At what point are we going to say it's the manager?

When things went south under Moyes, there was a large group of fans here who slammed and abused players - the group that had just won us the title mere months ago - and stood by the amazing manager because that is apparently fans obligation.

Manager is the only one we are supposed to support here. We owe him everything.
 
Its the manager, the players, the people who are recruiting the managers and the players, the people at the top who drive the culture, the people who set the structure and the processes.
Like all corporate turnarounds, the purge needs to start at the top so that the new people can establish the right structures, the right culture, processes and recruit the right people to carryout the transformation.
So we need the right people at the board and executive levels, who can objectively evaluate the performance of the managers and the players, make the necessary decisions and carry out the right recruitment process to bring in the necessary quality.
 
He isn’t blameless, but he’s also the fifth manager post Fergie that this has happened to. They aren’t all shit. At some point you’ve got to notice a theme here, no?
 
Said weeks ago, he's reverting to the same shite that got his predecessors sacked.

Trusting the likes of Mctominay says it all, he's counting on him to pop up with a goal or 2, but its a short term, inconsistent fix. The fallout is we sacrifice the chance to develop any kind of possession, ball retention, dominant, consistent football.

I was delighted when we hired Ten Hag, but he's been a let down, he's sacrificed the principals that got him here, and fell into a familiar trap
 
I thought when Ten Hag arrived he came with a reputation of being a very good tactical coach.The results and football we have seen this year does not seem to be telling us that.We are constantly over loading going forward leaving the holding midfield player facing the Alamo once the attacks break down ,Casimero is still one of the best in the world at that position but he cannot do it on his own, neither can Amrabat.I watched the match yesterday and you could see both Ferdinand who for me thinks he Roy of the rovers and McTominay both bombing forward at every opportunity and leaving Amrabat trying to fend of 4 or 5 players running at him. These tactics are suicidal anyone with half a brain can see that ,if we do this against a already free scoring Liverpool side we will again get a good hiding.I personally think he has to go now or change his approach immediately.Bottom line for me it is the manager,we have some good players but playing a 3-1-6 system simply does not work.
 
Zen86 said:
Yeah that’s been the case with pretty much every manager we’ve had since SAF. There’s always rationale for why this manager didn’t work and that manager didn’t work. But at some point you have to look at the overall trend and the ease at which the players casually stop giving a shit because, hey, we don’t fancy the manager anymore.
Click to expand...

Yeah but could it also be that our board and executive team, whom we all acknowledge are woeful, are simply making poor choices?

Since SAF, we've appointed-.

Moyes - solid, midtable Premier League manager, now doing a decent job at West Ham. One career trophy - the Conference League.

LvG - didn't manage another club side after United, mediocre job with the Dutch national team.

Jose - now doing an average job with an average Roma side. Believe he's added one more trophy, the Conference League.

OGS - still without a club, his management CV reads 'relegated Cardiff, has won no major trophies'

So it's not a huge leap is it to think that maybe, just as our recruitment of footballers is bad, our recruitment of managers is also bad.

Honestly, which other club of our size and stature would have appointed any of those managers?
 
Truth is we have a really unbalanced squad, I generally believe any manager wouldn’t be able to fix without the drastic changes needed. We ignored the January window last year largely thanks to the Glazers not sanctioning the required funds.
We need to give ETH the rest of the season at least, hopefully with the benefit of some additional players, to help turn our fortunes round.
Above all I don’t want some of this current shower of players getting their own way again by forcing another manager out simply because they can’t cope with criticism.
 
Jaae said:
Cult of manager. We gave SAF time so that now means every manager is good enough provided they be given time.
Click to expand...
That would make sense if we’d given any manager time.
 
2 man midfield said:
He isn’t blameless, but he’s also the fifth manager post Fergie that this has happened to. They aren’t all shit. At some point you’ve got to notice a theme here, no?
Click to expand...
They are all shit. We have just hired poor or past it managers.
 
Zen86 said:
We’ll still be blaming the manager in another 5 managers time.
Click to expand...
We have tried every type of manager already. It is always the same story. It always ends the same way. Need to change the football structure around the club and some of the players before the manager. We will be having this same conversation in two years if we get any manager not Klopp or Pep.
 
2 man midfield said:
He isn’t blameless, but he’s also the fifth manager post Fergie that this has happened to. They aren’t all shit. At some point you’ve got to notice a theme here, no?
Click to expand...
mattunited1978 said:
Said weeks ago, he's reverting to the same shite that got his predecessors sacked.

