Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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amolbhatia50k said:
What I don’t understand - Antony this, that - is why we seem so disorganised in our tactical setup. Spurs looked really well drilled in the second half, running what seem like well known patterns of play consistently. We just reverted to the usual team of individuals, ad hoc decision making we usually do. More than individuals I’m not sure why we can’t see a cohesive unit by now. It makes no sense and manager after manager are unable to do it.
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Maybe just maybe ETH isn’t as tactical as we thought and he’s more of a man manager like Jose, ole, moyes, come on lads let’s go for a 13 mile run for ye to believe in me, a man manager will only get you so far in this league, it was one of SAF’s strongest abilities but he was a genius manager as well.
It’s going to be obvious to us all that we fecked up by not getting poch, the new poch is RDZ and I’m going to bank on us hiring him once we get new owners.
 
ETH has to sort a lot of issues and I honestly didn't expect us to start this season in this position.

Onana is great but if we cannot keep the ball after, his distribution doesn't make the impact.

Mount just isn't a CM. We should have prioritised an actual CM instead of trying to convert Mount. We are wasting time with this experiment.

Rashford is trying to do some trick everytime he receives the ball. He just needs to keep it simple.

We are hoping a 20 year old who is new to the league to start banging in goals right away and there is no backup.

Honestly if we don't sign any players I can see this is going to be a disaster season as teams around us have been improving.
 
KD6-3.7 said:
From the clips I saw from Amrabat he seems more like a younger Michael Carrick in terms of pace but with a bit more physicality.

I just don’t know how Ten Hag went from wanting De Jong to Mount, it makes no sense.
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Yeah Mount & De Jong are not remotely comparable and it's scary he thinks they are
 
FerociousCorgis said:
I mean our attackers seem to be 3 people who just want to go 1v1 and that's about it. Between the 3 of them they just know how to do 1 thing it seems and that is go 1v1
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That’s exactly it. Everyone’s rushing it, trying to beat their man, be direct etc Where’s the control, where’s the passing patters and the team play. It’s the same story we’ve seen play out for ages now. You cannot skip great football if you want to dominate.
 
I think if we'd have gone for Amrabat AND somebody like Onana instead of Mount it would have made a lot more sense this summer.

Now we're asking Amrabat to plug all kinds of holes he might not be cut out to do in the PL. He seems more of a playmaker. Looking at the way our personnel function so far the only composition that looks comfortable would be if he actually partnered Casemiro. But all the times we need to rest Casemiro it will be difficult with the same spaces to fill that Casemiro struggles with. No real reason to think Amrabat would be any more successful at doing that.

If we'd have got Onana or Lavia instead of wasting money on an unneccessary signing in Mount there would be many more options in this midfield to try and establish some kind of control physically and technically. You would have still had Bruno as an attacking player and even somebody like Sancho can play as a 10.

It's all coming back to Mount being a miscalculation as far as what we actually needed, which I guess was the concern for many from the very start.
 
Abraxas said:
I think if we'd have gone for Amrabat AND somebody like Onana instead of Mount it would have made a lot more sense this summer.

Now we're asking Amrabat to plug all kinds of holes he might not be cut out to do in the PL. He seems more of a playmaker. Looking at the way our personnel function so far the only composition that looks comfortable would be if he actually partnered Casemiro. But all the times we need to rest Casemiro it will be difficult with the same spaces to fill that Casemiro struggles with. No real reason to think Amrabat would be any more successful at doing that.

If we'd have got Onana or Lavia instead of wasting money on an unneccessary signing in Mount there would be many more options in this midfield to try and establish some kind of control physically and technically. You would have still had Bruno as an attacking player and even somebody like Sancho can play as a 10.
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Yeah absolutely spot on we have monumentally fecked up by not bringing in an Onana type player & Amrabat type who has that nice mix of control and technical ability
 
croadyman said:
Yeah absolutely spot on we have monumentally fecked up by not bringing in an Onana type player & Amrabat type who has that nice mix of control and technical ability
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I guess the hope is from eth that mount becomes essentially a younger Eriksen next to case in the midfield. Maybe he is just sorting things out and it will click soon
 
christy87 said:
Maybe just maybe ETH isn’t as tactical as we thought and he’s more of a man manager like Jose, ole, moyes, come on lads let’s go for a 13 mile run for ye to believe in me, a man manager will only get you so far in this league, it was one of SAF’s strongest abilities but he was a genius manager as well.
It’s going to be obvious to us all that we fecked up by not getting poch, the new poch is RDZ and I’m going to bank on us hiring him once we get new owners.
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The same Pochettino who made Messi and Neymar look subpar? Messi and Neymar had their worst season in Europe under Pochettino.

