Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Thankfully we have a lot of very winnable home games between now and the derby.

A good run, new players bedded in and a reduced injury list and things are looking rosy again.

However, on the flipside - I can also see December 16th as a pivotal date in the calendar. We will have just completed the CL group stage and know if we’ve qualified. Failure in that and another heavy defeat at Anfield would be the end imo.
 
Arteta wanted Martinez, didn’t get. He wanted Cancelo, didn’t get. Wanted Raphinha, didn’t get. Wanted Caicedo, didn’t get. Wanted Gundogan, didn’t get. Wanted Mudryk, didn’t get. Wanted Vlahovic, didn’t get. Wanted Douglas Luiz, didn’t get.

Klopp wanted Tchouameni, didn’t get. He wanted Bellingham, didn’t get. He wanted Caicedo, didn’t get. Wanted Mount, didn’t get. Wanted Lavia, didn’t get.

Every manager go through this. It’s nothing new.
Arteta is also 4 years into his process and Ten Hag has had one season.

If Ten Hag finished this season where Arteta did at the same point he'd be sacked.
 
I believe so yes. These players are experts in backstabbing managers. They won't make it obvious. What they would do is defending like school boys, not tracking back, taking the wrong decisions again and again or conceding a goal exactly after we score a goal. So let's see the signs shall we?

a- Leaks - check
b- players claiming to be injured only to show up for national duties - check
c- having their mates in punditry constantly attacking us - check

We literally have a player who openly called the manager a liar with a tweet. Then Gaz goes on the media asking if its wise to freeze out players like Maguire and Sancho who might be very popular in the dressing room.
I get the frustration, I really do. But what players are experts at backstabbing? The player that scored twice against Bayern has only been here for one manager! More than half of our first 11 is different from Ole's.
 
I am not sure, which players ETH have signed? I am definitely not ETH out, I see some big red flags - late subs and ingame tactics. I hope it gets better when he gets more players to select from. Of course it’s hard for him to stand out when the whole team is bad.
Give him 2-3 transfer windows more to sell the deadwood and clean/trim the team. If he isn’t good enough we can at least use him as scapegoat to sell so many players.
 
Whole club is a catastrophe right now.

He clearly isn't up to dealing with all the issues we have, but then again... Who would be?

It's a shitshow
No manager could've dealt any better with the shitshow ar our club.

10 years of mistakes, failed signings we can't get rid of and personality issues.

The background of a very public club sale that drags on forever causing yet more uncertainty.

I'm very much of the opinion that the big problem at our club is not the current manager.
 
I get the frustration, I really do. But what players are experts at backstabbing? The player that scored twice against Bayern has only been here for one manager! More than half of our first 11 is different from Ole's.

The 1st goal was from his player(Onana) and the pen belongs to Erikson after he lost the ball needlessly in midfield for the corner.
 
Might just be the worst Manchester United I’ve watched in my life. A truly pathetic team. I wouldn’t hesitate even for a millisecond to sell every single one of this lot that’s over 23. Every. Single. One.
Guessing you started following the sport last season?
 
I haven't seen any obvious tactical flaws. I'll give you, that I expect more in game adjustments when he sees things aren't working out but lets not act as if he has the world of options on the bench. Don't get me wrong, of course he takes a share of the blame after a bad game but I don't think, this particular game was one where he missed out. What would you say where the flaws? And don't tell me, he should have set us up deeper and more compact. Granted, if I were him, that would have been my idea but who knows if it would have resulted in anything different and there would have been just as many questioning this.
Bayern was the better side, better individual performances and better organized, it shouldn't be like that but he won't achieve that within 3 days when the Brighton game showed similar issues and more or less the games before as well.

Yes, we should be better but that isn't just down to him. I would have hoped he would have made a more striking effect and some of the things you criticize I take issue with as well but as long as we are talking about last game, we need a bit of perspective. And for this particular game he was the main issue (at least I haven't notice it, individual mistakes and lacking determination were the reasons and I am pretty positive about this not being one of ETHs wishes for the game).

