Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Kellyiom]

You realise when people reply to your posts, they're generally typing on a phone and/or doing something else at the same....they're not ever supposed to be taken as rock-solid philosophical discourses and/or personal attacks, in which we pour over semantics and the meaning of each sentence...nobody is trying to be "disingenuous", I'm just telling you what my opinion is.

If you think we've improved and we're heading in the right direction then that's absolutely fine. Nobody is denying your right to think that. I happen to think we haven't improved much, if at all, certainly not tactically. I think the team spirit is better and the application is better, but are we PLAYING better...I'd argue not really. Again, in my opinion.

I also am sticking to my guns when I say that posters don't need to have a clear idea on a replacement to say the current manager needs to be doing much better. There's 1000s of football managers across the planet. The idea that we should stick with a given manager until an obvious standout candidate with absolutely no potential downsides becomes available doesn't sit right with me. If the current manager doesn't show signs of improving performances by Christmas, we can try De Zerbi, or similar...and...if they don't work after 18-months, we try again.

I think something we all agree on is that we'd find it easier to change the coach if there was continuity and clear direction amongst the senior leadership team. That for sure is a fair argument.

I don't know of any secret paraguayan managers who can restore us to glory but our team looks very confused, like the very basics are missing so something is very wrong. I think this scouting agency is a bad look for ETH and shows a lack of humility; if any of that goes wrong, it's only natural you can expect a lot of criticism.

 

[The Hilton]

You realise when people reply to your posts, they're generally typing on a phone and/or doing something else at the same....they're not ever supposed to be taken as rock-solid philosophical discourses and/or personal attacks, in which we pour over semantics and the meaning of each sentence...nobody is trying to be "disingenuous", I'm just telling you what my opinion is.

If you think we've improved and we're heading in the right direction then that's absolutely fine. Nobody is denying your right to think that. I happen to think we haven't improved much, if at all, certainly not tactically. I think the team spirit is better and the application is better, but are we PLAYING better...I'd argue not really. Again, in my opinion.

I also am sticking to my guns when I say that posters don't need to have a clear idea on a replacement to say the current manager needs to be doing much better. There's 1000s of football managers across the planet. The idea that we should stick with a given manager until an obvious standout candidate with absolutely no potential downsides becomes available doesn't sit right with me. If the current manager doesn't show signs of improving performances by Christmas, we can try De Zerbi, or similar...and...if they don't work after 18-months, we try again.

I think something we all agree on is that we'd find it easier to change the coach if there was continuity and clear direction amongst the senior leadership team. That for sure is a fair argument.

Typing on a phone or doing something else doesn't prevent you from reading what I put and arguing against that, rather than making up a strawman that I disagree we need to see any progress at all. Having said that, I accept that you weren't intentionally being disingenuous, it does seem like you're debating me in good faith, so we can park that.

As for your suggested approach though, I completely disagree. The "get rid of a manager, try this other one, 18 months and then try again" reactionary approach is the process we've followed for over a decade now, and it hasn't worked. I totally agree with your last point, and I don't think any amount of manager hopping will work beyond a new manager bounce until that direction, continuity, and support structure is in place. Once we do have something like that, then we can put some succession planning in place, so that when one manager goes, we can bring in another that fits the same mould and can build on what we have rather than change direction.

 

[Shinjch]

I don't know but we will never know if we don't try appointing the right man for the job instead of sticking with the wrong men for the job. They will get it right eventually, not because they're competent but simply because you have more chance of getting it right if you just try something else when the thing you're currently trying isn't working.

The problem is that in modern football you need more than one right man in the right job for the club to be winning the big honours, especially in England now. This is evidenced by Liverpool's comparative struggles since they lost important members of their recruitment structure. They have one of the top 2 managers in the world and still finished outside of the Champions League last season.

