Ten Hag admits former caretaker manager Ralf Rangnick was right about the problems he encountered at United.
He told AD: “Rangnick was absolutely right.
"We’ve been working very hard on that for two years, but he said it just right - it’s a thorough, very complex operation.
“And I knew when I started that it was going to be a tough job.
"There are a lot of people who have advised me - Louis van Gaal (ex-United chief) too.
“We want this club back to where it was more than a decade ago, to a club that wins the Premier League, which can win Champions Leagues. We are really a long way away from that, I think."
Ten Hag also said: “I think we’ve taken steps since then, otherwise we wouldn’t have won two prizes (trophies) either.
"But we are not yet so far that a ‘winning culture’ already prevails here in all respects. Our standards, our norms and values, still need to go up.
“The culture, the mentality was really not good. To win, to really achieve top performance every week, we had to change a lot.”