The most mental poster on here. Has to be a WUM account. If not, then wow.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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The most mental poster on here. Has to be a WUM account. If not, then wow.
Besides poor talent evaluation(recruitment), another one of his flaws is definitely making subs. They're very often late, for some reason. He refuses to substitute some players who clearly need to be substituted relatively quickly within the game.
Garnacho never plays on the right. We tried Pellistri and it unfortunately was hardly an improvement. By comparison, Hannibel done much better tonight than Pelliatri did.
How nice would it be to have a full squad to choose from, get some stability and go on a run playing some good football getting results. Please let it happen
It is impossible with new players in a new season. 13 players are a lot. Even Klopp struggled last season in the first half.
Eth has to do well and we play horrific football but context matters is my point.
It sounds like we were forced to play half the U21 tonight.
It was still a decent team. Still better than what Burnley has.
We really shouldn`t need more to be able to press as a unit, or be able to build up attacks from the back without resorting to long balls, against fecking Burnley.
It was still a decent team. Still better than what Burnley has.
We really shouldn`t need more to be able to press as a unit, or be able to build up attacks from the back without resorting to long balls, against fecking Burnley.
Hannibal didn't play on the right and this wasn't Bayern munich. I know it felt like that at times tonight, but it was bottom of the league Burnley.
Don't think he likes Garnacho on that side, and Pellistri would be third choice if Antony & Sancho were playing, so is not automatically going to play if they're out.
Anyway my point is that we have £220 million worth of attacking players out, played with no first choice defenders, and won, yet some people are still seeing an opportunity to bang on about ETH not been good enough, it's odd.
It's odd that he liked Pellistri against Bayern and the fastest full back around, but not Burnley. My only point was that we do have a RW available.
Who is this £220m worth of attacking players? I can only think of Antony that would have started tonight. Defensively yes we were hamstrung, but Reguilon and Dalot have been fine, minimal drop of from AWB and Shaw in terms of individual performances. He had last seasons first choice midfield 3 available, and only one first choice attacker missing.
I'm more talking about in possession, we haven't looked like a team willing to give and receive the ball in tight situations or try and play or way out of trouble, all too often we lump it forward and hope that someone can get on the end of it but we're not even particularly good at competing for the ball in those instances so it often leads to a turn over anyway.
If anything it's at odds with the way we press, because we're often having to cover too much ground to instigate the press because we've turned the ball over with a long/medium ball which means a lot of the team are too far away from the play to effectively squash the space so we see players sprinting from 20-30yards away which is easy to spot and avoid or not everyone is position to make it effective so they play the easy out ball and find themselves in behind those players that actually tried to do their job. It's a lot of effort to potentially win the ball only to immediately give it away again because we don't keep the ball well enough when we do get it.
City have played 23 players because they rotate a lot anyway. When they do rotate, the drop off in quality is not that great and the players are similar in style. For example, if Kovacic is injured they can play Nunes. Nunes and Kovacic are both very similar players (great dribblers/ press resistance, both dilligent defensively) so they don't have to change their tactics at all if they need to rotate. No matter who plays they maintain the same characteristics across the team (some players to drive with the ball, some players to keep it, some players to arrive in the box for cutbacks etc etc).
It's very different for us. We already have a bit of a disjointed squad, but what makes it worse is that there so many mismatches in profile. Look at midfield. Mount is injured - so we play Eriksen who has no legs and is terrible defensively. If we don't play Eriksen then we play McTominay for his physicality but he can't pass nor has he any real awareness. So then you say, ok let's play Mainoo/Amrabat - both injured.
Not only are our first choices injured, but their backups' backups are injured! So the only players left, we have to accommodate the whole play style for them. And that's why we see so much inconsistency in our play style this season.
Mount and Sancho, myabe Sancho wouldn't have started, but under normal circumstance should have been a quality option off the bench.
Fair point about Pellistri, but he hasn't been starting regularly for a reason, and as far I was remember we were ready to loan him to Sheffield United, and likely only stopped it because we knew the Antony issues were about to come out, not because ETH really rates him.
Absolutely this. Our OOP press is exceptionally risky. People also need to watch the rotations in our build up. Our CBs regularly vacate their position and become fullbacks which as Evans said in his post-match interview was an absolute no-no until he played for ETH. Today we were pragmatic with a deeper line and Casemiro/Mctominay staying in position - but we most certainly haven’t been up until this point.
I wholeheartedly agree with this.. i remeber Ole did the same
Gotta agree with this point, we won the game but for me number one positive is Fernandes scored. If we could get him firing like he used to, I’d be very happy. Rashford shoulda played to casemiro and the selfish thing to me has gotta go.. we need him sliding those balls in to team mates
To be fair Ten Hag has a fantastic record of seeing out games after we score
I wonder in some alternative universe how things would have gone for him if De Jong had signed? As i said, i don't really care about the performance too much-just win and get the injured players back again is all that matters for now- but i wish we had more control of games from a possession standpoint. You can actually have a lightning fast counter attack and be comfortable/competent with the ball (Liverpool or Real Madrid at times over the years). I think we're putting a lot of faith in Amrabat to solve the problem and hopefully he will help us a lot.
