Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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el3mel said:
Nothing of this actually real or even consistently evident on the pitch. Wolves were cornering us on our pitch for most of the game, for God's sake.

The previous managers like LvG, Mourinho and Ole had deep cup runs and very good big game performance and results. Are we rewriting history now?
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First game of the season (also TBF i didn't watch either of the first 2 games so far, been away). But it's the opening of the season. Couldn't tell you the amount of times I watched great teams play shit on a stick football in the opening month or 2 of a season, happens all the time.

LvG had good periods, but his style was ultimately too possession focussed and risk averse. Mourinho had a good first season, went backwards in year 2 despite the 2nd place finish and you sensed it was about to implode with unhappiness everywhere, which happened. Ole had a good run but played a pretty basic system and nobody ever believed he could make adjustments to take the step up behind top 4 competitors or a Europa League/low CL level team.

System wise, Ten Hag plays transition football yes, but a lot of it is trying to create those situations through how they use possession. Nothing wrong with that, and there absolutely is a far better phase 1 build up structure now than before, especially with Obama. But it's early stage and it'll improve as he's only been here 1 month, and last season we abandoned the idea to have a deep build up against a high press really with De Gea. We have also not encountered many struggles in breaking down settled/deep defences under Ten Hag, as evidenced by having an extremely dominant record against the bottom half teams, home and away. So if we successfully implement an on the ball structure that works against a sophisticated high press, and we get our pressing to be at a high level (which a lot of people have given some praise to early on so far), then it gives a very good platform to compete at the top. As those are 2 absolute necessities.
 
Moston Red said:
This is true, but £60m for Mount is over paying especially with our budget restrictions.
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In a market where rice is 100m, Caicedo is 115m, is 60m really overpaying? You can argue he is the wrong style of midfielder, but the truth is 60m doesn’t really get you much these days.
 
Didn't see his interview after the game but a lot of tweets said he appeared very defensive about his tactics and showed some signs he was feeling under pressure.

Surely a bit early for that i would have thought but he must know he has gotten more than a few things things wrong
 
Abhinav said:
In a market where rice is 100m, Caicedo is 115m, is 60m really overpaying? You can argue he is the wrong style of midfielder, but the truth is 60m doesn’t really get you much these days.
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You’re probably right actually, it’s gone nuts.
 
Castia said:
Just watching Chelsea who have a new manager and what feels like 50 new players and they looked settled with a game plan and tactic that lets them dominate games

I just don’t understand that after 12 months and 2 pre seasons we don’t seem to have an identity or way of playing it’s unacceptable
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Some coaches just have the midas touch.
 
RuudTom83 said:
Last season with the team EtH had, he couldn't have finished any higher than he did.

Year 1 was a success.

Lets not just take a dump on his first season because we are all pissed off at how this season has started.
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Too late :lol:
 
Castia said:
Just watching Chelsea who have a new manager and what feels like 50 new players and they looked settled with a game plan and tactic that lets them dominate games

I just don’t understand that after 12 months and 2 pre seasons we don’t seem to have an identity or way of playing it’s unacceptable
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Ah yeah, so settled and dominant.
 
bosnian_red said:
First game of the season (also TBF i didn't watch either of the first 2 games so far, been away). But it's the opening of the season. Couldn't tell you the amount of times I watched great teams play shit on a stick football in the opening month or 2 of a season, happens all the time.

LvG had good periods, but his style was ultimately too possession focussed and risk averse. Mourinho had a good first season, went backwards in year 2 despite the 2nd place finish and you sensed it was about to implode with unhappiness everywhere, which happened. Ole had a good run but played a pretty basic system and nobody ever believed he could make adjustments to take the step up behind top 4 competitors or a Europa League/low CL level team.

System wise, Ten Hag plays transition football yes, but a lot of it is trying to create those situations through how they use possession. Nothing wrong with that, and there absolutely is a far better phase 1 build up structure now than before, especially with Obama. But it's early stage and it'll improve as he's only been here 1 month, and last season we abandoned the idea to have a deep build up against a high press really with De Gea. We have also not encountered many struggles in breaking down settled/deep defences under Ten Hag, as evidenced by having an extremely dominant record against the bottom half teams, home and away. So if we successfully implement an on the ball structure that works against a sophisticated high press, and we get our pressing to be at a high level (which a lot of people have given some praise to early on so far), then it gives a very good platform to compete at the top. As those are 2 absolute necessities.
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What you and others don't seem to want to understand despite being mentioned several times is that is the issues didn't just appear these last 2 games. We have been shit since March and the last 2 games are just us continuing from where we left off last season. We're steadily and consistently regressing.