Overall, I can see your points but I think, you are taking some of the things a little too easy. The injury list isn't just down to him. The Sancho story isn't just on him - for all we know, there is talk of problematic behaviour from Sancho dated even back to Dortmund. When the manager isn't consequential you would probably criticize him for it as well. I get it, you are heated, you want somebody to take responsibility for it. But the manager alones shouldn't be your target. He is only part of pretty dysfunctional aparatus and all this talk about replacing him would make more sense, if there would be any reason to trust the decision makers to find somebody who could magically turn everything to stardust.

Check my post history, I am certainly not an apologist, I was at the forefront of Ole critics before it become mainstream and I was doubtful of the (partly) hollow praise for ETH as well. But we have to find a healthy medium.

Is Ten Hag blameless over United’s defensive frailities?

In the 7-0 last season at Anfield, Ten Hag persisted with his strategy of having the winger press one of their centre-backs and pushing our full-back onto theirs in order to leave their winger free.

At the start of the season, Cas was exposed by playing two 10s ahead of him. In the first game, Matheus Cunha was looking like prime R9 and Wolves didn’t take take their chances.

In the second game vs. Spurs, Ten Hag persisted with that system. Cas was isolated once again. Spurs hit the bar from a cut-back, scored from one and then scored a second from an underlapping run into the half-space from the full-back that should have been tracked by one of the pivots.

In the game vs. Forrest, he opts to bring in Eriksen in the double-pivot. We saw Eriksen’s mobility issues last season but the manager still thought it was right to get rid of Fred and keep Eriksen. We conceded twice but the system was largely blameless.

In the game vs. Arsenal, Eriksen starts in the pivot and we concede from a cut-back once again. His lack of mobility isn’t exposed much as we were defending deep anyway and Arsenal didn’t press aggressively.

In the game vs. Brighton, we conceded three from cut-backs. Brighton played through our diamond easily by simply moving their centre-backs a bit wider. They favoured ball progression on the left-side of our diamond given Rashford’s limited defensive work-rate and Eriksen’s lack of mobility. Once again, Cas was exposed.

In the game vs FC Bayern, Ten Hag goes to the Allianz Arena with Eriksen in the pivot once again despite facing one of the most agile attacking midfielders in football at the moment (Jamal Musiala). Another two goals conceded from the edge of the box, a cutback (Gnabry) and a lay-off (Sane). For Sane’s goal, Eriksen is should be blocking the passing lane into the box for Kane’s lay-off back to Sane. We saw Musiala was running through the middle at will and that the scoreline flattered us as Bayern took their foot off the gas.

For me, this is the most defensively frail United have been in the post-SAF era and I fully blame ETH for this. I agree with his vision for an aggressive press. But quite frankly, there are some times during which it is unfeasible, especially occasions where top opposition play through us so easily (hence our tendency to get hammered by big teams). It is also quite bizarre how he wants to press like this with Eriksen in the pivot. Eriksen’s usage is understandable in line with ETH’s vision for building up from the back but in defensive transitions he is a problem that is clear to see.

Signing Mount remains a baffling choice. Of course Mount will be better at pressing than Eriksen and more mobile, but ETH opted to play him as a CAM alongside Bruno which has isolated a 30-something year old Cas in defensive transitions. Eriksen’s lack of mobility also makes the sale of Fred all the more baffling given our pre-existing weakness on defensive transitions.

Another problem is Ten Hag’s tendency to insist on a 3-1-6 build up whereas the top teams in Europe prefer a 3-2-5. In our case, the 1 is easy to mark out of the game which makes us prone to turnovers in the middle.

Perhaps these defensive frailities are an extension of Ten Hag’s inability to control the game, but this is a discussion for another day…
 
Things will improve as players come back from injury but we have to stop getting hammered as soon as a couple of players are out of the team. Conceding 3+ goals and struggling to score every game only ends one way for the manager.
 
I get the frustration, I really do. But what players are experts at backstabbing? The player that scored twice against Bayern has only been here for one manager! More than half of our first 11 is different from Ole's.

Players are human beings who interact one another. Negative habits can and will be learned which is why SAF loved to have strong characters like Keane to keep everyone in line. Our team is a hotch poach of multiple administrations. They know what player's power can do at United having either seen it themselves (Maguire, Lindelof, Martial, AWB, McT, Rashy etc) or have learnt it from team mates. They know what they can do when they get organized against the manager.