Yeah, miss me with this Pochettino hype. He's also a serial bottler and his teams take on that image.
 
christy87 said:
Maybe just maybe ETH isn’t as tactical as we thought and he’s more of a man manager like Jose, ole, moyes, come on lads let’s go for a 13 mile run for ye to believe in me, a man manager will only get you so far in this league, it was one of SAF’s strongest abilities but he was a genius manager as well.
It’s going to be obvious to us all that we fecked up by not getting poch, the new poch is RDZ and I’m going to bank on us hiring him once we get new owners.
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Really
christy87 said:
Maybe just maybe ETH isn’t as tactical as we thought and he’s more of a man manager like Jose, ole, moyes, come on lads let’s go for a 13 mile run for ye to believe in me, a man manager will only get you so far in this league, it was one of SAF’s strongest abilities but he was a genius manager as well.
It’s going to be obvious to us all that we fecked up by not getting poch, the new poch is RDZ and I’m going to bank on us hiring him once we get new owners.
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I’m not convinced by Pochettino. RDZ is doing well but Brighton played nice stuff before him as well. Hopefully ETH is made of better stuff.
 
Well the reality could be that it doesn't matter if you pick de Zerbi or anyone else, it will be hard for them here. After all ETH had a great reputation as a coach. I think he IS a top coach.

At Brighton you have modest expectation combined with stupendous recruitment. All you have to do is focus on the coaching and you get the players that are better than what the club is expected to do. Even Potter looked pretty good and I don't think he has the same sprinkle of magic RDZ seems to have, so it's clear where a lot of their success comes from.

Here you walk into a mish mash of players we have collected over the years, a portion of which shouldn't even be here but we are lumbered with. Some are good, some are poor, but nowhere can you trace a consistent logic or style or blend of qualities that makes sense through them. I thought the idea was that ETH would pick the transfers for his first summer because we hadn't sorted a structure, and he needed instant impact. But beyond that I thought the whole plan was to improve the recruitment structure, but that doesn't seem to happen and I think that's why we see this Mount type of mistake where we're asking the manager to be judge, jury and executioner within the club. It doesn't seem to work these days.
 
Abraxas said:
Well the reality could be that it doesn't matter if you pick de Zerbi or anyone else, it will be hard for them here. After all ETH had a great reputation as a coach. I think he IS a top coach.

At Brighton you have modest expectation combined with stupendous recruitment. All you have to do is focus on the coaching and you get the players that are better than what the club is expected to do. Even Potter looked pretty good and I don't think he has the same sprinkle of magic RDZ seems to have, so it's clear where a lot of their success comes from.

Here you walk into a mish mash of players we have collected over the years, a portion of which shouldn't even be here but we are lumbered with. Some are good, some are poor, but nowhere can you trace a consistent logic or style or blend of qualities that makes sense through them. I thought the idea was that ETH would pick the transfers for his first summer because we hadn't sorted a structure, and he needed instant impact. But beyond that I thought the whole plan was to improve the recruitment structure, but that doesn't seem to happen and I think that's why we see this Mount type of mistake where we're asking the manager to be judge, jury and executioner within the club. It doesn't seem to work these days.
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Yeah I thought we would see less of his own personal picks for transfers this summer too
 
Abraxas said:
Well the reality could be that it doesn't matter if you pick de Zerbi or anyone else, it will be hard for them here. After all ETH had a great reputation as a coach. I think he IS a top coach.

At Brighton you have modest expectation combined with stupendous recruitment. All you have to do is focus on the coaching and you get the players that are better than what the club is expected to do. Even Potter looked pretty good and I don't think he has the same sprinkle of magic RDZ seems to have, so it's clear where a lot of their success comes from.

Here you walk into a mish mash of players we have collected over the years, a portion of which shouldn't even be here but we are lumbered with. Some are good, some are poor, but nowhere can you trace a consistent logic or style or blend of qualities that makes sense through them. I thought the idea was that ETH would pick the transfers for his first summer because we hadn't sorted a structure, and he needed instant impact. But beyond that I thought the whole plan was to improve the recruitment structure, but that doesn't seem to happen and I think that's why we see this Mount type of mistake where we're asking the manager to be judge, jury and executioner within the club. It doesn't seem to work these days.
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ETH has shown nothing to suggest he actually is a top coach here. You can't blame the club for his terrible decision making.
 
croadyman said:
Yeah Mount & De Jong are not remotely comparable and it's scary he thinks they are
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I wish it was about him thinking they're similar. Because then I could see him trying someone else if he just wasn't up to the task. I think he knows they're different and he abandoned the idea of using a player like De Jong.
 
croadyman said:
He has to demand a midfield signing THIS WEEK
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If you were the board, would you give ETH more funds to buy a midfielder this summer?
When Mou asked to buy Maguire on his third summer, he was told no because we had already invested in Bailly and Lindelof without fixing the defense issues (then we bought him at higher price the following year thanks to Woody's genius but that's another story).

