Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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He’s being forced to use players he wanted sold. He’s having to drop big players because their attitude isn’t right.

The changing room must be toxic as feck it’s a mess from top to bottom isn’t it

Club is in the pits unfortunately,feel so sorry for the Amrabat's/Hojlund's who have walked into this poisonous atmosphere.

The amount of crap thrown at him I will be amazed if he didn't consider resigning or walking away from this mess.
 
What's the point changing manager if the next one would have to deal with exact same horsecrap?
You can't give manager average players then force him to turn them into gold. Not even Pep would be able to fix this crap unless higher up's vision was aligned with him.
 
What's the point changing manager if the next one would have to deal with exact same horsecrap?
You can't give manager average players then force him to turn them into gold. Not even Pep would be able to fix this crap unless higher up's vision was aligned with him.

Yeah you just know Utd wouldn't have agreed to recruit the two Barca guys as we are always looking for a cheap deal to cut corners
 
I have read all the pages and had 3 days to reflect on Sundays defeat & ETH.

I think ETH got his tactics spot on against Arsenal, we looked to hold possession in the middle third with Martinez, Onana & Lindelof, with the aim of playing through Arsenals press or by going direct over the top for Rashford & Antony to chase, which would stretch the midfield giving Bruno & Eriksen more time and space to dictate.

Arsenal sat in a medium block which negated the space, which we struggled to play through, we nearly had 2 goals on the counter maybe 3 if Rashford played in Hojlund, would of been the perfect away performance but we lost.

Hojlund showed the CF ETH has been looking for occupying the Centre Backs, looking to make runs into the channels to stretch defences, but his multiple movements in the box for the cruyff shot that was blocked.

The move that lead to the disallowed goal is the football i believe ETH wants to play, by slicing through the lines to the ST back to the midfielder then in behind for one of the wingers to go through on goal.

I can see the foundations of what he is trying to build, injuries and a hectic schedule last season has pushed the development back, but it is clear to see how we have improved, there is certainly a long way to go, but in last 3 games we have shown what football we can play, just need to play it on a more consistent basis.

I can see the trajectory ETH is taking us.
 
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Sorry, I thought that second half against Arsenal was a mess. It's clear that United are playing on the counter and were confused on how to progress the ball when the counter isn't available. Arsenal played much better football and shows more intent in playing attacking football. I always felt that a second Arsenal goal is inevitable given how United played.
Maybe United should have the offside goal counted. But then Arsenal also missed a golden chance from Saka and got a penalty chalked off. The difference is that they keep trying to score while we seems content with playing for a point.
I would like to see a more progressive football from United, because that's Ten Hag selling point and there are signs we are progressing towards that last season.
 
Sorry, I thought that second half against Arsenal was a mess. It's clear that United are playing on the counter and were confused on how to progress the ball when the counter isn't available. Arsenal played much better football and shows more intent in playing attacking football. I always felt that a second Arsenal goal is inevitable given how United played.
Maybe United should have the offside goal counted. But then Arsenal also missed a golden chance from Saka and got a penalty chalked off. The difference is that they keep trying to score while we seems content with playing for a point.
I would like to see a more progressive football from United, because that's Ten Hag selling point and there are signs we are progressing towards that last season.

"Inevitable" is a bit dramatic considering they only created one or two chances until the disallowed goal. Nobody was confused and the game plan worked. There's a limit to how aggressive you can be in that fixture with two central mids that are relatively slow and aren't great at winning the ball back. Keeping the ball was our best means of defending and the plan worked for most of the game. We can't moan about lopsided losses away to top teams, and at the same time moan about playing more conservatively away to a top team.
 
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"Inevitable" is a bit dramatic considering they only created one or two chances until the disallowed goal. Nobody was confused and the game plan worked. There's a limit to how aggressive you can be in that fixture with two central mids that are relatively slow and aren't great at winning the ball back. Keeping the ball was our best means of defending and the plan worked for most of the game. We can't moan about lopsided losses away to top teams, and at the same time moan about playing more conservatively away to a top team.
they have much more possession in our half and penalty box compare to us. It's not really surprising to me when they scored because I knew it's more likely to happened than us snatching a late winner.
the game plan obviously didn't work as United eventually conceded 2 goals at the end. I just don't like United when they focused on stopping the other team to play, rather than imposing their will on the match. And also, I don't think our defense is good enough to play that way.
 
they have much more possession in our half and penalty box compare to us. It's not really surprising to me when they scored because I knew it's more likely to happened than us snatching a late winner.
the game plan obviously didn't work as United eventually conceded 2 goals at the end. I just don't like United when they focused on stopping the other team to play, rather than imposing their will on the match. And also, I don't think our defense is good enough to play that way.
Well no when the top 3 center backs are injured, but they did fine before that. It’s nice that you knew it was coming, but there were no tangible indications for most of the match Onana barely had to make a save. At some point you have to analyze things according to what actually happened rather than feelings. We’re also a millimeter away from not even having this discussion in the first place.
 