What we're seeing is text book backstabbing. Players are not backtracking and they keep committing the same bad decision making again and again (keeping the ball when they should pass etc). Our defending is school boy defending at its best. Yet we know that we've got an experienced and decent team having seen it play last year. It might not be a title contender yet but there's ample quality there. So what's going wrong? Have they forgotten the basics? Then of course there are other things like Sancho defying the manager, players pulling out because of injury only to show up with their national team and the leaks. We've read that script before with Moyes, Mou, LVG and Ole

Being a Man United player means fame, it means having a ridiculously high salary job and it means working in front of the nicest and least demanding crowds in football. Can you imagine Maguire at Real Madrid. Oh god. But I am going off the tangent. Once the manager puts players on transfer list then he had declared them war. All that fame and money will go away unless.....the manager leaves first. Which is why its of paramount importance that once the manager has placed a player on transfer list then the player must leave. Keeping 2-3 of them there and they'll stink the place. Even if you happen to isolate them (and its illegal to do so btw) then they will be the living embodiment of what a ruthless manager can do to those he doesn't fancy. Players will be asking if they are next. We've done that with Sancho, McT, VDB and Maguire.
 
Arteta is also 4 years into his process and Ten Hag has had one season.

If Ten Hag finished this season where Arteta did at the same point he'd be sacked.
That’s not the point. The point is every manager has a list of priority targets and every manager has to deal without getting your first choice targets whether it’s your first season or 4th. You have to have good back ups or be creative yourself or tweak your formation abit to suit the needs of the team. If your whole plan falls flat on its arse just because you couldn’t get some of your targets then it wasn’t a good plan in the first place and shows how limited you are as a manager.
 
That’s not the point. The point is every manager has a list of priority targets and every manager has to deal without getting your first choice targets whether it’s your first season or 4th. You have to have good back ups or be creative yourself or tweak your formation abit to suit the needs of the team. If your whole plan falls flat on its arse just because you couldn’t get some of your targets then it wasn’t a good plan in the first place and shows how limited you are as a manager.
The plan hasn't fallen flat, he's 6 games in. And there is context behind the fact that he has a lot of injuries to contend with and the only outfield summer signing available can't even finish 90 minutes yet.
 
Players are human beings who interact one another. Negative habits can and will be learned which is why SAF loved to have strong characters like Keane to keep everyone in line. Our team is a hotch poach of multiple administrations. They know what player's power can do at United having either seen it themselves (Maguire, Lindelof, Martial, AWB, McT, Rashy etc) or have learnt it from team mates. They know what they can do when they get organized against the manager.

What we're seeing is text book backstabbing. Players are not backtracking and they keep committing the same bad decision making again and again (keeping the ball when they should pass etc). Our defending is school boy defending at its best. Yet we know that we've got an experienced and decent team having seen it play last year. It might not be a title contender yet but there's ample quality there. So what's going wrong? Then of course there are other things like Sancho defying the manager, players pulling out because of injury only to show up with their national team etc. Then there's the leaks of course. We've read that script before with Moyes, Mou, LVG and Ole

Being a Man United player means fame, it means having a ridiculously high salary job and it means working in front of the nicest and least demanding crowds in football. Can you imagine Maguire at Real Madrid. Oh god. But I am going off the tangent. Once the manager puts players on transfer list then he had declared them war. All that fame and money will go away unless.....the manager leaves first. Which is why its of paramount importance that once the manager has placed a player on transfer list then the player must leave. Keeping 2-3 of them there and they'll stink the place. Even if you happen to isolate them (and its illegal to do so btw) then they will be the living embodiment of what a ruthless manager can do to those he doesn't fancy. Players will be asking if they are next. We've done that with Sancho, McT, VDB and Maguire.
We should have got Maguire and McT out the door, but thats not the biggest issue. Other than the Glazers, the team itself looks unfit and under coached. We fell for another stinker when RM offloaded another past it player on us. Casimero is done at the top level.
 