Talking about having deep cup runs or big game performance is nonsense because the previous managers had these two. This is United's problem anyway. We hire managers who achieve short term "relevant" success like top 4 or a domestic cup, we act like we have done a miracle but the reality is these are just short term built on nothing and it's no surprise the house crumbles eventually because there was zero strategy to start with and none of these "success" was built on a foundation.

Ten Hag is just more of the same as the previous managers. I see nothing different. Short term results like top 4 or a cup while playing shit football and splashing ton of money on short term fixes or misfits. United's hasn't progressed one bit neither from tactical point nor from transfer business. We have just splashed 60m on a bang average Chelsea reject and we have no clue where to shoehorn him into the first team. Nothing has changed.

Actually nothing has changed at all because these excuses you keep on saying were also said for all the previous managers. It's the same cycle. Some fans keep on blindly supporting the one in charge built on sheer hope and optimism that he's going to turn things around and lead us to glory with just more time and money, manager gets sacked, rinse and repeat. I have seen the same exact comments for the previous managers, Ole days aren't that far away.

Some of you never learn. Blind and optimistic support for the manager to eventually turn it around. Just splash more money and everything will be alright.

United isn't going anywhere as long as the only strategy the club has is randomly splashing money on misfits and hoping for short term success. When we have a strategy to build the team, wake me up, and I doubt it'll be under Ten Hag.
 
Abhinav said:
In a market where rice is 100m, Caicedo is 115m, is 60m really overpaying? You can argue he is the wrong style of midfielder, but the truth is 60m doesn’t really get you much these days.
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I have less of an issue with the price in a vacuum, than with prioritizing Mount as a key signing. That's a fecking issue and it falls directly on ETH.
 
Judging by the reactions after two games I’m surprised not to see the relegation thread reactivated. Take the next step lads…
 
Castia said:
Yeah they fecked up the second half but dominated for the vast majority of the game. They’ll win more points than they’ll lose playing that way.
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Sooooo like United dominated the first half but fecked up the 2nd? Dominating doesn't mean dominating possession by the way. It's getting in more dangerous positions more frequently, dominating chances, dominating shots ... West ham have just lost their midfield pin, so they'll need to adapt and likely won't be a top half team. Important to keep in mind. I'm guessing Chelsea wil finish in a CL spot (top 5), but important not to go overboard after early games. Things can unravel quickly especially if you don't pick up the points.
 
The Mitcher said:
If that doesn't prove regression then I don't know what does. He was supposed to have sorted out the workrate last season, and now it's back to square one.
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Its two fecking games in calm yourself.
 
el3mel said:
What you and others don't seem to want to understand despite being mentioned several times is that is the issues didn't just appear these last 2 games. We have been shit since March and the last 2 games are just us continuing from where we left off last season. We're steadily and consistently regressing.

Talking about having deep cup runs or big game performance is nonsense because the previous managers had these two. This is United's problem anyway. We hire managers who achieve short term "relevant" success like top 4 or a domestic cup, we act like we have done a miracle but the reality is these are just short term built on nothing and it's no surprise the house crumbles eventually because there was zero strategy to start with and none of these "success" was built on a foundation.

Ten Hag is just more of the same as the previous managers. I see nothing different. Short term results like top 4 or a cup while playing shit football and splashing ton of money on short term fixes or misfits. United's hasn't progressed one bit neither from tactical point nor from transfer business. We have just splashed 60m on a bang average Chelsea reject and we have no clue where to shoehorn him into the first team. Nothing has changed.

Actually nothing has changed at all because these excuses you keep on saying were also said for all the previous managers. It's the same cycle. Some fans keep on blindly supporting the one in charge built on sheer hope and optimism that he's going to turn things around and lead us to glory with just more time and money, manager gets sacked, rinse and repeat. I have seen the same exact comments for the previous managers, Ole days aren't that far away.

Some of you never learn. Blind and optimistic support for the manager to eventually turn it around. Just splash more money and everything will be alright.

United isn't going anywhere as long as the only strategy the club has is randomly splashing money on misfits and hoping for short term success. When we have a strategy to build the team, wake me up, and I doubt it'll be under Ten Hag.
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Yup. People are acting like we're going into this season on the back of some ridiculous high. The truth is we barely managed to crawl our way into the bare minimum, after months of looking none to good.

