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…