It's not backstabbing. A number of them are incapable of playing the tactical style the manager wants them to. Half of the players are just sitting around waiting to be sold. Our recruitment has been very poor. I Guess you could argue Ten Hag has to adapt to what he has, not what he wishes he had, but then why on earth did we hire him with the express intent to change the club's playing style? Feels like a poorly thought out strategy to me.
 
The plan hasn't fallen flat, he's 6 games in. And there is context behind the fact that he has a lot of injuries to contend with and the only outfield summer signing available can't even finish 90 minutes yet.
I agree with some of that. I was talking more about style of play when I was talking about plan. There’s is no plan. This whole transition shit isn’t working and would never work to a good level as long as he keeps buying poor and keeps playing poor players. That’s on him. That’s his failing.
 
Except that the Glazers didn’t sign a goalkeeper who couldn’t save a shot a 5 year old could have saved.
Neither did De Gea, so it's even out

The Glazers didn’t make the cardinal mistake of criticising a player in public, ending with that player being banned from the first team squad.
ETH didn't criticize Sancho. Journo had asked question He answer he didn't pick Sancho based off training performance, nothing more. Whatever high school drama came after was because of Sancho and Journos stuck their noses further.

The Glazers didn’t insist on paying over £80m for a winger who played 26 league games last season and created a grand total of 2 chances.
It's is pretty much Glazers' fault. It's club's money & they're the owner. They decide how to spend and where to spend it. ETH is not their boss, he can't tell them what to do.
Managers don't set price tag on transfer market, clubs do, in this case Ajax and ManUnited. It's not something managers can control.
If Club was smart with business and sighed Antony for 1m, would you give manager credit or recruitment team should be the one whom take responsibility?

You're scaping bottom of the barrel now. Get a grip
 
We should have got Maguire and McT out the door, but thats not the biggest issue. Other than the Glazers, the team itself looks unfit and under coached. We fell for another stinker when RM offloaded another past it player on us. Casimero is done at the top level.

It's the same issue mate but seen differently. A serious club would get rid of players and it wouldn't engage itself in such gruesome preseason. That was a killer. The same with casemiro signing which was done purely to take the pressure off the Glazers and the football guys on top

We are doomed to this cycle. A manager comes in, he stirs the ship, he asked for a clear sweep so he can bring players that suits his game, the board fail on that and he returns to the pitch with a dressing room that feels betrayed by him.
 
I'm still quite positive...

Went to Spurs away (who now look like a good team) with no striker and lost. We played some good football in parts and then let in 2 goals. I think we should have done way better.

Went to Arsenal with no Shaw, Varane, Mount, Amrabat, Mainoo (who its clear is probably ahead of mct and maybe Eriksen). Held our own and nearly won. Despite the optics, I think we performed well with the team we had.

Brighton we basically had half the defence missing, half the midfield missing, all right wingers missing. Disappointing performance but Brighton are flying and there's only so much you can do with half a team injured.

Bayern, again half the defence injured, half the midfield injured, no right wingers. I think we performed pretty well all things considered away to a champs league contender.

We definitely need to sort out the conceding of goals, especially the cutback ones. But when you are playing your 3rd choice leftback, 2nd choice right back, 3rd choice CB alongside your 3rd or 4th choice midfielder and your 3rd or 4th choice right winger, you can only do so much. Hopefully now with the likes of Mainoo, Amrabat and Mount returning we can start to take steps forward.
 
We are doomed to this cycle. A manager comes in, he stirs the ship, he asked for a clear sweep so he can bring players that suits his game, the board fail on that and he returns to the pitch with a dressing room that feels betrayed by him.
You're probably onto something but I think it has something to do with the fact that club is extremely inefficient with business. If United was good at cycling squad, club would be in fresh state more often than not. But it's not the case
Players think can always outlast manager and only turn up on last year of their contract. Would be a fecking nightmare to motivate them at the start of new season after they just penned a new one.
Casemiro is 30 and club gave him 5 years :wenger: .
 
I would have no problem with a total rebuild like Arsenal and Arteta did. Sign young talented players, give chances to academy players and start building for the future. Even if it means finishing 8th two times in a row. Arteta was almost sacked a couple of times but it seems Arsenal made the right decision to support him. And yes he spend a lot of money, but mostly on younger players. We keep doing the same thing with new managers and expecting different results. Didn’t Einstein (probably not him) say something about that?
 
