Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

Status
Not open for further replies.
We signed van de Beek two years prior to ten Hag coming in, he's not even good enough for the bench. Sancho, Maguire, ancient strikers, Wan-Bissaka, Dan James, Dalot, Fred, the list goes on and on. We sign players that aren't good enough for lots of money and have done for a decade. This is not a ten Hag thing. Signing his bad recommendations is a symptom of the underlying disease.
I know it’s not, but he’s making no effort to make it work with any of the players we’ve signed before because he just had unfettered access to £400m and will rightly ask when he can have his next £400m. It seems that every other club who doesn’t ’back their manager’ with a war chest of half a billion gets results, we set managers up to fail by letting them spend daft money.
 
I said to friends in preseason that if I was him, I'd have walked. Club failed him massively, leaving him with 4/5 players he clearly doesn't rate or want. Ultimately I suspect it doesn't really matter who's in charge with those parasites sucking out the little lifeblood the club has left. The fans ire and anger should be directed at the top, and nowhere else.
The owners love it when the anger is deflected onto the manager.
 
Who cares if they're 2nd? We've dismissed our own 3rd place finish last year... but we'll lap up other teams for some odd reason.
The poster downplayed them by saying they were out of a cup so I just added the other side of things they were doing.
 
Yup. Remember the one time the club tried to switch away from this strategy (Mourinho), the fanbase made the club into a toxic circus. So that permanently ended that trial for good. It's not worth it when the paying customers are so vehemently against it.
Or the other time when we hired a pretty good DoF to assist our DoF in building the team, and insisted that this time it is gonna be different, we are going to think long-term, have a transfer committe, data-science team etc etc.

Then the manager didn't like Rangnick, we instantly sacked Rangnick, and 'used our data science team' to identify that we should sign half of the Dutch league.
 
Its not like he started the match with a CB pairing of Licha and Bruno is it?

Team was losing, 10 mins to go so you put on another attacker and ask someone in the midfield to fill in at the back...simple.

Works the other way as well, when you are losing sometimes a manager will tell one of the CB to play up front for a bigger aerial threat.
Bruno is still our most creative player. If the team is losing, wouldn't you want him closer to the opposing box ? Seems pretty basic thinking...
 
Post SAF, we have changed 5 managers and we are still having the same problem.

Negative football, inconsistent, players moral problems, players deteriorated after rejoining us, sign wrong players, no set style of play from manager to manager, players being paid too much, overpaid for mediocre players, injury problems and the list goes on and on.

Do we still blame the manager?
Yes.

Same as buying substandard players.

How comes we can sign substandard players but not have a substandard managers, coaches etc

Maybe the jump is to high for someone like Malacia, or Antony why can't the jump be high for ETH also.

ETH needs to evolve, same as we want Antony to evolve, learn, hit peak, avoid previous mistakes etc.

Same as Ole was Maguire, maguire would play in parts well but we knew he wasn't going to take us to a title.

Same as it happened with Mourinho, we knew his title credentials same as Pogba but Mourinho as Pogba failed to live up not withstanding their previous achievements.

So signing poor players and managers is a problem for the club. Whoever sanctions the signings is the foolish person, whoever accepts the continuous signings of below par employees to the club is where the bucks stops at.

You know why we are behind City even if we have spent almost same amount of money in 10 years.

It's because the owner of the money (Glazers) has given bad Human Resource managers (Arnold and John, & Woodward ) leeway of signing for employees ( Coaches + all players) without any consequences.

Meaning Glazers have appointed poor football managers to run the club, who by the virtue of them being poor managers source for poor employees.

So either we change the owner of the business who will appoint good managers, who will in turn employee good and better employees to do the job at hand.
Or we hit jackpot and land on a impeccable employee (Coach) who can carry the load and change the ship direction ( Ferguson did it under Glazers).

So in short we have poor

Owners - they don't demand the very best of the business. RoI
Human Resource Managers - who employ substandard employees while offering huge employment contracts.
Employees - who don't seem to grasp the job at hand.
 
