Erik ten Hag is turning Manchester United back into the club they expect to be

In a half-hour sit-down with Manchester-based journalists in San Diego, Erik ten Hag reflected on what has changed in his 14 months in charge at Old Trafford and one word cropped up more often than others.

Across three separate answers, Ten Hag used the word "standards" five times, whether it was about maintaining those standards now or, more often than not, how they weren't where they should be when he arrived at the club.

With the cameras switched off it was candid stuff from Ten Hag and it was the first time we had heard on the record what many had expected; that this was an elite club that had stopped acting that way.

Ten Hag took over after United's annus mirabilis, a rotten season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick when it felt like everything fell apart. In a way, the 53-year-old was fortunate to arrive when this club had hit rock bottom and were ready for a figurehead to take control. It gave him power.

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But he has used that power to drag the club forward. A theme of this tour to the United States has been on the marginal gains that Ten Hag is looking for, that borderline obsessive eye for detail that is powering changes to nutrition, to sports science and to many areas that help bring out the best in the players.

It highlights the control Ten Hag has over the footballing department, but there is also a view that this kind of stuff should have been in place before he arrived at the club. When he took full control in May 2022, it's clear things weren't where he expected them to be.

"When I came in at Man