Ex-Manchester United man has ‘no regrets’ after leaving, praising “impressive” Erik ten Hag

Former Manchester United coach Eric Ramsay has lifted the lid on why he left Erik ten Hag’s coaching staff after Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s 27.7% acquisition.

Manchester United have taken a new approach to training their players under Erik ten Hag, having hired multiple new coaches heading into the 2024/25 campaign.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, Rene Hake, and Jelle ten Rouwelaar have all joined Old Trafford under the new regime at INEOS, while the Dutchman’s former right-hand man, Mitchell van der Gaag, has left the club.

Read More: “No negotiations…” Fabrizio Romano explains Manchester United star is not yet close to leaving

However, a man who left before the new regime created their changes is Eric Ramsay, who joined the club in 2021 from Chelsea to be part of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s coaching staff.

Ramsay left the club to join MLS side Minnesota in February 2024, and in a new interview, he has detailed that he felt it was the right time to become a head coach of a club rather than continue as part of a backroom staff.

However, Ramsay also detailed that he very much enjoyed working under Ten Hag, explaining that the “impressive” Dutchman taught him a lot about management while the pair worked together.

“For sure, I took loads from working with Erik,” Ramsey told the Daily Mail. “A really impressive guy with a real sense of strength and conviction.

“Watching Erik from a step removed, dealing with the enormity of what you have at Manchester United when things aren’t going well, that was really helpful. It’s how you deal with these moments that are absolutely decisive in whether you can keep a group going and how far you go as a coach.

“Even with the guys I saw from two steps back at Chelsea, with (Frank) Lampard and (Thomas) Tuchel, when I was working with the Under-23s there, you can’t fail to take things from them.”

Ramsay further explained why it was right to leave United. “I just felt that it was one I couldn’t turn down. However, it pans out here, and when it comes to an end, I know I will be significantly better for having had this experience. It’s been everything I wanted it to be so far.

“I can say safely that even after five months I feel twice as capable as I would have done had I stayed there. There’s probably never going to be a point where I look back and say, ‘I should perhaps have stayed at Manchester United a touch longer’.

“I had a couple of chances to go during the course of Erik’s time, and I’d always taken them to him first. He was a very good person to talk to in that sense. He’s very honest and has also got that mentoring side to him. When this came up, as much as there was an appetite for me to stay, he could see the value in the opportunity. We had a couple of long conversations about it.

“I was really thankful that he enabled me to go because it was an awkward time in the season for them. I was really thankful from watching over here that it all panned out as it did because I certainly wouldn’t want to have seen it go any other way.

“I had very good conversations with [ex-football director] John Murtough and Darren Fletcher who was someone I really took a lot from. Both of them could see what I could see.

“I spoke to the Ineos guys and Dave Brailsford at length. I couldn’t say that there wasn’t a tiny part of me looking at Ineos and thinking I would be a good fit for the way they want to go about things.

“You can’t look at someone like Dave Brailsford and not yearn for more conversation because he speaks so fluently around high performance. This opportunity has come at that cost, but it speaks to the quality of this opportunity.”

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