Ten Hag: Slot inherited better team than I did

Erik ten Hag believes Arne Slot will have an easier time taking over at Liverpool than he experienced when he arrived at Manchester United.

Ten Hag says the mess he inherited at Old Trafford in the summer of 2022 was “the most difficult thing I will ever do in my life.”

In contrast, the United boss insists Slot, who has taken over from Jürgen Klopp, has walked into a Liverpool team which is in “a different phase of the lifecycle.”

The two Dutchmen meet in the Premier League for the first time on Sunday when United face Liverpool at Old Trafford.

“That was one of the reasons I wanted to come here, to have this challenge,” Ten Hag said when asked about the situation he found at the club when he arrived from Ajax.

“I knew beforehand that this was the most difficult thing I would ever do in my life, to come into a club where there were a lot of problems which we had to solve.”

Ten Hag inherited a United team which had come off the back of a miserable season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick, finishing sixth in the Premier League with just 58 points.

Liverpool, meanwhile, finished third under Klopp last season and won the Carabao Cup.

“I’m not here to talk for him [Slot] but Liverpool, it’s clear, they are in a different phase of the lifecycle,” Ten Hag said. “They have a team that is mature, players who have been playing for a long time together and who are very experienced. We have much more of a mix and have to build a new team.

“There is a team and the structures are really clear, I think the players, the partnerships, the relationships in that team are very clear and that is what he inherited, that has been built over the past years. So things are still the same, but I have also seen some things that he already brought in.”

Ten Hag has had a mixed time at United, winning two trophies in two years but also leading the team to their lowest ever Premier League finish last season.

The 54-year-old has also spent heavily in the transfer market — including more than £180 million ($236.3m) on five new players this summer — but he insists the overhaul of the squad has been necessary.

“I inherited a history from six years of no trophies, that meant the dressing-room and the qualities were not right,” Ten Hag added. “So we had to build, we had to construct, to perform and to bring up a higher level. We did this with transfers, but we also did it by bringing academy players into the team.

“What you see now is that we have brought new players in, many young players, and we are in a lifecycle from the start. We are still in the transition stage, we have young players and now we have to construct a team from it for the future.”