United has been shite for a decade. No one that’s still here can be classed as a fair weather fan. That’s a comical notion.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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United has been shite for a decade. No one that’s still here can be classed as a fair weather fan. That’s a comical notion.
Said it many times but that period between beating Spurs 2-0 at OT until the cup final was probably the best time i've had since SAF retired in terms of genuine optimism and feeling like we were moving forward. The cup final does seem a genuine reference point to where that run ended in terms of performances, with a fair few of the following wins being a bit dodgy/lackluster.
I remember Keane was very unimpressed by our behaviour after the cup final in the following match against West Ham where we handing out awards and trophies in the prematch. I thought he was just being a miserable git at the time-not unusual for Keane- but maybe he had a point about players letting their standards slip or the mood becoming complacent. I wrote a lot of those performances off as simply being fatigue but I have to wonder at this point.
Also 21 games and just 24 goals scored is very uninspiring
His successor also won't be someone who makes everyone jump with joy because they're a guaranteed winner. We won't get an Ancelotti or a...well, that's it really. Klopp and Pep wouldn't join us. Everyone else is a gamble, especially with these Glazer twats in charge.
Our scouts were aware of players like Caceido before they came to England, but the managers never went for them...Yes everyone envies us for our good scouting network and the continued success and sustainability it has delivered to eight managers over ten years so far. Head in the sand.
We’ve got such a good scouting network that we never have any deadwood. City and Liverpool are trying to poach our scouts and recruitment department as we speak.
I suspect that.I m not so sure about that. Our players don't look like they can press or pass
Yes everyone envies us for our good scouting network and the continued success and sustainability it has delivered to eight managers over ten years so far. Head in the sand.
We’ve got such a good scouting network that we never have any deadwood. City and Liverpool are trying to poach our scouts and recruitment department as we speak.
You think the scouts sign players? You think they don’t find players only to get vetoed because the current manager wants Mount or Antony?Get his team in shape? Out of the 11 that started today, 5 of them were his signings. This is by and large his team and it’s failing in front of your eyes. Mount alongside Casemiro in a midfield two didn’t work before Mount’s injury, a good performance midweek against Palace reserves and he resorts to doing what doesn’t work. “I think we’ll do well to finish 5th”.. after the money spent, anything outside top 4 should be a sackable offence.. but then again so should 4 defeats in the opening 7 league games be. Todays game was earmarked as the start of a potential run of winnable fixtures before the City game bit instead we shit the bed both with the performance and result.
What's interesting is some were convinced it was McTom that was the problem yet he doesn't play, nor does Fred, Maguire De Gea. Antony has had pelters now we're looking for him to come back.
There's something bigger at the club, the players just aren't working for each other and Luke Shaw alluded to it after the League Cup win. We had a good few months pumped up with Case and Martinez and it fizzled out half way through last season and we've just carried on. Reminds me how finished Ole's first season and started the next. There's a really depressing element at the club that a new manager can only distract from for a short time.
There's something bigger at the club, the players just aren't working for each other and Luke Shaw alluded to it after the League Cup win. We had a good few months pumped up with Case and Martinez and it fizzled out half way through last season and we've just carried on. Reminds me how finished Ole's first season and started the next. There's a really depressing element at the club that a new manager can only distract from for a short time.
Can you offer any reasons why Marco Rose or Unai would be successful beyond you liking one or the other doing a good job with Villa? Because at the moment there's no depth to your opinion, it boils down to nothing more than "Ten Hag bad, anyone else better".
My biggest issue with him is we make attacking look like a fecking chore. And that’s on him. It’s not like we are playing some great creative stuff and just missing in front of goal. Even the chances we create are hardly “good passages of play” often times.
I think that’s exactly what happens. Mount wasn’t needed and has caused unbalance in the midfield and Antony has been mostly shit but because both were his signings for huge fees, they’ll continue to play when available. You can’t tell me that the scouts pulled Erik aside and said “Erik Erik, we’ve found a potential right winger.. you may know him, he played at your previous club”.
