It was disturbing for Manchester United fans to see your icon and idol fuming at your current coach before the former was axed by the club.That happened at Old Trafford in 2022 when Erik ten Hag collided with Cristiano Ronaldo, who took to Piers Morgan’s interview to publicly criticize his then-boss.Ten Hag responded quite blatantly and – supported by the club’s boardroom – ended CR7’s time at United. His contract was terminated, so the Portuguese left United to join Al-Nassr.The ‘great’ strategist Ten Hag: One win in Europe with United – and even that was barely earnedTwo years later, Ten Hag’s assistant at the time, Steve McClaren, revealed the reason behind this decision of the Dutch coach.McClaren, now at the helm of Jamaica, thinks that Ronaldo just couldn’t cope with Ten Hag’s standards.Speaking to The Telegraph, he said: “I couldn’t fault his [Ten Hag’s] approach. He really handled it very well. I said at the time he was the right man to go in. That was shown in the way he handled [the departure of] Ronaldo.”He [Ten Hag] came in with set standards. Set rules. Set way of playing. And if you didn’t run, you didn’t play. He was rigid on that. Which the Dutch are. He knew that was what was needed. There could be no flexibility, no way the players could manoeuvre [out of that responsibility].”This is what you had to do – or you didn’t play. And he took on Ronaldo, and quite rightly. Other managers have tried to adapt. Erik didn’t feel it was necessary to do that. [Ralf] Rangnick had tried and it hadn’t quite worked out and Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] the same. So he [Ten Hag] stuck to his guns and developed other players, “explained McClaren.##NAJAVA_MECA_8361705##