I agree with some of that. I was talking more about style of play when I was talking about plan. There’s is no plan. This whole transition shit isn’t working and would never work to a good level as long as he keeps buying poor and keeps playing poor players. That’s on him. That’s his failing.
Completely disagree there, it's unreasonable to critique the style objectively when he is rustling with the injuries he has.
 
Ironic how some people want him gone before the players they don't rate. It's not hard to predict what will happen in 18 months, is it? EtH set the team up well for me apart from Casemiro and Eriksen. Aside from that, I'm not sure how people can blame Ten Hag for this loss. For some reason, man united fans tend to dismiss luck completely—a howler from Onana and an undeserved penalty. We have a good run of games coming up. I will reserve my judgment till then, but I feel he's not helping himself by setting a high pedestal from last season and deviating from his philosophy, which worries me.
 
I think he'll be fine, we've had a ridiculously difficult start to the season, all things considered. As angry as I am, it's difficult to ignore the context surrounding the start of the season. We've got some relatively easy fixtures coming up, we need to win pretty much all of them to stand any chance of salvaging this season.

For the grief I've given ten Hag, we have got rid of most of the rubbish I've wanted rid of for years, with only really Maguire, McTominay, Martial and van de Beek left who I'd consider absolutely useless and we were unbelievably close to getting rid of 3 of them. Where my biggest criticism of him lies is in his transfers as we've made some really poor recruitment choices in the last 3 windows, we need to be signing cheap and talented youngsters to supplement the first team, so when players like Casemiro and Varane do fall off a cliff we have a ready-made replacement waiting for them and need to avoid nonsensical "shiny" signings like Mason Mount.
 
One weird stat with Ten Hag is that we hardly ever draw - only 9 out of nearly 70 games.

The average generally is about >20%, Ten Hag’s is about 13%.

His win rate is strong, it’s just whenever we don’t win we tend to lose.
 
So you think the players ETH personally targeted are getting him fired on purpose?

No someone was implying that the players that got Ole fired are doing the same to Erik. I pointing out that even the players he brought it in are having howlers too.
 
Erik is struggling with everything our previous managers had struggled before: Bad signings, unmotivated lazy players, offloading unwanted players, we have been here in this situation before.


Does Murtough look like ETH boss to you? :lol: anyway based on reports available on media it was ETH who refused to work with Rangnick, he even refused to meet face to face with him.

https://www.football365.com/news/ten-hag-refused-to-work-rangnick-man-united-public-criticism

https://www.espn.in/football/story/_/id/37629549/ten-hag-role-rangnick-exit

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...ck-ties-Erik-ten-Hag-DIDNT-want-work-him.html

Granted those were shitty sources but i think we will find the true answer in next few years when Rangnick can legally talk about what happened between him and the club/eth.
Pretty sure ETH just didn't want somebody around in an undefined role. I also think he should at least should have talked to him (or send one of his coaches to do so) but lets not construct more to the story. RR was looking for a position to influence things. Being a consultant, another voice potentially questioning ETH or making his decisions more difficult, I totally get that he didn't want that. The club was the one who should have been

For the first 30ish mins, United were the better team on bayerns own turf. I don't think you can point to a tactical starting XI issue when we actually played well up to Onana howler.

We just barely lost to Bayern with two goals in the dying minutes and you think the players aren't playing for the manager? We have 12 first team players unavailable. That has a huge impact on almost everything to do with preparing for upcoming games.

Those statements are extremely optimistic. I think I see your points as we didn't fall apart but re-constructing recent memory probably won't help in discussions. Acting as if this was a close match... come on mate. Bayern wasn't great yesterday but I am pretty sure, they had at least one or two gears left. They got complacent, thats why the result looks like it does.

I agree with some of that. I was talking more about style of play when I was talking about plan. There’s is no plan. This whole transition shit isn’t working and would never work to a good level as long as he keeps buying poor and keeps playing poor players. That’s on him. That’s his failing.
All we did last season was the "transition shit". So stating it doesn't work is not true. It might not work as of now but there is still the chance. Our players need to hit some form. I am the last one to absolve ETH from the blame but throwing his ideas to the bin so early in the season and with as many injuries we have, wouldnt be the smartest thing to do.

