Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

Teja

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Remember this time 2 weeks ago when we all thought we'd have clarity by 1st June :lol:
On the flip side, it's a results business and as long as they get it right, no one will remember this period in 6 months.
 

DJ_21

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Remember this time 2 weeks ago when we all thought we'd have clarity by 1st June :lol:
And if you go back a couple of more weeks, every reporter in the world was sure we’d get a battering in the FA cup final and he’d be gone a few days later
 

No Love

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Reluctant Ratcliffe should bring back Dithering Dave and the two of them could have a tremendous summer of indecision together.
 

AneRu

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Leads me to think if they were gonna do it, they'd have already done it by now.
Can't really predict anything with this indecisiveness. The way they are going they could decide to keep him and then sack him before MD1. Shambolic to say the least.
We all will and that's what makes you wonder what's going on upstairs.

You can't finish 8th at Man Utd and expect to keep your job. However, just imagine we start the season with Southgate and get smashed in the Community Shield: Ten Hag's last game at United will have been winning at Wembley against Pep, Southgate's first will be getting demolished at Wembley by Pep. The contrast will be clear to everyone and the fans, who never wanted Southgate in the first place, will go absolutely ballistic.

After that Gareth will be onto a hiding. Unless we go on the kind of run we did when Ole first came in, all of us will just be waiting for him to fail. Its what we expect and at the first sign of trouble that confirmation bias will spread around Old Trafford like a pandemic. Don't tell me the players won't be affected. Seeing the club turn down Champions League and title winning coaches to go for Gareth Southgate only to see it all go to s-t.

Sacking Ten Hag for Southgate is setting us up for a horrible season.
Will be the easiest 20m Southgate will ever make because he will be run out of town before the end of the season. Unlike Moyes he doesn't have the endorsement of the big man to keep fans off his back for some time, a bad loss early on and he will never recover.
The Glazers wouldn't even hire Southgate in all honesty :lol:
Yeah and it says a lot if Ineos are indeed considering him. For all their I competency, bar Ole and Moyes who wasn't really their choice, there was always a rationale to their hires albeit their hires were behind the curve tactical evolution wise so there were always found out.

This is beyond a farce now and you have to feel for Ten Hag on this. If they had sacked him right after the Cup Final he'd have walked away on a high, had his moment in the sun and a bit of the moral high ground. They shit their pants and have gone on to interview multiple candidates whilst keeping him and the fans in limbo. Meanwhile other clubs are pressing on with their plans.

Maybe I am unfair but this is the sort of thing you expect serious football people to have decided on before the season ended. Now it seems like they aren't decided on the future steps and these are the people we expect to plot our revival? Amateurs, I have seen boozers' teams with better organization.
 

criticalanalysis

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I do find the whole 'feel sorry for ETH' thing a bit odd. He's got a 1 year contract left and he clearly understands the pressure and responsibility that comes with it. That includes knowing that his job is under massive scrutiny because of the results this season and it's not within his say or decision to continue on or not. If we do decide to sack him, then he will rightfully get his pay off and then move on. Although he has acted very professionally throughout, don't forget it was his stubborn tactics that created a lot of the issues on the pitch that has ended up with the situation now.

If we decide to keep him, then INEOS will surely either release a statement or probably reward him with another contract, in which case, he will start pre-season afresh with his position as the manager within the club and the players very clear.

I understand feeling frustrated at the lack of clarity (although it's premature imo) but this whole, 'he deserves a clear answer now' is nonsensical. The club owes him nothing until a decision is made and that's the whole point, the most important thing is the 'correct' decision (and follow through).
 

Sunny Jim

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At this point, if INEOS stuck with ETH they could spin it favorably -- "after thorough review, Erik ten Hag brilliantly managed the club through severe adversity" -- but there really is no doubt that they've done irreparable harm to his reputation as manager. And IMO if they keep him ETH all they've done is set him up for the sack at the first possible sign of slippage in the new season.
Agreed. Which leads mento believe Ineos are a bunch of idiots.
 

