Manchester United made a major and eye-opening decision earlier this week. The English Premier League club lived a ban on multiple reporters from multiple outlets from attending their post-match press conferences with manager Erik ten Hag. According to a BBC report, ESPN, the Manchester Evening News, The Mirror, and Sky all received bans from attending the post-match press conferences stemming from claims that they were “not been given right of reply to negative stories around the club,” BBC said.
ESPN recently published an article that, according to their sources, suggested that ten Hag had difficult to keep his players’ attention.
Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag is battling to keep key players onside following the 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United, sources have told ESPN.
A group within the first-team squad are becoming disillusioned fter 10th defet of the season at St James’ Park on Saturday.
The article delves into certain aspects of ten Hag’s managing, including his training sessions and “cavalier tactics” that haven’t led to much success.
That is to say, there was nothing particularly scathing or outrageous in that ESPN report. So it begs the question of why the bans were issued in the first place.
While it’s true that they may have felt that way, it feels like a particularly slippery ax to grind with. But that evidently did not stop them from feeling that way. The team claimed in a statement issued to BBC, “We are taking action against a number of news organizations. Not for publishing stories we don’t like, but for doing so without contacting us first to give us the opportunity to comment, challenge, or contextualize.”
“They should have come to us first and not go around our back printing articles – that is not the right thing,” Ten Hag said via BBC.
[BBC]
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Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022