Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Licha-Vidic]

Any change of midfield is welcome. Abit too late but still something to build on.

Hannibal brought in the much needed running.
Amrabat should bring the much needed steel and game control.

Only by changing his midfield, he will survive. Anything else he will be sacked.
I said 5 months ago. If he changes the midfield he will outlast almost everyone in the team, but if he persist on this non existence midfield even Eriksen will outlast him.

ETH needs to find a working midfield.

 

[DJ_21]

You say this but is it fair, did you watch the full 90mins? First half, terrible, not at the races and bar a superb goal and a chance right at the start we were woeful.
Second half, complete comfort really - adapted to them, let them have the ball and got a lot of chances/half chances on the break. Hojlund x 2, Rashford x 2 off the top of my head.

This is so far from our first XI you have to assess the games completely differently, it was an awful back 4 and yet it’s a clean sheet, average midfield and lots of shoe horning players.

Stylistically we have leaps and bounds to come on but in hindsight we’re we really expecting that starting XI to play aesthetically well?

People keep saying this but is anyone taking into account it was a newly promoted team? If we played an halve decent team say like Villa or something we’d of got punished and probably lost. Can’t be bragging about getting clean sheets against the likes of Burnley. How much have we spent and how much do they spend?

 

[RuudTom83]

ETH needs to find a working midfield.

Have a few more fit players would help.

 

[Licha-Vidic]

Have a few more fit players would help.

But to ETH having players is not the main issue but he needs to understand the dynamics of Premier League. It's 90% a midfield battle.

Let's see if everyone is back if he will persist with unstructured midfield.
As much as we have injuries, we don't have a personnel issue in midfield but a structured plan play. He doesn't know how to create a dominating midfield.

Apparently, Casemiro and Bruno are fit. Have played all games. Supposedly, our 2 main midfielders.
How comes missing only more 1 midfielders make the midfield so disjointed?

Missing players is a problem but structure of the midfield is the main main problem.

City will not have Rodri and KDB in the next 3 games, I can guarantee you City will NOT be overrun in those games, why? because Pep knows how to create a functioning midfield.

 

[el3mel]

So this team has the highest amount of turnovers and XG this season in the entire league and that’s what? Condensed into 20 minutes per game?
Must be a hell of a 20 minutes.

Congratulations on winning the turnovers trophy.

 

[el3mel]

That poster just seems to wallow in misery and negativity. Definitely one best placed on the ignore list.

Sorry to hurt your precious feelings about us being shit. There're many delusional posters here you can read their posts isntead.

 

[RuudTom83]

@Licha-Vidic

True...but let's not use City as the comparison.

City are a team which is 100% complete, 6-7 years in the making, against a United side with 10 years of disarray.

Compare United to Newcastle, Chelsea or Liverpool for a much fairer comparison.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Out of our 6 first choice attackers and midfielders Antony and Mount are the least effective and they were signed by ETH for big money.

How can you possibly judge Mount yet? Give the guy a chance.

Ten Hag clearly likes Antony, and he is surely allowed this season to show if he can improve or not, if he can't then this is on Ten Hag, but he has to be given the opportunity to prove it.

Until we reach a point where there is calm at the club, and Ten Hag can pick the team he wants to for an extended period of time, then I don't know how anyone can really say with any confidence if he is good enough or not. Even then it'll be work in progress as he will likely need at least another transfer window to get the squad to where he wants it.

 

[klsv]

Sorry to hurt your precious feelings about us being shit. There're many delusional posters here you can read their posts isntead.

You just seem a bit unhinged and hysterical at this point.

 

[Jericholyte2]

Some of these BS arguments against ETH are just pathetic!

- ‘Man City has used just as many players’ - yes they have, but they’ve had however many years of Pep Guardiola building a squad in his own image, with near limitless funds. Their squad is of a depth where the talent drop-off is minimal in the first 23-25 players. Even still, if you took 11 players out of his squad they wouldn’t be the well-oiled machine that they are. We have a squad of 23-25 which take into account the like of proven failures such as McT, Martial, Maguire etc and unproven potential such as Amad, Pellestri and Mainoo. Now yes this is Manchester United’s fault for poor recruitment, but it’s not ETH’s.

