Ten Hag’s ‘two trophies’ line is true – but it’s not the only measure of progress

It was about as close as an FA Cup-winning manager has come to a mic drop.

In a room of journalists who had spent the previous few days reporting on his bosses’ plan to replace him, a bruised, embattled but belligerent Erik ten Hag defended his record as manager of Manchester United.

“Two trophies in two years is not bad,” he said. “Three finals in two years is not bad. If they don’t want me, then I go somewhere else to win trophies because that is what I do.”

It was a good line, worth repeating, which he did. After Ten Hag’s contract was extended and his future settled, he sat down with MUTV in July and reiterated his “two trophies” point.

Then he said it again a few days later in Trondheim after United’s first pre-season friendly, adding: “Apart from (Manchester) City, that’s more than any other club in English football.”

He repeated it again after the friendly against Rangers in Edinburgh.

Then again on the tour of the United States.

That was just pre-season. Since the start of the campaign proper, Ten Hag has referenced his two domestic cup wins in six exchanges with journalists during pre- and post-match press conferences, to say nothing of interviews with broadcasters.

The latest instance, after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool, came amid a tense exchange with one journalist who Ten Hag invited to name the “mistakes” his team were accused of making. After the journalist rattled off a long list of repeated errors, Ten Hag retreated to his old faithful.

“I have a different vision. I think we won, after City, the most trophies in English football,” he said. “I am sorry for you.”

He’s right, of course. It is as true now as it was at Wembley. But three games into a new season, an argument with which he neatly skewered his critics in May is fast becoming a crutch to fall back on.

On Friday, having just repeated his favourite point, Ten Hag added: “There’s only one thing in football and that’s at the end of the season if you win prizes, trophies, or not.” But as others have noted, that view is in stark contrast to that of his predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

“Any cup competition can give you a trophy but sometimes it’s more of an ego thing from other managers and clubs to finally win something,” Solskjaer said in March 2021.

“It’s not like a trophy will say, ‘We’re back’. It’s the gradual progression of being in and around the top of the league and the consistency and the odd trophies. Sometimes a cup competition can hide the fact you’re still struggling a little bit.”

Solskjaer’s words are those of a manager who had the opposite problem to Ten Hag. Under the Norwegian, United’s league finishes steadily improved — from sixth to third to second — but the trophy cabinet was bare.

Solskjaer was defending his record by claiming that the league is a true barometer of progress, just as Ten Hag is defending his record by pointing to silverware. As to which view is correct, opinions will vary.

Ten Hag with his other trophy, the Carabao Cup (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

As critical as it was for Solskjaer’s United to qualify for the Champions League on the final weekend of the 2019-20 campaign, do you remember who they beat that day? Do you remember the score? Maybe you do, but that 2-0 win behind closed doors at Leicester City is hardly a result that will echo through the ages.

Similarly, memories are not made by being runners-up in the league. Solskjaer’s side finished 12 points adrift of champions Manchester City the year they finished second, in 2021, having not topped the table from late January.

The only trophy United came close to winning that year was the Europa League. Speaking before the final in Gdansk, Solskjaer maintained that silverware sometimes “hides other facts”. But after United lost to Villarreal in a penalty shootout, he admitted he could not consider the season a success having failed to deliver silverware.

Ask some who have known the inner workings of Old Trafford over the years and they would say you cannot survive as United manager without winning trophies. Solskjaer’s spell in charge is arguably evidence of that, while Ten Hag’s proves the inverse: deliver a trophy plus the greatest day of United’s post-Sir Alex Ferguson era and you can survive anything, even the worst-ever Premier League finish.

There was also the 4-3 quarter-final win over Liverpool, of course — one of Old Trafford’s best games and atmospheres this century. Add the Carabao Cup victory on top, and the past two years have given supporters indelible memories, highs to balance out the lows.

But Solskjaer’s view is much closer to how performance is coldly assessed at the elite level in modern football. A league campaign over 38 games home and away is undeniably a truer gauge of a side’s quality, as well as typically the gateway to lucrative Champions League qualification, which affects budgets in a way the FA Cup cannot.

United may be the second-most successful side in English football over the past two years, as Ten Hag points out, but nobody would sincerely argue that they have been the second-best team.

Nor would anybody suggest United are closer to challenging City for major honours than Arsenal, despite Mikel Arteta only adding a Community Shield to his honours list since Ten Hag’s appointment.

That is the reality. In a quieter moment, outside the adversarial nature and pitched battles of a press conference, even Ten Hag would agree that trophies are not enough. You need both pots and points.

United’s decade-plus of underachievement will only have ended when the club are regularly competing for Premier League titles and reaching the latter stages of the Champions League again.

There were mitigating factors last season — injuries, off-field turmoil, takeover uncertainty, the absence of an established left-back — but United were below standard in the competitions that matter most.

That, despite domestic cup success, is why their manager is under pressure to prove progress has and can still be made, and why he will only be able to point to his two trophies for so long. When not staring down a room of journalists and television cameras, even Ten Hag would accept that.