Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Raoul said:
Solksjaer was supported for obvious reasons. The fact that we have not been able to keep a manager for more than 2-3 consecutive seasons and have had 3 care takers over the past decade is suggestive of a fan base expectation issue, which is also affecting executive decision making.
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It's suggestive of each manager failing.

Moyes - nothing more needs to be said.
LvG - sacked for failing to get top 4
Mourinho - sacked for a terrible first half of season where we looked extremely unlikely to make top 4 and for throwing everyone under the bus
Solskjaer - sacked for a terrible first half of the season where we looked extremely unlikely to make top 4

None of these sackings have anything to do with fan expectation. If anything the fact most are happy to finish top 4 and win any trophy most seasons shows our expectations are a lot lower than other clubs of similar stature and wealth.
 
Keep him. He's been sabotaged by those above him and I very much doubt anything will change long term until a better structure is in place.
 
Lay said:
Yeah but we won away from home with Ole
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In empty stadiums.We turned to crap when the crowds were back.

His 2nd and 3rd placed finishes were nothing to shout about points wise and there was no title challenge at all
 
Only thing that is clear is to stop letting him sign ex players / Dutch league players and start using the structure at the club to bring players in and build a quality team for the future.
 
Same same quotes... You know the script...

Manchester United midfielder Christian Eriksen to BBC Match of the Day: "It is a heavy one. We have to look at ourselves. We changed some things but we are disappointed.

"In the first half we had a lot of moments, had good control. They had a lot of possession but not many chances. They then score with their first chance and the system they play they keep the ball a lot and we had to chase it down. But we still had chances to get back into the game."

On what needs to be done to turn things around: "The small things. We had the offside at Arsenal and today when we scored but it was out of play. The small things we are missing and a bit of luck to get over the line and get something out of the effort we put in.

"Any game at the start of the season, doesn't matter who you play, is very important. We focus on our games and whoever we play we want to win. But we have lost three already and we have to change that."
 
I still think he's working things out so expect another jeckyl and hyde season before things stablize. I mean we got humiliated by several clubs last year and still managed to win against each top 4 club and finish 3rd on only 58 goals. He needs to sort things out quickly though.
 
adexkola said:
I'm sure the next manager we bring in will be the magician that will turn things around. Because that is what we need. Not a decent coach surrounded by a competent club. A magician that can pull trophies out of thin air
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One who'll stick around for 20 years and also be a father figure that our fanbase craves for in the managerial role.
 
bosnian_red said:
Don't need everyone back, it's still a quality squad. We finally have a striker there. We have a ball playing goalkeeper. There's no more excuses. It's time to get them playing.
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Striker wont do nearly as well with how poorly we provide for him, although I was very happy with his performance overall, did well with the little he got.
 
There is little justification to keep other than general ideologies like ‘managers deserve time’ etc. There’s nothing there. Nothing added except our goalkeeper and centre halves pass better.
 
Revan said:
Well, he took us from 6th (not 7th) to 3rd. Before that season we were 2nd.

And now we are 12th.

And League Cup is like the shittiest trophy someone can win, with the only half decent team we had to defeat being Newcastle.
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Ok - 6th. Still an improvement. The League Cup might be a low tier trophy, but it is one. Something that eluded us for a few years
 
There are bigger problems at this club than ETH and I think the fact he finished 3rd and a cup last season he deserves time.

I’d say give him the full season but i think If results continue as they are his position will become untenable. He needs to stop the rot quickly and hope that Amrabat provides the midfield balance, that Hojlund comes good and that he can create a central midfield that will accommodate three of his big money signings and his club captain.
 
Captmfla said:
Ten Hag is becoming the clueless one.

Why is it that Man utd always hire coach who doesn't know the team and buys players who are mostly useless (clowns) or carrying an injury.
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Because he shouldn't be the one buying the players. End of.

No modern team that is successful/has a consistent style has a manager dictating transfers.

Brighton, Arsenal, City, and Liverpool when they were at the very top all had a clear and well-run structure.

The manager is there to coach a style into the payers and deliver on match day. That's their sole role.

ETH has too much responsibility at the club and that is only going to change with a club sale and new owners.

This is not ETH's issue.
 
Too much squad turmoil and another insufficient transfer window. The manager is the last person id sack. Look further up and you will find the answer.
 
