{"id":293493,"date":"2023-11-08T17:25:37","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T17:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/?p=293493"},"modified":"2023-11-08T17:25:37","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T17:25:37","slug":"cole-ten-hag-should-demand-who-is-with-me-and-who-is-against-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/soccer\/cole-ten-hag-should-demand-who-is-with-me-and-who-is-against-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Cole – Ten Hag should demand 'who is with me and who is against me?'"},"content":{"rendered":"
Joe Cole has challenged Erik ten Hag to throw down the gauntlet at Manchester United and ask who stands with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The former Premier League winner said Ten Hag should prioritise players with the right ‘character’ rather than quality.<\/p>\n
He pointed to Scott McTominay as a trustworthy individual, even if he is ‘not’ a ‘better player than Bruno Fernandes or Casemiro’.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘If I was\u00a0Erik Ten Hag\u00a0and had a situation where my job was on the line I would want to know, \u2018Who is with me and who is against me,\u2019 Cole told Mail Sport ahead of United’s Champions League trip to Copenhagen.<\/p>\n
‘I\u2019d identify the characters, not necessarily the quality of players, who are with me. Like\u00a0Scott McTominay. Is he a better player than Bruno Fernandes or even Casemiro? Possibly not. But you have got to get a result – I would go with the players who are with me and the staff.<\/p>\n
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Erik ten Hag must work out who is with him and prioritise character over quality, says Joe Cole<\/p>\n
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Cole told Mail Sport that he admires Ten Hag’s discipline but that some players will want him gone out of self-interest<\/p>\n
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He said Scott McTominay, while ‘possibly not’ on the same level as team-mates, is trustworthy<\/p>\n
‘You have to pick up on things. It might be a glance, it might be the body language, or their air in training. I would say, \u2018You lot, get to the side – this is my\u00a0Manchester United!\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘If he wants to be a success, he needs to identify the players he can trust – and they might not be the best players. But he needs to identify the players who are going to sweat blood and tears to get a result.’<\/p>\n
Ten Hag’s men know that against Copenhagen a win is needed to try and lift them above Galatasaray in Group A, as they currently sit a point behind the Turkish champions and lost to them at Old Trafford.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McTominay has emerged as an unlikely hero, cropping up with crucial goals – he has scored three in ten games this season, two of which came in injury time to overturn the result at Brentford.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cole praised Ten Hag’s disciplinarian approach to dealing with difficult situations, such as the one with Cristiano Ronaldo last season.<\/p>\n
That said, Cole told also told Mail Sport that he believed ‘both parties’ needed to budge in the Jadon Sancho saga.<\/p>\n
United have had a challenging start to the season, losing eight of their 16 games, but battled to a gritty 1-0 win at Fulham over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The atmosphere at Copenhagen has been called 100x more than intense than Old Trafford<\/p>\n
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Bruno Fernandes scored a last-gasp winner against Fulham and Cole said United are good at ‘nicking a result when they need one’\u00a0<\/p>\n
It took a stoppage-time winner from captain Bruno Fernandes to seal the points, and Cole praised the team’s fighting spirit but also believes that there are some self-interested characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cole added: ‘There will be players sitting there thinking, “If he goes, this might be good for me”. That\u2019s the truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Erik Ten Hag has been very strong on a lot of situations and I admire him for that.\u00a0We only have the information we have – we don\u2019t know the situation with Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho. But once he makes a decision he sticks with it. I admire that about him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘But now he is in a situation where he needs the lads to produce a performance for him. You could not be confident on Manchester United winning. But they have pulled it out before, this group of players. They seem to nick a result whenever they need one.’<\/p>\n