At this point it doesn't seem so
But that's the ultimate goal. The question is, how long can we wait?
But that's the ultimate goal. The question is, how long can we wait?
Could Ten Hag guide United to the Premier League title?
- Thread starter red.knight
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I don't know whether he can but I do know that from 8th to 1st a rather huge improvement is necessary.
If he can sustain the FA final’s attitude and determination all season long… why not?
No. He is not the best manager in the league nor does he possess the best squad. I think some of you forget how long the season is.
United don't have a divine right to win the PL or cups. Their squad is clearly not competitive. Having a single teenage striker playing his first PL season doesn't sound like a title winning strategy. City and Chelsea have been out muscling them with transfers for a long time. All ETH can do is change the profile of the squad, removing too many unproductive players and gradually adding depth to the squad to make them more competitive.
After what Leicester City accomplished, anything must be deemed possible. However, it is far from clear that Erik ten Hag and this ownership have the toolkit to forge a PL winning side. But is it possible? Sure. If Leicester City can lift the PL, so can Manchester United.
I don't use any of that. I'm just enthusiastic and optimistic about Ten Hag and United's future. I would argue that the poor performance and results this season are largely attributed to a series of injuries to key players. @romufc described in greater detail the significant number of injuries. This season alone should not be used as a metric to evaluate Erik ten Hag’s ability to lead the team to success in the future. It is crucial to consider the broader context and not let this singular, injury-ridden season overshadow Ten Hag's potential and capability. As I already mentioned, with a fully fit squad, Ten Hag can easily finish in the top four, win trophies, and build a squad with promising youngsters. I believe he is capable of guiding Manchester United to greater achievements in the coming years, especially if he is backed by INEOS with the signing of quality players.
Can…yes (anything’s possible with the right set up - which we sadly still lack). Unlikely given his path to this point and the clubs momentum.
- A successful Eth needed a much younger and larger squad with high potential moldable talent to “experiment with” in his first season (similar to his Ajax set up) while he figured out the league and his style here
- Would have helped if his start was unencumbered by Players that have struggled through multiple managers and shown their low ceiling or tendencies that don’t match a title winning side
- A better back office set up that could manage the rebuild and shake up without burdening the club with expensive mistakes
- A free hit season without the pressure of immediate success (so many successful clubs have thrived post a trophy-less season or one without top four)
- Sadly the missteps, mistrust and mismanagement (Eth, INEOS, The Ever present Glazers) means the club is still running onto the pitch with its laces undone, without a proper warm up and without clear tactical instructions. It’ll take more time than he’s likely to be afforded to right this ship enough for a title charge. I hope I’m wrong
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It is quite dismissive of some fans to just say.. oh every team gets injuries, which I agree with, every team should be able to cope with a few injuries. However; what doesn't get put into context is how those injuries affect the team.
Obviously, from people who have one agenda which is to see him gone, they will see it as x,y,z team got injuries and did well and name 1/2 players that get injured for long and the team does well.
That is all well and good when you have a team, when you have a consistent 11 and 1 gets injured another comes and fills his boots, happens all the time. However; when your main CB is out for majority of the season and then you also have 2/3 other CB's injured during that time, you will struggle, add to that the CDM is not there, now you have a bigger issue.
Forget even all the off field problems, thats not even being mentioned that much. Relying on 1 ST for the whole season also is not feasible.
From the managers linked, Ten Hag has the most pedigree, he has shown he can win a league title challenging with other teams in Holland. He has shown ability to compete in cup competitions for Ajax and United.
More than any of the other managers on the shortlist have shown.
The problem with this example is that Liverpool also overperformed massively in 18/19. That's 76 games of "luck" in which they also won the Champions League. Most likely the model is just missing something.
I dont understand this Xpoints business. I ask you as a Real madrid fan, do you guys care that you won the CL again with the opponent having a better xG?
I didn't see the Dortmund trophy they got for having a better xG, did you?
