Erik ten Hag makes bold job swap suggestion to critical journalists as under-fire Man Utd boss jokes about ‘really relaxing’ trip to face Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce

Ten Hag breathed a sigh of relief as United beat Brentford 2-1 on Saturday in their first victory in over a month and celebrated on Sunday by attending a dinner put on by the Football Writers Association, where he picked up an award for winning last season’s FA Cup.

• AFP

  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  The Dutchman was in a jovial mood, showing little sign of being frazzled by the immense media scrutiny he has been under following United’s poor start to the season. And he had a proposition for journalists who have been slating his team’s performances.

  WHAT TEN HAG SAID

  “I was looking forward [to the dinner], I really missed [speaking with journalists] in the last two weeks, so looking forward to having some informal talks, some of you are nice to me, some are not so nice to me, but I will speak with everyone,” Ten Hag said.

  “I just spoke to one friend of mine in Germany, he said maybe you have to suggest to one of the football writers to change jobs for two weeks. I have a good trip to Istanbul, really relaxing, to face Fenerbahce.”

• Getty Images Sport

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Ten Hag admitted that United have not made the desired start but he is confident that he will be able to turn things around and end the campaign on a happy note as he did by winning the Carabao Cup in 2023 and the FA Cup last year. “We are not in a good start, we know that, we are not happy, we are happy yesterday we had a win, we had a comeback, but it’s just one win. We are on a journey, it’s a long way to go at Man Utd but we really believe we’re going in the right direction,” the Dutchman said. “I say to all the writers, all the owners, be patient, let’s wait how the season will go, how we progress. We’ll see how the season will end, we’re quite convinced we will meet each other again [at next year’s awards ceremony].”

  WHAT NEXT FOR TEN HAG?

  United can expect an intimidating atmosphere away to Fenerbahce against former manager Jose Mourinho, as they hope to get their first win in the Europa League after drawing their first two games with Twente and Porto.