Telles about ten Hag
Alex Telles, a left full back with Brazil's national team, was deemed surplus to requirements by Erik ten Hag, Dutch manager of Eredevisie Ajax Amsterdam, subsequent to his succeeding, for the 2022-23 season, German Ralf Rangnick, who from December 2022 had been interim manager at Manchester United. On loan with Spanish club Sevilla, there Telles won the Europa Cup, 4-1 on penalties, a.e.t., with the match against Italy's Roma ending, after normal time, 1-1, on May 31st, 2023, at Puskás Arena, Budapest, Hungary, giving the lie somewhat to Alex’s supernumerary status at Old Trafford to the terraced fans on the Stretford End.
Rangnick had replaced former Reds' striker, Norway's Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who'd steered the side to the Europa Cup Final of 2021, but losing to Spain's Villarreal, 10-11 on penalties, following a 1-1 draw, a.e.t., left a trophyless Solskjaer without enough kudos in soccer's credibility bank to continue. Ten Hag brought from Dutch club Feyenoord, Tyrell Malacia, a Dutch left full back, and Argentine Lisandro Martínez, a center back, who could also play at left back, from Ajax, but the decision to allow Telles to be loaned to Sevilla would return to haunt. England left back, Luke Shaw, had always been first choice since his signing, by United's then Dutch manager, Louis van Gaal, from Southampton for £30m for the 2014-15 season, but Shaw's injury proneness had left a gap through which Telles had been able to shine.
Alex was signed from Portugal's FC Porto for £15.4m on October 5th, 2020, and made his debut against French club, Paris Saint-Germain, away 2-1, in the first game of the European Champions League group (H) stage, although it was Shaw, 30 starts and 2 appearances that term, as opposed to Telles' 8 and 1 substitute appearance, who'd fill the left back birth against Villarreal in the Europa Cup Final at Gdańsk Stadion, Poland, on May 26th, 2021, after the side had battled through being relegated from the Champions League, finishing third in group H behind Paris Saint-Germain and German Bundesliga club, RB Leipzig, but thereby qualifying for the Round of 32 in the Europa League, Europe's second tier club trophy, after the cup of champions.
Although the left back rolein 2021-22 was filled almost equally by Telles, 18 starts and 3 appearances, and Shaw, 19 starts and 1 substitute appearance, from August 4th, 2022, ten Hag loaned Telles, taker of United’s second penalty against Villarreal in the 2021 Europa Cup Final, after coming on for Scots’ central midfielder, Scott McTominay, on 120+3 minutes, to Sevilla for 2022-23, 15 starts and 12 appearances, before transferring him for $7,800,000 to Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr for their 2023-24 season, where he was in the team that won the Arab Club Champions Cup Final at King Fahd Stadium, Taif, Saudi Arabia, on August 12th, 2023, against Al Hilal, also of Saudi Arabia, 2-1.
Former Manchester United right wing legend, Cristiano Ronaldo scored both Nassr goals, in the 74th minute, right footed close in from a low driven cross on the right from right full back, Sultan Al-Ghannam, 1-1, and a 98th minute header from a shot by Ivory Coast central midfielder, Seko Fofana, that hit the crossbar. CR7 had been given a free transfer there by ten Hag on November 23rd, 2022, despite a successful return from Juventus, Italy, scoring 18 league goals in 27 starts and 3 appearances for Solskjaer and £12.85m.
Ten Hag's belief that Malacia and Martínez would be enough left back cover for Shaw seemed sensible in the light of Brandon Williams emergence in United's youth ranks as a rugged long-legged tackler with the capacity to cross strongly from the left, but a loan spell at then Premier League club, Norwich City, 2021-22, 23 starts and 3 appearances, didn't augur well. Williams didn't figure in ten Hag's 2022-23 league campaign and was loaned to England's second tier Championship club, Ipswich Town, for 2023-24.
Ten Hag's decision to bring on loan Spanish left back, Sergio Reguilón, from London's Tottenham Hotspur, 4 starts and 5 appearances, until January 4th, 2024, looked like double jeopardy when United's own Spanish left back, Álvaro Carreras, 27 starts and 12 appearances on loan to England's Championship club Preston North End in 2022-23, was again loaned, first on September 1st, 2023, to Granada in Spain's La Liga, then on January 17th, 2024, to Portugal's Primeira Liga club Benfica, with the condition of his signing for €6m being that he should play half (8) of the Lisbon club's remaining games in their league season.