Its almost we are moving away from the human element of football, its a science now, seems like fans dont watch football for entertainment, its about post match stats and what should / could have happened over what happened.
He won't get close
Nope. He isn't good enough.
I'll be genuinely shocked if he leads us to top 4 ever again. Other teams have improved and he seemed completely lost last season.
Such a difficult question to answer given we have no idea what he is building towards. I think after this next season, given we don't have a similar amount of injuries it should become a lot clearer. With a fit and healthy squad we should hopefully be able to see what his plan is and if we are making progress towards it.
I think there is good value in statistical models, things of that nature. But people ought to be careful about assuming that they are the 'underlying' reality.
Its good for manager and players to use, I agree but fans using it as a tool to say oh Liverpool didnt deserve 99 because their xpoints didnt show it, is not the reality.
I believe that not only can he win the prem, but he WILL win the prem.
He has won trophies so you can't argue he is a winner.
But to win the premier league it is not just down to the manager. They can only do so much with what they have.
But to win the premier league it is not just down to the manager. They can only do so much with what they have.
I mean, we won't be playing for pride against City and Liverpool all season long. Where's the motivation going to come from when getting trounced by Bournemouth at home?
Football isn't about expected points, but xPts, xG and xGA tells you a lot about the general state of your play, how many and how good chances you create and how many and how good chances you concede.
Getting 60 points from 44,42 xPts (35% overperformance) is not sustainable and should tell you that the the league position
It is not sustainable to massively overperform the underlying stats consistantly. The best teams in the world can trend towards a slight overperformance, but not like we did this season, and not like Liverpool did in 19/20.
I'm not saying Liverpool didn't deserve the title in the 19/20 season, I'm saying that believing getting 99 points the next season beased on their play and underlying numbers would be very unrealistic. Based on the underlying stats for chanced created and conceded for Liverpool in their 99 points season they would on average get 74/75 points if you ran it 100 times. (They didn't overperform by 33% because they have VVD in the team, they generated 74,28 xPts with VVD in the team)
The season after they didn't underperform. Their results were exactly like they they were expected to be basedd on their underlying stats for chances created and conceded. 69 points from 68,8 xPTs. They generated less xPTs andplayed alitle worse because of their injuries, but that's not why they didn't overperform their underlying numbers by 33% two years in a row. That's like you say down to luck, not injuries.
Liverpool's xPTs vs. points since VVD arrived there:
18/19 - 97 points from 83,45 xPts - 16% overperformance
19/20 - 99 points from 74,28 xPts - 33% overperformance
20/21 - 69 points from 68,80 xPts - 0%
21/22 - 92 points from 86,56 xPts - 6% overperformance
22/23 - 67 points from 67,37 xPts - 0%
23/24 - 82 points from 76,88 xPts - 7% overperformance
The outlier seasons (18/19 and 19/20) were never sustainable.
Back to us.
Thinking that we will have realistic chance of getting top 4 without having an usustainable amount of luck next season after going from 66,4 xPts in 22/23 (6th) to 44,42 xPts in 23/24 (15th) is not just optimistic or naive....There's absolutely nothing indicating that we'll be competing at the level we want next season with this manager at the wheel. The minute we decided to keep ETH another season we immediately wrote off next season and said no to CL in 25/26 as well. Add to that that we also will become a lot less attractive for top players and we won't be able to choose players from the top shelf. Remember when we fired LVG 2 days after his FA cup win....The football we played under him wasn't good enough. ETH's football is a lot worse.
We'll be lucky to even finish in Top 4 again.
I would say it’s possible if Martinez/Shaw stay fit and new CB. World class defensive midfielder and a better striker.
Although if Bruno gets injured we are fecked so we need another player there as well.
Although if Bruno gets injured we are fecked so we need another player there as well.
So Liverpool keep over performing yet you are telling me its not sustainable, in 6 seasons Liverpool have not yet underperformed on their X points, so it is sustainable.
