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Jaap Stam is a true club legend, having won the 1999 Treble with Manchester United. Despite only being at the club for three years, the former defender made 127 appearances for the club across all competitions.
Since hanging up his boots, Stam has turned to coaching and management having been an individual coach at Ajax as well as manager at Reading, PEC Zwolle, Feyenoord, Cincinnati.
Now, the 52-year-old has returned to his routes and is the new manager of his youth academy and first professional team DOC Kampen in the Netherlands.
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However, the United legend regularly makes his thoughts known on his former team.
Jaap Stam has long talks with Man Utd officials and coaches
Ahead of Manchester United’s Premier League opener against Fulham at Old Trafford, Stam featured as a guest on the “Up Front with Simon Jordan” podcast.
Speaking on the podcast, it very much sounded like Stam was calling for the sacking of manager Erik ten Hag, saying “For ten Hag, it’s his third season at United – I think he needs to go.”
He continued: “He needs to look at himself and see how last season panned out, I don’t always agree with him in terms of him saying they played good football.”
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Only a day later, Stam attended the Fulham game that saw United win 1-0.
And whilst at Old Trafford, according to the The Daily Mail, the Dutchman was seen having a number of long conversations in confidentiality with figures at the club, including members of United’s communication team and Rene Hake, Ten Hag’s assistant manager.
Although it’s not known what was discussed in these confidential conversations, it would be no surprise that his recent comments on Ten Hag would’ve been a key talking point.
However, Stam has now come out to defend his comments on Ten Hag, saying he feels they were misunderstood and that the soundbite of “he has to go” was actually referring to Ten Hag going out and making more progress in his third season.
The visible smiles from Hake when talking to Stam at the final whistle of the Fulham game suggests that the comments have been clarified and all is well between Stam and his former club.
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