When Luke Shaw was again injured, after making just 12 starts in 2023-24 thus far out of a possible 24, to be replaced by Victor Lindelöf on 45+2 minutes, during the February 18th 2-1 win at Luton Town, with a goal left footed past onrushing Belgian ‘keeper, Thomas Kaminski, from Danish center forward, Rasmus Højlund, after his intercepting of Jamaica's left half back Amari'i Bell's back pass, and a second chesting in left footed Argentine inverted right winger Alejandro Garnacho’s shot on 7 minutes, the setback at ‘The Hatters’, Kenilworth Road, was ahead of United's campaign run in, and the F.A. Cup 5th Round tie at Nottingham Forest. With Malacia and Martínez already injured, there was no one to cover for Shaw.
Renowned, in the early part of the third decade of the 21st century, for playing with inverted wingers, that is, left footed wingers on the right, and right footed wingers on the left, giving the look of inside forwards, rather than wideners of the pitch for the forwards to receive crossed balls to head home from the flanks, and where opposing full backs could be tested to reveal strengths and, as importantly, expose weaknesses, United's extending of the same principle to the left back position, where Portuguese right back, Diogo Dalot, or Sweden's captain Lindelöf, for example, a right footed central defender, being required to fill in, appeared courting disaster.
As the team lost, 1-2, to Fulham at home, despite an 89th minute equalizer from center back, Harry Maguire, left footed, a yard or so out from the goalmouth, after a right footed cross-shot from wide on the left by playmaker Bruno Fernandes was palmed away two-handed only so far as Maguire by Fulham's German 'keeper, Bernd Leno, supporters were left wondering how Forest could be stopped on their own City Ground, Nottingham.
From Huizen, metropolitan area of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, although a Moroccan international, Sofyan Amrabat, was a naturally right footed central midfielder for Italy's Fiorentina of Serie A against Premier League West Ham United in Europe's tertiary tier competition, the Europa Conference League Final of June 7th, 2023, at Fortuna Arena, Prague, in the Czech Republic, which the London team won, 2-1. On loan for a fee of £8.5m at ‘the theater of Dreams' since September 1st, the same day that left back Carreras was loaned to Granada, Amrabat was determinedly two-footed enough for ten Hag to stand in at left back as surety for the 89th minute headed goal by Brazilian midfielder Casemiro, 1-0, from a free kick on the left by Fernandes, which set up a 6th Round encounter with Liverpool.
Telles about ten Hag
Alex Telles, a left full back with Brazil's national team, was deemed surplus to requirements by Erik ten Hag, Dutch manager of Eredevisie Ajax Amsterdam, subsequent to his succeeding, for the 2022-23 season, German Ralf Rangnick, who from December 2022 had been interim manager at Manchester United. On loan with Spanish club Sevilla, there Telles won the Europa Cup, 4-1 on penalties, a.e.t., with the match against Italy's Roma ending, after normal time, 1-1, on May 31st, 2023, at Puskás Arena, Budapest, Hungary, giving the lie somewhat to Alex’s supernumerary status at Old Trafford to the terraced fans on the Stretford End.
Rangnick had replaced former Reds' striker, Norway's Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who'd steered the side to the Europa Cup Final of 2021, but losing to Spain's Villarreal, 10-11 on penalties, following a 1-1 draw, a.e.t., left a trophyless Solskjaer without enough kudos in soccer's credibility bank to continue. Ten Hag brought from Dutch club Feyenoord, Tyrell Malacia, a Dutch left full back, and Argentine Lisandro Martínez, a center back, who could also play at left back, from Ajax, but the decision to allow Telles to be loaned to Sevilla would return to haunt. England left back, Luke Shaw, had always been first choice since his signing, by United's then Dutch manager, Louis van Gaal, from Southampton for £30m for the 2014-15 season, but Shaw's injury proneness had left a gap through which Telles had been able to shine.
Alex was signed from Portugal's FC Porto for £15.4m on October 5th, 2020, and made his debut against French club, Paris Saint-Germain, away 2-1, in the first game of the European Champions League group (H) stage, although it was Shaw, 30 starts and 2 appearances that term, as opposed to Telles' 8 and 1 substitute appearance, who'd fill the left back birth against Villarreal in the Europa Cup Final at Gdańsk Stadion, Poland, on May 26th, 2021, after the side had battled through being relegated from the Champions League, finishing third in group H behind Paris Saint-Germain and German Bundesliga club, RB Leipzig, but thereby qualifying for the Round of 32 in the Europa League, Europe's second tier club trophy, after the cup of champions.
