ERIK TEN HAG may have slept a little better on Sunday night than most would have suspected.
True enough, the hounding his side were subjected to by Liverpool earlier on would have disturbed him, although he did not admit as much.
But by the time he went to bed he knew chief executive Omar Berrada and sporting director Dan Ashworth had given him a resounding vote of confidence — albeit before that 3-0 thrashing by Arne Slot’s slick side.
And what is likely to have made him more relaxed is that, in Manuel Ugarte, he knew he finally had a proper dog of war.
If ever a manager, a squad full of wimps and indeed an entire disillusioned fanbase, needed one it is Manchester United.
Ugarte arrives from French side Paris Saint-German vowing to show “garra charrua”, his country’s proud trait of fighting with everything they have no matter what.
The characteristic, Ugarte says, is in every Uruguayan’s blood.
The 23-year-old once described football as a “game when we have the ball and we fight when we don’t.”
Yesterday, he added: “That was a totally genuine comment, because I was describing my style of play and that phrase just came out naturally.
“It does sum me up, because it’s something I feel very comfortable doing when it comes to winning the ball back and now I’m looking forward to doing it right here.
FOOTBALL FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS
Winning the ball has always just been his way of showing it.
Just as important to a side that keep darting around like red arrows with no real target, he wants to carry another load — the kind legends Bryan Robson and Roy Keane always put on their backs.
The kind so many of United’s players over the last decade of decline have been too weak, or too intimidated, to accept.
Yet the £42.3million arrival said: “Without a doubt being at a club like United comes with a responsibility and that is to win trophies.
“I’m still young and I’m really keen to learn. I have a huge desire to win and this club is the ideal place for both those things.
“This club is so huge there is an added responsibility, you have to take that seriously while enjoying it at the same time.”
Ugarte’s words will be music to Ten Hag’s ears and a following who have heard promise after promise delivered by new signings and by plenty already there, only for the load to be dumped amid more failure.
Now there would appear to be a true leader within the Theatre of Dreams — and not before time.
Talking the talk is one thing, of course, but Ugarte knows he can walk the walk in his role at least, having been PSG’s best ball-winner last season.
Stats also show he had the second-best tackles per 90 minutes across Europe’s top five leagues last season.
By Phil Thomas
NEARLY two decades have passed since Roy Keane led Manchester United into battle for the final time.
Fittingly enough, in a typically brutal showdown with bitter rivals Liverpool, Keane collected the 102nd yellow card of his Old Trafford career.
Two months later he was gone.
A fall-out with Sir Alex Ferguson ended in United’s greatest general of the Premier League era exiting for good.
It left a gap in the engine room that the Red Devils have never really come close to filling in the 19 years that have followed.
Many tried and some managed it in flashes and, although the trophies still rolled in for a time, there was no snarling, bring-it-on warrior prowling the midfield.
Until now… until the imminent capture of a man who views a 50-50 challenge like a starving Labrador staring at a side of ham.
For three months, United have licked their own lips at the prospect of a midfield marshalled by Uruguayan tough guy Manuel Ugarte.
Finally, it appears, they are getting their man.
A transfer deal rising to £50million is all but agreed with Paris Saint-Germain.
The signing of a player many believe will be the most crucial of the Erik ten Hag tenure is a whisker away from completion.
And, at long last, United will once again have a never-take-a-backward-step scrapper protecting their back line.
Of course at just 23, in only his fourth season in Europe, the South American is far from the finished article.
Ugarte is pretty much a ball-winner pure and simple.
Rarely will you see him pinging 40-yard passes to split a defence.
But ending his days with half the reputation of Keane and a fraction of his silverware would still mean a hell of a career.
And with just three goals in eight years as a professional, he will never be a box-to-box replica of their legendary Irishman’s early days.
But a midfield containing Ugarte — a natural replacement for the ageing Casemiro — alongside Kobbie Mainoo will certainly see an end to United being soft-centred rollovers.
