Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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I gave the team and the we we played a pass last year as I thought we had gone far in so many cups, so many matches with no time to really train it excused the lack of tactics or way of playing, we were just getting wins somehow, now we’ve had all summer and even more players eth wanted but nothing seems to be changing.
 
Erik Ten Hag: "Midfield played well, it was good. We can always do better and leave spaces when you go for goal."
 
How does that not matter? You can't be like oh eth is a dumbass for not buying someone, oh wait we didn't have a realistic chance to buy that player? Nah doesn't matter.
Makes no sense.

We bought a cf just got injured at an unfortunate time. If eth tries rash again at Cf instead of just putting martial there or something I'll have a slight issue with that but we bought one of the best Cf options out there.

You're projecting here. Where did I say Ten Hag is a dumbass?
 
Horrible stat



I don't see that stat changing any time soon. It's a horrible one. Utterly shameful. We are far, far too easily beaten. There's no fear against playing us now because they opposition know we can't score and they know we will gift them chances and goals.
 
Yea, we came third and won a trophy last season. He did well in getting us over the line in a lot of close games and he’s got rid of some of the shit. And also we lost our first two games of last year and recovered…

Anyway now that’s out of the way… He’s a massively over rated manager on here and in general to be brutally honest. The signing of Antony is well on course to becoming the worse signing in the clubs history pound for pound. Our football isn’t much better either.
The signing of Mount is looking like a horrific one with how he’s going to set us up.

The lack of fight to win 50/50 battles and challenges is alarming. The dip since the league cup win has been obvious and I don’t think the fire has been relit in our team.
football isn’t a game of magic. Things don’t just turn around ‘because’. There’s this silly idea that things will just get better just because of time but it won’t. None of the players we’ve signed will make the impact of Casemiro, Eriksen, Martinez last season so there’s no trigger for improvement. We haven’t got the fall back of a defined style because even after a year we simply don’t have one.

Not saying Ten Haag should be sacked far from it but I can’t say I was massively convinced last season. And I can see this one spiralling out of control as it did in Ole and Mourinhos third year. Don’t think he’s go
 
Thing is, it's OK having a go at ETH but this was different from the Wolves game. We were excellent for 35mins and should have been 2-0. ETH can't do much if players make basic mistakes, can't take basic chances and crumble under the slightest pressure.

If Bruno scores one of the easiest chances I've ever seen missed then I'm confident we win that game and nobody is talking about tactics
Agreed and no manager has been able to get these players to buck up when their backs are against the wall....they just totally sulk and quit....especially Bruno who is the one who needs to step up the most in those time and he doesn't. These guy don't have the mentality to be winners bar Casa/Martinez....and Cas is on the backside of his career. ETH needs to start getting ruthless......bench/sup Bruno when he quits....keep Mount in Bruno position nad sure up the defensive mid with can't believe Im saying this but with McTom.
 
The dutch Brendan Rodgers. Looks like he’s world class in front of the cameras but in reality he’s completely clueless.
 
We're miles of drawing to that conclusion.

Part of me thinks he is sacrificing these first few games to send a message of just how much he needs another midfielder. I mean the logical thing is to put Mctominay in, but he already knows he's not good enough and doesn't want him to paper over the cracks before the window shuts.

I clutching at straws a bit maybe, but there is no way I'm on board with thinking Ten Hag is the problem here.
We are not miles off, we've got evidence. It's copium to say it's the players

Feck me, how much more money needs to be spent. We’ve got a good enough first team to be playing much better. If it was a squad depth issue, I would understand.

I know, but his cult on here won't hear sense.
 
Ole still our best manager post SAF.

Based on what metric exactly? Last season ETH beat Ole's best points total and actually won something. Jose also finished with more points than Ole and won 2 Cups. LvG even won us the FA Cup ffs.

All our post-Fergie managers have been fecking wank. The jury is still out on ETH but he had a good, solid first season.
 
Why is there no system or style of play? there’s no game plan the players barely look coached and he’s trying to play with 5 attacking players….I mean it’s comical
This is the biggest concern. Ole clearly was a substandard coach but one of the main criticisms of him was that there were no "patterns of play". The idea of bringing in a much better coach like Ten Hag was that his coaching would be clear in the way we play, he's been here a year now and particularly with the ball it's not very clear what the team are working on and last year it was still very reliant on Rashford producing moments to decide games.
 
