Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs have now shown that Erik ten Hag was not wrong on one hill that the former Manchester United manager was prepared to die on.
Erik ten Hag was sacked as Manchester United manager under Ineos and the Dutchman was replaced by Ruben Amorim in the 2024-25 Premier League season.
The 56-year-old had been backed by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s regime ahead of the aforementioned campaign after United had handed Ten Hag a contract extension.
Ten Hag has since spoken out on his highs and lows at Old Trafford in a recent interview and his verdict on Harry Kane has now been reinforced even further.
Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs’ assessment of Harry Kane shows that Erik ten Hag was ‘right’ to fight a losing battle
Erik ten Hag had an admiration for Harry Kane and revealed in an interview with The Athletic that he had pushed to bring the former Tottenham striker to Old Trafford. The former Manchester United manager saw the value that Harry Kane brought to the table, but the Red Devils’ pre-Ineos regime did not reach the same conclusion.
Kane left Tottenham in 2023 and the 33-year-old England captain completed a sensational move to Bayern Munich. Since his move to Germany, the former Spurs striker has excelled for Bayern Munich and has been tipped as a potential candidate for France Football’s Ballon d’Or prize.
Rio Ferdinand linked up with former United teammate Ryan Giggs on his podcast and he felt that it would have been the “perfect” time for the Red Devils to sign Kane when he wanted to leave Tottenham.
Speaking on Rio Ferdinand Presents, he said: “But with Kane, how big do you think he would have been at Man United? I always said that time [when] he went to Bayern Munich, it was the perfect time for Man United to have bought him. I don’t know economically if we could have, but I didn’t feel like we went for him.”
The 47-year-old United legend added: “How much of a success could he have been?”
Just as Ferdinand mentioned the financials of trying to pull off the move for Kane, Ten Hag said that he did not have the full insights into United’s money situation. Instead, the Dutchman claimed that former United football director John Murtough, ex-chief executive officer (CEO) Richard Arnold and the Glazers made the final decision not to sign Kane.
Responding to Ferdinand, Giggs said: “Oh, he could play in any team. Yeah, he’s got the mentality as well. He doesn’t care [as he will say], ‘Give me the ball — doesn’t matter if I’ve not touched the ball for 89 minutes, I’m going to score a goal. Doesn’t matter if I have a quiet game, don’t score a goal, score the next.’ So that just that mentality that he’s got; he would have been fine at United.
“And the quality obviously that he’s got. He’d score — he scores goals — which is becoming sort of less and less really the centre-forwards that look like Harry Kane [do], but yeah, he would have been no problem at United.”
Just like that, Ferdinand and Giggs have highlighted one of United’s biggest missed opportunities in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. Both United and Manchester City had been linked with Kane while he was at Tottenham, but Bayern Munich paid the initial £86.4m transfer fee to land him.
Ten Hag’s lost battle to sign the Three Lions striker will haunt United fans for some time, as the consensus from different Red Devils legends around Bayern star Kane has spoken volumes.
from United In Focus https://ift.tt/A2HGIZX