I love how Amadeus is such a Poch nutter people now think he supports Chelsea 
What do players being out injured have to do with our style of play? Brighton made many changes against us and still played the same way they do all the time and dominated us.
Agree to disagree.
Can anyone explain why Lindelof was playing LB and Dalot RB until Evans went off? Surely they should have been playing the other way around?
So are we moving to a two forwards setup more permanently or is it purely due to injury/legal circumstances ?
We sacrifice width but a much denser midfield probably plays better to the personnel we have there. Casemiro can get support and probably than an active player like Mount would be relieved of too burdensome defensive duties while Bruno playing free would be less of an issue with 3 behind him.
That's turning all our wingers into wide second strikers but considering we're down 3 on the right wing anyway...
We sacrifice width but a much denser midfield probably plays better to the personnel we have there. Casemiro can get support and probably than an active player like Mount would be relieved of too burdensome defensive duties while Bruno playing free would be less of an issue with 3 behind him.
That's turning all our wingers into wide second strikers but considering we're down 3 on the right wing anyway...
We didn’t change formation. It was still 4-2-3-1.
Better to have one player out of position than two surely?
Lindelof plays RB and Dalot LB though. I’ve never seen Lindelof at LB before.
Dalot has been really bad at LB. Might as well just have one weak full back instead of two.
Played really well there against Arsenal about
3 weeks ago.
Anyway, you are both probably right. It was probably to keep Dalot in his strongest position. Cheers.
I'm taking your word for it but surely having one of the wingers being played more by a midfieldery player (even if Bruno) do change the balance. Felt like it to me in first half at least.
They are fecking jokers the lot of them. As far as I'm concerned their opinion means feck all because of their previous stance. It would be great if there was a way of removing their comments from this thread to give a more balanced view.
His substitute decisions are a bit worrying. Rashford and Bruno just cannot be subbed under any circumstances it seems.
Even in possession we aren't risk averse, it's generally a very direct approach particularly when winning the ball high. Part of the reason we give the ball away so much is because we're taking risks and at the moment making the wrong decision far too often. But we hold onto the ball at the back under pressure a decent amount this season, with some long diagonals aiming at the forwards which admittedly don't have the success rate we'd like yet. Not at all lumping it away or safe zombie passing.
It was a lot less risky today, although that's because the team showed a lot more energy, and with Eriksen out we were able to cover a lot more space if the first phase of the press was broken. Once we have Mount back, who was brought in more for his off the ball abilities, we'll hopefully see the press look more secure with him leading and directing it.
Even without him we've pressed well and won the ball high a lot, we just really need to start doing something with it when we do!
Whilst I’d agree with this to some extent, I think we need to hit the pause button on too much criticism at the moment. In this match, he had to substitute on Amrabat to play LB because his third choice LB and fifth choice CB had to go off.
We just need to get through this injury crisis with as many points as possible before going back to some semblance of normal judgement of ETH. If Pep or Klopp had this type of injury crisis they would probably be demanding the league was paused until they’d recovered.
Surely that fair enough? They're our two best players.
Hang on.
You’re trying to suggest missing Shaw, Martinez, Varane, Wan Bissaka, Malacia, Mount, Amrabat, Antony, Sancho isn’t an issue?
Interesting.
Rashford right now is woeful, Garnacho was available on the bench, and I'm asolutely terrified of Bruno picking up an injury. If Mejbri started the game surely he can tinker even a bit against Burnley from the bench.
People might do well to listen to some of the press conferences over the last two weeks before they criticise him for not playing their ideal XI. The whole fecking media is trying to take him down and he's absolutely the only thing that stands between another entitled player power malaise engulfing the club again and moving forward as a club.
People really turn weird in here when it comes to managers.
Not subbing Bruno or Rashford is down to the fact they're our two top scorers from last season in a team that's generally quite poor at scoring goals (for a top side).
I liked that he emphasized points about Reguilon playing through illness and defending with 11 players in his post match interviews. Spoke highly of Hannibal and Hojlund's pressing even if they didn't have the best of games outside of that.
I liked that he emphasized points about Reguilon playing through illness and defending with 11 players in his post match interviews. Spoke highly of Hannibal and Hojlund's pressing even if they didn't have the best of games outside of that.
Overall we weren't very good, but my guess is he's just trying to grind out results until he can go back to his plan A with Mount and Bruno as #10s and Lisandro and Varane back, and we did keep a clean sheet with a Lindelof-Evans pairing away from home which you probably wouldn't bet on. A bit lucky Foster was suspended, he's looked lively enough to have given them some trouble.
Let's see how a game goes IF we actually take advantage of our strong starts.
We are always very sharp and dangerous in the first 25-30 minutes.
Right now Rashford refusing to pass is costing us goals.
We are always very sharp and dangerous in the first 25-30 minutes.
Right now Rashford refusing to pass is costing us goals.
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