Secondly, there are various things that go on about points, its not as simple as that. Can you explain to me how xPts is worked out? Because it could be a case a team goes 1-0 up and has a great goal scoring chance at 1-0 to make it 2-0 in 75th minute, but the other team equalises in 85th minute.
LVG was sacked because Jose Mourinho was available, a proven winner, I bet you Ten Hag would have been sacked if a manager of Jose's calibre was available.
Again, saying things without context.
It is true that 18/19 and 19/20 were not sustainable. But a simpler explanation for why they weren't sustainable is that you cannot consistently get close to 100 points in a competitive league.
As an example we can offer Manchester City. who were competing in the same league at the same time:
17/18 - 100 points from 91.09 xPts
18/19 - 98 points from 90.64 xPts
19/29 - 81 points from 86.76 xPts
We can see that, unlike Liverpool, Manchester City did not dramatically overperform their xPts while racking up 100 and 98 real points. This would imply their point tallies are sustainable. And yet, just like Liverpool, they saw a massive drop in points after two seasons. That suggests that the sustainability is unrelated to any gap between real and expected points.
You're sort of where you were in 2003-05. Transitioning from likes of Roy Keane and RVN and waiting for Rooney, Ronaldo and even Rio Ferdinand to fully mature.
Even then you needed signings of the calibre of Vidic, Evra and Carrick to morph into title winners.
And you had Sir Alex.
70 + points and top 4 would be a good season for Man. United next season with serious Europa league challenge.
You're not reading the post before posting?
I literally stated this: " The best teams in the world can trend towards a slight overperformance, but not like we did this season, and not like Liverpool did in 19/20. "
XPts is obviously not exact science, and it has obvious flaws. It's still the best tool we have to measure and/or get an indication of how well we are playing, looking behind the actual results. When your xPts goes massively down from one season to another (down 35% and from 6th to 15th) , it indicates that something is seriously wrong with your play. I don't believe that a drop this big can be explained be injuries alone. And it has been painfully visible on the pitch as well, the structure was non existant throughout the season. Tactical and structural game approaches that is not explainable by not having your first choice CB or LB available. We have been managed mindblowingly bad the last 13 months, and I agree that the injuries hasn't helped. I just can't see how it can be explained any other way.
The scary thing is that our fans went from 20% keep to 51% keep from before to after the FA cup final. As if that game should change anything of what was going on the 12 months prior to that match. The creation of this thread for instance. Reading the expectations for next season. What have people been watching this season? With ETH at the wheel I'd give us 1-10000000 on winning the league, 1-10 on reaching top 4 and 1-3 on top 6 next season. A lot of people will most like be very dissapointed a couple of months in already and the pressure will mount......This will most likely be a very toxic place before we know it.
The thing is, I get it and agree that the poor season cannot be explained with Injury alone. No one can say that is the only reason, the manager has to take the responsibility too.
I have seen articles from the Athletic today suggesting players like Casemiro and Varane prefer Anchelotti type management, well that is the problem. We need players that will buy into the managers methods, or else it wont work.
It filters down to the squad when senior pros are acting like that, I prefer x method of management and then players like Rashford, Sancho start using that as an excuse not to do well in training.
INEOS need to set a culture and they have backed the manager, players now know, player power is over.
We could well be very disappointed come November, but that could happen with any manager. We have seen this squad of players at United, have a upturn when a new manager comes and then they all become complacent.
Rashford is a perfect example, when a new manager comes in he is firing.. then gets bored and stinks the place up, we get reports. Ole was it was school boy training, now its too hard, too strict. I mean you are playing football for mega money, ofcourse it will be strict.
Over the next 2-3 years I think I could see it happening, but there's plenty of factors.
With Klopp gone and potentially Pep to leave City after the upcoming season, it really does feel like there's an opportunity for other good managers and teams to push on and take that spot. Of course, their replacements could just slot in and continue to dominate, but I think it's a bit unlikely that happens. It's historically difficult, at least in the Premier League, to replace managers who've been there for many years.
