Man United could sack Erik ten Hag, but three executives would still have made the right decision

Two years can feel like a lifetime in football. It is a few days over two years since Erik ten Hag was appointed as Manchester United manager and those 24 months have passed by in a blur of hope, triumph, despair and desperation. The 54-year-old has lived the full Old Trafford experience in a pretty short timeframe.

The debate being had in the corridors of power at Old Trafford now is whether Ten Hag should get the chance to lead United into a third season, but when you rewind to those months when the club were considering who to appoint as manager, Ten Hag is arguably the great survivor and the key player from that period who has the greatest job prospects going forward.

The then-Ajax manager saw off a challenge from Mauricio Pochettino to land the United job and now could outlast the Argentine in the Premier League as well. Ten Hag enjoyed success in his first season in England and while this campaign has been a nightmare, it has delivered another FA Cup final.

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Pochettino's year at Chelsea involved a bruising Carabao Cup final defeat and after being thrashed by Arsenal in midweek, his job prospects are hanging by a thread. Ten Hag's time at United has been far more successful than Pochettino's at Stamford Bridge.

That would suggest that the correct decision was made during the thorough interview process in the early months of 2022 when it quickly became a two-horse race to replace the sacked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, while United limped to the end of the season with Ralf Rangnick in charge.

But if Ineos opts for change again this summer, the