It's on their heads when it goes wrong,clearly their changes didn't include the manager too.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Sacking him will cost 7m tops, and likely less than that.
If we think he will likely cost us CL qualification again next season, keeping him will cost us far far more money than that.
What's so good about him that we should keep him?
1. He's god awful at assessing player abilitie. His purchase, even the player he trained before are all off
2. Tactically inept we'd been battered by half the team in EPL. Granted he has injuries but a better manager would shore the back and wait for recovering player.
3. He made no visible tactical improvements, apart from a few player brilliant saving his arse on several occassion not even once he got his tactics right like Mourinho vs Villareal. You can see he's tweaking and it works against the opponent
4. Our tactics seems to be spray and pray. He never learn and adapt to half the teams slicing us open.
5. His man management aren't great. Rashford Sancho aside you dont see discipline and playing by merit.
6. Stubborn
Giving him another 200m and another season would make us top 4 at best and worst coulr set us back another 2 season cleaning up his dross
Arteta, Klopp and Fergie for all their first few season hick up does alot of things on the background and has a clear vision on what's not working. They shipped out alot of players and bring in players they know where to play, and even if it takes time to bear fruit they did. ETH seems to be just buying players for the sake of it.
1. He's god awful at assessing player abilitie. His purchase, even the player he trained before are all off
2. Tactically inept we'd been battered by half the team in EPL. Granted he has injuries but a better manager would shore the back and wait for recovering player.
3. He made no visible tactical improvements, apart from a few player brilliant saving his arse on several occassion not even once he got his tactics right like Mourinho vs Villareal. You can see he's tweaking and it works against the opponent
4. Our tactics seems to be spray and pray. He never learn and adapt to half the teams slicing us open.
5. His man management aren't great. Rashford Sancho aside you dont see discipline and playing by merit.
6. Stubborn
Giving him another 200m and another season would make us top 4 at best and worst coulr set us back another 2 season cleaning up his dross
Arteta, Klopp and Fergie for all their first few season hick up does alot of things on the background and has a clear vision on what's not working. They shipped out alot of players and bring in players they know where to play, and even if it takes time to bear fruit they did. ETH seems to be just buying players for the sake of it.
He's done nothing this season to deserve to stay on. If he stays it will be a big mistake.
Osimhen would cost a boatload more than Hojlund. Vlahovic had fallen off last season. David hit career highs last year so maybe. En-Neysri, meh. Openda, maybe.
Wakins would have cost too much. Toney, not an option last summer. Solanke would have been laughed if people brought him up as a serious option in the summer. Same for Cunha.
Well the structure is pretty much decided now, and will be in place soon. I fully expect they're working together already on the down low. So does this structure need to stay by a failing manager until that once in a generation manager comes along for it to be successful?
There was enough of a counter movement without youYou know the Arthur fist meme? That's how I feel reading both of your posts with regards to ten Hag. The same goes for VP89 and Plant0x84. They've taken a backseat recently. But they'll be back one day.
I actually only signed up because of the four of you. Haha. I had to join the counter movement. More soldiers were needed on this front. Our forces need a dark knight to rise up and take on Goldbridge on other platforms.
I never said that either of you shouldn't be allowed to post your views. I just find the both of you are delusional with regards to this topic. There's no point in sugar-coating.
The reality is that you both rate ten Hag highly, continue to search high and low for reasons as to why things haven't worked out this season, and would like to see a new contract offered. Let's not pretend otherwise by claiming things like contextualising. You're entitled to your view.
Luckily for you, I do think ten Hag will be the manager next season and will improve on this season. It would be pretty much impossible not to.
Don't take personal offence from what a stranger on the internet says. It's just a football forum. We're not debating in front of Parliament. It doesn't have to be so formal. Nobody was called anything below the belt.
and you think of yourself as Redcafe Batman? What a joker @Fallon d'Floor What exactly do you think my views are? Because I too have concerns about Ten Hag’s ability to be a world class manager and I have never once said to give him a new contract this summer. I think that would be very short sighted and worrying.
I don’t search high and low to find reasons I watch the matches and look at data and the issues. If someone says something I think is unfair I’ll provide context. I don’t think I’ve made a single post in here without explaining the context behind it.
