Simon Jordan believes Erik Ten Hag’s win rate at Ajax is proof of a ‘top, top manager’ but wonders if Newcastle United should instead be prioritising a short-term, interim managerial appointment, speaking to talkSPORT (27 October, 12.45pm).
It’s quite a difficult situation Newcastle have found themselves in; dreaming of glory but stuck at the wrong end of the table, flooded with cash but unable to spend, a dynasty being built on sand.
Winless after nine games and mired in the relegation zone, the ‘Richest Football Club in the World TM’ are potentially one managerial blunder away from seeing an ambitious project crumble.
The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund did not buy Newcastle United with midweek trips to Bristol City, Barnsley or Luton on their agenda.
So the importance of making their first managerial appointment the right one, with the threat of relegation very real, cannot be understated.
The Mail reported this week that Ten Hag would be offered a staggering £11 million-a-year contract at St James’ Park.
But would the former Bayern Munich youth coach, a protégé of Pep Guardiola, really walk away from an Ajax side cruising at the top of the Eredivisie table and well-placed to secure a place in the Champions League knockout stages for one just above Norwich City in England’s bottom three?
Would Erik Ten Hag leave Ajax for Newcastle?
“Let’s say this guy’s going to come out of Ajax and go to Newcastle, there’s going to have to be some assurances from the people who own that football club that, irrespective of what happens this season, they have to be given the warchest (to spend heavily),” says Jordan, the former Crystal Palace owner.
“Someone’s got to buy into the vision.
“If you’ve got a 75 per cent win ratio in any league, you’re a top, top manager,”
“So irrespective of whether that league (the Eredivisie) isn’t quite what the Premier League is – or anywhere near it – you still have to produce an elite team to be able to overcome the obstacles.
“So what he should do is a difficult one. If he started suggesting to the people who run Ajax that he wants to talk to Newcastle, and then decides the Newcastle project isn’t for him, what do you do as an Ajax owner; ‘Oh gee, thanks, come back and do the job I employed you for now that you don’t fancy it over there?’.”
Jordan believes that the most ‘sensible’ course of action would be for Newcastle to hand the reigns to someone willing to take over on a short-term basis and guide a sinking ship into the calmer waters of mid-table.
Much has been made of the similarities between Newcastle’s takeover and that of Manchester City a decade ago.
But don’t forget that, before the Pep Guardiolas, the Manuel Pellegrinis, the Roberto Mancinis, it was Mark Hughes sitting in the Etihad hotseat.
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