Trusting the likes of Mctominay says it all, he's counting on him to pop up with a goal or 2, but its a short term, inconsistent fix. The fallout is we sacrifice the chance to develop any kind of possession, ball retention, dominant, consistent football.

I was delighted when we hired Ten Hag, but he's been a let down, he's sacrificed the principals that got him here, and fell into a familiar trap
Click to expand...

I have absolutely no interest in a new manager not because ETH is perfect or hasn’t made mistakes , but for this very reason. Every manager hired in 11 years ends up failing in a fairly similar way.

They aren’t all sh*t and weren’t all past it by the time they took over (Jose had won the league only a few months before).

Sack ETH, dont sack ETH , it doesn’t matter, it will reset the same cycle. Sure we don’t even know who’s gonna be running the football end of things at the moment.

What annoys me is that city didn’t need pep to win a lesgue, they won with Mancini and Pelligrini. They were able to get to the semi finals without pep who took a long time to finally do Europe. United spends as much , so we shouldn’t need a pep level manager to win things. This is why I find this idea that we need some GOAT manager as innacurate. There are plenty of top clubs who win trophies and do well with non pep/Klopp managers.

I think the issues run very very deep at the club. I think those who think we just need to keep replacing managers either don’t understand it or don’t want to believe we are that f*cked.

I’m sick being here every few years
 
Its the whole club culture with legacy issues from previous regimes. ETH isn't helping his cause with his signings and tactics but we have some serious vermin at this club in our playing squad that go back to the Ole days and they need removing before any manager can have a chance at having a harmonious dressing room.

I'm hoping out of hope that we get this cash injection from Big Jim that will allow us to remove a number of these players and replace them with players that don't have the level of ego a number of the ones we have currently have.
 
Chumpsbechumps said:
I have absolutely no interest in a new manager not because ETH is perfect or hasn’t made mistakes , but for this very reason. Every manager hired in 11 years ends up failing in a fairly similar way.

They aren’t all sh*t and weren’t all past it by the time they took over (Jose had won the league only a few months before).

Sack ETH, dont sack ETH , it doesn’t matter, it will reset the same cycle. Sure we don’t even know who’s gonna be running the football end of things at the moment.

What annoys me is that city didn’t need pep to win a lesgue, they won with Mancini and Pelligrini. They were able to get to the semi finals without pep who took a long time to finally do Europe. United spends as much , so we shouldn’t need a pep level manager to win things. This is why I find this idea that we need some GOAT manager as innacurate. There are plenty of top clubs who win trophies and do well with non pep/Klopp managers.

I think the issues run very very deep at the club. I think those who think we just need to keep replacing managers either don’t understand it or don’t want to believe we are that f*cked.

I’m sick being here every few years
Click to expand...
Jose had the same exact cycle here as he does almost everywhere though. Good first season, better second season than a collapse. He always gets his team to a point where working with them becomes untenable.

LVG was implementing something we never had the patience for but his last few months were actually decent, even good.

Ole was just undone by his last transfer window and obviously wasn’t an experienced enough manager to come back from it.

Moyes was simply out of his depth. He never managed a club of this stature and was clearly dumbfounded by it when he arrived. He is a mid table manager, a very good one, so we could probably use him now.

ETH had not even managed in a big league before and has clearly been found out as a tactician under these circumstances whilst having to face world’s best managers here. He won’t come back from it because he doesn’t know how to do that, and it’s only going to get worse. You can give him another £600m to buy whatever former players he needs or pump his sons’ agency revenue but what it is doing is dragging us more and more behind.
 
Why is it that only the players are accused of “downing tools”. Tell you what, this particular manager is as much of a problem as the players are.

Time and time again this manager failed to adapt to many situations and cost us games. Overplaying an obviously out of form Rashford when we had others available. Constantly playing people out of position when we have enough personnel to *not* do so. Constantly playing McTominay who when not scoring fluke goals is an absolute traffic cone in midfield. Erik splashed a small country’s GDP mostly on players from the Eredivisie, and one by one they all start to flop in front of everyone to see. That solely a player problem to you? I think the feck not. Don’t give me shit like “it’s not his first choice” cause he still had a say in who we brought in

Luke Shaw is our best left back and would’ve been called upon to help out our left flank, but what does the smartass Ten Hag do? Shoves him in central defence despite having Varane fit and available. Don’t fecking tell me that Varane has an attitude problem as the manager chooses to let his ego get the better of him and sacrifice whatever attacking thrust we have down the left just to avoid playing him. His own little system or some shit. Two straight games its happened now, both times Shaw didn’t cover himself in glory. At fault partly for at least one goal against Bournemouth.