We need the right man for the job in several different areas before we can start making a success of the club. For that to happen the culture set from the top has to change, until then this cycle will continue,

 

[pocco]

This is the first reasonable, consistent, and well articulated post I've seen on the side of that I can remember. I don't necessarily agree, but I respect the post.

However, I think your suggested replacements are terrible. Howe has Newcastle playing awful football, they managed to timewaste so much last season that the rules got changed to prevent it. Emery is famous for his negative football, and while we'd likely be dangerous on the counter under him given that the squad is still well built for mid-block football, we'd just get stuck again in the cycle of allowing opponents to dominate the ball and matches.

De Zerbi is at least stylistically heading in a good direction, but his CV is much poorer than Ten Hags, having been sacked after 2 months as Sassuolo, and got Benevento relegated. The only thing of note he's done is "play nice football with Brighton", in which he came into a team already playing nice football and on an upward trajectory. Nothing there suggests he could come into the huge pressure environment at United, and get a team that's been uncomfortable in possession for years to suddenly be good at it.

I think the main thing with those managers is that, whilst they do have their downsides or potential negatives, they seem to have drilled into their team their ideas and have them playing good football at times and they look good in possession. Newcastle did time waste at times last season, but the football they played was actually really good. And they were near the bottom of the table when Howe took over.

But my point is they've surprised me with what they've achieved at clubs with less at their disposal In terms of players. None of them have better teams than us on paper, but I think they all play better football. With even just simple linear thinking, I believe that if De Zerbi, for example, could come in and just drill what he's done at Brighton, then we'd be better. It would be a good step in the right direction for us. He might not win us the PL, but our succession plan may then bring in the manager to tweak and take us up a level. I'd be happy with that sort of progress, I think we could all get behind that.

I said this when people were defending Ole, but one day we'll hire a manager and this will all be forgotten. There'll be no more questioning the manager because we'll all be on board. One day we'll get there and it will be magnificent, but let's not stand still and pray that ETH just stumbles across something. Give somebody else a chance.

 

[fallengt]

I don't know but we will never know if we don't try appointing the right man for the job instead of sticking with the wrong men for the job. They will get it right eventually, not because they're competent but simply because you have more chance of getting it right if you just try something else when the thing you're currently trying isn't working.

Every manager will demand minimum 180m per season and they won't take shit from scouting department & rather sign players that they know. Do club have that kind of money?
Also what if new manager doesn't like previous players? It took a giant shit in the face just to ship out Ronaldo and maybe Sancho. There's no guarantee new manager wouldn't sign another set of prima donas either. Do you believe Murtough and Arnold can handle this?
We stuck in this endless cycle if you keep doing this.

In perfect scenario, club would ship manager/players in&out every season or two until they get it right. YES. But that's never going to happen under current ownership

 

[Licha-Vidic]

Okay so all we need to do is find another version of the greatest manager of all time, who can control and personally delegate all aspects of the football club, and do it in the age of the oil clubs. Sounds doable.

You said that not me.

• If ETH knew how to play with 3 midfielders. He would have solved 80% of his problems.
• If ETH knew what it takes to win EPL and compete with Pep he would know you need to win over 30 games a season to have a shout.
• And for you to win 30 + games you need to be in control of those games.
• For you to be in control of games, is avoiding being open, overrun, weak, being good in possession, recycle the ball well.
• If he knew all this, he would have binned every player not able to achieve this 8/10 times in a 50+ games a season. But alas, our main players are the most opposite of all this attributes.

So who's mistake is it?
Glazers, Ref, Oil money, Kane going to Bayern. Etc

Its not rocket science. It's what Ange is doing in Spurs. Being strong in midfield, can run well, don't lose possession anyhow. Pin teams back.

What Ange has done is absolutely nothing revolutionary, it's just basic things needed to compete against other very serious opponents.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

We just need Herrera or Mata to work with Pep and we are set.

 

[Shark]

You said that not me.