Bullshit. I have been hearing this “pressure” of managing us since the days of Moyes. Looks like every manager we sign thinks he is the God and make the most idiotic of demands regarding new signings. Not one manager seems to think it’s a huge job and he need all the support he can get. Why can’t EtH have worked with someone like Rangnick. But the first thing that happened was Rangnick getting fired.

It has noting to do with pressure i agree but also i think it is far deeper than just the manager,

Remember Blockbuster video rental? That is United now, living on a reputation and previous market share with no new ideas or innovations, competing against the Netflix, Prime, Disney's of this world. We are a middle table team way overarching, we try to buy our way out of trouble but the people making those decisions are not qualified or anyway near the level of our competitors. I have heard countless times that United is too big to fall, that is fallacy, there is countless companies that thought the same in the past.

Our only real hope has always been new owners as that is where real change begins no matter who it may be, until that day we will have to endure unfortunately.
 
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It feels like we’re trying to play more how he’d like us to, and it worked at times in the first half, but it feels like this is where we should have been last season.

The reason it’s going to take so long to turn it around vs other clubs is because we can’t churn players we don’t want. Pep was able to do so because City can easily go out and buy £50 million players, even replacing buys that Pep got wrong in the first window straight away. Other clubs don’t have any problem shifting players they don’t want because they aren’t paying stupid wages.

That said, he’s got to be getting more out of this group of players.
 
Don’t forget Bruno on the right
i'd rather Bruno on the right (or on the bench) if it meant we could play a midfielder that could actually sit in there and string a few passes together.

It's really early days but the Mount signing worries the feck out of me. Not so much because of his quality as a player (although i do have my doubts as to how good he can be) but more the balance issue and how he interacts with Bruno. A Chelsea fan on here says Mount is awful on the wing and if true then that's another blow.
 
After all the awful away performances last season including humiliations at City and Liverpool, I'm losing faith in this manager.
 
Ole still our best manager post SAF.
Above Moyes, but at least Moyes didn't leave a shitshow behind with numerous crap signings that we cannot shift. DVB, Sancho, Maguire and even AWB was never worth 50 million. Ole was a mistake just like the rest of them
 
I do too but I think we still need to address some glaring liabilities in the team. Mount is squarely on ETH but its not his fault our right backs break down our back line organisation and we don't have even a half decent striker to hold the ball up high and stretch opposition defences. We have three weak points whose failings add up to more than the sum of their parts.

To be fair, I'm not as worried on some here seem to be yet. It's very clear this team isn't up to full fitness yet - we looked knackered in that second half, whether that's down to the manager or not, I'm not sure, but you'd hope our fitness would improve as the season goes on. Our press is also a work in progress, we weren't ever a good pressing team, we've had the past 3-4 managers who have all prioritised making this team one that sits back so with ETH now coming in and switching to a pressing style this season, there are going to be mistakes made as we adapt, you saw it with Klopp's teams early on too. This is made even worse when you consider the additional fitness that is required to maintain this style of play, it doesn't happen overnight.

I just hope he doesn't abandon it and go back to a counter attacking style like he did last season to salvage the season. I'd rather us finish outside the top 4 but continue to see us going in the right direction from a footballing perspective rather than continue to persist with a counter attacking style which is now clearly no longer enough to win in England given the calibre of players and managers in the league at the moment.

There of course is the argument that could be made that he isn't good enough to implement such change - time will tell
 
Sancho is awful, that's why. Rashford is having to play there out of necessity.

Sancho at F9 isn't anymore more awful than Garnacho and Rashford have been these 2 matches. At least it has Rashford starting at his best poistion and Garnacho at his best role which is coming on against tired legs for the last 30 minutes then you can move Rashford to CF.
 
But football is a game of moments. If you miss absolute sitters and give goals away from nothing then it's pointless arguing about 4-2-3-1 vs 4-1-4-1
Teams that win leagues don't play well for half an hour every match and get twatted for the rest of it. It's nowhere near good enough
 
Oh I am. I've been a huge backer of his. But, I'm starting to have doubts. Those two performances so far this season have been shambolic. I fail to see what he's trying to implement.

I can see what he is trying to do with the pressing. But I see our on the ball game has deteriorated markedly. I saw a lot of good play with the ball last year. So far this year it looks like they are being coached by Ole. No idea what to do
 
We were shite on Monday as well.

Yeah, unbeliavable lucky to escape with 3 points but we did since we never stopped working no matter how poor we played. At the road that element of luck almost never happens because most of the time we're waiting for openings on counter instead of trying to create. And when we do create something, our finishing let us down.
 