Martial is close to useless nowadays, but is it not ten Hag’s job to pick someone else over him if he sees fit? You know, replace players who don’t give a shit and give minutes to someone else? That still a player problem to you?

The players aren’t blameless, far from it, but posts like this grate on me cause there’s no accountability for the manager. All yous just go “ahhh overpaid lazy bastard is ruining our club” feck off how about have the same energy for a bloke who’s now lost us 11 out of our last 23 matches?
 
The Oracle said:
Tactics, formations, playing players out of position, terrible signings, falling out with senior players...

...making substitutions too late, overplaying players, doesn't inspire the team during matches.

Just not good enough.
Click to expand...
But the same has been said about every manager we’ve had. A couple have gone on to do really well elsewhere. At what point do you accept it’s not just the manager?

I don’t deny Ten Hag hasn’t helped himself with some of his decisions but come on. It’s obvious he’s working in difficult circumstances in a culture of money before football

Personally think if we stick with him he’ll turn it around when the structure of the club is stronger
 
As someone said before, he isn’t blameless. Bit the majority of blame goes to the losers on the pitch. I‘d say 80-20
 
The players are the real problem here - what's becoming apparent though is that Ten Hag might not have the solution to that.

Doesn't mean somebody else wouldn't though.
 
He interviewed for the Spurs job and was unsuccessful thats always played on my mind

Those saying it’s the players that’s fair enough but he’s the one who’s bought half of them and the other half he’s picking. Nobody is forcing him to play 1 midfielder so Scott fecking McTominay can essentially have a free role in the side. It’s laughable

It’s possible to hire multiple terrible managers, infact just look at them it’s been a colossal failure. Moyes? Ole? a finished Jose? LvG who had essentially quit club football and was a international manager?

Bad decision after bad decision
 
The Cat said:
The other thing is I don't mind a foreign manager whose grasp of the language isn't spot on but he sounds so bad in every interview I have to wonder how that translates to the players as well.
Click to expand...
The English ones or the foreigners :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
He has been given relatively a lot of slack considering football style we play, never mind the results.
I don't know if that makes sense to get rid of him now, but I wouldn't hesitate if there was an option of hiring somebody else. I believe eth ideas are simply wrong.
 
Yeah, you know what? You're right. It has to be the manager. I mean, it was the manager the other 5 times before so it has to be now. It can't possibly be these fair weather players who turn the performance tap on and off whenever it suits them, crumble to pieces at any sign of difficulty and refuse to shoulder any criticism or responsibility for the way they train and play on the pitch.

Some have survived manager after manager and still get played, under several managers who are not all bad managers no matter what the media and other Utd fans with an agenda will have you believe. That should tell you everything about the quality of the whole playing squad, not just the players on the pitch. Recruitment is shoddy, scouting is terrible, facilities and sporting performance is stuck in the beginning of the 21st Century (Revealed by Ronaldo). Is this the responsibility of the manager? He just has to get performances and results from what he has, but when 5 managers have failed before him, maybe, just maybe, we should STOP assigning blame to people who are basically employed to paper over the numerous cracks that exist within this clubs very fragile foundations.

We know what the problem is and it extends beyond just simply that a manager may or may not be out of his depth. ETH may be at fault for some things but is he to blame for all of it? Not a chance
 
Lentwood said:
Yeah but could it also be that our board and executive team, whom we all acknowledge are woeful, are simply making poor choices?

Since SAF, we've appointed-.

Moyes - solid, midtable Premier League manager, now doing a decent job at West Ham. One career trophy - the Conference League.

LvG - didn't manage another club side after United, mediocre job with the Dutch national team.

Jose - now doing an average job with an average Roma side. Believe he's added one more trophy, the Conference League.

OGS - still without a club, his management CV reads 'relegated Cardiff, has won no major trophies'

So it's not a huge leap is it to think that maybe, just as our recruitment of footballers is bad, our recruitment of managers is also bad.

Honestly, which other club of our size and stature would have appointed any of those managers?
Click to expand...

Plenty of clubs would have hired LvG and Mourinho. ETH was a hot new manager on the scene. Moyes had a good PL reputation after punching with Everton for so many years. Good managers until they came to United, after which everyone starts to criticise their appointment with the benefit of hindsight.

Ole was a club legend. Many clubs have done the same.

The club is a mess. We’ve tried trusted PL experience, star names in management, club legends, hot managerial prospects. All have failed in the exact same way. Poor recruitment, club drama, abandonment by the players, and a situation arguably worse than what they started with.