Although the left back rolein 2021-22 was filled almost equally by Telles, 18 starts and 3 appearances, and Shaw, 19 starts and 1 substitute appearance, from August 4th, 2022, ten Hag loaned Telles, taker of United’s second penalty against Villarreal in the 2021 Europa Cup Final, after coming on for Scots’ central midfielder, Scott McTominay, on 120+3 minutes, to Sevilla for 2022-23, 15 starts and 12 appearances, before transferring him for $7,800,000 to Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr for their 2023-24 season, where he was in the team that won the Arab Club Champions Cup Final at King Fahd Stadium, Taif, Saudi Arabia, on August 12th, 2023, against Al Hilal, also of Saudi Arabia, 2-1.
Former Manchester United right wing legend, Cristiano Ronaldo scored both Nassr goals, in the 74th minute, right footed close in from a low driven cross on the right from right full back, Sultan Al-Ghannam, 1-1, and a 98th minute header from a shot by Ivory Coast central midfielder, Seko Fofana, that hit the crossbar. CR7 had been given a free transfer there by ten Hag on November 23rd, 2022, despite a successful return from Juventus, Italy, scoring 18 league goals in 27 starts and 3 appearances for Solskjaer and £12.85m.
Ten Hag's belief that Malacia and Martínez would be enough left back cover for Shaw seemed sensible in the light of Brandon Williams emergence in United's youth ranks as a rugged long-legged tackler with the capacity to cross strongly from the left, but a loan spell at then Premier League club, Norwich City, 2021-22, 23 starts and 3 appearances, didn't augur well. Williams didn't figure in ten Hag's 2022-23 league campaign and was loaned to England's second tier Championship club, Ipswich Town, for 2023-24.
Ten Hag's decision to bring on loan Spanish left back, Sergio Reguilón, from London's Tottenham Hotspur, 4 starts and 5 appearances, until January 4th, 2024, looked like double jeopardy when United's own Spanish left back, Álvaro Carreras, 27 starts and 12 appearances on loan to England's Championship club Preston North End in 2022-23, was again loaned, first on September 1st, 2023, to Granada in Spain's La Liga, then on January 17th, 2024, to Portugal's Primeira Liga club Benfica, with the condition of his signing for €6m being that he should play half (8) of the Lisbon club's remaining games in their league season.
When Luke Shaw was again injured, after making just 12 starts in 2023-24 thus far out of a possible 24, to be replaced by Victor Lindelöf on 45+2 minutes, during the February 18th 2-1 win at Luton Town, with a goal left footed past onrushing Belgian ‘keeper, Thomas Kaminski, from Danish center forward, Rasmus Højlund, after his intercepting of Jamaica's left half back Amari'i Bell's back pass, and a second chesting in Argentine winger Alejandro Garnacho’s shot on 7 minutes, the setback at ‘The Hatters’, Kenilworth Road, was ahead of United's campaign run in, and the F.A. Cup 5th Round tie at Nottingham Forest. With Malacia and Martínez already injured, there was no one to cover for Shaw.
Renowned, in the early part of the third decade of the 21st century, for playing with inverted wingers, that is, left footed wingers on the right, and right footed wingers on the left, giving the look of inside forwards, rather than wideners of the pitch for the forwards to receive crossed balls to head home from the flanks, and where opposing full backs could be tested to reveal strengths and, as importantly, expose weaknesses, United's extending of the same principle to the left back position, where Portuguese right back, Diogo Dalot, or Sweden's captain Lindelöf, for example, a right footed central defender, being required to fill in, appeared courting disaster.
As the team lost, 1-2, to Fulham at home, despite an 89th minute equalizer from center back, Harry Maguire, left footed, a yard or so out from the goalmouth, after a right footed cross-shot from wide on the left by playmaker Bruno Fernandes was palmed away two-handed only so far as Maguire by Fulham's German 'keeper, Bernd Leno, supporters were left wondering how Forest could be stopped on their own City Ground, Nottingham.
From Huizen, metropolitan area of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, although a Moroccan international, Sofyan Amrabat, was a naturally right footed central midfielder for Italy's Fiorentina of Serie A against Premier League West Ham United in Europe's tertiary tier competition, the Europa Conference League Final of June 7th, 2023, at Fortuna Arena, Prague, in the Czech Republic, which the London team won, 2-1. On loan for a fee of £8.5m at ‘the theater of Dreams' since September 1st, the same day that left back Carreras was loaned to Granada, Amrabat was determinedly two-footed enough for ten Hag to stand in at left back as surety for the 89th minute headed goal by Brazilian midfielder Casemiro, 1-0, from a free kick on the left by Fernandes, which set up a 6th Round encounter with Liverpool.