Lay said:
£450m spent and its still shite.

Thing is, I don't think it matters who the club gets in as manager anymore. The players are broken and no amount of coaching by various managers seems to do anything.
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Correct. The question is why ? What would be your answer ?
 
VP89 said:
So we have won away from home?
Thanks.

Micro analysing will get you nowhere. In his debut season he won a cup and achieved more points than Ole did in the season he finished 2nd. Have some respect and back a manager with actual pedigree.
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He did, but the point is that his away record is shocking is it not? 1 point against the top 9 teams, conceding 30 goals in 9 games. Yeah, that is respect worthy.
 
you cant make a silk purse from a sows ear. give him the full season and see where we are. We're still to see what amrabat , mount and Hojlund can do . Its not looking good though.
 
Watching this unfold and seeing the reaction on here is literally rinse repeat. It’s actually quite incredible how much it mirrors every other managers spell.
this is basically the painful denial phase.

We’re now at the phase of “he inherited a mess”. Which he did but ironically his signings are what are costing him at the moment.
Casemiro and Martinez are absolutely stinking the place up at the moment. Antony has brought off field drama to the club. It turns out this footballing goalkeeper we badly needed to spend 50 million on to make us play good football means nothing when the rest of your team has no structure to it and when he can’t actually make many saves. Not sure what difference Mount is going to make other than probably be as irritating as Bruno in running around like a headless chicken.
Basically, he’s fecked…
 
sizzling sausages said:
It's suggestive of each manager failing.

Moyes - nothing more needs to be said.
LvG - sacked for failing to get top 4
Mourinho - sacked for a terrible first half of season where we looked extremely unlikely to make top 4 and for throwing everyone under the bus
Solskjaer - sacked for a terrible first half of the season where we looked extremely unlikely to make top 4

None of these sackings have anything to do with fan expectation. If anything the fact most are happy to finish top 4 and win any trophy most seasons shows our expectations are a lot lower than other clubs of similar stature and wealth.
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They didn't fail because they were bad managers - there are plenty of league and CL trophies among two of them, so there was clearly something unique to United that caused them to fail. ETH gets Ajax within a whisker of the CL final then comes to United with massive funds backing him, and pretty much struggles as Mourinho and LvG did.
 
Dannn411 said:
This. It's the clearest sign yet of being clueless. You played one way last year and had decent success with it. Then all of a sudden in the summer, you say you want to play a totally different way and go as far as spending £55m on a player because apparently you wanted to play in said shape. Then you proceed to play in 3 different shapes in the first 5 games of the season. Where is the plan? Where is the consistency?
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its all quite odd. I think the mount transfer will do eth in.

if we just focused on getting in a proper partner for Case like Bellingham, McCallister, Rice.

And just focused on playing a better 4231 I think we would be in much better spot.
 
He is seriously suspect on the line in games, give him until the end of the season, hopefully he can turn it around somewhat.
 
He thinks he's still in Holland.

He's made so many shite decisions and the upsetting thing is he seems to have learned nothing from his first season. Pep and Klopp made massive improvements in their second season while ETH has arguably made even worse decisions this season.

If he doesn't last the season, it will be because of terrible decisions he's made in terms of player recruitment and squad building. It's a terribly unbalanced squad and one he had a huge impact in putting together.

De Zerbi bossing him in the manner that he did today looks incredibly poor on him.
 
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Lay said:
He did, but the point is that his away record is shocking is it not? 1 point against the top 9 teams, conceding 30 goals in 9 games. Yeah, that is respect worthy.
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The away record is disappointing but choosing to disrespect him on the overall spectrum because of that is nothing short of stupidity.
 
garelo said:
last season we were extremely lucky that spurs, chelsea, liverpool were all underperformed and the draws for our domestic cups were laughably good. honestly i think even if we faced Villa away in the league cup we'd lose. we cant expect the same luck this season.
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Ole was also extremely lucky that he managed 2 seasons in empty stadiums. Those top 3 finishes during the covid seasons were not indicative of progress either
 
Delano said:
Someone who got critiqued for losing a dressing room at a big club?
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He did not lose the dressing room, he lost some players.

He was in the CL quarter finals and leading the league. You dont do that if you lost the dressing room. I think it is clear by now that Bayern were a mess last season under Kahn and Salihamidzic.
 