I don’t really know where anyone gets the confidence to suggest that hiring yet another manager will somehow go differently.
 
Sarni said:
When things went south under Moyes, there was a large group of fans here who slammed and abused players - the group that had just won us the title mere months ago - and stood by the amazing manager because that is apparently fans obligation.

Manager is the only one we are supposed to support here. We owe him everything.
Click to expand...

The Manager is the most vital cog in the machine. He sets the tone, he devises the tactics, he targets signings and he builds the squad. Utd have to alwsys aspire to appoint the very best manager that is available at a given time. ETH had a reputation and we were collectively happy that he took thr job. There have been some goid days since but I always had the nagging feeling that our successes last season were false dawns. The scousers were off form and a gap in top 4 opened up. Look at how quickly klopp turned that ship around. ETH seems to have no personality, I can't see him getting a response from squad at Anfield next week. If there is another thumping at that kip then I think it is time to say goodbye to ETH and start again. Yesterday was as bad as it has been since Sir Alex retired. How was he feeling watching that yesterday?
 
Sarni said:
Jose had the same exact cycle here as he does almost everywhere though. Good first season, better second season than a collapse. He always gets his team to a point where working with them becomes untenable.

LVG was implementing something we never had the patience for but his last few months were actually decent, even good.

Ole was just undone by his last transfer window and obviously wasn’t an experienced enough manager to come back from it.

Moyes was simply out of his depth. He never managed a club of this stature and was clearly dumbfounded by it when he arrived. He is a mid table manager, a very good one, so we could probably use him now.

ETH had not even managed in a big league before and has clearly been found out as a tactician under these circumstances whilst having to face world’s best managers here. He won’t come back from it because he doesn’t know how to do that, and it’s only going to get worse. You can give him another £600m to buy whatever former players he needs or pump his sons’ agency revenue but what it is doing is dragging us more and more behind.
Click to expand...

Jose won leagues at other clubs during his cycles until he joined United. Imagine when Peps city finished 2nd to Liverpool , city bought him an 18 year old Dalot and Fred to catch Liverpool.

Many players who joined have done better at other clubs before they joined United. There is a pattern and it’s that United are destructive to anybody who joins the club in pretty much any capacity.

United are an outlier of a club, we destroy everything we touch , uniteds excellence is in failure and it seeps through every facet of the Club, eventually corrupting managers and players. I can’t believe some of you still don’t get that.
 
I think that, either deliberately or unwillingly, the way the club is being run contributes to this. First, we put all our eggs in the manager basket, and then we seem to wait until things reach a boiling point, so that the inevitable sacking will bring a sense of relief and the new manager, after a few positive results, will evoke hosannas from a disillusioned fanbase that will do anything for shred of hope. Clean slates for everyone and an opportunity to sweep the bigger issues under the rug. We don't have the solutions, so we keep repeating the cycle. The club, that is, and the fans follow.
 
Zen86 said:
Plenty of clubs would have hired LvG and Mourinho. ETH was a hot new manager on the scene. Moyes had a good PL reputation after punching with Everton for so many years. Good managers until they came to United, after which everyone starts to criticise their appointment with the benefit of hindsight.

Ole was a club legend. Many clubs have done the same.

The club is a mess. We’ve tried trusted PL experience, star names in management, club legends, hot managerial prospects. All have failed in the exact same way. Poor recruitment, club drama, abandonment by the players, and a situation arguably worse than what they started with.

I don’t really know where anyone gets the confidence to suggest that hiring yet another manager will somehow go differently.
Click to expand...

I'm not getting into a real deep-dive about the abilities of each of these managers, it's not really the point of the argument - although I dispute people only criticised these appointments in hindsight. About 50% of this forum were against Jose and OGS before they were hired.

I return to my point, which is that we've had 5 managers in a decade (which isn't actually that many) and they were hired by the same team of clowns that have basically gotten every major decision wrong during that period.

So when people suggest it's hopeless, that we've tried everything, that nothing works, that the players must be to blame, that the club is cursed or rotten or whatever...I dispute that.

We haven't gotten it right, up until now, with our managerial appointments, but that doesn't mean we should give up and stop trying.
 
He is not the problem, but is around a third of the problem.

Don't really give a single flying feck about what happens to him, but hope, for the love of god, the club doesn't hand him one more cent as his track record is beyond awful.
 