Woy threw the cup game, the wiley old fox
Also this. Attacking, swashbuckling football, is that too much to ask? Klopp and Ange showed it as soon as they took control.
Gonna be gone before Christmas at this rate. What a shambles of a start to the season. Our home record that carried us to 3rd place last season is now also gone to shite.
No point in sacking him. We wont get a klopp or pep. Whoever we bring in wont win the league for us either. We probably will be good enough to not get relegated. Let him fix it and give him one more season.
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The other thing that shows there is no plan is that he keeps moving Bruno and Rashford around. Bruno and Rashford are our best players, they should always play in their best positions and have everyone else adapt to them. That's how you build a well-oiled machine. You don't have your preferred RW available? Play a kid on RW, play nobody ... but whatever you do, don't play Bruno on RW, he loses his edge and the whole team gets confused.
Moving around your best players shows that you have no plan as a manager. There is no long-term advantage in using the best players as stopgaps.
I'm starting to skip the games and I have no regret at all. Skipped today's game and looks like I was alright.
Ten Hag didn't just make us shit at away games, but he has now decided to make us shit at home as well.
Just to make things clear for his die hard fans : he should be sacked and he will. I expect us to have a caretaker manager by Jan.
Ten Hag didn't just make us shit at away games, but he has now decided to make us shit at home as well.
Just to make things clear for his die hard fans : he should be sacked and he will. I expect us to have a caretaker manager by Jan.
He should have gone for Kane, kept DDG for 1-2 seasons more. Should have battered Maguire to pulp and paid those 7 mills to get rid and gotten KMJ when he had the chance. He is an idealist to a fault and it will be his undoing with us.
Ten Hag did adapt to the players he had last season, which led to a very good season for us given where we were when he took over. If we were happy to play "Ole-ball" forever, then your suggested approach would work, but to move to a more progressive approach will take time, and involve downs as well as ups.
I’m totally awake to it. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.
Respectfully disagree. 5 were his signings? So? 6 weren't then. And yes he has spent money, but what - Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs. Chelsea and city haven't? The top 6 will be the most competitive we have seen ever in the premier league this season.
It baffles me that we are a decade out from Fergie and still have yet to have a good attacking team besides the lock down team.
I just want to look “dangerous” again without it just being Bruno hoofs to Rashy on the same diagonal run.
I'm aware, most of the Ten Hag out posts offer no depth of thought, it always boils down to "I like this other manager" or "De Zerbi plays nice football".
We've been making shit signings for ten years, it didn't start with ten Hag. It's a major reason why we're a basket case.
This could still go either way imo.
Today wasn’t that bad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m annoyed and upset. Objectively we put in a decent effort to break down a very defensive team.
Setting up a low block and trying to nick a goal is the easiest way to get an average team to win (or not lose) matches. Managers who do that are not out-coaching or “schooling” their opponent, they are just doing the only thing they can to try and hang on and somehow get something out of the game. Sometimes it works sometimes not.
I mention this because EtH is trying to establish an attacking way of playing which will win major trophies. This is much harder to do. It takes time to work and you lose some games while it’s developing. There were signs today that the players are starting to get it. But we still lost and, as I’ve been saying, we hate to lose.
Going back to your post: The thing we haven’t tried yet is letting the whole horrible process play out. I mean really just let the thing go even when we’re bottom half and sliding for the trap door. Let it run its course. Cull the players who don’t fight to come out of it. SAF built a team of scrappers, hard men who would literally (if it came to it) fight to the death to survive, to only lose 3-0 instead of 4-0, to finish 12th instead of 13th. Yes the bar has been raised from that but the principle should be the same.
You could ask if we have the right coach to ride that storm out because that is basically what we need: A guy to take the shit, keep taking it, hold his nerve, keep doing the job, not give a feck what people think, to be the last man standing. A guy like that takes players with him - the right sort of players - if they can’t hack it they fall - it takes time and it isn’t pretty but it’s exactly what is required. Is Erik that guy?
