Ten Hag said:
“So we really looked into the history of Manchester United and we really looked also into the qualities of our players. And then you can say, so what do we want to be? That is, we want to be the best transition team in the world. We want to surprise. We want to play dynamic [football], we want to play with speed and we want to play aggressive out of a very good team spirit. So that is United."
Ole and EtH are both intelligent football men who have been in the game for decades and understand the nuances of the sport better than anyone on this forum.
The reason Ole's United played the way it did was because of the qualities of our players. Namely of our two best and most influential players - Rashford and Bruno. We kept it tight at the back, packed the central areas with McFred, forced the opposition to wide areas where AWB could handle any winger and Maguire could handle any cross, got the ball to Bruno as quickly as possible for the counter, and used the pace of Rashford and Martial to cause problems at the other end of the pitch.
Under EtH, the qualities of our players haven't changed that much. Granted, we've bought a lot of new additions. There's more emphasis on playing out of the back now more than ever. But the core to our attack is still Rashford and Bruno. It's just good management to make the most of the tools at your disposal. Ten Hag is pragmatic enough to have flipped between having a targetman #9 in Haller at Ajax one year to a false #9 in Tadic the next. Fergie was the same in that he never had a clearly defined philosophy beyond emphasising direct attacks and possession with purpose. Everything else was negotiable depending on the qualities of his players.
I'll never understand why people want a manager with a brand identity. I don't care if my manager has a preferred style of play with dedicated Tifo videos or a catchy moniker like tiki-taka or gegenpressing. Our 2008 was night and day different from our 1999 team. Just give me someone who gets the team playing exciting football and can win matches.