Up until the interview I was told of the belief he was more likely to leave however I think he stays. I’m not sure if that will be a good or bad thing but I think it’s worth exploring how he does without as many injuries and with a couple of players of the profile we sorely lack namely a physically and technically capable DM and a CB of that style.
I don’t take offence I just think it’s very sad that your sole reason for existing on this site was to play at being Batman. Like I said it’s just disappointing given you have some fantastic posts to hear that.
Osimhen was the only one you could consider top quality at the time we signed Højlund but the outlay on him would have been above Kane levels of transfer fee and wages would have taken our budget.
Vlahovic is patchy (9 league games last season in a row with no contribution) , David lacks the physicality but would be a good back up option. The other two again would be great 2nd options but I’d question their long term prospects. I think Højlund has the potential to be better than all bar Osimhen.
This is ETHs system not United. If Ineos have sense then we move him on for a manager that fits their system, and more important, a manager that has proven man management skills with elite players, flexibility and adaptability.
I have to think that Ineos have a plan that doesn't include ETH. Otherwise, if that's all they have after speaking to everyone at the club, and the experts..... this feels like Glazers 2.0
Sorry but more ETH excuses....
1 - Yes apart from a few horror story results, but for the last 3rd of last season we were poor and scraped by, and it does not give a free pass for a season, it s unbelievable that he has made it this long
2 - People dismiss the injuries... no they don't but injuries do not mean you play recklessly they mean you have to adapt, the point YOU dismiss about injuries is that we have a manager who is to blind, stubborn or inept to realise he has to adapt his tactics for the players he has available, and as for the defensive combinations about half of those are by choice not injuries alone, half a fact is no fact at all!
3 - How has his development of the youth been brilliant? he has played Garnacho who was purchased for half a million from Atletico by Ole, he was always getting into the first team as soon as, and Mainoo who literally everyone who has watched him at youth level could have nailed on 1st team
4 - Literally any manager could have been less inept this season, I agree I am not frothing at the mouth, but would take Tuchel in a heart beat over ETH for another season, hell I would take big Sam at this point, at least he understands how to coach defence and counter attacks
5 - and? so what? the same argument as not firing a manager because we fired a few recently, it doesn't mean ETH gets a free pass, you do not build a house on dodgy foundations, I would argue that given how poor and ill considered his signings have been in general, not getting rid of ETH at this stage would be detrimental to any rebuild, in addition ETH wants a very specific player and style, and shows little adaptability, do we want to focus on building a team that can play one tune?
This season up and down? the only ups I can think of are the 1st Chelsea match and extra time against Liverpool, everything else has been down, I mean seriously ETH could be brilliant next season or he could be worse than this, can we afford the risk? old baldy has cost us £100m this season in prize money, that fecks your rebuild right there, and I come back to the ineptitude, no manager should have made and repeated the mistakes he has week after week, that is unforgivable IMO
Maybe he can turn it around but as it stands, regardless of who we sell and sign in the summer, I'll struggle to look forward to next season with ETH in charge.
1. They weren't even amazing in his first season. We were solid at times, we got battered at times, we were pretty dour to watch from February onwards. Thankfully the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs were nowhere to be seen, and Villa weren't a factor then. We barely scored but like I said, we didn't concede a lot. Largely carried in attack by Rashford. Had a "red flag" performance against Sevilla to get dumped out of Europe, who were around the bottom of La Liga at the time.
2. We've had a lot of injuries. So have other clubs. We have still had largely our first 11 available quite a lot, and still play like shit. Shouldn't be losing or struggling against some of the teams we have and the injuries isn't a get out of jail card to be terrible for a full year against every level of opposition. Even when our preferred defensive options have been in, no surprises, the issues were still there.
3. I can't criticise him for his use of the youth players. But what I will say is he'd have been an idiot not to use Mainoo and Garnacho because, without them, this would have been a terrible season. They've largely papered over the cracks for him.
4. Tuchel. No doubt an upgrade and he's proven it. But what I will say is that, go back a year or two and you wouldn't have accepted Emery or Ange. Go back a bit further and everyone thought Arteta was shite. Sometimes it doesn't matter what has happened elsewhere, you just need to find that manager that clicks with this squad and has good ideas. There's actually a lot of managers with good ideas out there, so the next step is finding one that clicks here and works within the structure well. They might not be a fancied option right now, or might be quite obscure, as these managers were.
