Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Antony was supposed to provide defensive steel with McT coming in for Casemiro. He fecked up with that equaliser though, and also should have been through on goal if not for that horrible first touch.

The 3 CBs were also to blame for their equaliser. It looked like all 3 senior players decided to go for glory with no one staying back. Also Varane panic-tracking so deep to play Wolves onside was a glaring individual error.

ETH's biggest issue IMHO has been his overpriced flops because otherwise we'd have enough quality in the squad.
 
I actually hate this manager.

McTominay, Antony, Maguire, Forson, Evans. He would've deserved everything he had coming to him with those changes if Mainoo didn't get him out of jail.
 
Crazy crazy subs - just surrendered all possession and gave up control.
 
massey said:
Hojlund looked our biggest threat is 20 yep take him off then garnacho makes a brilliant run and sets up Anthony yep take him off ten hag is a negative clown.
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In fairness we know that Hojlund was managing a back issue and he has no back up, it was reasonable to try to give him a break when we should have had the game under control. The issue was what then happened (I don't get how we got caught so short at the back on the counter in added time when a goal up) but trying to manage Hojlund's minutes was reasonable. Meanwhile Garnacho wasn't having a very good game. Again the issue is that Antony is hopeless and it doesn't speak well of his judgement that he wanted him, taking Garnacho off to try to be more solid is reasonable in theory.
 
RORY65 said:
In fairness we know that Hojlund was managing a back issue and he has no back up, it was reasonable to try to give him a break when we should have had the game under control. The issue was what then happened (I don't get how we got caught so short at the back on the counter in added time when a goal up) but trying to manage Hojlund's minutes was reasonable. Meanwhile Garnacho wasn't having a very good game. Again the issue is that Antony is hopeless and it doesn't speak well of his judgement that he wanted him, taking Garnacho off to try to be more solid is reasonable in theory.
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Garnacho was having a good game I don't know what one you were watching.
 
In game management leaves a lot to be desired but he set us up solidly, we looked great first half and then got absolutely shafted by the ref with that awful penalty...

His biggest problem, alongside in-game decisions, is the absolute yo-yo nature of our best players and switching off. Their 3rd was an absolute joke from us with 9 players up the pitch and I can't believe that's in his tactics.

When he came in I was delighted - I thought we had a sound, disciplinarian who would instill a great culture and I'm disappointed it's not panned out that way but I think the structure behind him and the character of our key players will always prevent that
 
Why the hell did he bring on Antony? What was the organization for the last corner? Baffling decisions. Enjoyed the win but nothing is going to change.
 
Roux said:
Crazy crazy subs - just surrendered all possession and gave up control.
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What options does he have? I actually have a bit of sympathy for ETH in this regard, because the bench is just so dreadful. He has to make subs to get fresh legs on, and yellow carded players off, but he can't do it without drastically reducing the quality of the team.

I would have maybe taken off Bruno for Eriksen around 60-65 minutes, but other than that, I'm not sure I can complain too much about it. McTominay had to come on at some point, as much as I don't like it.
 
VP89 said:
Third goal was just idiocy from Onana and the first goal was literally a nothing penalty. I'm not really blaming our manager for that. Even hipster Ange was hanging yesterday vs Brentford at home. I think the only thing we should be angry about is our attackers being very poor in their chance conversion. But alas, this thread is the one that's at the top of the forum - which makes me fecking laugh so hard :lol:
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The third goal was really mostly down to us committing too many players to attack, they had no business scoring on a counter in stoppage time. I think this game has emphasized both our strengths and weaknesses very profoundly, and in game management under pressure has once again been exposed as a big weakness.
 
lsd said:
It totally is on him. He wanted them the club's own scouts didn't want Antony but he overruled them.

Onana and Antony are 100 percent on Ten Hag. Makes no difference what the price was we should have never have been interested but he insisted on the pair of them
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Of course the manager is going to want his players, it's the clubs and more specifically Murtough's responsibility to either overule the manager or ensure the managers players are good enough. Obviously the club did neither of those things.