I'm still quite positive...

Went to Spurs away (who now look like a good team) with no striker and lost. We played some good football in parts and then let in 2 goals. I think we should have done way better.

Went to Arsenal with no Shaw, Varane, Mount, Amrabat, Mainoo (who its clear is probably ahead of mct and maybe Eriksen). Held our own and nearly won. Despite the optics, I think we performed well with the team we had.

Brighton we basically had half the defence missing, half the midfield missing, all right wingers missing. Disappointing performance but Brighton are flying and there's only so much you can do with half a team injured.

Bayern, again half the defence injured, half the midfield injured, no right wingers. I think we performed pretty well all things considered away to a champs league contender.

We definitely need to sort out the conceding of goals, especially the cutback ones. But when you are playing your 3rd choice leftback, 2nd choice right back, 3rd choice CB alongside your 3rd or 4th choice midfielder and your 3rd or 4th choice right winger, you can only do so much. Hopefully now with the likes of Mainoo, Amrabat and Mount returning we can start to take steps forward.
Nice that you are positive but some of those things will only invite more heat onto the manager. Come on... "no Mount, no Amrabat, no Mainoo" against Arsenal. Those 3 guys have a grandtotal of how many appearances for United? Is it even 5? And Brighton themselves didn't have their A-Team ready.

Obviously everyone is looking at things differently and I would agree, the injuries should prevent us from being toooo drastic in our criticism but a source of optimism? Thats a stretch.
 
I said last season that the biggest mistake he could make is thinking Bruno and Rashford would be the players to lead us to the next level. It will guarantee he will lose his job, because those two have taken us as far as they can and that was the season under Ole where we finished 2nd and made the EL final and last season.

His misplaced loyalty to these two is what will keep us stagnant.

Saying that I think that’s his second or third biggest mistake.

His biggest mistake by a mile for me is him building a fecking terribly unbalanced squad. From the look of the team and squad I have absolutely no idea what he’s trying to achieve here. He has players that don’t complement each other across the pitch and a severely athletically deficient team.

Quite simply he has no idea of how to build a successful side at this level from what I’ve seen. It’s easy achieving success in Holland but at this higher level he doesn’t seem to respect just how good you need to be. If not he wouldn’t make bullshit average signings or recommend to bring in players like Evans or Weghorst.
 
Might just be the worst Manchester United I’ve watched in my life. A truly pathetic team. I wouldn’t hesitate even for a millisecond to sell every single one of this lot that’s over 23. Every. Single. One.

This has been said at least 10 times since SAF left.
 
A problem he needs to address is how mentally fragile the team are. We concede and everything falls out the window.
 
Is Ten Hag blameless over United’s defensive frailities?
Pretty sure I didn't say this. If it is a question for me, then the answer is No. But he is not the only reason for it.

In the 7-0 last season at Anfield, Ten Hag persisted with his strategy of having the winger press one of their centre-backs and pushing our full-back onto theirs in order to leave their winger free.

At the start of the season, Cas was exposed by playing two 10s ahead of him. In the first game, Matheus Cunha was looking like prime R9 and Wolves didn’t take take their chances.

In the second game vs. Spurs, Ten Hag persisted with that system. Cas was isolated once again. Spurs hit the bar from a cut-back, scored from one and then scored a second from an underlapping run into the half-space from the full-back that should have been tracked by one of the pivots.

In the game vs. Forrest, he opts to bring in Eriksen in the double-pivot. We saw Eriksen’s mobility issues last season but the manager still thought it was right to get rid of Fred and keep Eriksen. We conceded twice but the system was largely blameless.

In the game vs. Arsenal, Eriksen starts in the pivot and we concede from a cut-back once again. His lack of mobility isn’t exposed much as we were defending deep anyway and Arsenal didn’t press aggressively.

In the game vs. Brighton, we conceded three from cut-backs. Brighton played through our diamond easily by simply moving their centre-backs a bit wider. They favoured ball progression on the left-side of our diamond given Rashford’s limited defensive work-rate and Eriksen’s lack of mobility. Once again, Cas was exposed.
The quoted text was about the game last night, other matches don't have anything to do with it. Some of the things you mentioned look dumb in hindsight, but that isn't too difficult. I agree on some of your points but I feel you are making some of the things look easier than they are.

