Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag ‘loved’ what Benni McCarthy did with Garnacho and Amad

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Erik ten Hag was impressed with Benni McCarthy after his very first reserve-team training session, claims the South African. Manchester United youngsters Alejandro Garnacho and Amad Diallo were both involved, with McCarthy himself admitting that he ‘knocked it out of the park’.

Ten Hag and McCarthy had common ground even before working together at Old Trafford. The Dutchman previously spent five years in charge of Ajax, where McCarthy enjoyed a prolific spell as a player in the 1990s.

It still came as a shock to the former Blackburn Rovers striker when Ten Hag invited him down from his home in Edinburgh to take a training session at Carrington, with a view to joining his backroom staff as an attack-minded coach.

But McCarthy claims to have done enough in his first session with the likes of Garnacho and Amad to convince Ten Hag about what he can bring to the table.

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“I just read a couple of weeks before that [Ten Hag] had just signed for Man United, what would he possibly want with me?” McCarthy told South African radio station 947.

“He needed someone that’s been in the shoes that most of his players are now. I went down, took the reserve team players which had Garnacho and Amad Diallo, I gave a knock-out-the-park session.

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“Good attacking session, the players really enjoyed it. You saw clear ideas of attacking football, chances created, scoring lots of goals. Erik loved that because it was exactly his philosophy.”

While they were both reserve-team players at the time, Garnacho and Amad are now in first-team contention under Ten Hag. The former was on the scoresheet earlier this week as United beat Crystal Palace to book their spot in the Carabao Cup fourth round.

Amad, meanwhile, has not made a senior Red Devils appearance since the 2021/22 season, but he is expected to play a part in the first team after he recovers from injury, having hit 14 goals on loan at Sunderland last campaign.

McCarthy is a popular player on the United training ground – at least according to Marcus Rashford, who benefited directly from the 45-year-old’s guidance by scoring 30 times in all competitions during his first season on the coaching staff.

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