Blood Mage

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Let's be honest, there's not really anyone at all to take over.

Much as I'm sick to the back teeth of ETH, who do you pick who's out there?

Don't really blame them for not choosing someone yet but they should just come out and say ETH is staying and crack on with summer business.
For me the path forward now if they want to sack ETH is to appoint De Zerbi and start identifying transfer targets who can help him deliver the football he wants quickly.
 

Valencia Shin Crosses

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I do find the whole 'feel sorry for ETH' thing a bit odd. He's got a 1 year contract left and he clearly understands the pressure and responsibility that comes with it. That includes knowing that his job is under massive scrutiny because of the results this season and it's not within his say or decision to continue on or not. If we do decide to sack him, then he will rightfully get his pay off and then move on. Although he has acted very professionally throughout, don't forget it was his stubborn tactics that created a lot of the issues on the pitch that has ended up with the situation now.

If we decide to keep him, then INEOS will surely either release a statement or probably reward him with another contract, in which case, he will start pre-season afresh with his position as the manager within the club and the players very clear.

I understand feeling frustrated at the lack of clarity (although it's premature imo) but this whole, 'he deserves a clear answer now' is nonsensical. The club owes him nothing until a decision is made and that's the whole point, the most important thing is the 'correct' decision (and follow through).
I don't feel sorry for him at all. Think he's lucky to not have already been sacked honestly and he's making huge amounts of money either way. At the end of the day sure he's being left in the dark currently, but he'll either get to manage one of the biggest clubs in the world or get paid handsomely to NOT manage us anymore. And quite frankly his image isn't really being harmed either as many in the public seem to think he's been hard done either way.

That being said, the fact that we still don't know either way is a fecking damning. I know the poster earlier gave a great longform post on his own experience having to turn around a much smaller company, but I'm not looking for us to be instantly turned around or want INEOS to be "rushing decisions". But they've known they would be taking over since last fall, and have been running the footballing side of the club since January. That's more than enough time to be keeping a running analysis of the job a manager is doing and whether or not it's up to par with what they are looking for. This stupid cover of "oh they need to now review the season" is a load of crap for not being able to firmly make a decision either way and not being able to come to an agreement on a manager to lead us forward while also following all of the directives of the upper management.
 

spwd

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FFS, I thought this was shocking again having not come out with anything in the morning but to have nothing at 6.30pm is beyond idiotic.
Wtf are they doing and what if anything have they been doing since they got here?

He should've been sacked 6 months ago and apart from the fa cup we've got worse so it's not like he's given them much to think about is it!
Also after he finally changed something he should've been booted out there and then for throwing away the whole season because he's a stubborn fecker!
I know people will say it doesn't matter what oppo fans think or say but they must be in fecking pain laughing at what's happening here.
They were probably thinking we might be on the way back but Inepteos have fecked it all up at the first hurdle!
 

Blood Mage

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I mean how can Ten Hag even continue after being undermined to this extent? If he stays it will be a glum and subdued atmosphere next season and he'll probably be sacked by Christmas anyway.
 

saik

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There's this recurring theme to a lot of Caf posts, which identify the repeated mistakes made by the supporting structure, and point out (correctly) that they're not ETH's primary job responsibilities - but completely hand-wave away the fact that it's still in his interest to plan and adjust his actions accordingly.

Recruitment staff keeps wasting money on signings and is willing to pay a massive transfer fee for Antony? Not ETH's responsibility to push back, even though the spending here will directly impact our ability to get improve the squad in future windows.

Medical staff keeps clearing players too early and they repeatedly get injured again? Not ETH's responsibility to push back and play it safe, even though playing the cleared players right away will just lead to more injuries.
Managers' interest is to plan to whatever gives him the best chance of winning games. If the best players are fit to play and if that means it gives him best chance of winning the games then any manager will definitely take it. If he played it safe and we end up losing games there will be people blaming him anyways for intentionally handicapping the team and not using players who were available for him to play.

