressing room atmosphere was “very tense at times” and “complicated”.
Speaking in an interview with SEG Stories, who are a media outlet connected to Ten Hag’s management agency, the 55-year-old claimed the current crop of players are a soft touch who can’t take negative feedback on board.
“This generation usually find it difficult to deal with criticism. Criticism really gets to them,” Ten Hag said. “The generation that I grew up in had much thicker skin. You could be much more direct.
“I was approached much more directly. If I would do that with my current group of players I would demotivate them. If you do that to the current generation they find it offensive.”
Varane’s recent criticism of Ten Hag included claims that a senior player was always on the wrong side of the former Ajax manager, intimating that he thrived on ostracising somebody in order to assert his authority.
“He always needed an example of a player who was alone the entire time he was at Manchester,” Varane remarked. “He did that with at least one important player on the team. He was always in conflict with certain leaders of the group. That is his way of managing.
“It’s hard to find the right words. It was very tense at times. Sometimes he made an effort to listen to the players’ feedback. Sometimes he made decisions without listening to the players’ feelings. So there were ups and downs. It was complicated at times.
“We had a robust discussion. We told each other some truths, but then I didn’’t play for almost two months. I said I didn’t agree with certain ways of doing things regarding the relationship between him and the team.Â
“It wasn’t something that I thought was good for the team because some of the players weren’t at all satisfied. It was not good in terms of the relationship with the coach.”
Varane ended up leaving United in the summer before retiring, with Ten Hag still out of work despite being linked to the recent Borussia Dortmund vacancy. He has now suggested that he won’t take on another job before 1 July, should he be offered one, as he wants to begin a new campaign with a clean slate.