Man United bosses Omar Berrada and Dan Ashworth throw their support behind beleaguered boss Erik ten Hag in their first interview at the club and and reveal what they think of their first window

On the way into the boardroom at Old Trafford, there is a Manchester United opus bound in red leather lying on a table.

On this occasion, the pages are open at an old interview with Ruud van Nistelrooy featuring a photo of the Dutchman shortly after he joined in 2001.

Cynics might go so far as to suspect that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the people he has put in charge of the club have been doing their research in case they have to sack Erik ten Hag and replace him with Van Nistelrooy, who returned to Old Trafford as assistant manager this summer.

During an hour's conversation with new chief executive Omar Berrada and sporting director Dan Ashworth before United's defeat by Liverpool on Sunday, it quickly becomes clear that Ten Hag will get the support he needs from the hierarchy, despite a shaky start to the season.

There is a framed picture of the manager walking out of the tunnel at Old Trafford in the corridor leading to the boardroom and no desire to take it down anytime soon.

So would he still have their backing if United lost to Liverpool, as they did, and the poor results continue?

'Do we still believe in Erik? Absolutely,' says Berrada. 'We think Erik is the right coach for us and we're fully backing him. We're going to continue working very closely to help him get the best results out of the team.'

The manner of United's 3-0 defeat by Liverpool a couple of hours later was a brutal reality check, coming on the back of a painful loss at Brighton.

As Berrada and Ashworth speak, the excitement building outside the East Stand, where statues of Sir Matt Busby and the United Trinity of Sir Bobby

Charlton, Denis Law and George Best face one another over the forecourt, was soon to be replaced by despondency as thousands of fans poured out of Old Trafford long before full time.

Inevitably, the Liverpool debacle dampened the optimism that had built over a summer in which United refreshed their squad with £200million of signings and overhauled their football structure. Ten Hag is one of the few survivors.

Sources insist Ratcliffe and his team are not prone to knee-jerk reactions. The decision was made to keep the Dutchman during a summit with him in Ibiza and will not change based on three games of the new season.

Manuel Ugarte and Leny Yoro have yet to play a competitive game for the club, while Matthijs de Ligt and Joshua Zirkzee only made their full debuts against Liverpool. Noussair Mazraoui is the other addition.

It is not the start United wanted, but Berrada remains upbeat after what he sees as a positive transfer window.

'I'm very excited and very optimistic at what we have in front of us,' he says in his first sit-down interview as United chief. 'We're starting to put the right pieces in place and I'm absolutely convinced we're going to be successful.'

Berrada should know what makes a successful formula. He worked as chief operating officer at Manchester City before moving across town in July.

So how long before United can claw their way back to the same kind of position as City?

'Anybody who has worked in football for a long time could tell you that it's almost impossible to put a timescale to answer that question,' replies Berrada.

'What I can say is it has been demonstrated when you look at the teams who have been successful consistently for many years, it's because they have the right coach, they have signed the right players and they have the right structure.

'You need to take good decisions consistently for many years to get into a position where you are a financially sustainable club that is competing to win every single competition, which is where we want to be.

'We don't want to just win one Premier League and then be satisfied. We want to create a team capable of competing for the Champions League, the Premier League and the domestic cups on a consistent basis.

'To build that, we need to be doing more of what we have done in this window. We have addressed priority positions that were identified very early on and we were able to do it in a financially sustainable way.

'We were quite disciplined about the valuations we were giving to players who were going to come in. We stuck to those valuations. If you make a mistake, overspend or get a player who can cost you too much, it can set you back.'

United prioritised a striker, a defensive midfielder, a right back and two centre backs. They got the full set when Ugarte signed on deadline day, though it was too late for him to play against Liverpool.

'I like the squad,' said Ashworth, wearing a United blazer and tie having joined this summer after a protracted compensation dispute with Newcastle.

'I probably would say that after the business we've done in the summer. I've probably done 25 windows now and been doing this for a fair period of time. I don't think there's ever been a window where we've gone, "God, it's gone absolutely perfectly, we've done every single in and every single out we wanted to do".

'There are always bits. But there were four key positions we really wanted to strengthen and we've done that.

'By bringing in Zirkzee, Ugarte, Yoro and De Ligt, they were the pre-agreed positions as I walked in. Mazraoui was one where Aaron Wan-Bissaka had a year left on his contract and had an opportunity to move on, so we were able to freshen it up and trade that position.'

Ten Hag retained his veto over signings when he was handed a contract extension in the summer and it is notable that De Ligt and Mazraoui played for him at Ajax, while Zirkzee is Dutch.

'It's natural to work with somebody you've worked with previously,' adds Ashworth. 'We've signed players who haven't worked with Erik previously, Yoro and Ugarte. He'd never worked with Zirkzee and you can't say just because he's Dutch that he knows him!

'He's worked with Matthijs and Nous previously, but they were both on our radar and it's a joined-up decision on who comes in and out of this football club.'

A total of 27 players left United either permanently or on loan including Raphael Varane, Anthony Martial, Jadon Sancho, Mason Greenwood, Scott McTominay, Wan-Bissaka and Donny van de Beek. Many of the others were young players as United followed a policy of offloading academy graduates who were unlikely to make it in the first team, protecting themselves in most cases with buy-back options and sell-on clauses.

'Sometimes you have to make decisions that maybe you don't want to make,' says Ashworth. 'If you run with too big a squad it can cause problems, so you have to sometimes make brave decisions. You're dealing with players that ultimately want to play football. I think with any player — whether it's Jadon, Scott or Aaron — if there's a preference that they would like to go to a new club and it's right for them and it's right for us, then you have to explore it.

'Jadon wanted to explore the opportunity at Chelsea, like Scott wanted to explore the opportunity at Napoli and Aaron wanted to explore the opportunity at West Ham. We're not in a position where we're kicking players out of the club.' United had to sell in order to buy to comply with financial rules and Ten Hag admitted he would rather not have lost McTominay to Napoli.

'The reason you have to make brave decisions is because of the changes in the rules. You have to churn,' says Ashworth. 'You have to generate some money in to be able to spend that money back out. So what I think has changed is the number of players who will be one-club players.

'Scott has been fairly open that maybe he needed a change. He's been at Manchester United for 21 years and been a brilliant servant, but sometimes in life you fancy something different.

'If all three are right — it's right for us, it's right for the player and it's right for the club they're going to — then you have to look at it.'

Ashworth points out that the 32 transactions at United this summer included new contracts given to Jonny Evans, Tom Heaton, Toby Collyer and, most importantly, captain Bruno Fernandes.

'Retaining your best talent is a crucial part of the transfer strategy as well and Bruno has been brilliant since he's been here,' he adds.

Ultimately, though, it is the contract extension handed to Ten Hag that will come under most scrutiny if United's poor start continues.

No doubt the manager would like to be working with his new signings on the training ground at Carrington this week but, frustratingly, he must now wait for them to return from the international break.

United's next game is away to Southampton, who have suffered three straight defeats since returning to the Premier League.

It is a game Ten Hag should win, but he is in danger of falling back into a familiar pattern from last season where every fixture is approached with some degree of trepidation.

Meanwhile, United stand behind their man hoping their support, and patience, is not stretched to the limit.