Jamie Carragher believes Manchester United missed a trick by not moving to appoint Thomas Tuchel before the German was snapped up by England earlier this month.
There were widespread reports in the summer that Tuchel was one of several candidates Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the INEOS-led executive committee at Old Trafford spoke to about succeeding Erik ten Hag, before ultimately deciding to stick with the Dutchman
Reports re-emerged after a miserable start to this campaign, which has ultimately seen Man Utd win just four of 14 games – and resulted in Ten Hag being sacked on Monday.
However, now the search for his successor begins, Tuchel is no longer available, having been revealed as England head coach less than two weeks ago – something Carragher says is an error by United.
“I think they missed a trick not getting Thomas Tuchel,” he told Sky Sports News. “I go back to Liverpool appointing Jurgen Klopp and keeping Brendan Rodgers a long time ago.
“He was in a similar situation to Ten Hag, when the board weren’t sure whether to keep him or get rid of him.
“They decided to keep him, then decided to change things in the October international break when Klopp was available. I don’t know, but maybe there was method in the madness knowing Klopp was there.
“One of the reasons I thought they kept Ten Hag was knowing there was a manager who wanted a break over the summer, recharge his batteries and wasn’t sure what they wanted to do.
“I thought that might be Thomas Tuchel, and they were lining him up like Liverpool did with Klopp.
“Then England come from nowhere to take him, and now Man Utd have changed Ten Hag. I thought it might be something in the back of the minds of the owners in the summer.
“I said after the Liverpool game there was no way Ten Hag was going to last beyond the November internationals. It was impossible, that situation. The ownership should’ve saved themselves a lot of money and made this decision in the summer.”
‘Ineos got it wrong’ keeping Ten Hag on
The new INEOS co-owners were accused of undermining Ten Hag’s position while he was still in post for their public pursuit of a number of other managers in the summer.
He was widely expected to depart Old Trafford despite United’s FA Cup win, having overseen their worst-ever Premier League finish last season, but that eventual show of support lasted only nine Premier League games more.
“He was given an opportunity to fix what went wrong last season when he shouldn’t have been,” said Carragher.
“Nobody likes to see anybody lose their job but from INEOS’ point of view, they got this wrong in the summer and got carried away by the fact that they beat Man City in a cup final.
“It was well documented that they spoke to four or five different managers, as soon as you start that, you know you don’t have any belief in the manager.
“For Ten Hag it’s been going wrong for the last 18 months. I don’t think INEOS have made a good start. The summer was a mess for them, it cost them £150-200m that they didn’t need to waste.”