Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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So if he fails this year (finishing outside top 4) you would reward him by setting minimum goal for next year?

In first season goal is top 4. In second season it should be title challenge and in a third season goal is winning a title.

No one can guarantee a title in this league, and it's still relatively too early for a title challenge. Maybe next season.

Having said that, failing to make Top 4 (or 5, whatever is the quota for the CL) this season should, and probably will, get him sacked, unless there's a massive improvement in the football before the end of the season. To say that is looking unlikely at this stage would be an understatement. The football this team is playing, if you can even call it football, is abject.

He needs to sort it out quick or he is toast, probably by the new year.
 
Before Ole was sacked, we blamed him for lack of discipline and going too easy with the players and lack of fitness. And we blamed him for having a crap coaching team.

Now Ten Hag is here we blame him for having a crap coaching team and being responsible for too many injuries.

What I mean by that is that it is too easy to seize on specifics and blame certain things.
But the big picture says that United are just not doing the basics right.
And that has been the case for far too many years.
We blamed Falcao for the lack of goals then Martial then Ighalo and Weghorst, maybe they actually were world class and it was the structures or some other shit. We all know there are other issues but we can still judge people on how they're performing and Ten Hag is not doing a good job right now and there are justifiable concerns that a man seemingly intent on rebuilding a team that won the Eredivisie by 2 points might not be the saviour. He still rightly has time and the opportunity to turn it around but he's currently underperforming even with the circumstances he's working under.
 
Mate, we’ve been shite for ages, the only reason people have ignored this is because we won a league cup and finished 3rd, which was an absolute chore that went down to the last day in the end.
If we accept the downturn post the Carabao cup final, is there no context behind it whatsoever?

Playing the most games out of any other club bar what, City? And also having a squad with major holes? I mean call me crazy but I don't expect squashbuckling football over the whole season with that.

What a lot of posters such as yourself are doing, is connecting this form to last seasons.

But this form also needs context. I don't think ten hag is free for criticism, far from, but I do think when the manager is changing our style of play in a new season it's a fallacy to extrapolate from games jn the previous campaign.
 
We blamed Falcao for the lack of goals then Martial then Ighalo and Weghorst, maybe they actually were world class and it was the structures or some other shit. We all know there are other issues but we can still judge people on how they're performing and Ten Hag is not doing a good job right now and there are justifiable concerns that a man seemingly intent on rebuilding a team that won the Eredivisie by 2 points might not be the saviour. He still rightly has time and the opportunity to turn it around but he's currently underperforming even with the circumstances he's working under.
Falcao used to be a player, then he took an arrow to the knee.
 
If we accept the downturn post the Carabao cup final, is there no context behind it whatsoever?

Playing the most games out of any other club bar what, City? And also having a squad with major holes? I mean call me crazy but I don't expect squashbuckling football over the whole season with that.

What a lot of posters such as yourself are doing, is connecting this form to last seasons.

But this form also needs context. I don't think ten hag is free for criticism, far from, but I do think when the manager is changing our style of play in a new season it's a fallacy to extrapolate from games jn the previous campaign.
Who picked the same 11 to play 3 times a week when we had no business pushing that thin squad so far in the Europa league? Are we blaming the glazers for that poor squad management also?

We’re not City, we’re light years away from competing with them so pretending to be them is daft but I expect us to be building towards something and not progressively getting worse.

We’re playing the same way we played last season but now we have a GK that can play out from the back, and it’s still bad. The style has changed and when it’s recognisable it’s still poor. How long does it take to get good? When do we say this isn’t working?
 
Who picked the same 11 to play 3 times a week when we had no business pushing that thin squad so far in the Europa league? Are we blaming the glazers for that poor squad management also?

We’re not City, we’re light years away from competing with them so pretending to be them is daft but I expect us to be building towards something and not progressively getting worse.

We’re playing the same way we played last season but now we have a GK that can play out from the back, and it’s still bad. The style has changed and when it’s recognisable it’s still poor. How long does it take to get good? When do we say this isn’t working?
How can you have a moan about his squad management when they got to 2 finals, won one and finished comfortably 3rd?

Now you're just complaining for the sake of complaining.

He also didn't pick the same XI every time. That's more hyperbole.
 
How can you have a moan about his squad management when they got to 2 finals, won one and finished comfortably 3rd?

Now you're just complaining for the sake of complaining.

He also didn't pick the same XI every time. That's more hyperbole.
Comfortably 3rd? That’s a new one. Going into the final day needing a win to finish in the top 4 is comfortable now? Because if getting to 2 finals means this season is a right off due to the amount of games we played (as you said) then I’d rather not for the sake of sustainability. I couldn’t give a toss about the league cup, I might have felt differently if we won the FA cup but we didn’t.