At the very most I'd say it's 33% ETH's fault seeing as at least Murtough and the scouting department would be involved in recruitment as well.
 
Mike Smalling said:
What options does he have? I actually have a bit of sympathy for ETH in this regard, because the bench is just so dreadful. He has to make subs to get fresh legs on, and yellow carded players off, but he can't do it without drastically reducing the quality of the team.

I would have maybe taken off Bruno for Eriksen around 60-65 minutes, but other than that, I'm not sure I can complain too much about it. McTominay had to come on at some point, as much as I don't like it.
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Exactly. We play again in just over 63 hours, we need to manage some players
 
When a manager has this habit of taking off attacking players for defensive ones whenever the situation is really tough, you know he has no business being there.
It's pure cowardice, he got bailed out by the brilliance of Mainoo
 
KjaAnd said:
Yeah, that's fair enough. But he isn't doing enough with the talent at his disposal either IMO.
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Definitely truth in that as well. For me I think he's been unlucky with injuries (Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro) and personal situations (Sancho and Rashford in particular). He's been without his best players for quite a while, so it's normal for levels to drop. Had he recruited better, that would have stabilised the situation, but Onana and Antony have been huge misses and this has exacerbated the situation. But like I say, I don't think he should have been the decision maker around Onana and Antony. The original sin was giving him the keys to recruitment imo.
 
First half, we pressed properly, Wolves didn't get a sniff and we came out 2-0 even though we messed up tons of opportunities. Second half, we pressed half-heartedly, ceded control and were cut right through. It's same issues over and over again.
 
Signing Antony will remain his biggest sin. You can tell with better players we would've killed it tonight. He probably thought we'd be more solid with Antony, but ETH needs to accept that this experiment has failed and move on.
 
CM10 said:
I actually hate this manager.

McTominay, Antony, Maguire, Forson, Evans. He would've deserved everything he had coming to him with those changes if Mainoo didn't get him out of jail.
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Antony I agree. He was very bad today.

McTominay for Casemiro was a sensible sub as Casemiro was walking a very fine line with that booking and that penalty.

Maguire for Martinez was sensible as well. Maguire did really well when he played this season and the Martinez sub was possibly a precautionary sub.

Forson... i would rather Hojlund stayed on, but a midfielder for a striker when we had to defend our lead was logical.

Evans for Garnacho. Fine. Another defender on. Very understandable.

What would you do? Don't sub and let our starting eleven stay on for 99+ minutes and next game the same 11 for the whole match?
 
talking robot said:
Or make the case that he just shouldn't be responsible for recruitment. Pricing and recruitment is part science these days, and coaches are not up to it. Let someone competent recruit for him, and maybe he does a decent job.
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Gawd, this stupid argument again. A manager who cannot coach his own buys whom he has worked with for years, is somehow going to coach players selected for him by someone.

And if it doesn't work out, we can still keep defending the manager claiming the signings are not what he wanted, "how can he play his style when he is not getting the players he wants???", right!
 
bleedred said:
Gawd, this stupid argument again. A manager who cannot coach his own buys whom he has worked with for years, is somehow going to coach players selected for him by someone.

And if it doesn't work out, we can still keep defending the manager claiming the signings are not what he wanted, "how can he play his style when he is not getting the players he wants???", right!
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I mean, if he had better players he'd probably have better results. It's not exactly rocket science.
 
First half gave me hope. Second half subs gave me the same doubts again. I just can't place my faith in him. McT is understandable. Maybe he didn't have faith in Rashford to track back near the end so he brings on Antony, I don't like it, but ok. But taking off all three attackers meant we had to absorb pressure for 9+ mins with no recourse. And if you're going to park the bus, why send Evans and Maguire up front for a corner? Baffling decisions.
 