they have much more possession in our half and penalty box compare to us. It's not really surprising to me when they scored because I knew it's more likely to happened than us snatching a late winner.
the game plan obviously didn't work as United eventually conceded 2 goals at the end. I just don't like United when they focused on stopping the other team to play, rather than imposing their will on the match. And also, I don't think our defense is good enough to play that way.
Both team had similar xG & shots on target until 80minutes or so. When Maguire & Evans partnership started. Surprise!
United didn't play well but final score flattered Arsenal a lot. They weren't the better team, compare to last year.
 
Sorry, I thought that second half against Arsenal was a mess. It's clear that United are playing on the counter and were confused on how to progress the ball when the counter isn't available. Arsenal played much better football and shows more intent in playing attacking football. I always felt that a second Arsenal goal is inevitable given how United played.
Maybe United should have the offside goal counted. But then Arsenal also missed a golden chance from Saka and got a penalty chalked off. The difference is that they keep trying to score while we seems content with playing for a point.
I would like to see a more progressive football from United, because that's Ten Hag selling point and there are signs we are progressing towards that last season.
Absolutely incorrect. Completely incorrect.

Arsenal had only 1 genuine chance, the whole of second half till 106 min. The saka chance.

United had the best play of the second half. The double chance of Martial and Rashford.
From Onana beating Arsenal press, to Martinez, to Eriksen to Bruno to Martial all through the middle, keeper saves then Rashford rebound blocked is the best part of second half.

Rashford twisting White for Hojlund, if the ball went to Antony he was open in goal from 6 yards.

Add the disallowed goal. Through the middle again from Hojlund.

We really played well. We really lost the game because of Evans coming in. He was unable to fit in the ceiling of the game. With Martinez and Lindelof finishing the game we wouldn't have lost the game.
 
I feel for ETH tbh, ever since he arrived he has been putting out fires left right and centre.

The man cannot catch a break at the moment.

Apparently he has gone on holiday, I dont blame him one bit.
 
Since SAF, we have turned into this club, where football is just a side show and not the defining feature of this club. A reboot from the top would flush the toilet out. Glazer sale would have been a great restart. Not to be.
 
I feel for ETH tbh, ever since he arrived he has been putting out fires left right and centre.

The man cannot catch a break at the moment.

Apparently he has gone on holiday, I dont blame him one bit.

Certainly. For his own sanity it'll be beneficial to step away. Between the Arse farce, Sancho and now Antony in one week there's only so much you can take.
 
Think he's only been able to play his bonafide best XI maybe 3 or 4 times since taking over? Horrendous luck with injuries all across the board
At some point is goes far beyond ‘luck’ though - be it training or signing injury prone or unprofessional players.
 
He's fallen into the same trap that LVG, Jose & Ole fell into where as the squad just hasn't been advanced in the right areas and our rivals have just gotten better. We can't say the funds haven't been available.
 
He's fallen into the same trap that LVG, Jose & Ole fell into where as the squad just hasn't been advanced in the right areas and our rivals have just gotten better. We can't say the funds haven't been available.
Ye it ain’t about the money anymore. People can say we need to spend another 200m but that isn’t the case. It’s about spending it correctly. Brighton is a perfect example of a properly run club. They don’t need to spend millions to play attractive football and win games. It ain’t hard man but for whatever reason our club makes everything so difficult.
 
Since SAF, we have turned into this club, where football is just a side show and not the defining feature of this club. A reboot from the top would flush the toilet out. Glazer sale would have been a great restart. Not to be.

Yeah until we sort out the structure then club won't be competitive both on and off pitch and Erik will suffer as a consequence
 
Ye it ain’t about the money anymore. People can say we need to spend another 200m but that isn’t the case. It’s about spending it correctly. Brighton is a perfect example of a properly run club. They don’t need to spend millions to play attractive football and win games. It ain’t hard man but for whatever reason our club makes everything so difficult.
It’s not quite fair to use a club like Brighton as an example when it comes to spending money. They could fly under the radar, sign unknown players for cheap, hit big if doing it right and write off if they don’t make it, nobody will bat an eye. Doing transfer business as United comes with unwanted baggage as we all know. Say differently, even if we take the whole Brighton system (scouts, negotiators, dir of football, coaches, etc), I highly doubt that we could replicate what Brighton did or is doing.
 
