Cup win can’t put gloss on woeful season... and Ten Hag must pay price

United have gone backwards, so decision should be easy for chiefs

- Mailk Quzia

IF, AS many reports suggested, Manchester United had already made the call to move on from Erik ten Hag ahead of Saturday's FA Cup Final, regardless of its result, there really could be no grumbling with either the timing or rationale.

Even this morning, the latter speaks for itself; the club's worst-ever Premier League finish-eighth with a negative goal-difference - paints a far more accurate picture of a season of regression than its redemptive final 90 minutes and a trophy lift.

It might have been regrettable for the apparent verdict to find its way, as most 'inside information' at Old Trafford seems to, into the public domain ahead of such a big game, but last week surely was the right time to be making cleareyed, sober decisions on the campaign and its conductor as a whole, before the emotion of either success or the thumping by Manchester City most expected could happen.

The challenge now, then, for Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Sir Dave Brailsford and the rest of the INEOS football operations taskforce will be in sticking to their guns.