This is the man who, on arriving at PSG from Sporting Lisbon a year ago, gave a telling glimpse into what French fans could expect.
There was more hitman than humour in his almost sinister response: “When we have the ball, it’s a game.
“When we don’t, it’s a fight.”
It was one he rarely lost in a stunning opening six months, too, soon becoming a cult figure with fans and a regular in the team.
The player Juan Ramon Carrasco, coach of his first club Fenix, once described as “having seven lungs and owning half the pitch” was living up to the hype.
Winning hearts and minds everywhere . . . apart from in the PSG manager’s office.
Boss Luis Enrique, more used to ballerinas than brute force from his Barcelona days, poured cold water on the potential by highlighting limitations and much room for improvement.
So much so, from the turn of the year, he was suddenly a bench player, although still managed to top the Ligue 1 tackling charts with 98 as PSG won the double.
Yet if Enrique had little faith, Marcelo Bielsa — now Uruguay’s national boss — lacked none.
He saw Ugarte as the pillar in his plans for this summer’s Copa America.
Already a hero back home for starring in January’s World Cup qualifying win in Argentina, he was a regular, and even hit the winner in a quarter-final shootout triumph over Brazil.
Confidence was restored but back in Paris the arrival of Joao Neves from Benfica pushed him further down the pecking order.
With the door to Old Trafford swinging wider, Ugarte — a 15-year-old schoolboy when he made his pro bow with Fenix — was determined to stroll through it.
A fifth summer signing for Ten Hag after Joshua Zirkzee, Matthijs de Ligt, Leny Yoro and Noussair Mazraoui, albeit with less bells-and-whistles hype than some of them.
Definitely more piano carrier than piano player.
Then again, you need all kinds to make an orchestra . . . and in Ugarte, United may just have found their conductor.
During two years working with him at Uruguayan top- flight side Fenix, coach Juan Ramon Carrasco marvelled at his hunger to hunt down the ball all over the pitch using “seven lungs”.
Ten Hag’s fifth major signing of the summer insists that he could not be happier — even if he will already know that is expected of him.
He has been watching United this season on TV while waiting for the move he calls “a dream”.
So he must be perfectly aware of the gaping hole he has to fill — not just physically as a warrior midfielder but emotionally too.
Casemiro, 32, was supposed to do that but Slot’s stars provided further evidence that the man United paid £60m for is a shadow of his days as a five-time Champions League winner.
Kobbie Mainoo, his holding partner, showed the strain of being a 19-year-old and trying to keep doing a man’s job.
Ugarte, paraded before Sunday’s dismal home loss, relishes the challenge.
He added: “I’m really thrilled and more than anything eager. While I obviously realise that it’s a great responsibility I’m prepared for that.
“I’m really excited. I’ve never seen anything like it before, these United fans, because since the news first came out they have been sending me messages.
“I’ve seen them everywhere! It also made the news in Uruguay.
“So the supporters, the real fans, the die-hard United fans deserve the club to be winning trophies and that’s what we’re hoping to achieve.
“What I saw, or what struck me the most, was how the fans just sing and cheer throughout the entire game.
“They cheer and applaud everything — every single tackle, everything.
“That’s something that I’m really enthusiastic about, because it is also part of my game and I feel that there’s going to be a really good connection with this league.”
Ugarte, who follows in the Old Trafford footsteps of fellow countrymen Diego Forlan, Guillermo Varela, Facundo Pellistri and Edinson Cavani, stresses that despite Ten Hag’s concerns that he has not played a minute this season he is good to go.
First there will be internationals against Paraguay and Venezuela before the first chance he will get of making his United debut — away at struggling Southampton after the break.
He does not seem fazed in the least about going in cold for his new club, having been frozen out in France.
That will warm the hearts of United fans desperate to see some Red Devil in their team.
And for now, at least, Ten Hag can sleep peacefully knowing that he has signed a player, who in his position at least, truly is the real deal.
MAN UTD TRANSFER NEWS LIVE: All the latest deals and rumours from Old Trafford
