Tommy Martin: Barely room for gaffers to budge in busy corridors of power

The massed ranks of decision makers at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge make it hard for managers to budge.

Erik ten Hag, Manager of Manchester United, looks on alongside Mauricio Pochettino, Manager of Chelsea, during a Premier League. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images

Before he took on the massed ranks of the media in a defiant defence of his position, Erik ten Hag might have glanced up at the jubilant Manchester United hierarchy in the seconds after his FA Cup final triumph last Saturday.

These were the men, after all, who would decide his future once the Wembley celebrations had died down. There was big Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the petrochemicals billionaire and scourge of home-working, whose 27% ownership of the club grants him running of the football operations. Behind him, Sir Dave Brailsford, cycling guru, king of marginal gains and late of parliamentary jiffy-bag hearings.