The point is, would you give more funds to ETH this year after he pushed to overpay for Anthony and Mount without seeing them improving the team and the football we play? I do not honestly
 
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In Rainbows said:
I wish it was about him thinking they're similar. Because then I could see him trying someone else if he just wasn't up to the task. I think he knows they're different and he abandoned the idea of using a player like De Jong.
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The trouble with making that decision is you need at least one midfielder technically sound on the ball. Well maybe the exception was scousers in that 2018-20 period but they had the energy and physicality which we also lack
 
His transfer picks have been poor.

I think EtH's tenure at United will be decided by how big his ego is, with regards to admitting his mistakes and selling the players he's originally targetted in order to get somebody different.

Onana and Martinez have been great, while Casemiro was a club signing who decided to join before EtH was even appointed. Everyone else that Ten Hag has actively wanted has either been underwhelming, badly scouted, not wanted to come here, racist or not good enough.

I think EtH will eventually come up with a system that can win games. But not if he feels pressure to crowbar in all of his own signings who aren't good fits. This means that Arnold and Murtough are going to need to put their egos aside as well.

The thing that's made City and Chelsea the two most successful PL clubs in the last 10 years is their willingness to buy and sell quickly. They don't feel the need to justify every misstep, and that allows them to get over the bad transfers before they cause too many problems. It's the exact opposite model that United have adhered to. With EtH at the helm, we're going to need to go the same direction as those two sooner rather than later.
 
Devil You Know said:
His transfer picks have been poor.

I think EtH's tenure at United will be decided by how big his ego is, with regards to admitting his mistakes and selling the players he's originally targetted in order to get somebody different.

Onana and Martinez have been great, while Casemiro was a club signing who decided to join before EtH was even appointed. Everyone else that Ten Hag has actively wanted has either been underwhelming, badly scouted, not wanted to come here, racist or not good enough.

I think EtH will eventually come up with a system that can win games. But not if he feels pressure to crowbar in his own signings who aren't good fits. This means that Arnold and Murtough are going to need to put their egos aside as well.

The thing that's made City and Chelsea the two most successful PL clubs in the last 10 years is their willingness to buy and sell quickly. They don't feel the need to justify every misstep, and that allows them to get over the bad transfers before they cause too many problems. It's the exact model that United have adhered to. With EtH at the helm, we're going to need to go the same direction sooner rather than later.
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Do you think he's willing to admit those mistakes and sell on,trouble is with that is yet again we are gonna be taking hits on the prices
 
In Rainbows said:
I wish it was about him thinking they're similar. Because then I could see him trying someone else if he just wasn't up to the task. I think he knows they're different and he abandoned the idea of using a player like De Jong.
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ETH obviously know they are not similar. He is trying to implement a style of football that it seems different from his original idea. Very risky move. If he fails, he will be under the fire of our fanbase before Christmas
 
Serious doubts really start now as this is his 2nd season in charge and we don't even have a style of play let alone modern attacking one.

We have been warned by Ajax fans previously that he is not good in signings. Lo and behold we signed most of his targets because we don't have a football structure and a good DOF.
 
croadyman said:
Do you think he's willing to admit those mistakes and sell on,trouble is with that is yet again we are gonna be taking hits on the prices
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I think a player who fails at a club for only 1 or 2 season is going to be relatively easy to sell on at a decent price. The fact that United always wait 3, 4 years or more means that their prices drop to a level where we can't justify the sale from an accounting perspective and the current and/or following manager is forced to make it work.

That's been the main feature of the Woodward era, and I'm worried it may be for the Arnold era as well.

Either way, EtH has no experience in the transfer market at an elite club. He's understandably making errors. So we either need to bring in a DoF type to help him, or we back him to sell his errors quickly.

Fail-fast.
 
He’s blamed our wasteful forwards after the game. But no focus on our lack of control and domination?
 
Saudi would surely love to get Antony Bruno and Casemiro next summer. Bring in a competent dof and fund our own version of what chelsea have done.
 
