Ten Hag is cooking up a delicious pizza in Manchester
It’s only been 6 months, but Ten Hag has come quite a way since his Premier League start back in August 2022, hasn’t he?
Back then, he was still working on the dough. Only after Manchester United’s losses against Brighton and Brentford, did he realise he was missing something: salt.
This simple yet essential ingredient eventually came in the form of Casemiro, who immediately elevated United’s taste from bland to pretty damn good.
Don’t get me wrong, the dough needed some a bit of kneading as well, cue the 14K punishment run the squad had to do following the Brentford defeat.
Ten Hag powered through and quickly got a nice fiery salami in the form of Antony. It was an expensive little sausage, and not yet necessary for a pizza still in need of tomato sauce and cheese, but hey, like Jez said: if it feels good, do it.
The cheeses, it turned out, were Varane, Shaw and Fred. With cheese you can experiment all you like, and yeah French cheese and Dutch cheese and weird little mouldy types can be good, but ultimately the best tasting cheese is always going to be the one you’ve been having for years.
Good old English cheddar, or whatever.
If you think I forgot about Rashford and/or Sancho, you’d be forgiven, because I saved the best until last. They are the tomato sauce, you see.
Sure, you can get tomato sauce from a can, but a proper marinara is best, the one you make at home, with proper tomatoes and garlic and fresh basil and at least an hour of simmering.
Likewise with fancy strikers and wingers. You can buy them from somewhere, but they turn best when you nurture them yourself, treating them with patience, giving them time to let all of their flavours come out.
And boy, are they starting to come out. That first real bite we got, last Sunday when Manchester United won the Carabao Cup, was quite the business, wasn’t it?
Hopefully, Ten Hag can add something extra in the summer. That way he might be able to elevate this pizza to something really next level.
What do you think? Some arugula in the form of a proper number nine? Some red onion sprinkled on top in the form of a new right-back? Or some truffle oil to pour over the lot in the form of a transformative midfielder, say Frenkie de Jong?
For me, it’s simple. I’m going to let the chef do his thing. Because this pizza making business ain’t a la carte, capiche?
Let’s just hope the restaurant’s new owners won’t mess things up.
P.s. actually I’m not sure if cheddar on a pizza is good.