Could you explain the "free pass" he was given last year? He finished 3rd. IIRC the expectations from most here were 4th-6th going into the season.
I'm guessing he meant that he shouldn't be judged last year because he inherited a mess and should be given time to build his team. So this year there's no excuse anymore.
 
Think clearly we have to switch it up a bit with our front 3. Have to imagine we see garnacho dropped at least. Guessing rash moved left and martial at top or something
 
  • Persisting with Rashford through the middle. It doesn't work. - Hojlund isn't fit. Martial is a crock. Sancho doesn't work up top.
  • Having no idea what to do in the final third, not a single player seems to have a clue. - We have fit no out and out striker / Goalscorer.
  • Signing Mount whilst letting Fred go making us even more unbalanced in the midfield. - We all wanted Fred to go. Why complain now when he's gone.
  • Leaving the door open a crack for Maguire. -- You literally cannot force a player out the club. What's worse than trying to boot someone out. An unhappy player who stinks up the dressing room and mood around the club. Make him feel part of the team. Terrible man management to say you're not playing ever again. He's a first team player for christ sakes. The CAF's love affair of sticking them in the reserves for a year, literally never happens.
  • Persisting with Anthony every game. - Who else do you suggest we play on the right? An inconsistent Sancho or a not ready Pellistri?
Pelli deserves a start TBH....he did more today than Antony has done in the first two.
 
Should be a stackable offense.

The fact that you think that's even acceptable just shows how deranged the managerial cult in our fanbase is.

Hardly deranged, I doubt very we'd have won with Mctominay in the team anyway, even if he seemed the logical choice, and then if that had happened and he'd dropped Mount to play him and lost people would be questioning his judgement on that.

Not sure what you're saying here anyway, the ones backing ETH are a deranged cult? Or the ones backing the managers of the past are this?
 
Is Postecoglou better than ETH? Because Spurs lost their best player Kane only a few days ago, and yet they played better than us.
 
He has made horrible judgements in signing Antony and Mount. These two signings cripple us. We can't sign the actual players we need. Mount is new, but I can't stand watching Antony. The guy is awful and starts every game he's fit. It's a joke.

We also need to get Rashford away from #9. He can't play it and we're stifling our best attacking threat. Just put Sancho there if Martial isn't fit enough.
 
This is a pretty wild rationalisation. There’s no way he’s deliberately throwing matches to get another midfielder, we just got him one for 60 odd million. Even if we sign Amrabat or Onana his plan appears to be two 8’s sat near the striker to press and transition. Ten Hag isn’t the problem because United don’t have one problem, but he needs to prove himself before we start offering blind faith off the back of a decent season.

I didn't say throw.
 
I can see what he is trying to do with the pressing. But I see our on the ball game has deteriorated markedly. I saw a lot of good play with the ball last year. So far this year it looks like they are being coached by Ole. No idea what to do

Yup, I'm seeing Ole-ball so far this season. I'm really struggling to see what we're supposed to be doing. We look disjointed, second to everything, our attack is non-existent as is our midfield.

It's funny, because we had a spell after the WC where we played really nice football for 2 or 3 months. But since then, it's all been relatively underwhelming on the pitch.
 
Above Moyes, but at least Moyes didn't leave a shitshow behind with numerous crap signings that we cannot shift. DVB, Sancho, Maguire and even AWB was never worth 50 million. Ole was a mistake just like the rest of them

At least Ole’s teams had a style of play and we scored lots of goals. Erik is boring the crap out of me and shows zero in game management skills. I am not out yet but he needs to show some progress and quickly, he has wasted a lot of money already and I would take any Ole signing over Antony.
 
Teams that win leagues don't play well for half an hour every match and get twatted for the rest of it. It's nowhere near good enough

That's not the point that's being made. Liverpool weren't good today at home to Bournemouth but they won the game in moments. Loads of games are won in moments. Fans and pundits love to spend hours analysing tactics and systems but most games come down to moments of individual skill, set pieces or refereeing decisions.

If you dominate away from home for 35mins you need to score. We had chances. We had chances to create chances, but the players let ETH down.

Personally the Wolves game was more worrying than this one. Wolves we were bollocks. This game we'd have been 2-0 at HT nine times out of ten
 
Very worrying. We limped at the end of last the season over the line. Performances have been utter shite.
 
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