It is the manager and anyone saying it's the players need reminding how much money ten hag has already spent on almost a new 11 and whilst he may not have all them available, that is no excuse for everytime he loses a match, there are a lot of aides in the top 4 that have taken our bench yesterday over most of what they have on theirs.

We should and could have been right up there this season challenging for top at this point in the season but Ten hag killed that off with his awful recruitment (again)

take away all the times 45 million onana had basically thrown the ball in his own net and let in half a dozen straight forward shoots that most keepers save and we would be cruising through to the next round of the ucl and at the very least be level with city in the league.

Had he not gambled 75 million on a young striker that was not even proven in the Italian league and instead brought a half decent striker that can actually score at least 10-15 goals and we would have probably gained about an extra 6 points this season.

Had he not randomly brought mount for 60 million because he liked what he saw of him in a farmers league in Holland about 4 years ago and at the same time not let fred go for 8 million then that alone would have been improvement on our current midfield that we see but had he brought a proper midfielder this summer we really could have kicked on another level.

Let's not forget 80 million Antony who still has fans asking who we should buy to solve our right wing issue....
 
2 man midfield said:
He isn’t blameless, but he’s also the fifth manager post Fergie that this has happened to. They aren’t all shit. At some point you’ve got to notice a theme here, no?
Click to expand...
None of them are top class either though. The closest was probably Jose but we got him after his peak, same with LVG. Ten Hag was a promising manager worth taking a gamble on, it’s not worked so sack and move on to the next choice.
 
The common denominator over the past few managers - the players.

The manager can only practice a style of play and instruct the players to enact it on the pitch. It’s blindingly clear that his authoritarian style does not go down well with the high paid spoilt brats like Rashford and Martial. They don’t try for him. It’s clear. His tough approach has been needed since SAF.

Suck it up fans for now and let EtH address it. If he does not remove the rotten apples and consistent poor performers like Dalot (not good enough), McTominay (ill disciplined position-wise), Rashford (not arsed), Sancho (no comment), Martial (lazy) and Bruno then it’s time for him to go. (Yes Bruno - I’m sick of his histrionics and good one/bad one performances).

Rinse and repeat manager-wise. Still, it keeps this forum busy……
 
M Bison said:
He has to take some of the blame of course, but the idea that the difference between us being a good and poor side is one man, is just ridiculous.

Look forward to seeing these posts again in 18 months time when the next manager has failed.
Click to expand...

It worked for villa
 
Dr Fink said:
The common denominator over the past few managers - the players.

The manager can only practice a style of play and instruct the players to enact it on the pitch. It’s blindingly clear that his authoritarian style does not go down well with the high paid spoilt brats like Rashford and Martial. They don’t try for him. It’s clear. His tough approach has been needed since SAF.

Suck it up fans for now and let EtH address it. If he does not remove the rotten apples and consistent poor performers like Dalot (not good enough), McTominay (ill disciplined position-wise), Rashford (not arsed), Sancho (no comment), Martial (lazy) and Bruno then it’s time for him to go. (Yes Bruno - I’m sick of his histrionics and good one/bad one performances).

Rinse and repeat manager-wise. Still, it keeps this forum busy……
Click to expand...
The team have tried for him, Martial tried for him he’s just not that good. This idea that the players don’t run for him etc isn’t true, his tactics are killing an average group of players.
 
This is same shit and same people as with OGS, it's never the coach/manager, it's always something else, because in their simpleton minds, every coach, no matter how obvisouly out of depth, will turn into SAF, given enough time and the right ownership structure.
 
Sarni said:
When things went south under Moyes, there was a large group of fans here who slammed and abused players - the group that had just won us the title mere months ago - and stood by the amazing manager because that is apparently fans obligation.

Manager is the only one we are supposed to support here. We owe him everything.
Click to expand...

To be fair, most of the players have basically since admitted that they were hostile and unreceptive to Moyes from day one, some even suggesting they'd have been the same with any manager, simply because he wasn't Fergie.

However, he was clearly shite, out of his depth, and probably deserved a level of skepticism from the players, and it's daft to think he wasn't a primary factor in us having a shit season (the other being Woodward pissing about with his "urgent transfer business").

I don't remember the overwhelming view being of support the manager, blame the players, though.

Most fans were underwhelmed by his appointment, and realised quite quickly that he wasn't up to the job.
 
sect2k said:
This is same shit and same people as with OGS, it's never the coach/manager, it's always something else, because in their simpleton minds, every coach, no matter how obvisouly out of depth, will turn into SAF, given enough time and the right ownership structure.
Click to expand...

Literally no one has argued this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.