Being the Manchester United Football Club manager is one of the toughest jobs in football and Ajax coach Erik Ten Hag will be the man on the hot seat beginning at the end of this season after edging out his Paris Saint Germain counterpart Mauricio Pochettino for the job. Hag impressed John Murtough and Darren Fletcher with his ambition to put the Red Devils back on the top, pushing Pochettino to second place. 

The original list for the replacement of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had four candidates with Sevilla's Julen Lopetegui and Spain's national team manager, Luis Enrique also in contention. Chelsea's Thomas Tuchel and Real Madrid's Carlo Ancelloti had also earlier being considered but never made it to the final list due to various obstacles. Manchester United's football director, John Murtough and director of player licensing, Darren Fletcher were impressed by Hag when they flew to Amsterdam to conduct the formal interview. His enthusiasm, passion, and energy struck the two as he seemed the best candidate fit to carry out the challenge ahead of getting United back to winning major honors again.

Hag clearly pointed out departments and other areas of the club that needed to be improved showing clearly his no-nonsense approach to management. It was confirmed this week that Marcel Bout and Jim Lawlor, who are the head of the United scouting system will be leaving the club after eight and sixteen years of service respectively. 

The dressing room preferred Pochettino with some senior players believing that the club will thrive under the guidance of the former Tottenham Hotspurs boss. However, Ten Hag was the unanimous decision made by the board as they believed he had the capability and vision required to take United back to its glory days. Hag previously worked under Manchester City's manager Pep Guardiola and admits that he has greatly influenced his footballing philosophy. 

Moving on to financial considerations, United will only have to pay Ajax $2M in compensation fees for taking their current coach as compared to the far much more expensive price they would have had to part with for taking Paris Saint Germain's Pochettino.  These key financial factors might have played a role in the Ten Hag appointment too. Ten Hag's first task will be to get the right players from the market for each of the priority positions and it is rumored that he will have 200M Euros for transfer purposes in the next transfer window.