The same applies to recruitment too. Sure he wanted Antony and a lot of other players but there's a whole team above him deciding how much they wanted to pay. It's not the manager who decided to panic and pay 80m and close to 200k/week for Antony or paying 55m for Mount with 1 year left on his contract or give a new contract worth 340k/week to Rashford. He can be blamed for a lot of other things definitely. But some of the things people are trying to blame the manager has nothing to do with him. Wanting Antony and Mount is on him, paying 80m and 55m for them is not.
 

Nori-

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I cant see a big announcement being made if they do eventually decide to stick with ETH.

It doesn't look good that they've taken almost 3 weeks after the seasons finished and after speaking to several candidates to eventually announce "meh, we'll stick with ETH for another year".

It makes INEOS look incompetent and shows they dont have complete confidence in the manager.

My guess is the news will come in the form of a "leak" or statement about this summers plans which will mention ETHs name, rather than a "he's staying" type of annoucement.
 

Laurencio

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I mean how can Ten Hag even continue after being undermined to this extent? If he stays it will be a glum and subdued atmosphere next season and he'll probably be sacked by Christmas anyway.
You would hope that if they decide to keep him, they offer him a three year contract and profuse upon his suitability and being the right man to lead us forward.
 

Jev

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You would hope that if they decide to keep him, they offer him a three year contract and profuse upon his suitability and being the right man to lead us forward.
It would be insane to give him a new contract when they clearly don’t really trust him. On the other hand, it would be impossible for him to continue with any semblance of authority as a lame duck on his last year. INEOS have really backed themselves into a corner here. The only way this isn’t a complete clusterfeck is if they sack him.
 

M16Red

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If Eth stays and INEOS don't get him players we need, he is just going to give it to them in return.

Personally hope we just get the players we need and look sell the players we don't.
 

AndySmith1990

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You would hope that if they decide to keep him, they offer him a three year contract and profuse upon his suitability and being the right man to lead us forward.
But they obviously don't believe he's the right man, or they wouldn't be interviewing potential replacements.

If they end up keeping him it'll be because they couldn't find someone suitable to take over. At that point he has one year remaining on his contract to prove himself.
 

pocco

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If Eth stays and INEOS don't get him players we need, he is just going to give it to them in return.

Personally hope we just get the players we need and look sell the players we don't.
If he stays, and that's a big if, then at least he gets to prove to us all that last season was just injuries and a one off, and he can prove it by taking the same squad and playing some great football and pushing right back up the table again.
 

Rojofiam

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Actually watch a Brighton match. If you look beyond his sexy name, his actual football is atrocious

Has stagnated Evan Ferguson. Couldn’t get a drip out of Ansu Fati…

If you think city would actually touch him, you’re insane
Strongly disagree. He will go to a big club and probably do well.
 

wimdebok

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How bad, still no clarity. It's very simple, speak out and go on with Ten Hag next season or you sack him. Not very classy by Mr Brexit.
 

Sarni

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If Eth stays and INEOS don't get him players we need, he is just going to give it to them in return.

Personally hope we just get the players we need and look sell the players we don't.
Absolutely. If they keep him and don’t deliver him what he requires it’s on them.
 

George The Best

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For me the path forward now if they want to sack ETH is to appoint De Zerbi and start identifying transfer targets who can help him deliver the football he wants quickly.
If they’ve turned down Tuchel I have my doubts they will be chasing after De Zerbi. My theory is they leaked the review to try and flush out potential candidates. Unless they‘ve found someone, so far not mentioned, then what they are left with is pretty underwhelming. INEOS seem to have really put themselves in a corner with this
 

doubleohseven

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For me the path forward now if they want to sack ETH is to appoint De Zerbi and start identifying transfer targets who can help him deliver the football he wants quickly.
de Zerbi is the path forward further down the table. A nothing manager around nothing staff.
 

matherto

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For me the path forward now if they want to sack ETH is to appoint De Zerbi and start identifying transfer targets who can help him deliver the football he wants quickly.
But we saw from last year that his form for Brighton was about as bad as ours for the past six months.

And we'd have to poach all of Brighton's scouts and negotiators cause they're the ones doing the heavy lifting.