- ‘We should see a definite tactical plan by now’ - I refer to the above. When we’ve had our best XI available over this last year we’ve (1) had to deal with a GK who was the antithesis of what our manager needed (2) a midfield that was/is weak both physically and tactically and (3) had no striker. When your tactics demand pressing from the front and all XI Is o be comfortable on the ball, these are not-insignificant issues

- ‘We should be better going forward’ - let’s have another look at the shit ETH has had to deal with; Greenwood’s suspension, Ronaldo’s hissy fit, Martial being perma-crock, Sancho failing with both the carrot and the stick and Antony’s absence. Once again, no consistency, no foundation on which to build.

- ‘His substitutes are shit’ - again, look at the two points above. Huge drop off in talent between his preferred XI and the ‘squad options’ combined with injuries means we have, for example, played 3 GKs on a bench in recent history! We simply don’t have the quality to rely on more defensive subs to see games out. From memory we also, last season, had the most goals scored by substitutes, so the argument is quite moot.

If we had the squad depth of our rivals or (from last season) a comparable fixture list, and we were playing consistently dodgy football then I’d understand issues and complaints, but ETH has been having his knees chopped out from under him at almost every single step of the way during his time with us.

People need to realise this and give the guy a break.

 

[Litch]

Anyone think it takes seasons to turn a team around and play good football, just watch Spurs......

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

Anyone think it takes seasons to turn a team around and play good football, just watch Spurs......

Or us last season

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Anyone think it takes seasons to turn a team around and play good football, just watch Spurs......

If Spurs continue to play well, and also end up winning a trophy and finishing third in Postecoglou's first season then I'll be impressed, but I also fully expect it not to happen.

 

[AltiUn]

Anyone think it takes seasons to turn a team around and play good football, just watch Spurs......

Let's take 6 players out of that Spurs team and see how well they do. They're still riding their new manager high coupled with a very, very easy start to the season.

 

[breezy12]

Let's take 6 players out of that Spurs team and see how well they do. They're still riding their new manager high coupled with a very, very easy start to the season.

Hate how people keep using the injury excuse, yea it sucks but if you remember most of last season too after that run in the middle. The football was atrocious then too

 

[AltiUn]

Hate how people keep using the injury excuse, yea it sucks but if you remember most of last season too after that run in the middle. The football was atrocious then too

We're missing our entire defence, I don't care what anyone says, any team in world football would struggle with that.

 

[Atheist]

It should not be acceptable for a Man Utd side to be playing on a counter against a promoted side, even excusing for injuries. Personnel make a difference but it seems like we’ve regressed in terms of general style of play. We signed Onana for his distribution but most of the time he ends up needing to hit long anyway because of very few options.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Some of these BS arguments against ETH are just pathetic!

- ‘Man City has used just as many players’ - yes they have, but they’ve had however many years of Pep Guardiola building a squad in his own image, with near limitless funds. Their squad is of a depth where the talent drop-off is minimal in the first 23-25 players. Even still, if you took 11 players out of his squad they wouldn’t be the well-oiled machine that they are. We have a squad of 23-25 which take into account the like of proven failures such as McT, Martial, Maguire etc and unproven potential such as Amad, Pellestri and Mainoo. Now yes this is Manchester United’s fault for poor recruitment, but it’s not ETH’s.

- ‘We should see a definite tactical plan by now’ - I refer to the above. When we’ve had our best XI available over this last year we’ve (1) had to deal with a GK who was the antithesis of what our manager needed (2) a midfield that was/is weak both physically and tactically and (3) had no striker. When your tactics demand pressing from the front and all XI Is o be comfortable on the ball, these are not-insignificant issues

- ‘We should be better going forward’ - let’s have another look at the shit ETH has had to deal with; Greenwood’s suspension, Ronaldo’s hissy fit, Martial being perma-crock, Sancho failing with both the carrot and the stick and Antony’s absence. Once again, no consistency, no foundation on which to build.

- ‘His substitutes are shit’ - again, look at the two points above. Huge drop off in talent between his preferred XI and the ‘squad options’ combined with injuries means we have, for example, played 3 GKs on a bench in recent history! We simply don’t have the quality to rely on more defensive subs to see games out. From memory we also, last season, had the most goals scored by substitutes, so the argument is quite moot.

If we had the squad depth of our rivals or (from last season) a comparable fixture list, and we were playing consistently dodgy football then I’d understand issues and complaints, but ETH has been having his knees chopped out from under him at almost every single step of the way during his time with us.