It’s not quite fair to use a club like Brighton as an example when it comes to spending money. They could fly under the radar, sign unknown players for cheap, hit big if doing it right and write off if they don’t make it, nobody will bat an eye. Doing transfer business as United comes with unwanted baggage as we all know. Say differently, even if we take the whole Brighton system (scouts, negotiators, dir of football, coaches, etc), I highly doubt that we could replicate what Brighton did or is doing.
So it’s something about this club then? We’ve been making excuses for the past 10 years. Since Fergie left everything’s gone wrong. Was it because fergie was that good he covered up the cracks. Or was we once a well run club? Our recruitment team and the choices we’ve made over the last few years have been a shambles considering we’re one of the biggest clubs in the world. We’ve got managers wrong… we’ve had to buy and sell players because we’ve gone for managers who each have different styles rather then doing what Brighton do and pick a style for the club and then managers that suit that style.
 
He's a manager that generally wants to play an aggressive, counter pressing style. Had he tried this against Arsenal with two relatively unathletic midfielders that aren't great at winning duals, we'd of had no chance. Eriksen and Bruno would absolutely not slot into any system that requires them to win back possession on a consistent basis, especially not in this league against the bigger. His gameplan against Arsenal was instead to slow the game down and try to keep possession, and it was a 10th of an inch away from working. It's right in front of your eyes yet you're focused on meaningless and uninformed hypotheticals.

What you're saying is that he doesn't have the players to play the system he wants to play. So the options appear to be that either he comes up with a different system, or he replaces those two players. How many players does he then need to put this system into practice, and how long will it take? Are we saying that having spent £400 million he's no closer to evolving the team into what he wants it to be?

Had Garnacho not been offside we may have won that game. But Arsenal were the better side and were consistently more threatening, despite not playing well while United relied on moments of brilliance or mistakes. He's consistently lost big games away from home. If he's going to make progress that has to change. That won't sitting back against good sides and trying to pick them off on the break. If we go one down to City or Liverpool, is that going to get us back in the game?
 
He clearly has put his stamp on it, he just doesn't have us playing as world beaters yet. And the players, while high quality, aren't necessarily high quality in the areas required. Even Guardiola needed more than a year, and to buy an entirely new set of full backs, and that's after inheriting a team that had won 2 of the previous 4 titles.

You're right about building from the back, but it's irrelevant. It also won't work if we can't keep the ball at the back, that's a problem that has been solved, the midfield portion will be next.

On top of that, EtH has clearly showed his abilities, he took over a team in disarray, that finished 6th, that was replacing the entire structure above him at the same time, and took it to 3rd, a trophy, and another final. It's just completely disingenuous to act like he hasn't achieved anything, given what he started with.

So what does he need then? How many players? How long? How much more money?

He did a decent job last year. My personal view is that we were poor towards the end of the season and look even worse so far this, barring a half decent performance against Arsenal, but which I hope isn't indicative of how he's going to set us up. We were too reliant last year on individual brilliance and that doesn't look like it's been addressed.

Evidently he needs more time. My point is that soon, we should be able to see something positive and a significant improvement in the performances.
 
He's fallen into the same trap that LVG, Jose & Ole fell into where as the squad just hasn't been advanced in the right areas and our rivals have just gotten better. We can't say the funds haven't been available.

Think he has to get his signings on the pitch consistently before we judge that. In particular Hojlund.
 
So it’s something about this club then? We’ve been making excuses for the past 10 years. Since Fergie left everything’s gone wrong. Was it because fergie was that good he covered up the cracks. Or was we once a well run club? Our recruitment team and the choices we’ve made over the last few years have been a shambles considering we’re one of the biggest clubs in the world. We’ve got managers wrong… we’ve had to buy and sell players because we’ve gone for managers who each have different styles rather then doing what Brighton do and pick a style for the club and then managers that suit that style.

Fergie's departure also coincided with Woodward's entrance - both were massive factors in our demise into a decade of relative mediocrity - all overseen by Woodward's presence.
 
they have much more possession in our half and penalty box compare to us. It's not really surprising to me when they scored because I knew it's more likely to happened than us snatching a late winner.
the game plan obviously didn't work as United eventually conceded 2 goals at the end. I just don't like United when they focused on stopping the other team to play, rather than imposing their will on the match. And also, I don't think our defense is good enough to play that way.

Yes, well you and all the other Henny Penny posters here think this is going to happen every match, so you're bound to be "correct" sometimes. Welcome to real sports fandom, where you don't win every match by 3 goals.
 
Yes, well you and all the other Henny Penny posters here think this is going to happen every match, so you're bound to be "correct" sometimes. Welcome to real sports fandom, where you don't win every match by 3 goals.
eh, when Arsenal have more passes in United final third than United on Arsenal's it's easy to see what most likely will happened.
 
So what does he need then? How many players? How long? How much more money?