Nicoseth said:
What he says publicly and privately are two very different things, I'm sure.
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That’s what I always use as comfort but we need to see more control eventually. Otherwise it feels like it’s less important or he’s not that good at bringing it.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
That’s what I always use as comfort but we need to see more control eventually. Otherwise it feels like it’s less important or he’s not that good at bringing it.
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I agree. And I think we will continue to see progress towards this but it will take some time. Today started really well and there were some promising signs. We couldn't keep it up and Spurs took over in the 2nd half but the signs of progress are there.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
He’s blamed our wasteful forwards after the game. But no focus on our lack of control and domination?
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With regards to today's performance, I think he has a a point.

Our midfield wasn't actually that bad in terms of structure. Yes, there were Maddison-shaped holes in the formation every now and then. And yes, we did give it away cheaply sometimes. But those are teething problems we should be able to accept at this stage of the transformation.

The bigger issue was that what little progress we did make was being squandered by the front line. When you move the ball up the pitch, you want the rest of the formation to follow so that the team stays compact and press stays high. The fact that Garnacho and Antony kept giving the ball away every time the wind blew meant that none of his gameplan could be put into action.

A more "sticky" front 3 could have have changed the game completely. I think on this particular point, I have a lot of sympathy with EtH. Though the buck ultimately stops with him for picking the front 3 configuration that he did.
 
Nicoseth said:
I agree. And I think we will continue to see progress towards this but it will take some time. Today started really well and there were some promising signs. We couldn't keep it up and Spurs took over in the 2nd half but the signs of progress are there.
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Do we need two midfielders before window shuts or could we get by with the right one
 
Devil You Know said:
With regards to today's performance, I think he has a a point.

Our midfield wasn't actually that bad in terms of structure. Yes, there were Maddison-shaped holes in the formation every now and then. And yes, we did give it away cheaply sometimes. But those are teething problems we should be able to accept at this stage of the transformation.

The bigger issue was that what little progress we did make was being squandered by the front line. When you move the ball up the pitch, you want the formation to follow so that the team stays compact and press stays high. The fact that Garnacho and Antony kept giving the ball away every time the wind blew meant that none of his gameplan could be put into action.

A more "sticky" front 3 could have have changed the game completely. I think on this particular point, I have a lot of sympathy with EtH. Though the buck ultimately stops with him for picking the front 3 configuration that he did.
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We got the ball to our front with ease in the first half and I’d say the midfield performed. Liverpool’s front line would have put the game to bed. However in the 2nd the control over the game fell apart and that’s where my concerns come from. We just resorted to ‘getting it forward asap’ as usual
 
croadyman said:
Do we need two midfielders before window shuts or could we get by with the right one
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I think one will do but it needs to be the right one. Not sure Amrabat is the top clsss one we need but at this stage good will do.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
We got the ball to our front with ease in the first half and I’d say the midfield performed. Liverpool’s front line would have put the game to bed. However in the 2nd the control over the game fell apart and that’s where my concerns come from. We just resorted to ‘getting it forward asap’ as usual
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Bruno plays from the opening whistle like it's injury time and we're already losing 1-0.

When we're actually are losing 1-0, he regresses to playing like it's injury time and we're already losing 3-0.

As much as I love Bruno, he loses his composure far too much for a top player. But he's also amazingly creative, so I don't want to throw away the baby with the bathwater.

Like I said, a more "sticky" front 3 who could hold onto the ball and slow down the tempo would have been ideal. Because Garnacho's a kid and Antony's almost as weak, I don't don't think we have the right players to play that way. I'd take the most bland and uncreative version of Antonio Valencia over either of them right now. That's where I think EtH has a point.
 
Sky1981 said:
He could have bought 2 midtable CM for Mount's fee.

I believe that would make us play better than the current predicament.

Very fundamental lack of foresight.
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Yeah that was exactly the strategy needed,apologies for repeating myself but you only sign luxuries like Mount when you have the finances of a City/Chelsea/Newcastle
 
The Mitcher said:
ETH has shown nothing to suggest he actually is a top coach here. You can't blame the club for his terrible decision making.
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My point is that I'm not sure he should have the scope of decision making power that he currently does. I think whether he's a top coach or a very good coach or whatever he is will be rather incidental to the fact it's going to be very hard to be successful. Nobody else seems to operate like we do at the top level and I'm not sure anybody is going to be successful if we keep this structure. It is proven not to work, we have been chasing our tails for years doing the same thing with the idea that the next coach will save us. That concept that the coach will be the Messiah and it just requires good coaching combined with the sheer ineptitude of the ownership to identify problems is exactly why we're struggling.

We can say ETH isn't a top coach and decisions are poor but if RDZ or whoever the next lamb to the slaughter is comes in then I think you are going to see the same result. It's too much responsibility for one person and they can't compete with the joined up thinking other clubs seem to have.
 
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