My worry with ten Hag and the manager's we had in the past is they felt like 'cup managers' to a degree. We'll have to see if EtH can remain consistent enough to be a team getting 80+ points every year from now on, rather than never really being in the title race but going deep into cup competitions.
With Klopp gone and potentially Pep to leave City after the upcoming season, it really does feel like there's an opportunity for other good managers and teams to push on and take that spot. Of course, their replacements could just slot in and continue to dominate, but I think it's a bit unlikely that happens. It's historically difficult, at least in the Premier League, to replace managers who've been there for many years.
My worry with ten Hag and the manager's we had in the past is they felt like 'cup managers' to a degree. We'll have to see if EtH can remain consistent enough to be a team getting 80+ points every year from now on, rather than never really being in the title race but going deep into cup competitions.
We don't have enough world class players to challenge. No manager in the world could take the current squad and turn them into champions. ETH has a lot of recruitment to sort out but maybe after a couple years we may be challenging. Realistically back to top 4 next year and then after that a push for the title.
With time, I believe so. Whoever was to do it will need time - not simply because ‘needs time’ is a footballing cliché, but because we literally have to wait on the players in our team we have banked on to deliver us success to become ready to do so. We don’t have the team to do it at present. In key positions for title winning sides, we have a 10 goal centre forward, a 10 goal wide forward, a 19 year old centre midfielder and are seeking to add more of a similar profile. Of the experienced core you would look to stabilise them - we have our senior starting centre half leaving the club, the expectation that the senior starting defensive midfielder will do the same, and our senior starting wide forward not delivering. So essentially, the team simply isn’t ready to win the PL, irrespective of who the manager is.
We have 4 players in our team currently who are at a good age who are ready to deliver top performances now. Onana, Dalot, Martinez and Fernandes. That is not enough. We are unlikely to replace the underperformers or those simply not good enough with senior pros capable at performing at the top level weekly, so we will need to wait for them. We already took this decision when replacing Martial with Hojlund. We took this decision when replacing Antony/Sancho with Garnacho, and Eriksen with Mainoo.
We have 4 players in our team currently who are at a good age who are ready to deliver top performances now. Onana, Dalot, Martinez and Fernandes. That is not enough. We are unlikely to replace the underperformers or those simply not good enough with senior pros capable at performing at the top level weekly, so we will need to wait for them. We already took this decision when replacing Martial with Hojlund. We took this decision when replacing Antony/Sancho with Garnacho, and Eriksen with Mainoo.
Realistically that is going to be considered a good season. I'll personally be judging Ten Hag more harshly though. It's his 3rd full season and the squad is build in his image. To not turn United into a team capable of title challenging after 3 years would be a complete shambles from my position
To challenge seriously for a title you need a squad capable of 90 points.
Man. United simply don't score enough goals to be anywhere near that.
57 goals, Arsenal scored 91 and ultimately they didn't win the league.
Mind you in 22/23 you scored 58 goals which surprised me but generally better defensive organisation given De Gea won the golden glove so that largely got you up to 3rd.
Yeah but that's my point. This should be a team capable of scoring enough goals and getting enough points. He's spent enough money and got enough of his own players to achieve that. If the squad isn't up to it then that's his problem. In one year I want to be able to say United are going to be title challenging. Which will require showing big progress towards that this coming season
Your new hierarchy seems to think he can… who are we to disagree?
Simple answer is no but if the "Structure" is basically running everything and it goes well then I don't suppose it matters who the manager is and yes we could.
No. We haven’t played any good football consistently or shown any good progress since February 2023.
Yes. Season after next. With Pep gone, Arsenal coming off either the high of winning the premier league or low of coming 2nd yet again. New structure settled in, team more cohesive. It's a done dealo.
He’s got equal chance to any other manager who is attainable.
Who could we bring would win us the league? Ancelotti?
Who could we bring would win us the league? Ancelotti?