5. I don't see how. Only at United we seem to have to hit reset on the rebuild when we appoint a new manager. But, we are hitting reset anyway this summer. We've had reports that they've told ETH to change the way we're playing for the remainder of the season, so we're actually starting from scratch anyway. Plus we're on about selling the whole squad. It couldn't be a bigger case of hitting reset right now, so it's a moot point.
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I disagree.
People said the same about RvP, yes we were Champions then, but we were a CL club last June and there was no reason we couldn’t make a title push this season. Fergie and Gill got it done. Arnold and Murtough were too scared and unambitious to even try.
If you feck off that pointless Mount signing, who we could now be getting for free, then we could have outbid Bayern for Kane. That gives them every chance. Ten Hag is hardly an idiot
Well if we got Kane and were still flirting with 8th place then yes that would be an absolute disaster. But I think he’d have got 30 goals like he always did in struggling spurs teams. We’d surely at least be getting a CL place.
ETH is still vastly underperforming with the squad he has. And I have no defence for him if he’s sacked. And I lean towards that he should be sacked. But ultimately he is going through the season with Garnacho and Hojlund as his two main forwards, and both are 2-3 years off being top class PL players IMO. Same with Mainoo being our best midfielder. Just because Ten Hag is doing a bad job doesn’t excuse that United have still failed him.
Well as I said above, I think Kane was realistic. But it would have taken guts and ruthless ambition. Which United never show any more, just going for the easy targets. (Looking more promising under Ineos who have targeted tough to obtain upper management from city and Newcastle)
But yes I agree Ten Hag should still have been getting into the CL places with the squad he has. Should have been getting to the CL knock outs still. And he’s done a very poor job
Neville is right about last season, I completely forgot that we had the most clean sheets. As he said 30 different back four combinations affect that.
Liverpool had some injuries last season and they dropped out of top 5 with a squad fully build for 'the German Ferguson' or whatever they think Klopp is over at Merseyside. It can't be overstated how big it is to not have a left back for literaly most games of the season, no CB who can play the EtH system.
Every game is a huge disappointment and predictable. 10 to 15 minutes of pressure from us and then we cannot keep up the pace with such a wide open set up. We then start to have the chaos football until half time. We come out for the 2nd half and look clueless and give up chances to the opposition, if we manage to get any sort of lead the last 20 minutes become panic stations. Usually more defenders and midfielders are thrown on at the expense of attackers, more defensive chaos and no outlet up front. To me to you at the back before hoofing it upfield. Great organization and coaching.
The interview with Neville is a tough watch. Doesn't come across well and struggles to admit that anything is wrong.
So does having 1 central midfielder.
And the injuries are obviously 0% on coaching then?
He’s the best - don’t you want best in class? If so, then be patient
He's right about being better this year actually, results-wise.
From the first game till the end of 2023, we played 28, won 12, drew 2 and lost 14.
Since 2024 began we have played 19, won 11, drew 5 and lost 3.
Maybe he deserves a bit of credit for reducing the number of losses while at the same time losing key players to injury.
From the first game till the end of 2023, we played 28, won 12, drew 2 and lost 14.
Since 2024 began we have played 19, won 11, drew 5 and lost 3.
Maybe he deserves a bit of credit for reducing the number of losses while at the same time losing key players to injury.
You think they prioritised Mount over Kane?! What a ridiculous thing to say, they probably knew Kane wasn't going to be viable from Spring last year
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17/38 clean sheets. Next highest was 14/38.
What I find more interesting though is we only conceded 43 goals the exact same amount as Arsenal who I think most would agree are the best defensive side in the PL.
The only two sides who had superior goals against records were City (title winners) and Newcastle (whose game plan was built around compactness, set pieces and being solid in defence).
Our issue last season was goals. We only scored 58 in 38 (1.53 per game).
Our post Christmas goals per game rate is 2.14 per game (PL) and 2.3 (all comps) so it makes sense for Ten Hag to try and improve the goal scoring aspect given we know once we have our better players back he knows how to get us conceding the 3rd least goals in the PL based on last season.
If we don’t win back to back we’re always in crisis despite the only other sides doing this being in the title race.