• If ETH knew how to play with 3 midfielders. He would have solved 80% of his problems.
• If ETH knew what it takes to win EPL and compete with Pep he would know you need to win over 30 games a season to have a shout.
• And for you to win 30 + games you need to be in control of those games.
• For you to be in control of games, is avoiding being open, overrun, weak, being good in possession, recycle the ball well.
• If he knew all this, he would have binned every player not able to achieve this 8/10 times in a 50+ games a season. But alas, our main players are the most opposite of all this attributes.

So who's mistake is it?
Glazers, Ref, Oil money, Kane going to Bayern. Etc

Its not rocket science. It's what Ange is doing in Spurs. Being strong in midfield, can run well, don't lose possession anyhow. Pin teams back.

What Ange has done is absolutely nothing revolutionary, it's just basic things needed to compete against other very serious opponents.

Look at the midfilders United have in comparison to other big teams. It's a 32 year old Casemiro along with nobody that stands out. His new midfielder Amrabat hasn't even been playing as a CM since coming into the side which is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[crossy1686]

The problem is that in modern football you need more than one right man in the right job for the club to be winning the big honours, especially in England now. This is evidenced by Liverpool's comparative struggles since they lost important members of their recruitment structure. They have one of the top 2 managers in the world and still finished outside of the Champions League last season.

We need the right man for the job in several different areas before we can start making a success of the club. For that to happen the culture set from the top has to change, until then this cycle will continue,

Why don't we just start with getting the manager right and worry about the rest later?

 

[el3mel]

Look at the midfilders United have in comparison to other big teams. It's a 32 year old Casemiro along with nobody that stands out. His new midfielder Amrabat hadn't even been playing as a CM since coming into the side which is absolutely ridiculous.

Two of our current midfield trio are his signings, both costing +60m each, and the third he hired as a captain.

 

[Sarni]

We have a long injury list and he had a very good first season. He sees out the campaign for me but our style of play is pretty awful after so long in charge. Pep proved you can’t win anything with average players and doesn’t even bother trying…we have a lot of average players still, we are still buying them under this manager’s watch...personally I’ll be pretty shocked if he’s manager of the club in 2 years. Losing faith fast.

Do we though? If our justification to having no shape whatsoever going forward is injuries then I honestly don't believe that having 1 player out (Antony) is having this large of an impact... some impact, possibly, but is it really enough to say we cannot possibly expect the team to play better than we have? Other than Antony all our attacking players and midfielders are currently available.

We are also missing Martinez and Shaw in defense but here I'm once again doubtful whether it would really significantly improve the quality of our overall play. We were leaking goals with Martinez too.

Also, if we are not allowed to have any expectations whatsoever while having 3 first team players injured then it's going to be very hard to achieve anything as pretty much every single club is facing an amount of injuries close to that at one point or another.

 

[Shinjch]

Why don't we just start with getting the manager right and worry about the rest later?

Because the people who run the process to choose the manager have shown themselves to be even more inept than any manager we have had, why would we allow them to keep failing? At least most of the managers have decent CVs to fall back on.

 

[VP89]

Look at the midfilders United have in comparison to other big teams. It's a 32 year old Casemiro along with nobody that stands out. His new midfielder Amrabat hadn't even been playing as a CM since coming into the side which is absolutely ridiculous.

I would also argue in the last game, our midfield more than did their job. It's not their fault the attack sucks balls.

 

[stefan92]

Every manager will demand minimum 180m per season and they won't take shit from scouting department & rather sign players that they know. Do club have that kind of money?
Also what if new manager doesn't like previous players? It took a giant shit in the face just to ship out Ronaldo and maybe Sancho. There's no guarantee new manager wouldn't sign another set of prima donas either. Do you believe Murtough and Arnold can handle this?
We stuck in this endless cycle if you keep doing this.

In perfect scenario, club would ship manager/players in&out every season or two until they get it right. YES. But that's never going to happen under current ownership

Just don't sign such a manager. Of course a reasonable investment into the squad can be expected and not all players will play as big a role as they did once the manager changes, but it should be a key precondition that the manager accepts the squad he has and is ready to start working with it.