It's why seeing some signs of something better at the start of this season was so important. Instead, we've looked just as abject as we mainly did since March.
 
Jed I. Knight said:
Yup. People are acting like we're going into this season on the back of some ridiculous high. The truth is we barely managed to crawl our way into the bare minimum, after months of looking none to good.

It's why seeing some signs of something better at the start of this season was so important. Instead, we've looked just as abject as we mainly did since March.
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We played better for like 25 minutes, we never dominated them.
 
Jed I. Knight said:
Yup. People are acting like we're going into this season on the back of some ridiculous high. The truth is we barely managed to crawl our way into the bare minimum, after months of looking none to good.

It's why seeing some signs of something better at the start of this season was so important. Instead, we've looked just as abject as we mainly did since March.
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Caf reaction to criticism after a loss: "knee jerk reaction!"

Caf reaction to criticism after a win: "we won, stop moaning"

Some posters won't accept anything but blind optimism, all the time.
 
InspiRED said:
Haha I can relate to some defence of ETH. But spending 100m euros on Antony is the most ludicrous definition of necessary I’ve ever heard. Sounds like he did it with a gun pointed at his head.
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Not at all BUT we didn't have any right winger as far as ETH was concerned, hadn't any time to scout one, the window was closing and so we were desperate, Ajax capitalised on it.

We 100% overpaid for him, we paid double what he was worth but poor planning put us in that position. If the club or ETH had a plan B or C we wouldn't have paid that for him.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Caf reaction to criticism after a loss: "knee jerk reaction!"

Caf reaction to criticism after a win: "we won, stop moaning"

Some posters won't accept anything but blind optimism, all the time.
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But, blind, mostly over the top, often knee jerk and embellished criticism is ok..... make it make sense!
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Caf reaction to criticism after a loss: "knee jerk reaction!"

Caf reaction to criticism after a win: "we won, stop moaning"

Some posters won't accept anything but blind optimism, all the time.
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There are negatives and questions to be answered but calling to sack the manager after we finished 3rd and won a domestic trophy, 2 games in to the second season is absolutely mental.
 
We are talking about not having ball-playing midfielders who all want the ball on their feet to create a play - Barcelona is the epic opposite of that atm, started the game at home vs Cadiz with De Jong, Pedri, Gavi, Gündogan, Oriol Romeo all :D Pedri playing wide and De Jong in Central Defence, but on possession, they all want the ball and keep asking for it. Somewhat weird how at this level clubs like United & Barcelona can have so unbalanced squads.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Caf reaction to criticism after a loss: "knee jerk reaction!"

Caf reaction to criticism after a win: "we won, stop moaning"

Some posters won't accept anything but blind optimism, all the time.
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Other posters just wish to have some constructive discussions instead of dealing with absolutes all the team.
A player is either shite or world class. A manager is either a genius or a fraud. A game is either a disaster or a masterclass.

I’ll speak for myself but the moaners usually offer the less nuanced and constructive posts. You can lose and play a good game, you can win and play a shit game.

But all hell breaks loose everytime we lose, doesn’t matter how and people just blindly go on witch hunts creating new threads comparing our best players with the random flavor of the month or just to say how shite the people on the admin side of the club are.

I wish that someone brought something new to the table in their negative criticism instead of just rash judgements.
 
M4YON said:
There are negatives and questions to be answered but calling to sack the manager after we finished 3rd and won a domestic trophy, 2 games in to the second season is absolutely mental.
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The vast majority of critics here aren't calling for him to be sacked
 
I really don't understand why he didn't bring a press resistant ball carrier to partner Casemiro in midfield. Frenkie de Jong "replacement". He had similar type of a player in his second Ajax team(Ryan Gravenberch). That's what really puzzles me.

What made him deviate from that approach? Even Tifo made a video during last season that if you want to build a team around Bruno Fernandes, you need players around him that can really keep possession, because Bruno can't and that weakness of his must be somewhat nullified by the rest of the team, and for that reason they mentioned that Frenkie de Jong was essential, or someone similar to him.

How Ten Hag doesn't see this obvious problem and doesn't try to rectify it, when it looked like he wanted to when he first arrived at the club - i have no clue. I don't understand what changed and why he seemingly "abandoned" his philosophy.
 
He should have pushed for more of a clear out and gotten more players in. The likes of Dalot, Henderson, Lindelof, Mcguire, Mctominay, VBD, Williams, Martial should have all been pushed out already. He has had more than a year with this squad and still not had a proper clearout. He should have stood firm with management saying he wanted all these deadwood out now and he could have had more money to spend money on actual talent needed to improve the squad.

