Erik ten Hag might be gone from Manchester United, but his ghost is haunting every Premier League boardroom. Remember the euphoria? FA Cup champions, new contract, big summer signings… and then, crash.
14th in the table after nine games. The cost? Over £200 million. That’s the Ten Hag trap – where short-term glory blinds you to long-term cracks.
Now, eyes turn to Ruben Amorim and Ange Postecoglou – both daring ideologues who could be one dramatic night away from either immortality or the sack.
Amorim’s Sporting-style football doesn’t quite fit this United squad – yet Thursday’s chaos against Lyon, with Maguire and Mainoo turning into emergency strikers and scoring like prime strikers, gave fans that once-in-a-decade adrenaline shot.
That’s the stuff legends are built on. Klopp had Dortmund 4-3 in 2016. Maybe this was Amorim’s moment – or just another step into the trap.
Postecoglou? Trickier. Spurs could win the Europa League and he might still walk.
His football is thrilling – ultra-high line, van de Ven’s cheetah pace holding it together – but there’s a growing feeling that once the magic of the first ten games faded, so did the Premier League nous. Injuries hit hard, yes, but does he have the grit for the weekly grind?
And then there’s Tottenham’s eternal paradox. Chase the Champions League cash or chase the silverware? Juande Ramos won a trophy and got sacked months later. Mourinho got dumped before a cup final. What do Spurs really want?
This is the raw truth: modern football lives in tension. Executives crave consistency and spreadsheets. Fans want nights of madness. Three goals after 114 minutes? Goosebumps. But that’s not how you build a business.
And so, Amorim and Postecoglou stand at the edge. One trophy might not be enough. One brilliant night might be a trap. One mistake, and they’re gone.
This is the new reality. Nobody wants to fall into the Ten Hag trap – but the fall is fast, and the climb is steep.