It'll inevitably go badly, he'll be criticised by the fanbase as clueless then ridiculed and made a fool of by the media, which will negatively impact his career.

That’s the cycle, hire a seasoned manager, it fails then they were clearly passed it. Hire a younger manager, when it fails they clearly weren’t up to the job.

“Oh if we could only get Klopp or Pep it would all sort itself out” pie in the sky sh*te…..

Rinse repeat.
 
And replace him with who? Let him do his job and evaluate at the end of the season.
 
Bruno is still our most creative player. If the team is losing, wouldn't you want him closer to the opposing box ? Seems pretty basic thinking...

Yeah but when you are losing anything goes doesn't it...even the keeper joins in attacking corners!

I think the 80 minutes before brings up bigger questions than the last 10 tbh.
 
Last edited:
I'll hold back from judging him until he has had the opportunity to field his strongest side or near to it for at least several games on the bounce. Whilst we may have a big squad, we really lack strength in depth so we need to have a run of games where his preferred starting eleven get a chance to gel properly together. Sadly, this may take longer than we could hope because of injuries and other reasons such as the problems Antony is currently facing. I'm also not convinced that we are particularly well coached in comparison to some of the other teams that are showing quality from the start of the season, but as frustrating as it is, I will wait and see for now.

I do feel for ETH having to lead the biggest club in the world whilst the Glazers are still in control, and its obvious that some of the rot is still existant-but he knew this when he came and has had enough investment to be pushing us on. Some of our transfers leave a lot to be desired at the minute, and we can clearly see the influence he has had on these purchases so he has got to be held to account for our performances. As many other posters have said, I'm not convinced he should have such control over our transfer activity.

I hope he comes good as it would be great to have a manager that can take the heat from the hottest seat in football and bring us back to glory. He has a mountain to climb though so lets hope he's got the tools to get it done.
 
Hard to pass judgement given all the drama that is going on this season. The Glazers refusing to go, with their sale/no sale, the Sancho, Anthony and Greenwood situations, the injuries to most of our starting defenders, Amrabat and Hojlund arriving injured, the inability to get rid of unwanted players and the financial restrictions due to FFP rules . It's doubtful anyone could have done much better.
 
Any cup competition isn’t to be sniffed at if you’ve gone barren for as long as Spurs have, and the great football already slowed down, they just struggled to beat (very fortuitously at that) Sheffield at home.



I didn’t know the season finishes after 5 games now, grand achievement indeed.

Winning a cup isn't their priority this season. They have to address the team's issues streamed from the previous 2 managerial stints first.

Yet they defeated us easily. What does that say about us and our great manager?

You are just clutching at strews. The reality is we look far away in our "project" from the other top sides, including Spurs who are just starting theirs.
 
I maintain it's the owners but ETH does need to show us something more around clear patterns of play and start seeing us boss games consistently. After Munich this week, that I expect to be a but of a hammering, we've got Burnley (A), Palace twice (both H), Galatasary (H), Brentford (H), Sheff Utd (A) and Copenhagen (H) before the derby, seven extremely winnable games, ETH needs to be winning all of these to be honest.
 
I think it’s a really difficult job and the season would have to be a complete disaster (near the relegation zone) for me to want ETH out. We have to stick with a manager and hope that they can get things right, with a bit of time.

That said, I have lost a lot of faith since the end of last season. Buying Mason Mount seemed like an incredible waste of money we didn’t have and the idea of playing him alongside Bruno very questionable. Spending £60m+ on a raw striker also seemed very questionable, albeit I doubt that was on ETH.

We then looked incredibly disjointed in the bits of pre-season I saw, the Wolves match was a horror show and the team looks to have no idea what it is tactically supposed to be doing. I don’t see any sign of a proper strategy being deployed. That can only be on ETH.

I also think he has to swallow his pride about Sancho. If he doesn’t trust Pellestri to play then he needs Sancho. It really shouldn’t have been difficult for a top class manager to convince Sancho that this is a great chance for him to prove he can set the league alight, with a new CF to link up with. No need to harm the team by insisting on an apology.
 