He churned out the same team more often than not because he refused to change his principals and play a game of football that might be low block and involve players like Maguire so he instead sent them out to play a game he knew they couldn’t do.
 
Comfortably 3rd? That’s a new one. Going into the final day needing a win to finish in the top 4 is comfortable now? Because if getting to 2 finals means this season is a right off due to the amount of games we played (as you said) then I’d rather not for the sake of sustainability. I couldn’t give a toss about the league cup, I might have felt differently if we won the FA cup but we didn’t.

He churned out the same team more often than not because he refused to change his principals and play a game of football that might be low block and involve players like Maguire so he instead sent them out to play a game he knew they couldn’t do.
Just making stuff up now huh? We finished 8 points ahead of Liverpool in 5th.
 
Comfortably 3rd? That’s a new one. Going into the final day needing a win to finish in the top 4 is comfortable now? Because if getting to 2 finals means this season is a right off due to the amount of games we played (as you said) then I’d rather not for the sake of sustainability. I couldn’t give a toss about the league cup, I might have felt differently if we won the FA cup but we didn’t.

He churned out the same team more often than not because he refused to change his principals and play a game of football that might be low block and involve players like Maguire so he instead sent them out to play a game he knew they couldn’t do.
What are you on about? He finished 8 points clear off 5th place. And he did rotate the team where he could, but couldn't afford to rest certain key ones because guess what, the squad was shite. That's not on him, it's a squad that needed multiple windows to fix.

The problem is the structure, and he's adapting to it. The annoyance is hyperbole from whinging posters that refuse to look at context, literally make shit up and then point fingers at him 7 games in.
 
Look I'm as big a fan of Klopp as anyone, I think he's brilliant and I think what he's achieved is far more impressive than Pep has. To me he's the best manager around at the moment.

The point is that Klopp knew the style of players, but had support and vision from others within the club to identify players who could fit that style, and they did a better job than he did in that case. If it had been entirely up to Klopp, they wouldn't have brought in by far and away their best player under him, and wouldn't have had the same success. It's a team effort. ETH doesn't have anywhere near the level of support when it comes to identifying targets.

As for Ten Hag not having a style, it's just entirely false, and you undermine it in your very next line. There's clearly a style of play we're trying to implement, we just aren't consistently getting it right yet. Now you can argue that you expect him to be able to move us from a mid-block counter attacking team to the high pressing transition style that he's trying to implement more quickly and seamlessly if you like, but suggesting there's no style undermines the rest of your point as it's so clearly untrue.

If we were debating a lack of Premier League titles and/or Champions League trophies then I might accept this argument.

The problem is that the squad we have now has been largely put together by ETH and should have more than enough quality to be finishing top four. Or at the very least, look like there's some kind of system or plan.

I defended OGS, LvG and Jose because I felt they were all let down by Woodward. ETH has been allowed to make some huge decisions and the players he's bought in have been his own picks at great expense...and yet we still look completely dysfunctional
 
Mate we were going in to match day 37 bang out of form with Liverpool 4 points behind us. Pretending we were ‘comfortable’ in our top 4 finish is absolute bollocks
Wrong again, we needed a point out of our last two games (the Chelsea match was our game in hand). We made harder work than we should, and I probably wouldn't describe it as comfortable, but you're just doing the opposite and worse in the other direction. All this pig-headed "I'm right, everything about ten Hag sucks, facts be damned" stuff is really, really tiresome. There's enough bad stuff to pick up on without it.
 
I like ETH, he's a good coach.

What he isn't however is a good DOF, and people flagged this up before he came in. We need someone better taking those responsibilities while he focuses solely on the coaching, like at Ajax.

If he failed once this system was in place then sure, replace away. But for now he's not been setup in a way conducive to success.
 
Lets be honest we wasn't great last season. The league doesn't lie but we sure got help with Liverpool/Chelsea having a disaster year.

He will rightfully get until the summer but we need to improve a lot both in terms of results and style of play. I'm sick to death of watching dog shit football every week even when we win.
 
Lets be honest we wasn't great last season. The league doesn't lie but we sure got help with Liverpool/Chelsea having a disaster year.

He will rightfully get until the summer but we need to improve a lot both in terms of results and style of play. I'm sick to death of watching dog shit football every week even when we win.

Really hope he holds out until we're sold by the parasites, but if we keep losing at home especially I can't see him lasting to Xmas, never mind the summer. He needs to try something drastically different now, he can't keep using this system.
 