Sarni said:
The third goal was really mostly down to us committing too many players to attack, they had no business scoring on a counter in stoppage time. I think this game has emphasized both our strengths and weaknesses very profoundly, and in game management under pressure has once again been exposed as a big weakness.
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Yeah I didn't like how we had too many going forward. That's pretty much it though. If we shut it out then no one says anything. People are moaning at the subs but when the subs came on we still created a few chances, so now it's just a case of moaning for the sake of it.

We should have been up by 4 or 5 the way the game went overall, but yeah sure get angry because of a robbery of a pen and fair enough, one other goal which you could argue came to tactical naivety. Bit much to cry about to be honest. 3 points, should have won by 2 or 3, just move on to the next game.
 
Unam333 said:
Antony I agree. He was very bad today.

McTominay for Casemiro was a sensible sub as Casemiro was walking a very fine line with that booking and that penalty.

Maguire for Martinez was sensible as well. Maguire did really well when he played this season and the Martinez sub was possibly a precautionary sub.

Forson... i would rather Hojlund stayed on, but a midfielder for a striker when we had to defend our lead was logical.

Evans for Garnacho. Fine. Another defender on. Very understandable.

What would you do? Don't sub and let our starting eleven stay on for 99+ minutes and next game the same 11 for the whole match?
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The last two in particular were just stupid. It left us with just Antony and Forson, a completely unproven player, up front, while continuing to invite pressure by becoming more and more defensive with each change. He hasn't a clue.
 
We're 500-1 to win the league.. hear me out.

- No Champion's League
- Easy run with lots of points available right now
- Best players coming back
- Look completely different side
- New optimism with new owners..

500-1

haha.. 16 points behind with 16 games to play.

Who's in?
 
cpresc said:
We're 500-1 to win the league.. hear me out.

- No Champion's League
- Easy run with lots of points available right now
- Best players coming back
- Look completely different side
- New optimism with new owners..

500-1

haha.. 16 points behind with 16 games to play.

Who's in?
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Do we, really?
 
cpresc said:
We're 500-1 to win the league.. hear me out.

- No Champion's League
- Easy run with lots of points available right now
- Best players coming back
- Look completely different side
- New optimism with new owners..

500-1

haha.. 16 points behind with 16 games to play.

Who's in?
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The bookies who are getting free money. Just enjoy that we won a crazy game, it doesn't have to be the start of something bigger than just a really enjoyable game.
 
He was a good manager when we were winning, but then sadly he turned into a bad manager when we conceded and were drawing, but thankfully when we won it in stoppage time he turned into a good manager again. Because that's how it works I guess.
 
kouroux said:
When a manager has this habit of taking off attacking players for defensive ones whenever the situation is really tough, you know he has no business being there.
It's pure cowardice, he got bailed out by the brilliance of Mainoo
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The only one that did it consistently well in his prime was Mourinho, and he was the best coach in the world at drilling defensive structure. Even THEN we'd be under seige unnecessarily. It's just always a stupid move unless we are talking about the final 3/5 minutes of a game. Doing it when there are 15/20 minutes left is comically bad management.
 
The third goal is the kind that only an irresponsible team concedes. At that time of the match, we should never give up such a goal.

The Antony sub was stupid but not even his biggest hater (me) could think he’d be that poor but what the feck was that Forson sub about. It’s flying under the radar because of how shite Antony was but Forson came on and looked like he had no clue about what to do.

This team is poorly setup and gives up way too many easy goals.
 
Shane88 said:
No they're not. They're shit players who occasionally give us a dusting of competence to trick some into thinking they are better than this.
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Aside from Rashford and Shaw this is a completely different side to Ole and Rangnick's time at the club. Not sure fully what you were getting at but if you're trying to defend ETH, this is the team he's built.
 
The odds of Erik turning it around at this stage are so slim, but I still maintain a slither of hope.

With so many rotten elements to our club, he always strikes me as a sincere manager who expects certain standards from himself and everyone involved at the club.
 
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