Get a good 1-1 in Germany on Wednesday. Then the league run looks a lot more kind with Burnley, Palace, Brentford and Sheffield United.

Things can change quickly in football.
 
I think it’s a really difficult job and the season would have to be a complete disaster (near the relegation zone) for me to want ETH out. We have to stick with a manager and hope that they can get things right, with a bit of time.

That said, I have lost a lot of faith since the end of last season. Buying Mason Mount seemed like an incredible waste of money we didn’t have and the idea of playing him alongside Bruno very questionable. Spending £60m+ on a raw striker also seemed very questionable, albeit I doubt that was on ETH.

We then looked incredibly disjointed in the bits of pre-season I saw, the Wolves match was a horror show and the team looks to have no idea what it is tactically supposed to be doing. I don’t see any sign of a proper strategy being deployed. That can only be on ETH.

I also think he has to swallow his pride about Sancho. If he doesn’t trust Pellestri to play then he needs Sancho. It really shouldn’t have been difficult for a top class manager to convince Sancho that this is a great chance for him to prove he can set the league alight, with a new CF to link up with. No need to harm the team by insisting on an apology.
Why? If the manager is not performing, why do we have to stick with the manager? Except 'staying behind the manager' being the first verse in the religious book of 'Man United: the cult of the manager', is there any reason to stick with an underperforming manager?
 
It'll inevitably go badly, he'll be criticised by the fanbase as clueless then ridiculed and made a fool of by the media, which will negatively impact his career.
I think the directors at most clubs realize United is a mess behind the scenes in every way. This idea of "career suicide" is very overblown.
 
Winning a cup isn't their priority this season. They have to address the team's issues streamed from the previous 2 managerial stints first.

Yet they defeated us easily. What does that say about us and our great manager?

You are just clutching at strews. The reality is we look far away in our "project" from the other top sides, including Spurs who are just starting theirs.
Hilarious that literally today you said it would've been "ridiculous" for us not to win it last season. Glad to know the mighty Fulham are the level of opposition that you truly fear.

The continuous mentioning of the League Cup last season is becoming embarrassing. It's the weakest trophy in England and the strongest team we faced during that run was Newcastle. If anything it would have been ridiculous to not win it given our luck in the draw.

Previous managers had it tougher in cup competitions draws.
 
Or the other time when we hired a pretty good DoF to assist our DoF in building the team, and insisted that this time it is gonna be different, we are going to think long-term, have a transfer committe, data-science team etc etc.

Then the manager didn't like Rangnick, we instantly sacked Rangnick, and 'used our data science team' to identify that we should sign half of the Dutch league.
The bolded bit reminds me of the puff pieces we fed to the media around 2019, bragging about our state-of-the-art data and analytics systems that we used to scout 700 RBs and ultimately land on... Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
 
You want to give him another £400m? Gluttons for punishment some of you.
You're a bit dim, aren't you. He doesn't decide on the outlay for players, and this idea that he wasted £400m is just beyond daft and typical hyperbole of emotional knee jerk fans that want to make evaluations from feck all.
 
As has been said by others, we will sack this manager and then repeat the same boom/bust cycle every 2 to 3 years. Nothing will ever properly change until the owners go.
 
It's really not his fault that Rashford can't make simple decisions or that premier league midfielders can't track runners. I dunno if it's his fault that we're lacking Varane's organizational skills or that Licha looks badly out of form.

I also believe he hasn't had the opportunity of playing the players he wants in the system he wants.

But it's the Caf. So sack!
 
Winning a cup isn't their priority this season. They have to address the team's issues streamed from the previous 2 managerial stints first.

Yet they defeated us easily. What does that say about us and our great manager?

You are just clutching at strews. The reality is we look far away in our "project" from the other top sides, including Spurs who are just starting theirs.

I don’t think defeating the current Utd side is anything to crow about, Wolves and Forest had a chance af, that doesn’t make Ange the benchmark or whatever for instilling playstyle/squad building, much as I do rate him. The fact that they showed their Spursy side already during this honeymoon period is a testament to that.