Also I dont really see a vision in the way we play. No real tactics. You see the way Brighton, City, Spurs etc play and we can see a pattern in the pressing and the passing. I dont see that with us. I am not calling for his sacking but you would think finishing 3rd and spending so much money in the summer, we would see some improvement in the way we play to begin the season but I just dont see it. I know he overachieved last year but there is expectation again this year and I dont think we will live up to it.
 
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bosnian_red said:
Sooooo like United dominated the first half but fecked up the 2nd? Dominating doesn't mean dominating possession by the way. It's getting in more dangerous positions more frequently, dominating chances, dominating shots ... West ham have just lost their midfield pin, so they'll need to adapt and likely won't be a top half team. Important to keep in mind. I'm guessing Chelsea wil finish in a CL spot (top 5), but important not to go overboard after early games. Things can unravel quickly especially if you don't pick up the points.
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Yeah Chelsea didn’t just dominate for the sake of possession they could have scored 5+ goals easily and missed a pen etc, it was one of those games that if played again they’d win it 9/10 times but fair play to West Ham they were much better in the second half

United were better first half against Spurs and could have had a couple of goals so the comparison is fair but we still didn’t look like a team in my opinion, the passing was shite and individual errors were everywhere it was a couple of crosses that created our best chances and we couldn’t maintain the attack
 
el3mel said:
What you and others don't seem to want to understand despite being mentioned several times is that is the issues didn't just appear these last 2 games. We have been shit since March and the last 2 games are just us continuing from where we left off last season. We're steadily and consistently regressing.

Talking about having deep cup runs or big game performance is nonsense because the previous managers had these two. This is United's problem anyway. We hire managers who achieve short term "relevant" success like top 4 or a domestic cup, we act like we have done a miracle but the reality is these are just short term built on nothing and it's no surprise the house crumbles eventually because there was zero strategy to start with and none of these "success" was built on a foundation.

Ten Hag is just more of the same as the previous managers. I see nothing different. Short term results like top 4 or a cup while playing shit football and splashing ton of money on short term fixes or misfits. United's hasn't progressed one bit neither from tactical point nor from transfer business. We have just splashed 60m on a bang average Chelsea reject and we have no clue where to shoehorn him into the first team. Nothing has changed.

Actually nothing has changed at all because these excuses you keep on saying were also said for all the previous managers. It's the same cycle. Some fans keep on blindly supporting the one in charge built on sheer hope and optimism that he's going to turn things around and lead us to glory with just more time and money, manager gets sacked, rinse and repeat. I have seen the same exact comments for the previous managers, Ole days aren't that far away.

Some of you never learn. Blind and optimistic support for the manager to eventually turn it around. Just splash more money and everything will be alright.

United isn't going anywhere as long as the only strategy the club has is randomly splashing money on misfits and hoping for short term success. When we have a strategy to build the team, wake me up, and I doubt it'll be under Ten Hag.
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what’s your realistic solution then?
 
Moriarty said:
What's that down to then? Fitness levels?
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Lots of people will be upset at the suggestion but Rashford doesn't have the attitude to press well. The instant something doesn't come off, his head drops and he walks around sulking. It's obvious he doesn't want to run unless it's after a loose ball behind the back line.
 
Think EtH is definitely doing a Mourinho by not playing/involving certain players and sending a message to those above him: we need to sign some players, we need to get rid of others, get it done.
I never really doubted him last season, even after the first two games and away at Liverpool. But a year on it feels like we might be no further forward.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
It'll click once Rashford is put back on the wing, Rasmus is fit, and we buy a midfielder to play with Casemiro.

We are a million miles away from thinking ETH isn't good enough.
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I agree but then it’s mind boggling as to why he bought Mount? I mean he could have used the 60m from Mount and the money from sales and bought a world class midfielder (Rice, Caicedo?) to actually play alongside Casemiro ….he’s bought essentially 2 number 10’s in Mount and Eriksen and is trying to play them at #8

I can take the loss, Spurs away is a tough game what I don’t understand is how he expects the team to play, even on paper it looks so unbalanced and even more damning it looks un-coached
 
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His best has not matched the best phases we saw under Jose, Ole or even LVG to an extent. But his worst moments have been unimaginably bad than our previous managers.
 
I honestly thought we'd see a distinct style by now, especially possession and pressing heavy. Look at how quickly De Zerbi got Brighton playing his way.
 
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