In the game vs FC Bayern, Ten Hag goes to the Allianz Arena with Eriksen in the pivot once again despite facing one of the most agile attacking midfielders in football at the moment (Jamal Musiala). Another two goals conceded from the edge of the box, a cutback (Gnabry) and a lay-off (Sane). For Sane’s goal, Eriksen is should be blocking the passing lane into the box for Kane’s lay-off back to Sane. We saw Musiala was running through the middle at will and that the scoreline flattered us as Bayern took their foot off the gas.
Who would have been the alternative to Eriksen? McTominay? As I said, after 90minutes of football you know more about what could work and what not but before the game was played, the plan was largely solid. Largely. It was broken by a keeper blunder and a soft penalty. Bayern was the better side and I am pretty sure, nothing ETH could have done, would have changed that. I would have set up more defensively. But who am I to know if that would have changed anything?

For me, this is the most defensively frail United have been in the post-SAF era and I fully blame ETH for this. I agree with his vision for an aggressive press. But quite frankly, there are some times during which it is unfeasible, especially occasions where top opposition play through us so easily (hence our tendency to get hammered by big teams). It is also quite bizarre how he wants to press like this with Eriksen in the pivot. Eriksen’s usage is understandable in line with ETH’s vision for building up from the back but in defensive transitions he is a problem that is clear to see.
I see your point and I agree, sometimes it is better to be pragmatic. But I also think that ETH has been pragmatic all of last season. We can't complain about Ole ball and our ancient playstyle that doesn't resemble a modern top club and simultaneously expect a new manager to be able just to activate a switch. What do you guys expect - ETH comes in and all of a sudden, were a possession force? We became a routined pressing force? Became a well organized and drilled team? Those things take time and while I agree that sometimes it makes sense to be pragmatic - the barreer for it is difficult to set. I would hate for ETH to fail with us because of being pragmatic - we got him and were happy to get him because we connect him with a modern playstyle. To implement it, we will have to suffer some pain.

Signing Mount remains a baffling choice. Of course Mount will be better at pressing than Eriksen and more mobile, but ETH opted to play him as a CAM alongside Bruno which has isolated a 30-something year old Cas in defensive transitions. Eriksen’s lack of mobility also makes the sale of Fred all the more baffling given our pre-existing weakness on defensive transitions.
A bit too simplified in my eyes. Isolation of Casemiro isn't just down to the attackers but could also be down to defense who is to slow to push up. I agree though, we still are seemingly out of sync, the attackers potentially a bit too aggressive and fast and the defense sometimes too slow to react. This is what takes time and confidence. I wasn't the greatest fan of the Mount transfer as well but ETH brought him in with a certain idea in mind. Lets see if he can instill this idea. Not like ETH is throwing away our chances on the CL and Premiership, this talk of us borderline challenging was rubbish from the start. We have to evolve as a team and it won't happen without a degree of suffering. There just is no alternative to it. ETH came into a team that has been bereft of collective play. We all know that. I would have wished he would make more strikingly visible improvements but it is what it is. And the only endgame of all this gloom is getting rid of him - and what will that do for us? Nothing at all. Nobody is wanting us to do an Ole where we sit and hope for anything to unfold. But ETH is 6 games in into his 2nd season and there is a bit of an injury crisis going. I won't be the one asking you to be supportive, but at least try to keep the mob mentality low for a little longer.

Another problem is Ten Hag’s tendency to insist on a 3-1-6 build up whereas the top teams in Europe prefer a 3-2-5. In our case, the 1 is easy to mark out of the game which makes us prone to turnovers in the middle.
Ok. You might be right, I don't know. What I know is, that fans on a football forum usually aren't fit to really contribute on that level of detail. Systems are always intertwined with players and their performances.

Perhaps these defensive frailities are an extension of Ten Hag’s inability to control the game, but this is a discussion for another day…
It isn't just ETHs inability to control a game. He isn't on the pitch. Controlling a match against 1st league opposition isn't just something you can switch on. It takes some time implement it. And we haven't done anything in this matter since LVG. So no work has been done there for almost 10 years. Again, lets be reasonable here or at least not downright cruel.
 