Lets be honest we wasn't great last season. The league doesn't lie but we sure got help with Liverpool/Chelsea having a disaster year.

He will rightfully get until the summer but we need to improve a lot both in terms of results and style of play. I'm sick to death of watching dog shit football every week even when we win.

If we keep losing at the rate/manner we are he isn't getting to the end of October. Dont get this whole ‘will get the season no matter what’ narrative.
 
Varane misses at least a third of every season and casemiro is 32 years old.

We've hardly signed them at their peak have we.

thats not even the entire problem. We dont have a hypothetical(no injuries suspensions) first 11 thats good enough and we have nothing past the starters that are(when in form). You’re always 2 or 3 injuries from lindelof and mctominay starting every game.
 
thats not even the entire problem. We dont have a hypothetical(no injuries suspensions) first 11 thats good enough and we have nothing past the starters that are(when in form). You’re always 2 or 3 injuries from lindelof and mctominay starting every game.

I wasn't talking about our problems. A madrid fan tried responding to me saying we have too much deadwood by saying we have 2/11 of madrids great team.
 
I wasn't talking about our problems. A madrid fan tried responding to me saying we have too much deadwood by saying we have 2/11 of madrids great team.

quality players with no legs. Dont think we have enough runners in the team to compensate for it though.

New signings aside, of our current squad, bar varane, martinez, shaw, casemiro, bruno and rashford plus garnacho there isnt a single player who has ever shown enough to warrant playing for us in my opinion. Theres not a single player i wouldnt accept an offer for.

we are literally deadwood fc
 
If we keep losing at the rate/manner we are he isn't getting to the end of October. Dont get this whole ‘will get the season no matter what’ narrative.

Well you’re probably right. I just feel it’s a hard one with ETH because they‘ve backed him with all his former players to the tune of 400m. If ETH is sacked then Murtough should be right behind him.
 
Well you’re probably right. I just feel it’s a hard one with ETH because they‘ve backed him with all his former players to the tune of 400m. If ETH is sacked then Murtough should be right behind him.
They should make him work with a DoF, but not Murtough.
 
I like ETH, he's a good coach.

What he isn't however is a good DOF, and people flagged this up before he came in. We need someone better taking those responsibilities while he focuses solely on the coaching, like at Ajax.

If he failed once this system was in place then sure, replace away. But for now he's not been setup in a way conducive to success.
He is?
How can you tell?
 
Well you’re probably right. I just feel it’s a hard one with ETH because they‘ve backed him with all his former players to the tune of 400m. If ETH is sacked then Murtough should be right behind him.

They also backed the previous managers to the maximum point possible and Woodward wasn't sacked after any of them being shown the door. It's not a big deal.
 
They also backed the previous managers to the maximum point possible and Woodward wasn't sacked after any of them being shown the door. It's not a big deal.

Nah I feel this is a bit different almost all of his signings are former players or players he watched in Holland they’ve gone ‘all in’ on ETH and they’ve not been good enough.

There’s not another manager in the world spending 90m on Antony.
 
I don't think it's time to panic yet. Brightonlona and Bayern aside the defense has been resolute. The goals will come. Rasmus is only getting started.

That said I'd give him the January transfer window to bring in a player or two and then assess at the end of the season. The only problem is who is available and who is going to get more out of them then the guy who has previously worked with them.
 
Nah I feel this is a bit different almost all of his signings are former players or players he watched in Holland they’ve gone ‘all in’ on ETH and they’ve not been good enough.

There’s not another manager in the world spending 90m on Antony.

There's no manager in the world who would have spent 80m on Maguire either but yet they did it for Ole.
 
His team selection yesterday is worrying. Needs to stop playing some of the senior players, who are letting the team down.
 
There's no manager in the world who would have spent 80m on Maguire either but yet they did it for Ole.

Nah again there were clubs in for Maguire. Even Jose wanted Maguire 12 months earlier.

I understand what you’re saying we’ve spunked money for 10 years and there’s been little to no consequences to the directors but to blindly let him spend 400m on former players in 12 months is just unacceptable.

I mean I could go further and say Antony was available for 60m and we didn’t do the deal until the deadline allowing Ajax to demand 90m it’s hilarious
 
Nah I feel this is a bit different almost all of his signings are former players or players he watched in Holland they’ve gone ‘all in’ on ETH and they’ve not been good enough.

There’s not another manager in the world spending 90m on Antony.

or that outrageous fee for Mount because he once scored a free kick on loan at Vitesse
 
Nah again there were clubs in for Maguire. Even Jose wanted Maguire 12 months earlier.