He did a decent job last year. My personal view is that we were poor towards the end of the season and look even worse so far this, barring a half decent performance against Arsenal, but which I hope isn't indicative of how he's going to set us up. We were too reliant last year on individual brilliance and that doesn't look like it's been addressed.

Evidently he needs more time. My point is that soon, we should be able to see something positive and a significant improvement in the performances.

So we may be arguing cross purposes here, as I actually agree with your point in terms of improvements on last season, but I think we can both agree that his first season was a sizeable improvement on what came before, right? Yes we looked poor at the end, mostly due to being exhausted, as we looked very good for the middle third of the season.

He, and the team, will need time to adjust to their new teammates, and the higher pressing approach he wants us to adopt this season, but he's put several of the blocks in place (being able to play out from the back), and to me unquestionably deserves more time to continue that upward trajectory.
 
Add after Hojlund came in, we really played extremely well.
The overall game was 5/10 or descent - taking into account we played Arsenal away. The short period you talk about was in my opinion 7/10 or good. I suspect ulterior motives when you label part of our play against Arsenal as “extremely well”.
 
huh?
You don't think it's logical that when a team have more passes in the final third then that team will more likely to score?
Nope that's not the way football works, same way as you can have a zillion passes between your defenders and goalkeepers in the your defensive third and be just as likely to conceded a goal if you had half a zillion, passes and possession means zilch without an end product
 
The overall game was 5/10 or descent - taking into account we played Arsenal away. The short period you talk about was in my opinion 7/10 or good. I suspect ulterior motives when you label part of our play against Arsenal as “extremely well”.
Nah. Arsenal had 1 real chance before 96 minutes mate. 1 real chance bar their goal. They had zero opening from open play in rest of the match. Onana didn't make any save expect Saka shot

For us we had a martial save, rashford block rebound. Disallowed goal, Hojlund 6 yard flick, half chance on counter when Rashford didn't pass to Hojlund. All these were open play openings. Not corners or free kicks.

We have our issues but second half in emirates was as good as we have played away from home in ETH tenure.
 
Absolutely incorrect. Completely incorrect.

Arsenal had only 1 genuine chance, the whole of second half till 106 min. The saka chance.

I've tried to expunge the game now, but just from a 2second memory, you've forgotten Havertz being about 6 yards out and somehow left foot swinging and missing, and Martinez just about clearing it from whatever other player was lurking.
 
I've tried to expunge the game now, but just from a 2second memory, you've forgotten Havertz being about 6 yards out and somehow left foot swinging and missing, and Martinez just about clearing it from whatever other player was lurking.
Yeah that one had escaped my mind. It was first half also. This was half a chance.

The main undoing for us was Lindelof and martinez going off.
 
Yeah that one had escaped my mind. It was first half also. This was half a chance.

The main undoing for us was Lindelof and martinez going off.

I agree in some ways.
But in another way when you basically set up to rely on a perfect breakaway goal and absorb 90mins of attack, more often than not it'll backfire as so much can go wrong.

Unfortunately we look a million miles off a team who can hold possession and properly dominate big teams, especially away.
 
I agree in some ways.
But in another way when you basically set up to rely on a perfect breakaway goal and absorb 90mins of attack, more often than not it'll backfire as so much can go wrong.

Unfortunately we look a million miles off a team who can hold possession and properly dominate big teams, especially away.
Actually what you describe is more akin to our performance last year at the Emirates where we clung on to dear life while Arsenal was pummeling us mercilessly.

This year we looked evernly matched for longer periods of time and absorbed the pressure quiet well bar a couple of moments that led to them scoring. If anything this would have been a classic SAF performance(where Arsenal play tippy tappy football around our box, while we slaughter them on the counter) if Garnacho had scored.

In spite of that it's kind of hard to go to last year's title contender's away ground and expect to outplay them or evenly match them for 90 minutes. Not even our greatest United sides under SAF were capable of that.

All things considered we did rather well, and while we're still the far cry of our form last year, we are slowly improving.
 
I agree in some ways.
But in another way when you basically set up to rely on a perfect breakaway goal and absorb 90mins of attack, more often than not it'll backfire as so much can go wrong.

Unfortunately we look a million miles off a team who can hold possession and properly dominate big teams, especially away.
Demanding to “dominate big teams away” really just feels like you’re running out of things to complain about.
 
He doesn't seem to give a shite about violence towards women, does he?

On what basis? If you're referring to him talking about wanting a striker back in the squad that was suddenly available again, he can't exactly say "no the guy is a domestic abuser" to the press, can he? What he says to the press and thinks behind closed doors I'd imagine are very different. As for Antony the jury is obviously still out on that case, but it's hardly a reason to throw ETH under the bus who's job is to coach on the pitch not be some sort of life coach off it. Plus the board and owners are obviously heavily involved in not suspending him thus far also.
 
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