Erik ten Hag has reflected on his Manchester United spell and their current starting XI could have looked uber different if he got what he wanted

Erik ten Hag has spilt the beans on his Manchester United tenure and admits he was denied some humongous signings - including none other than Harry Kane. So we look at what the Red Devils' starting XI would look like now if the follicly challenged Dutchman's wishes were granted.

It has been almost two years since Ten Hag waved goodbye to Old Trafford. The 56-year-old guided United to the Carabao Cup and later the FA Cup during his stint in charge, but ultimately failed to keep a lid on things behind the scenes and was sacked.

Since then, the Ruben Amorim horror show has passed through town and Michael Carrick is currently trying to right what already seems to be a sinking ship.

But now, as if he were on Love Island: Aftersun, Ten Hag has dished out the tea on his former employers, branding the club "toxic" and claiming he wanted to sign some top players but was given £72million bargain-bin alternatives instead. We're looking at you, Rasmus Hojlund.

Some of these prayed-for arrivals would have changed the Premier League landscape, not just the trajectory of Ten Hag's tenure. So here at the Daily Star, we thought it right to descend into dreamland and take a look at what United's current starting XI would look like if the Dutchman got his way and started to play all the right notes.

Goalkeeper

Hear us out with this one, please. Andre Onana was and still is a transfer disaster. United paid £47.2m for him in 2023 and fans would happily crowd-fund another £47m just to keep him off the team sheet and on loan in Turkey.

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A series of high-profile errors means he'll go down as one of the club's worst-ever signings, surely? But had Ten Hag opted for a different system in Manchester, the Cameroonian could have replicated the form that saw him make a Champions League final with Inter.

You'll see where we're going with this one, but who needs to stop shots if you can just function as an 11th outfield player and help outscore the opponent with sweeping passes up to two strikers?

Opposition mid-blocks would be a thing of the past, considering this dreamy XI operates in a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 diamond formation - the tactical blueprint that forged Ten Hag's reputation during his stint with Dutch side FC Utrecht.

Defenders

Apologies, but the defence is the boring part. Ten Hag did not mention any new or old defenders he wanted to sign or keep during his sit-down with The Athletic, so we can only speculate that it'd be relatively unchanged.

Of course, the ex-Ajax boss would want the loudmouthed Lisandro Martinez at centre-half, probably partnered with Matthijs de Ligt - hopefully he'd have stayed fit in this hypothetical.

Luke Shaw can slot in at left-back and his deliveries from out wide will be crucial in a system that has no real wide outlets. Noussair Mazraoui can complete the back line and pivot into midfield in possession to form an agile, press-resistant 3-2 rest-defence pivot with a certain Arsenal star we'll get to in a second.

Midfielders

This is where things get decadent. Barely a transfer window goes by that United aren't linked with current Barcelona star Frenkie de Jong. It was the case when he was emerging as a world-beating talent in Amsterdam and even when he left for Camp Nou, the Red Devils wanted a piece of him.

Alas, he has never made the switch - even though Ten Hag singled him out as the No. 1 midfield choice in his first season. The Dutch boss then moved on to Declan Rice, but United supposedly wouldn't launch a firmer assault and the Englishman later joined Arsenal for £105m in 2023.

Lastly, Scott McTominay being sold to Napoli in 2024 left a sour taste in many mouths, including Ten Hag's, who stressed in this latest tell-all that he was disappointed because United had promised him they'd keep the Scot but didn't.

He's now essentially the Braveheart of Naples. McTominay has taken to Italian football like a duck to water, winning the Serie A title two campaigns ago and being crowned the league's MVP.

Say though, that De Jong was snapped up, as was Rice and McTominay was retained. You could have Rice, who has proven to be a pivotal cog in the Gunners' Premier League-winning machine, sitting deep, sweeping the pitch and extinguishing counter-attacks.

Then, in front of him, you'd have De Jong, who can drop a bit deeper into the left half-space and break lines, as well as set the tempo. McTominay can then add some muscle on the right-hand side and act as a crasher, making runs into the box.

A No. 10 to tie this all together? Look no further than current club captain Bruno Fernandes, who, of course, retains his spot and is liberated from any build-up play. He can thrive in a pocket of chaos, playing relentless high-risk, high-reward passes into a front two.

Forwards

A stark tactical admission Ten Hag makes in his interview is that he wanted to sign Brian Brobbey to play alongside Cristiano Ronaldo as a second striker in 2022. This never came to fruition and he never operated with a front two from the off, but what if he had?

Well, Brobbey, now tearing it up with Sunderland, would have a world-class strike partner, as Ten Hag claims he singled out one more forward years ago. He admitted: "I said to them, 'I want only one player - and you know who.'"

That 'who' is of course Harry Kane, who was the English top-flight's premier marksman at the time and in his prime at the age of 30. He hasn't slowed a yard since swapping Tottenham for Bayern Munich in 2023 and has 102 goals in 100 Bundesliga games. Yikes.

United and playing with two up top go together like Phil and Gary Neville. Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, Eric Cantona and Mark Hughes, Wayne Rooney alongside Ruud van Nistelrooy, Carlos Tevez or Dimitar Berbatov (take your pick). Now, imagine Brobbey and Kane.

You'd have Ten Hag's compatriot Brobbey there to terrorise centre-halves, pinning them deep, attacking at the near post and leading the press. Then, Kane could drift between the lines, linking midfield and attack whilst also getting on the end of anything and everything that came his way in the box.

Listen, this formation carries a handful of flaws. You'd get overloads out wide. De Ligt in a high line might not be the greatest idea and who knows what Kane and Fernandes would look like together, given the risk of crowding.

But who cares? A Ten Hag-led team featuring Harry Kane, Declan Rice, Frenkie de Jong and Scott McTominay can't be reasoned with. One Hag, Two Hag, Three Hag, Four Hag, Five Hag…