People need to realise this and give the guy a break.

He's had £400m to spend but you're saying we don't have the squad depth of our rivals?
Also he never had Greenwood available to begin with so I don't know what he's got to do with anything.
It all sounds like lame excuses quite frankly. We had most of our first team available for much of last season and the football during the final 3rd of the season was dreadful. It was so bad people were scared Liverpool would catch us despite them being miles behind. This season is a continuation of the same poor football and the same issues we were seeing last season, except now the injuries are a convenient excuse to try and pretend everything will be fine in a few weeks. Not to mention we had already played a few games before the injury crisis hit, and we lost two of them and got outplayed by Wolves in the other

 

[breezy12]

We're missing our entire defence, I don't care what anyone says, any team in world football would struggle with that.

Yea I don't disagree. I'm just saying that even with our full strength defence the first two games of the season were abysmal too. No idea what the style of play is meant to be. It's painful to watch

 

[NLunited]

I can‘t believe what I am reading here, but then I remembered many people on here apparently relish being miserable.

Considering the line up we came out with, we should not be too critical. You can‘t expect to play them off the park, at best a good performance . We weren‘t terrible.

We did not sit back, or look like an Ole team. One person said we didn‘t press, but actually we pressed almost the whole game.

Not having the ball more than the opponent doesn‘t mean you aren‘t on top. We should have played out our attacks better when we got the ball through pressing. Rashford was poor, he is indecisive, I‘d bench him for Garnacho.

Rashford also gives the ball away too much, which often leads to chances for the other team. It would help if he tracked back.

The plan is pressing, forcing transitions and creating chances from that. This has mostly worked up to now, except for not recovering the ball often enough in the next defensive phase.

That was better yesterday, but needs to improve more. It helps to have Hannibal in midfield who has the speed to close down players quickly after the press has been bypassed or the ball lost.

We have more composure with Eriksen on the ball, but less ability to recover the ball. With Hannibal we are less composed, but more resilient in midfield.

We looked better in midfield yesterday: ball recovery was better.

Consider we have more than 10 injured players before you lose your cookies.

And get over yourselves: we are not setting up to dominate possession, but press and attack quickly in transition. It is a better plan, with the squad we have.

Trust in Hag.

 

[Litch]

Or us last season

Not just winning but the style of football. Not a person on here could tell me what style of football we are playing this or last season.

 

[city-puma]

I can‘t believe what I am reading here, but then I remembered many people on here apparently relish being miserable.

Considering the line up we came out with, we should not be too critical. You can‘t expect to play them off the park, at best a good performance . We weren‘t terrible.

We did not sit back, or look like an Ole team. One person said we didn‘t press, but actually we pressed almost the whole game.

Not having the ball more than the opponent doesn‘t mean you aren‘t on top. We should have played out our attacks better when we got the ball through pressing. Rashford was poor, he is indecisive, I‘d bench him for Garnacho.

Rashford also gives the ball away too much, which often leads to chances for the other team. It would help if he tracked back.

The plan is pressing, forcing transitions and creating chances from that. This has mostly worked up to now, except for not recovering the ball often enough in the next defensive phase.

That was better yesterday, but needs to improve more. It helps to have Hannibal in midfield who has the speed to close down players quickly after the press has been bypassed or the ball lost.

We have more composure with Eriksen on the ball, but less ability to recover the ball. With Hannibal we are less composed, but more resilient in midfield.

We looked better in midfield yesterday: ball recovery was better.

Consider we have more than 10 injured players before you lose your cookies.

And get over yourselves: we are not setting up to dominate possession, but press and attack quickly in transition. It is a better plan, with the squad we have.

Trust in Hag.

We did NOT press in majority of the game. The front four, Rashford, Hoglund, Bruno, and Hannibal, all kept in the shape in the mid third to compress the space and nullify their play. It’s Moyes’ preferred approach.
Of course, it was played like that due to our current situation.

 

[Litch]

If Spurs continue to play well, and also end up winning a trophy and finishing third in Postecoglou's first season then I'll be impressed, but I also fully expect it not to happen.

Agree but other utd managers did the same or better and ended up sacked.
EtH has an horrendous injury list but for me, the style of play isnt dictated by players availability, only better success in implementing it.....

 

[stw2022]

Watching Spurs who are so quick with the ball around the area. Key passes are made quick. We're nothing like that.