His biggest mistake by a mile for me is him building a fecking terribly unbalanced squad. From the look of the team and squad I have absolutely no idea what he’s trying to achieve here. He has players that don’t complement each other across the pitch and a severely athletically deficient team.

Quite simply he has no idea of how to build a successful side at this level from what I’ve seen.

You have no idea what he is trying to achieve because we haven't been able to see it to be fair. We haven't played a game yet this season with all signings available and on the pitch. At least give it a few games where we can see how Mount, Amrabat and Hojland work out on the pitch together - then we can say if its still unbalanced and if he has any idea what he is doing.
 
For the first 30ish mins, United were the better team on bayerns own turf. I don't think you can point to a tactical starting XI issue when we actually played well up to Onana howler.

Now, a fair question would be the soft underbelly to United, whereby we let our heads drop immediately after losing, before trying to play more attacking again. This is a question for Ten Hag for sure, however, I see his hamstrung squad as being a handicap. Eriksen was a key fault for goal 2 and the turnover in goal 3. He is a player which more than likely doesn't start if Mount, Amrabat or even Mainoo were fit.

As for the "Bayern had lots of opportunities" point, as true as that is, it was at a stage where they extended their lead to 3-1. At 2-1 I don't think it's played quite the same way, which is why I think the soft penalty was pivotal. Same goes for Onanas howler, as we had a couple big chances ourselves.

As for your "we need improvements to push on" point, give it more than 6 games. Hes operating without a LOT of key players and there is absolutely feck all context granted toward that by his critics which shows the narrative they are trying to mindlessly peddle.

Put it this way, if he doesn't win all the cup games and get at least 9/12 points going into the City fixture, you can come back with concerns again and il probably agree with you.

Tactical responsibility doesn't just end when the first whistle is blown though - De Zerbi showed that at the weekend and that's why they ultimately won the game comfortably. If De Zerbi was as slow to react then the result might have been different for Brighton. So why is he and other managers capable of adjustment but we seemingly aren't? You talk about the 'soft underbelly of United', but this is a team that broke records under Ole only a year or two ago for the amount of comebacks. So why has this changed under ETH?

The rest is just general nuance of a game of football. They weren't good last night, but they built confidence as the game went on and the scoreline increased - that is just what happens in football. It's not an excuse for anything. Our job over the 90 minutes is the disrupt that from happening, ETH simply has to find ways of making it more difficult for them. When they have an easy outball to the same full back over and over, a good tactician would stop that. It was the same vs Brighton but they were much better than Bayern. I'm just seeing absolutely nothing from ETH that makes me think he is anything special tactically. His problem solving abilities are a zero based on what I've seen.

Agreed re the next run of games. We should be win all 4 if we're honest but I can see you are trying to give him a bit more rope. This is the problem though, standards are in the gutter already this season. If we can't beat all of Burnley, Palace, Brentford and Sheffield United then there is something wrong. He would be skating close to not seeing the City game if he lost one or two in the CL/League Cup in between those games.

So you've made up a story with "if" and then got angry about it. Cool.

No you're right it's totally his fault that two of his right wingers are under sexual abuse allegations and the other has a chronic discipline issue :lol: do carry on with that 'laughable' logic.

That 'if' is based on what the other poster was saying, not me. They're claiming he was let down because he was banking on Greenwood being available, I said he would be a fool to have believed that.
 
You have no idea what he is trying to achieve because we haven't been able to see it to be fair. We haven't played a game yet this season with all signings available and on the pitch. At least give it a few games where we can see how Mount, Amrabat and Hojland work out on the pitch together - then we can say if its still unbalanced and if he has any idea what he is doing.

He's had his first choice midfield on the pitch and it was chronic. Playing Hojlund doesn't suddenly change that.
 
People defending ETH at all costs seem at first to have a method to their madness. But on second thought, I suppose they don't know what they are talking.
 
He's had his first choice midfield on the pitch and it was chronic. Playing Hojlund doesn't suddenly change that.
Who are you talking about?

And did you even read what I said? I never suggested just playing Hojlund is the answer.
 
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