"I knew from the start it's an exciting process but also a difficult process," explained Erik ten Hag in his pre-match press conference.
"Because I think Manchester United was far away from the standards of what we need to be top [when he took charge].
"If you're talking about the spirit, there is one thing that I notice here, when you see the history of Manchester United, they won in the history a lot of titles, a lot of trophies and it was always by team, team spirit and fighting spirit.
"It's the spirit, the team spirit, the team fighting, that was the base and that is in the culture of Manchester United. That is one of the things I wanted to bring back and we are in the right direction."
Reflecting on the 1-3 loss to Aston Villa in the Premier League, the boss added: "Sometimes you have a setback like Sunday and we are definitely not happy with the performance and I feel responsible.
"When I see my team on Sunday, that is not Manchester United. I know they are not robots but we have to demand they bring it every game on the pitch as often as possible, it has to be really often, it has to be that way."
After Ole Gunnar Solskjaer left towards the end of 2021, United were in a disarray. And interim spells by Michael Carrick and Ralf Rangnick hardly did anything to solve the problem.
Ten Hag took some time to establish his ideals but his methods are paying off for the Red Devils.
