EPL TALK: Manchester United repeated history and saved Erik ten Hag’s job, for now

MANCHESTER United saved their manager’s job with a dramatic FA Cup winner, Liverpool lost their iconic manager a few months later, the baton was passed, an empire rose, another fell — and that’s how easy it is to suggest that history is about to repeat itself at Old Trafford.

But there are echoes of Mark Robins’ strike against Nottingham Forest in 1990. The road to Wembley did offer salvation for Sir Alex Ferguson. Kenny Dalglish did leave Liverpool in early 1991 and the Reds were knocked off their perch for decades.

History is made in moments. And something did happen at Old Trafford yesterday.

The Red Devils were going to lose the FA Cup classic against Liverpool because that's what we have come to expect from Erik ten Hag’s bedraggled bunch. They are peripheral figures personified by one man. Antony. English football’s Little Bo Peep. A little boy lost among sheep. When he was introduced, another desperate act of a despairing manager, it was all over, surely. Send the Reds into the next round. Send ten Hag his redundancy package.

But Antony scored, with his right foot, to make it 2-2. What was going on? Who was this guy? Then ten Hag rallied his dizzy players, first at full-time, then again in extra-team, urging them to go for broke. Jurgen Klopp appealed for calm inside the cauldron. Ten Hag called for chaos. What was going on? Who was this guy?

Who were any of these imposters? Who was Amad Diallo, looking like a kid, but settling a seven-goal thriller like a nonchalant veteran? Or Scott McTominay, sticking a clamp on central midfield for 120 nerve-shredding minutes? Or Marcus Rashford, missing his customary sitter, but then rousing himself to make it 3-3 in extra-time? It was bedlam, but of the best kind. The lucid folks had taken over the asylum.

Because Old Trafford really was bonkers in the final minutes of an anarchic contest, at least from a tactical standpoint. Ten Hag had only two recognised defenders on the pitch. Antony was playing at full-back. It was only a matter of time before Andre Onana was lumped forward to take corners. The quarter-final was that disorderly.

But there was a welcome hint of menace within the mayhem. United came with a snarl, rather than a weak smile. In a month when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer lamented a cowardly streak within his dressing room, his successor had them angry again, producing a kind of feverish, wet dream for Roy Keane.

Amad got sent off for deliriously celebrating his 120th-minute winner. Nothing wrong with that. Antony and his exhausted colleagues dropped to their knees at the final whistle, emotionally and physically spent. Nothing wrong with that either. For much of the season, United’s underwhelming dandies have trotted off looking like they’ve enjoyed a beach ball kickaround with their kids. Not this morning. They looked different. They looked like Liverpool.

Ten Hag must maintain his side's rare intensity

Old Trafford witnessed a rare intensity taken for granted at Anfield, particularly in recent weeks as players and punters alike came together to give Klopp a fitting send-off, but such occasions have been rare since Ferguson left the dugout. They were rare when he first joined the dugout, too. Robins’ FA Cup winner in 1990 bought Ferguson time and Diallo has done something similar for ten Hag now, but that’s all the young Ivorian has done. The goal has earned the manager a grace period of sorts, but not a new contract.

When Ferguson won the FA Cup in 1990, he followed up with the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1991 and shaped the angriest side of the Nineties. Try and find a photograph of Paul Ince, Roy Keane, Peter Schmeichel or Gary Neville from that era without bulging eyes, throbbing veins and a little throat grabbing. They looked like cartoons. Every performance was Beauty and the Beast. Rage was always an integral component of the winning machine. Ferguson’s managerial style engendered the fast and the furious for more than 20 years.

Ten Hag achieved something similar for just over 20 minutes against Liverpool. No one’s building a statue for the Dutchman just yet. He’s now got to show that he can do it on a wet weekend at Brentford, the next English Premier League fixture for United after the international break. But there are positive signs.

When ten Hag leans into the mania, or the Manchester United way, that spiritual fluff that Gary Neville often talks about, there are echoes of Ferguson’s fledglings. While the final, weary exchanges between the two oldest enemies were scrappy, there was a lovely, euphoric relentlessness about the proceedings. The hosts kept pressing, forgetting the scoreline, the pressure and the potential implications of defeat. They just kept doing the things that built the club's reputation. They attacked, missed or scored, won the ball back and attacked again.

Can United really play any other way? Should they even try?

Straitjacketing the Red Devils with a cautious, cerebral, possession-based game might be an interesting spectacle, in the way that Jason Statham playing a chess master for 90 minutes on screen might offer an alternative take on the action movie genre, but it’s not really why anyone buys a ticket, is it?

Ten Hag threw caution to the wind and was either a brave tactician or a reckless gambler with nothing left to lose. Take your pick. Either opinion is valid. But the end result triggered flashbacks on our screens, almost as subliminal images. There was Keane's and Ince’s tenacity. There was the ceaseless endeavours of the Class of '92. There was the cool finishing of Wayne Rooney. There was Old Trafford, partying like it was 1999. And there was a manager, extolling his charges to leave everything on the pitch.

All that was missing was the gum chewing and the demented tapping of the watch.

For one night only, ten Hag’s United looked like Ferguson’s United. But the Dutchman has got to repeat this unexpected gift of mimicry in the coming weeks, if he wants to stick around. Ferguson won the FA Cup in 1990. At the very least, ten Hag must do the same.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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