I don’t agree with a lot of EtH’s decisions, Weghorst, Mount, Amrabat, playing McTominay etc, but he’s not being set up to succeed by our structure, by the uncertainty over our ownership, by the long list of injuries, by the turmoils off the pitch not of his doing, so I’d look to rectify those before writing him off as yet another failure while gassing up someone who doesn’t operate with even a tenth of the pressure he’s under.
 
While the Glazers are in charge of United, any manager will fail. The decay, toxicity is too deep, no manager can escape from it. Sacking Ten Hag is pointless, really.

I think he should walk away himself from this mess, and wait for a better job opportunity(City, Liverpool, Newcastle, Bayern, Real, Barca...), not to ruin his reputation further. ETH should be given time at least to finish this season, maybe there will be some improvement. He'll probably be sacked during the next season, and whoever comes next will fail again. Rinse and repeat(10 years already and counting...).

This club is doomed as long as Glazers are owners, the manager is totally irrelevant, actually.
 
The bolded bit reminds me of the puff pieces we fed to the media around 2019, bragging about our state-of-the-art data and analytics systems that we used to scout 700 RBs and ultimately land on... Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Or when we decided to hire a DoF, checked over all Europe, to realize that the best one is already at the club: Murtough brought by the chosen one himself Sir David Moyes.
 
While the Glazers are in charge of United, any manager will fail. The decay, toxicity is too deep, no manager can escape from it. Sacking Ten Hag is pointless, really.

I think he should walk away himself from this mess, and wait for a better job opportunity(City, Liverpool, Newcastle, Bayern, Real, Barca...), not to ruin his reputation further. ETH should be given time at least to finish this season, maybe there will be some improvement. He'll probably be sacked during the next season, and whoever comes next will fail again. Rinse and repeat(10 years already and counting...).

This club is doomed as long as Glazers are owners, the manager is totally irrelevant, actually.

Yeah, good shout, could really see City or Liverpool going for a failed ex Utd manager.
 
You're a bit dim, aren't you. He doesn't decide on the outlay for players, and this idea that he wasted £400m is just beyond daft and typical hyperbole of emotional knee jerk fans that want to make evaluations from feck all.
You’re the dim one if you don’t think the manager gets the final say on bringing players in at the agreed value of the transfer.

It’s well documented that Mourinho vetoed the Maguire transfer first time around when he was told it was £50m and he was worried about getting crucified for it. But yeah, throw out some words that make you feel better because it’s not in line with your opinion, absolve everyone you like from blame and continue burying your head in the sand because that’s what makes you feel better. When he’s sacked later in the season you’ll be asking why he was allowed to bring in players like Mount, and maybe then the penny will drop. It’s alright mate, some people are just slow to get with the program. There’s no shame in it.
 
Why? If the manager is not performing, why do we have to stick with the manager? Except 'staying behind the manager' being the first verse in the religious book of 'Man United: the cult of the manager', is there any reason to stick with an underperforming manager?

At some point, you have to give a manager a bit more time - especially when you’ve just brought a bunch of players on their say-so. Not every manager gets things working straight away. See Arteta for one who seems to have turned it around because the board kept faith. Chelsea I’m fairly convinced would be doing better if they’d stuck with Potter for longer.

Of course, there’s always going to be a limit at a club like United. However, these feel unprecedented times with the problems we’ve had recently and the Glazers still being here. I’d prefer to give ETH some benefit of the doubt for now.
 
It's not an either or thing or we could then also conclude that buying and selling players "isn't working" so we should stop doing it.
I think ETH has earned enough credit in football to get more time than this
 
At some point, you have to give a manager a bit more time - especially when you’ve just brought a bunch of players on their say-so. Not every manager gets things working straight away. See Arteta for one who seems to have turned it around because the board kept faith. Chelsea I’m fairly convinced would be doing better if they’d stuck with Potter for longer.

Of course, there’s always going to be a limit at a club like United. However, these feel unprecedented times with the problems we’ve had recently and the Glazers still being here. I’d prefer to give ETH some benefit of the doubt for now.
But many do. In fact, most of successful managers do right from the start. You can see the identity of the team from the beginning, and while the results might be slightly delayed, they do well from the beginning.