This was always going to be a long term job. I don't believe anyone could have the club turned around in a year. Arteta and Klopp took closer to 3 years and there's a reason for that, it takes that long to build the culture and the squad required. And that was at clubs that were less dysfunctional than ours in so many other ways.

If you expected us to be the finished article in a year, that's your error. Switch manager's now and we don't accelerate that process, we just risk going back another year.

It's crap that we have so far to go, but the club's deep malaise was not ETH's creation. I don't think any manager is sorting this mess out in a year, or getting the job done quicker.
 
Since Ten Hag as signed we have a goal difference of 11 in the league. We spent most of last season hovering around a 0 goal difference and we’re at -4 so far this season.
 
Every element of a perfect storm was brewing for quite some time.

a- a gruesome preseason with multiple trips in various cities
b- takeover talks dragging till forever
c- the Greenwood and the Antony situation
d- the club inability to sell the players that ETH wanted out. Some of whom were quite influential in the dressing room (Sancho, Maguire etc)
e- injuries to our new players

I am not saying that ETH hasn't messed up. For example I've yet to understand the wisdom behind signing Mount. However we can't keep on changing managers the way we're doing. Changes need to come from top.
 
I think he will either turn this around pretty soon and we’ll go on a good run or this could be the start of a complete disaster.

When we lose to Bayern that will be 4/6 games lost and a shit load of goals conceded, he follows that up with bad results against Burnley (a) Palace (h) in league and cup, people will be calling for his head and they won’t be 100% wrong in doing so either.

By the end of this month we will have a clearer picture.
 
100% keep.

After missing out on our transfer targets (Kim, Kane) and that awful preseason, coupled with preseason injuries I knew this season was going to be a transition season.
Next season is the season were we, after the takeover, as a club should be moving forward.
 
ForeverRed1 said:
But what you’re saying is bring in a new manager and give him the tools to be successful.. after bringing in a new manager and not giving him the tools to be successful. Why not bring in what ETH needs around him for us to compete? He’s a one man band realistically and it’s a unfair expectation at a club of this magnitude
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Because ETH has already been giving the tools to succeed with getting the players he wanted and time. So far, what I m noticing is that even with the backing he got, he still can't implement an attractive brand of football that brings result. I will be fine with either one of those, but I have not seen none yet. But, I will still give him time to see if he can turn it around
 
cj_sparky said:
We're lucky to have any points on the board in all honesty.
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Come on. Should've been 2-0 up half time against spurs. Unlucky to lose v arsenal. Deserved to beat Forest. Yeah things aren't great but can we avoid pointless exaggeration.
 
If you look at all the managers we've had post-Sir Alex, there is a clear reason why they've failed on the pitch. It's all connected to the owners, but at the end of the day, they're not been good enough. If we bring in a manager who is proven in modern-day football then I do believe we can do well with the Glazers in charge. Ten Hag isn't proven at the top level, he did well in Holland and that's it. Although I wanted him it was always going to be a risk and the off-field stuff hasn't helped although I doubt it would change much.

Due to the fact he dragged us to 3rd and won a trophy despite a lot of off-field problems and having a squad of bad attitudes I'll give him time, but that doesn't mean he hasn't made a lot of questionable decisions. For example, he's addicted to signing former players which isn't a transfer strategy, and he brings in random players on loan that are so bad we may as well use a youth player. He's liked by the majority of players but he's also been disliked by a fair few as well.
 
I can't believe we have this thread every year or two now. Don't you guys see there is something bigger than manager at issue here? We could do this ad infinitum if not.
 
Stig said:
I know people want to say it's the ownership and structure of the club, but as the biggest net spenders in the world over the last 10 years we should at least be able to put a decent team out on the pitch. So out of the following which is it ?

The players we have are really not very good, and not good enough for a top Premier League team ?
The players aren't giving it everything, they are not motivated ?
The players don't know what the plan is, so it's just all uncoordinated ?


I'm at a loss. I think it's lack of commitment and coaching - but I'm guessing.
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Amount of spending means jack shit if there isn't a plan for how to spend the money.

Giving the manager a blank check and inshallah is not a proper structure. That's 100% on the Glazers and on the executive team that reports to them.
 
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