Matthijs de Ligt revealed he felt “really bad” for Erik ten Hag after Manchester United sacked his mentor and said the players needed to look at themselves and examine their own role in his downfall.
Ten Hag made defender De Ligt Ajax captain when he was just 18 and they were reunited in the summer when he bought him from Bayern Munich for £42.9m.
But De Ligt only started eight games before Ten Hag was dismissed – Ruben Amorim now set to come in – struggling in particular in the 3-0 defeat to Tottenham and the 3-3 draw with Porto, and he said he felt sorry for the 54-year-old.
He explained: “It’s always quite difficult in general if a manager gets sacked, I have a really good relationship with Erik, I really like him a person as well as a human being. That way I felt the most bad for him, because I know what he does every day to get the team performing, so that’s quite difficult.
“In the end, you know what football is about, if the results are not there everybody needs to be questioned, the trainer, the players. In the end the trainer gets sacked, the players can stay, so we always have to look at ourselves, so I feel really bad for him. In the end, you have to keep going, you can’t stay in the past, it’s over now with him.”
Amorim is set to start as United manager this week and the 39-year-old Portuguese invariably played 3-4-3 at Sporting CP. While Ten Hag, like most former United managers, has tended to operate with a four-man defence, De Ligt was quick to say he has plenty of experience in a trio, whether with the Netherlands, Juventus or Bayern, as he argued the squad could adapt to a change in shape.
“I’ve played in back three for the national team, but also Juventus and Bayern also,” he said. “In the end like [against Leicester] we played in ball possession with a back three so let’s see what happens. I think the squad is capable of everything, back three, back four, as I said, the most important thing is how you play together, how you set up together.”