 

[Based Adnan]

Let's take 6 players out of that Spurs team and see how well they do. They're still riding their new manager high coupled with a very, very easy start to the season.

Have we had 6 players missing during ETH's entire tenure? At no point have we looked a competent side in possession under him whilst Ange already has them looking like one

 

[Litch]

Let's take 6 players out of that Spurs team and see how well they do. They're still riding their new manager high coupled with a very, very easy start to the season.

Like said, not talking about success, style of play and players bought to play it. Different argument but please make it make sense why we bought Mount?
Just watching them against Arsenal and that doesnt look like new manager bounce to me.

Easy start, you know they played us but pretty sure you didnt include us in that....

 

[city-puma]

Agree but other utd managers did the same or better and ended up sacked.
EtH has an horrendous injury list but for me, the style of play isnt dictated by players availability, only better success in implementing it.....

True. Thats probably the main reason people start doubting since the season started. After the two Barca games, our playing style was not further enhanced nor developed, but regressed. Now, it’s completely gone. Ok, we are in a really bad situation now. ETH has to prioritize the results first; otherwise, he can’t even survive. Then again, why are we in this situation first and foremost?
I hope he can navigate the situation over next two months and eventually shows the vision he wants to implement.

 

[Castia]

Watching Spurs who are so quick with the ball around the area. Key passes are made quick. We're nothing like that.

Yep and it’s not just spurs the majority of sides in the PL play better football than us. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say we play some of the worst football in the league. Even when we get the 3 points it’s usually a grind for 90 minutes.

I mean Angh has come in from Celtic with little to no hype, lost Kane yet look miles better than last season.

 

[Jericholyte2]

He's had £400m to spend but you're saying we don't have the squad depth of our rivals?
Also he never had Greenwood available to begin with so I don't know what he's got to do with anything.
It all sounds like lame excuses quite frankly. We had most of our first team available for much of last season and the football during the final 3rd of the season was dreadful. It was so bad people were scared Liverpool would catch us despite them being miles behind. This season is a continuation of the same poor football and the same issues we were seeing last season, except now the injuries are a convenient excuse to try and pretend everything will be fine in a few weeks. Not to mention we had already played a few games before the injury crisis hit, and we lost two of them and got outplayed by Wolves in the other

1. Yes, he’s spent £400m but doesn’t have the squad. I acknowledged that’s a United issue, but it’s not ETH’s. As an example he had to spend £80m on Antony because we didn’t have Greenwood available. The fees paid aren’t in ETH’s control and we always have to pay inflated fees.

2. We didn’t have all of our squad available last season. We lost Casemiro through a mixture of suspensions and injury, we lost both Varane and Martinez at points, during which we had a brutal fixture pile-up. We also didn’t have any striker available (I’m not counting WW) and so it was miraculous he had us playing as we as we were up to the CC Final.

You can label these as lame excuses, but it’s a reality that ETH is facing. No manager at a similar level clubs has faced the issues he he had to. We have been missing our ENTIRE first choice back four and people expect that to have no impact on us or how we play, it’s delusional!

 

[dpansheth]

To me we can appoint Klopp , we might get 5-10 points a season more but rotten culture from the top will mean we will stay away from championships.

 

[Skills]

We're going to get obliterated at Anfield again aren't we?

 

[Shark]

We're going to get obliterated at Anfield again aren't we?

At least we'll have this Amrabat guy integrated by that time, hopefully along with Casemiro we won't get absolutely torn open in the middle of the park. All wishful thinking though.

 

[Litch]

True. Thats probably the main reason people start doubting since the season started. After the two Barca games, our playing style was not further enhanced nor developed, but regressed. Now, it’s completely gone. Ok, we are in a really bad situation now. ETH has to prioritize the results first; otherwise, he can’t even survive. Then again, why are we in this situation first and foremost?
I hope he can navigate the situation over next two months and eventually shows the vision he wants to implement.

Spot on and I hope he can too. The big problem is he appears to have lost his way and decisions are now making less sense. Availability or lack of it is understandable but when self preservation will only buy you time, some ugly wins but he'll be gone inevitably....

 

[Litch]

1. Yes, he’s spent £400m but doesn’t have the squad. I acknowledged that’s a United issue, but it’s not ETH’s. As an example he had to spend £80m on Antony because we didn’t have Greenwood available. The fees paid aren’t in ETH’s control and we always have to pay inflated fees.