Yeah, I just watched his interview with Neville and it gave me a bit of a different perspective on things. I think we have improved going forward quite a bit but obviously, the amount of changes at the back are affecting the goals/shots conceded dramatically.
Unfortunately yes.
It is entirely possible (even likely) that this is what will happen but that is just because we are incredibly incompetent as a club. No other top club would even contemplate this, they wouldn’t look at the job he’s done so far and come to a conclusion ‘you’re fine, we are going to support you even more in building your Ajax replica, or whatever it is that you need, and won’t judge you until you’ve rebuild the whole team to your liking’. He would get fired from every single serious club.
We are clearly going backwards with him not just as a team but also each player on individual level. Our new ‘structure’ will need to do a hell of a job with recruitment to buy him players good enough to paper over his deficiencies as a manager, and I really don’t think it’s a viable strategy long term to turn ourselves into an even more manager centric club where first and foremost priority of the entire organization is to make sure he looks less inept than he actually is.
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That all assumes that:
A: Kane would have signed for us, and
B: Spurs would have sold Kane to us
The latter being very unlikely given Bayern as an alternative and if there had been a chance Spurs would have sold to an English club, there would have been rivals
It isn't FM where you can sign who you want, Kane was only realistic in our dreams
I would disagree that ETH is not an idiot, if nothing else he is idiotically stubborn, and even pie in the sky with Kane in the side we would still have zero midfield and a wide open defence
I also think you miss that Mount was very much wanted by ETH not thrust upon him
I think they will have found him very impressive in behind the scenes conversations because he’s actually quite good at deflecting blame and talking incessantly about tactics / vision / process.
Great. Looking forward to be in with at least a mathematical chance of winning the title with three matches to go at the end of next season.
Can I also expect a bunch of CL finals and 90+ point finishes in the next few seasons?
This thread is great. It goes around in circles, pretty much like United since 2013.
Within the first 24 hours of yet another shite performance and result (now a weekly occurrence), the general concensus is "get him the feck out"
Then as the week goes on more and more bullshit excuses come out to absolve him of blame for anything. Rinse and repeat on Monday night.
It's ridiculous how so many are willing to tolerate such abysmal standards from a man who has literally no history with United, and who is as much of a egotistical twat as Mourinho.
Within the first 24 hours of yet another shite performance and result (now a weekly occurrence), the general concensus is "get him the feck out"
Then as the week goes on more and more bullshit excuses come out to absolve him of blame for anything. Rinse and repeat on Monday night.
It's ridiculous how so many are willing to tolerate such abysmal standards from a man who has literally no history with United, and who is as much of a egotistical twat as Mourinho.
Poor ETH. Saddled with club signings he can't be expected to get much out of and his own signings the club were at fault to sanction.
So because i state another (very good) manager also struggles in an injury riddled season, means next year should go exactly like that managers next season?
Reaching its peak this week as we've got 2 extra days of the excuses stage until Monday.
Some trying to convince us that we've been decent since January is bizarre.
Feel for sure ETH will be gone end of season.. Sir Jim has already sacked /replaced several senior officers, he’s hardly likely to keep Ten Hag, some may say the weakest link.
The season has been an absolute disaster.
The season has been an absolute disaster.
Well reported at this stage he's left that decision to the people he's hired.
I think he's more likely to stay than go now.
The thinking apparently is because Fergie was given time and eventually came good that the same will be the case with any manager. The manager doesn't matter the key is simply time. The magic number seems to be around 6 years.
But you’re telling me not to assume things and then assuming multiple things yourself. Obviously neither of us know for sure. But United seemed to give up fecking fast regardless. If they could have got Kane, they weren’t going to achieve it with that mentality.
And it’s not just Kane. Even at executive level United have consistently just gone for whoever is easiest to get. Do you think they thought Murtough was the best sports director they could get? Or did they just get him because he was already there and easy to put in place? See also for Arnold, Woodward and every other fecker they got
What makes you think that?
Assuming he has one.
Being Gung ho means pushing everyone forward and going all out attack.
That's not what we do.
Obviously, not exactly the same as next season, that was a clear exaggeration. But I assume you brought up Klopp to say that if we ignore this season because of the injuries and give him another chance(s?), he'll hit the heights of Klopp. Otherwise, what's the point in bringing up Klopp's name? Might as well say "Look, CL manager Eddie Howe also struggled with injuries this season."