I understand what you’re saying we’ve spunked money for 10 years and there’s been little to no consequences to the directors but to blindly let him spend 400m on former players in 12 months is just unacceptable.

I mean I could go further and say Antony was available for 60m and we didn’t do the deal until the deadline allowing Ajax to demand 90m it’s hilarious

Clubs wanting Maguire is different from clubs willing to pay 80m for Maguire. We were the only stupid club willing to pay that sum of money for him.

It's easy for them to say they were backing the manager and did their best and he failed so it's not their issue.
 
This is all well and good but what do we know really? Half the Caf said Arteta was shit. Nobody knew De Zerbi. Nobody expected Howe to be anything other than a stop gap at Newcastle. It's hard to predict who will click with a group of players and the fans, but there will be managers out there that would do better than ETH. Numerous managers have been mentioned already who could potentiate do a good job. If the next one fails then you try somebody else until something works. And that doesn't mean giving them years and unlimited budget to deliver, only we do that.
You might be right, if the clicking part would be the only one thats relevant. But it isn't. And because we still have real element of continuety (at least we don't know about it) other than the manager, the whole question boils down to: are you willing to bet on Murtough to find another manager who will take over the players, that are picked by 2-3 different managers before, and hope something good comes out of it?

I see your point, waiting for the saviour won't do it, other clubs aren't working like that. But most of the clubs that act like this in terms of manager have some sort of sports intelligence positioned above the manager. One who leads recruitment, player development and first team strategies. We do not have that, hence why we are not progressing at all when we move from manager to manager. For all we know, Murtough will sign up Diego Simeone or Allegri for us. No thanks.
 
His team selection yesterday is worrying. Needs to stop playing some of the senior players, who are letting the team down.

This is the long and short of it. Said it after Wednesday, if he brought the usual suspects back in and we were poor, questions need to be asked, and it just so went like many thought it might. He's digging his own grave by sticking with out of form senior players.
 
This is the long and short of it. Said it after Wednesday, if he brought the usual suspects back in and we were poor, questions need to be asked, and it just so went like many thought it might. He's digging his own grave by sticking with out of form senior players.
100%. It’s actually sad that 99% of our fans know the reason we’re doing bad and we knew the minute he brought the players back in then we’d perform badly and lose. The game we played midweek With some of the young lads played brilliantly and they dominated. Because they have passion unlike some of the seniors who think they’re untouchable. It’s ashame a professional manager can’t see it or if he does he’s choosing to ignore it.
 
Clubs wanting Maguire is different from clubs willing to pay 80m for Maguire. We were the only stupid club willing to pay that sum of money for him.

It's easy for them to say they were backing the manager and did their best and he failed so it's not their issue.
The problems we have is a very simple but very not understood analogy...

1. We have Poor Owners. Who choose
2. Very poor management team( CEOs Club) . Who in turned employed very poor employees because of not knowing how business environment their in entails.
3. The bad employee's brought in due to, bad recruitment, always find the going tough because of lack of direction from management.
4. The cycle goes in round and round.

So, we can't trust the management to make the right decision in recruitment. We needed to hit the holy grail in ETH but it seems it's not the case.
 
Well you’re probably right. I just feel it’s a hard one with ETH because they‘ve backed him with all his former players to the tune of 400m. If ETH is sacked then Murtough should be right behind him.

Rinse and repeat though isnt it. Our recruitment and coaching never works in tandem. Manager changes and most previous signings are deadwood. We signed an £80m centre half that worked when we sat deep and broke but two years later with the new manager trying to play high up the pitch hes good for nothing. We should design an overarching play style and then sign players to fit that and a coach that plays a football that suits those players. We’ve backed ETH but if he’s not the one then unfortunately most of his signings are probably useless to us when the next manager comes in
 
Rinse and repeat though isnt it. Our recruitment and coaching never works in tandem. Manager changes and most previous signings are deadwood. We signed an £80m centre half that worked when we sat deep and broke but two years later with the new manager trying to play high up the pitch hes good for nothing. We should design an overarching play style and then sign players to fit that and a coach that plays a football that suits those players. We’ve backed ETH but if he’s not the one then unfortunately most of his signings are probably useless to us when the next manager comes in
A competent DoF would be able the match the squad with a new manager who surely must understand he cannot play a certain way unless he has the suitable players.
 
So when do we all think the storm clouds form above ETH and the board start thinking about a new manager?

I think hes safe now, just, but a loss Tuesday and a couple of bad PL results and I think his days could be numbered.

My opinion is I back his values and standards that he is bringing which are needed but I still cannot see what style of football we are playing. His team selections and substitues baffle me at times.
 
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