We could be having a serious discussion about relegation by Christmas. I can see us heading into an irrevocable freefall.
I am fine for him to be sacked if that means he takes murtough, arnold, all other fools as well some of our players with him.
Yes, 5.. that’s nearly half the team. When all his signing are fit and playing, that’s the majority and guess what, we’ve still been shit. Difference is, apart from Chelsea.. those other teams have spent well whereas we haven’t. I agree that the top 6 is extremely competitive this season.. but the fact is weren’t last season is why we finished as high as we did.
He and the team need to get their act together in the next 4 games. All crucial once and relatively the easiest 6 pointers to bank in both competitions. It'll provide a much needed boost before the foreboding consecutive clashes with the Saudis.
Don't think he was outsmarted. The answer to games like this has always been "go and do something". It was never about team being coached to move the ball and create something collectively.
As a manager, you talk to the players every day. Especially to your superstar players. What happened between ETH and Ronaldo did not happen suddenly. Obviously, ETH was not able to properly "manage" Ronaldo, that's an interpersonal skill that managers should have, especially the top level managers. That's ETH's job, he is the manager, he has to "manage" his players.
Anyway, you are ETH, you see that your only striker (a superstar) is unhappy, you have two choices: (1) Suck up to him, take him to dinner, sweet talk to him, give him your ass to feck, whatever he needs. (2) Make a plan to replace him.
ETH did neither of those. He was lost. Then he got Wout. Then he got a kid. Months later, he has no plan for our attacking play.
I would be all for him leaving now, just too many bad results.
A lot of people thinking we're still in for top 4 while we slide closer to relegation.
He hasnt been able to build a reliable or even watchable style and I don't think he ever will.
Injuries may not be down to him but buying awful players is.
Inside he knows his time is almost up.
A lot of people thinking we're still in for top 4 while we slide closer to relegation.
He hasnt been able to build a reliable or even watchable style and I don't think he ever will.
Injuries may not be down to him but buying awful players is.
Inside he knows his time is almost up.
Better than Ten Hag apologists and their "3rd and League cup" hilarious argument in response to us being shit.
Winning games is progressive. Not sure why people attach derogatory names to certain styles of football because they’ve decided they don’t like it so no one else can either.
Then coach the players to play a different way and bring in managers that can and are willing to coach players to be better instead of just replacing them because they don’t like them.
And when has he had everyone available? I think he said he's been able to field his first choice 11 once since he's been here. I would of course say that if we are still struggling by December then any manager will face the sack, but definitely not yet for me.
The "bar" of good has really fallen from grace over the last 10 years then!
Our problems and failures in scouting and recruitment have existed long before the current manager arrived and will remain so as long as these owners, board, DOF and his team are here. The only common thread in the sh!thousery of the past decade going back to the Moyes era. Good scouting department
When does any team ever truly have a fully fit squad? Injuries as part and parcel of the game, that’s why you have squad capable of copping and as of yet, Erik has failed to build one.
Ralf, ETH and the Portugal manager benched Ronnie more than he was used to. Maybe he was just like 37 years old. If he was anywhere prime Ronnie they would all suck him off.
What is your point then? The initial posts were criticising Ten Hag's signings as a whole, which is entirely fair.
If the owner, who doesn't have a clue about owning a football club, hires a CEO, who doesn't have a clue about running a football club, manages a DoF, who doesn't know how to be a DoF, who manages a Deputy DoF, who doesn't know how to be a deputy DoF etc, etc...Yes everyone envies us for our good scouting network and the continued success and sustainability it has delivered to eight managers over ten years so far. Head in the sand.
We’ve got such a good scouting network that we never have any deadwood. City and Liverpool are trying to poach our scouts and recruitment department as we speak.
It's like making me the Head of Estates at my work because I'm good at managing IT projects. I won't know that people can do their jobs until the building goes on fire, all the exits are blocked, and the alarms don't work. You'd hope at that point my boss would do something about it but they're equally as incompetent as I am because he's from Florida and has a shit ponytail.
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