But I agree that this might be difficult under current leadership due to the often quoted player power. They all have to be ready and willing to accept the manager's plans. I don't think that's a big issue at other clubs but it sometimes feels like this is the biggest issue at United.

 

[VWW]

See, this is why I think we're doomed. People can apparently genuinely think this, after the last ten years.

I'm so sick of people going after the manager again after 10 yrs. Man when will people realise that the problem starts at the top. Getting rid of Ten Hag will just repeat the boom bust cycle.

 

[goalscholes]

Any team would struggle without four FBs and their best ball playing defender.

We had to give a first league start to a DM at FB, who conceded the FK which led to the goal.

And despite this, Palace were lucky to win.

Would Arsenal play well without Zinchenko, Saliba, White, Timbur and Tomiyasu, or even City without Walker, Dias, Ake, Stones and Lewis?

Without Shaw, we lack width and quality in attack down the left, and have to play a slightly deeper defensive line. This means Rashford suffers as he can be doubled up on much more easily.

Without Martinez, we have worse distribution through the lines and have to guard against losing the ball when pressed.

Without a RM, we have to put everything through the left to Rashford, meaning he’s often triple marked.

Our best moments came when Dalot got free, but this again left us vulnerable to counter attacks.

The biggest mistakes this year have been not signing another CB (partly Ten Hags fault, but he apparently wanted Kim Min Jae) and arranging an awful, money spinning pre-season.

 

[Jericho]

Look at the midfilders United have in comparison to other big teams. It's a 32 year old Casemiro along with nobody that stands out. His new midfielder Amrabat hadn't even been playing as a CM since coming into the side which is absolutely ridiculous.

I hate when people age players up just to emphasis a point. He's 31, he was 30 when we signed him. Older than we'd all like him to be of course but an irrelevant point right now given that overall he's been excellent.

 

[fallengt]

Just don't sign such a manager. Of course a reasonable investment into the squad can be expected and not all players will play as big a role as they did once the manager changes, but it should be a key precondition that the manager accepts the squad he has and is ready to start working with it.

But I agree that this might be difficult under current leadership due to the often quoted player power. They all have to be ready and willing to accept the manager's plans. I don't think that's a big issue at other clubs but it sometimes feels like this is the biggest issue at United.

No one would take this job knowing they would be thrown under the bus by the board and players. If we had competent owners, such thing would never be tolerated.
This is why many feel that either you force your way through it regardless of result (aka doing an Arteta), or change owner and hope next one is actually competent.

 

[DWelbz19]

Nothing there suggests he could come into the huge pressure environment at United, and get a team that's been uncomfortable in possession for years to suddenly be good at it.

Not that I disagree with your post, I think the biggest issue with Hag in this regard is that his recruitment and squad composition hardly suggests he's interested in making us comfortable in possession. Or if he is, he's going an awkwardly weird way about it. Martinez and Onana are great signings for build-up from deep, so he's clearly trying to fix it from the back.

But then the key position for ball retention - midfield - consists of three volatile passers who all average less than 80% passing accuracy and instantly look for the killer transition ball than try to work through with build-up. The issue is compounded in my view when you realise two of them he has signed and the latter he chose to make captain.

 

[UpWithRivers]

Any team would struggle without four FBs and their best ball playing defender.

We had to give a first league start to a DM at FB, who conceded the FK which led to the goal.

And despite this, Palace were lucky to win.

Would Arsenal play well without Zinchenko, Saliba, White, Timbur and Tomiyasu, or even City without Walker, Dias, Ake, Stones and Lewis?

Without Shaw, we lack width and quality in attack down the left, and have to play a slightly deeper defensive line. This means Rashford suffers as he can be doubled up on much more easily.

Without Martinez, we have worse distribution through the lines and have to guard against losing the ball when pressed.