2. We didn’t have all of our squad available last season. We lost Casemiro through a mixture of suspensions and injury, we lost both Varane and Martinez at points, during which we had a brutal fixture pile-up. We also didn’t have any striker available (I’m not counting WW) and so it was miraculous he had us playing as we as we were up to the CC Final.

You can label these as lame excuses, but it’s a reality that ETH is facing. No manager at a similar level clubs has faced the issues he he had to. We have been missing our ENTIRE first choice back four and people expect that to have no impact on us or how we play, it’s delusional!

Whats our style of football?

 

[Yanited__]

I can‘t believe what I am reading here, but then I remembered many people on here apparently relish being miserable.

Considering the line up we came out with, we should not be too critical. You can‘t expect to play them off the park, at best a good performance . We weren‘t terrible.

We did not sit back, or look like an Ole team. One person said we didn‘t press, but actually we pressed almost the whole game.

Not having the ball more than the opponent doesn‘t mean you aren‘t on top. We should have played out our attacks better when we got the ball through pressing. Rashford was poor, he is indecisive, I‘d bench him for Garnacho.

Rashford also gives the ball away too much, which often leads to chances for the other team. It would help if he tracked back.

The plan is pressing, forcing transitions and creating chances from that. This has mostly worked up to now, except for not recovering the ball often enough in the next defensive phase.

That was better yesterday, but needs to improve more. It helps to have Hannibal in midfield who has the speed to close down players quickly after the press has been bypassed or the ball lost.

We have more composure with Eriksen on the ball, but less ability to recover the ball. With Hannibal we are less composed, but more resilient in midfield.

We looked better in midfield yesterday: ball recovery was better.

Consider we have more than 10 injured players before you lose your cookies.

And get over yourselves: we are not setting up to dominate possession, but press and attack quickly in transition. It is a better plan, with the squad we have.

Trust in Hag.

Thankfully someone else sees it. Couldn't agree more.

People on here/in this fanbase just expect an upwards trajectory 24/7. It's impossible when you factor in everything going on at the club off the pitch and the injury crisis to key players. Even if we were the best run club with the best staff and players at our disposal, there are still going to be setbacks.

As you pointed out, given what we have at our disposal, I don't think ETH thinks we can dominate games. He has already said you have to adapt your style of play to the players you have available and the club situation.

The performances have not been spectacular of course but I will not fully judge them/ETH until we have more players back. Even then, it's going to take time for players to get used to the way he wants us to play and for players to get used to each other.

I have always maintained that this season is going to be a see-saw one. Good/bad moments to come. It's probably been more on the bad side so far but things will hopefully balance out. Hopefully we'll kick on.

The general consensus amongst the fans a few months back was this manager was the right one to take us forward. He's done more than enough for me based off his first season to warrant at least the rest of this season. Get behind him!

 

[RuudTom83]

I think fans get hung up on this "style" or "identity" debate, to me it's just a topic used by sports channels to criticise whatever club is currently having some bad form.




Watch this for an advert of United play...it's direct, its fast, its attacking play.

Basically it's premiership football.

 

[Andrew Richmond]

Just watched the Nth London derby.

The new Spurs manager loses his best player, minimum spend, biggest recruit James Maddison and they are playing great football. Spurs under Big Ange very impressive.

ETH $400 million pounds spent and we have been rubbish. It’s going to be a long season, on the evidence thus far.

 

[erikcred]

I think fans get hung up on this "style" or "identity" debate, to me it's just a topic used by sports channels to criticise whatever club is currently having some bad form.


Watch this for an advert of United play...it's direct, its fast, its attacking play.

Basically it's premiership football.

Not sure a YouTube compilation means anything. If you base your judgement on these highlights clips, then you'll be blown away by the superstar sitting on our bench that is Harry Maguire.

 

[RuudTom83]

Not sure a YouTube compilation means anything. If you base your judgement on these highlights clips, then you'll be blown away by the superstar sitting on our bench that is Harry Maguire.

Good one!

I mean it shows goals that United players have scored...it's not the full picture of course, but it's nice to have a refresh now and then...it's not all doom and gloom you know.

 

[matherto]

Have we had 6 players missing during ETH's entire tenure? At no point have we looked a competent side in possession under him whilst Ange already has them looking like one

Yeah all the talk of the new manager high and we've still not had it.