I do not know why these are unprecedented time. Sure, Antony going on leave for a DA problem, but that's it. The manager falling out with players (Ronaldo, Sancho) or not rating players (Maguire) is pretty common on this profession.
 
At some point, you have to give a manager a bit more time - especially when you’ve just brought a bunch of players on their say-so. Not every manager gets things working straight away. See Arteta for one who seems to have turned it around because the board kept faith. Chelsea I’m fairly convinced would be doing better if they’d stuck with Potter for longer.

Of course, there’s always going to be a limit at a club like United. However, these feel unprecedented times with the problems we’ve had recently and the Glazers still being here. I’d prefer to give ETH some benefit of the doubt for now.
Chelsea sacking Potter was absolutely the right decision. If anything, they took too long to pull the trigger there.

They've been criticized for their sackings over the years but aside from maybe 1 or 2 exceptions, it was almost always the correct decision for them.
 
Yesterday Brighton scored 3 very similar goals. Attack space down the flanks and cutback to an unmarked player in our penalty area. Very simple and de Zerbi won the tactical battle on KO. He humiliated ETH.

You cannot prove that de Zerbi would fail at OT other than to say that Brighton is very different to United. So is Ajax and the Dutch league. The only way to prove it is if de Zerbi would actually manage us for 17 months. If this shitshow continues for another 10-15 games ETH is gone.

Humiliated :lol:

If you can't make your point without ridiculous hyperbole then it isn't a very good point.

As for the rest, you've still offered no evidence beyond Brighton beating us yesterday. It's such shallow thinking.

The United job is not the same as the Brighton job, it's a completely different world. Even if both teams were in exactly the same situation, with the exact same team, players, and structure when ETH and DZ took over (they weren't, we were a complete mess), the pressure in the United is orders of magnitude higher than at Brighton.
 
If we lose 2 out of next 3, someone is going to be scapegoated by Glazers/Arnold. My bet is it will be Murtough or ETH.
 
Chelsea sacking Potter was absolutely the right decision. If anything, they took too long to pull the trigger there.

They've been criticized for their sackings over the years but aside from maybe 1 or 2 exceptions, it was almost always the correct decision for them.

I'm not sure you can say that when you consider how bad they were after that with Lampard. There's still a chance Potter stabilises things better than he managed to.

They basically wrote off the season then and there. Sacking EtH now would mean the same thing.
 
You cannot compare football methods between 1989 and 2023 anyway. The whole world has changed, managers are paid a lot more so there is a much bigger expectancy on them to do well very fast.
We need to learn to let go of SAF, what he did was unique, ain't no one ever getting close to that so there is no need to treat any other underperforming manager like he could be a potential SAF

Your second sentence is arguing against a position nobody has taken, so you can take down that strawman.

My position is that those running a big club wouldn't be so reactionary as to fire a manager over one bad result, no matter how heavy.
 
Hilarious that literally today you said it would've been "ridiculous" for us not to win it last season. Glad to know the mighty Fulham are the level of opposition that you truly fear.

Man United and Spurs are different teams with different magnitude and different set of expectations but it's alright. I know it's hard for some here to understand how big United is supposed to be.
 
He certainly was not. The one plan he had was being compact and try to break fast. Obviously bigger teams will try to dominate which played into our hands on a couple of occasions. Ole was NOT a good tactician at all. Stay deep and compact and break fast the easiest "tactic" in the world. Doesn't mean it doesn't give you results but if its all you can, you can't be considered a topclub.

This legend has to die.

I disagree with you, but it's a pointless discussion and off topic.

In terms of backing ETH, it looks like we're on the same page.
 
I'm not sure you can say that when you consider how bad they were after that with Lampard. There's still a chance Potter stabilises things better than he managed to.

They basically wrote off the season then and there. Sacking EtH now would mean the same thing.
Think the problem there was their choice of replacement more than anything else.

I'm not calling for ETH to be sacked btw. Was just addressing the point that was made about Potter and Chelsea.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.