This time, Manchester United have run out of excuses and this is how Jim Ratcliffe has given Erik Ten Hag no option but to start winning: NATHAN SALT

Erik ten Hag had been warned. His closest friends, his confidantes, all alerted him when he was first approached by Manchester United that this was a job unlike any other. This is not Ajax. This is not Utrecht. This is not Go Ahead Eagles.

Devoid of hiding places, an environment where excuses don’t wash, where winning is an expectation; did he really want to rush head first into the eye of the storm?

‘So many people advised negatively when I started in this club,’ he said this summer. ‘I could have gone into projects with much better conditions, with much better structures but I choose this: Man United.’

And United chose him this summer when many thought they would move on after an eighth-place finish. Yes, Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos publicly courted a number of managers to replace him but they ultimately decided to stick not twist. A show of faith after all.

After that Ratcliffe’s first point of order was to reduce the number of things on Ten Hag’s to-do list; not by means of stripping him of power, but more so to devolve responsibility so his primary concern is coaching and not running every aspect of the United circus.

‘Erik is a good guy and had been doing his best but doing too much,’ Ratcliffe told The Times this week. ‘He was trying to sort out the squad and fix leaks in the roof at the same time!’

In came Dan Ashworth as sporting director from Newcastle United; in came Omar Berrada as CEO from Manchester City; in came Jason Wilcox as technical director from Southampton; in came a new head of scouting in Christopher Vivell. For the first time since the days of Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill there was a legitimate footballing structure at the club.

‘We are building a strong and talented football structure to work with Erik and ensure that we are focused on long-term success,’ Berrada wrote in his column for Friday night’s matchday programme. ‘We are also looking to build a world-leading non-football leadership team, which I know will help us to thrive.’

Along with Sir Dave Brailsford, a director these days at United and a crucial piece of the puzzle for Ratcliffe in his business ventures, visibility has been paramount for the newly assembled leadership team. They are eager to help, rather than stand in the shadows like Ten Hag’s grim reaper.

At least one or two of them are on site at Carrington every day, often coming out to watch training sessions, while also constantly holding meetings to make themselves pro-active, rather than re-active, for the future.

It was noted too on the US tour that United’s top brass dined with players at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills as they wanted to familiarise themselves with the squad.

Eating at one long table, rather than smaller round ones which often lend themselves to cliques, has been highlighted as one of the tweaks United have made in a bid to encourage more interaction among players and foster the unity they believe breeds success.

A few of the buzzwords around Carrington and the first team these days is ‘alignment’ and ‘togetherness’. Find both of those in the Brailsford school of fine margins.

And so Ineos have given Ten Hag a solid foundation, a structure with which he can operate in. Sources have pressed home just how much of a voice the Dutchman continues to have, not just on recruitment but on so many aspects of day-to-day life at United.

The influence of SEG, the agency which looks after Ten Hag, Rasmus Hojlund and a number of United’s stars, has been drastically clipped amid concerns, but the manager is still a key cog in the recruitment machine.

They have given him the coaches he wanted to freshen things up, bringing in Ruud van Nistelrooy, Rene Hake, former Arsenal and Southampton set pieces coach Andreas Georgson and goalkeeping coach Jelle ten Rouwelaar.

They have given him north of £150million to bolster his squad this summer, securing long-standing targets such as Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui, who he worked with at Ajax, and Joshua Zirkzee.

They have given him an extended contract, too, albeit a further 12 months rather than anything stronger in the longer term.

Now there are no get-out-of-jail free cards left for Ten Hag. Now he must win.

And it is a process, Ineos know that. The gap from eighth to a Premier League title is far too vast to cover in one summer window. The top four is the base-level of expectation this time around and Ten Hag is acutely aware that the pressure is on to show that Ineos did not make a mistake in sticking by him.

Sources indicate how there was a definite shift in Ten Hag’s manner during the latest pre-season tour of the States.

He loosened up, more so than either of the previous two summers, showed a friendlier side to him, a more gentile approach, and also gave players more scope to enjoy themselves in their down-time.

Much was made of the abrasive nature of his previous assistant Mitchell van der Gaag with players, often pushing them to a place where it was not warmly received. Benni McCarthy, who also departed over the summer, played a key role of being a player confidant. His exit in particular suggests Ten Hag may move away from the taskmaster type approach which bore limited success last season.

That is where Van Nistelrooy has been crucial, offering tidbits of advice to players, not just strikers, in gym sessions, in the canteen, wherever he bumps into those who he could lend a word of wisdom to. Marcus Rashford, in particular, is said to have been drawn to the former United striker.

While the new coaching structure is being felt out, Hake has been described as a details man, laying on sessions, with Ten Hag preferring to step back for the first hour of non-tactical work, often only intervening if he sees fault.

When it comes to the tactics, that is all on Ten Hag, who is in the middle of drills pulling players into positions as the archetypal head coach and drilling in his playing philosophy that the likes of De Ligt know so well.

He is likely to stick with his tried and tested 4-2-3-1 system with Casemiro, for now at least while the pursuit of PSG’s Manuel Ugarte drags on, alongside Kobbie Mainoo. Bruno Fernandes, while Rasmus Hojlund is sidelined, is set to continue in a false nine role with Mason Mount in behind.

‘I feel this is my club,’ Ten Hag added in the summer. ‘And I want to go for this challenge although I knew this is very tough, this is very hard. But you only know when you are in, and there are some challenges here. But already, we overcame many obstacles and we have to beat even more.’

Champions League humiliation, finishing bottom of a group that also included FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray, stung last season, while a crippling injury crisis of more than 60 separate issues far from helped en route to an eighth-placed finish, United’s worst in the Premier League era. But few hurdles, few humiliations, came close to this summer where Ratcliffe and his Ineos team flirted with Ten Hag’s potential replacements in April and May.

Ratcliffe met Thomas Tuchel for lunch in Monaco, while others held discussions in Mayfair. Communication with Ten Hag, following an FA Cup win over Manchester City at Wembley, had effectively ceased.

But Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino, Kieran McKenna, Roberto De Zerbi, Thomas Frank, Roberto Martinez and Marco Silva would, it was eventually determined, not be an upgrade on Ten Hag. The plan was decided: work with Ten Hag, not against him. This can work.

Part of the Ineos team flew to Ibiza, where Ten Hag was holidaying, for a four-hour summit. Clear the air, set out the plan, leave the dirty laundry that had been aired in public behind them.

‘The argument they gave was in a short summary: “we looked at everything and put it next to each other, but we think we already have the best manager in house”,’ Ten Hag explained of what has been described as a frank and confrontational discussion over a bottle of wine.

‘Then I said, “Then we have to discuss a number of things, about how we interact with each other and work together”. We had a good, honest, but also confrontational conversation about that. As it should be at the top.

‘I don’t think negatively,’ he said recently of the pressure on him. ‘I feel positive and I feel very aligned. They are here, we are building those relationships and, as I said, we have to prove this point during the season and the next coming years, how strong we are.’

Ten Hag only needs to look across the city to understand the bottom line at Manchester United this time around.

‘In football, the worst things are excuses,’ Man City boss Pep Guardiola once said. ‘Excuses mean you cannot grow or move forward.’

Ten Hag has no excuses left to use; with his players, his coaches, his tactics and a leadership team built to elevate him and his team, it’s time to win and that starts with Fulham on Friday night.