Incredible reason Man Utd gave mega-money deal to 'body language consultant'

Daily Mirror

7 days ago

Former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was behind the decision to hire a body language consultant, who worked with players to improve their effectiveness at penalties
Manchester United signed off on the hiring a body language consultant paid £175k-a-year... simply to keep Erik ten Hag happy. Dutch coach Ten Hag was sacked as United manager in October, bringing to an end his two and a half years in charge as Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS team opted to hire Ruben Amorim as his replacement.
Ten Hag arrived at United on the back of three Eredivisie titles with Ajax and won the Carabao Cup and FA Cup while at Old Trafford. He won 70 of his 128 matches in charge altogether but was sacked after a defeat by West Ham left United 14th in the Premier League.
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Ratcliffe had toyed with dismissing Ten Hag last summer, but the FA Cup final win over Manchester City bought him more time. He was even handed a new contract – a decision which ended up costing the club around £14million in compensation to Ten Hag and his coaching staff.
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United have been on a cost-cutting mission since Ratcliffe took over control of sporting operations in February 2024, with the petrochemicals billionaire slashing hundreds of jobs, including the ambassadorial role for legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Ratcliffe has made it clear that he believes he inherited an inefficient club which has been wasting money across the board.
Ratcliffe was dismayed to see that the club were forking out £175,000 per year to pay a body language consultant, who, according to The Athletic, was working with the players on penalties.
Ten Hag was behind the decision because he wanted his players to better recognise facial expressions and other signs that can help in high-pressure shoot-outs.
The report states that United's executives had green lighted the expenditure largely just to appease Ten Hag. But that outlook was changed by Ratcliffe, who saw it as an unnecessary expense.
United did win two penalty shoot-outs during the time period in which they were working with the expert. They saw off Brighton and Coventry in the semi-finals of the FA Cup in 2023 and 2024 respectively, with Ten Hag praising his side's coolness after they saw off the Sky Blues on their way to winning the trophy last year.
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"It was about mentality in that moment,' he said at Wembley. 'You have a plan and have full confidence so I told them to stick to the plan. I had confidence we would win the shootout. Normally Casemiro scores, we train them very well.
"I am always calm, I focus and know my players can shoot penalties. I'm always confident Andre [Onana] will catch minimum one. I was quite convinced but when the first is a mis-hit then you never know."
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