Without a RM, we have to put everything through the left to Rashford, meaning he’s often triple marked.

Our best moments came when Dalot got free, but this again left us vulnerable to counter attacks.

The biggest mistakes this year have been not signing another CB (partly Ten Hags fault, but he apparently wanted Kim Min Jae) and arranging an awful, money spinning pre-season.

Im sick of these excuses. We got taught a lesson at home to a Brighton side depleted by sales of their top players and they made 6 changes. We lost to friggin Palace who on paper not one of thier players would get into our team even with the injuries. Plus they had their first front 3 missing. You can use these excuses against Bayern, Arsenal etc and the fans would be understanding. But you cannot use injuries as an excuse against the bottom teams

 

[djembatheking]

You only have to look at Liverpool -- Klopp essentially succeeds in spite of the ownership, and that's because he's a really fecking good manager.

There is no doubt Klopp is a good manager but only last season he got bummed in both the domestic cups, dumped out of the champions league in the round of 16 and still missed out on top four so injuries make life difficult for good managers like Klopp . Ten Hag has had a real tough start this season with the players hes had out and trying to integrate new players with promising, but inexperienced, youth players is always going to be unpredictable but as players return to full fitness we will hopefully string some results together and start building a bit of momentum.

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

I'm so sick of people going after the manager again after 10 yrs. Man when will people realise that the problem starts at the top. Getting rid of Ten Hag will just repeat the boom bust cycle.

Same. I was thinking to myself about how hysterical and immature this all is.

But then my mind casts back to sitting down in United Road paddock for the Fergie out protests in 1989. That went well!

My excuse is I was 14 at the time

 

[Toshey]

Since my points seem to be completely ignored I'll try to put it this way.

If you bring a world class athlete to Manchester United, he'll stop being world class athlete eventually. His stamina, fitness, strength, endurance will drop.
And the manager has nothing to do with that.
A professional football club has fitness programs, recovery programs, nutritionists. If all of this is completely shit, the athlete will no longer be on his best physical level.
From that point on, he won't be able to deliver what the manager expects him to do on the field.

There is a reason we get tons of injuries, players returning from injuries are not recovered well enough...

How many people have to come out and say that we are SO FAR behind as club, facilities, training methods and equipment, for you guys to actually pay attention to the REAL PROBLEM?

Jesus, even our social media team is amateurish.

And you can't use the argument that Glazers spent a lot of money on transfers. They didn't spent THEIR personal money, did they? It's all loans and schemes. No investment in the club whatsoever. They are milking the club. If they were losing money, they would have sold us long time ago.

If we can't compete at the highest level at the basis of what is required of a football club, we won't be able to compete on the field. It's that plain simple.

 

[Licha-Vidic]

Look at the midfilders United have in comparison to other big teams. It's a 32 year old Casemiro along with nobody that stands out. His new midfielder Amrabat hadn't even been playing as a CM since coming into the side which is absolutely ridiculous.

This is the main problem.

City without Rodri is at United level in numbers albeit not in performance.



Spurs have lost Kane. But now they look better with
Maddison & Bissouma.

Liverpool striker is Gakpo. Gakpo. They revamped their midfield they look better. Liverpool of before had Firmino as it's striker.

Arsenal changed their midfield this season , you can see how it changed their game a level below.

Madrid of 3* UCL wins had Modric, Kross, Case.

Barca of Pep had Xavi, Iniesta Busquest.

Chelsea of Mourinho had Lampard Essien & Makelele

Even Leicester winning title midfield had Kante,
Albrighton players who could run till morning.

As you can see, you need most importantly 3 absolute good midfielders to have any hope of winning anything big.

City have won the league without a striker.
Arsenal mounted a challenge with Nketiah.
Liverpool won 27 games in 29 games, to win the league with Firmino scoring only 9 goals that season.

As you can see, teams have won the league with very poor strikers but never has a team won the league with a poor midfield.

Yet our midfield is the most unbalanced part of our team.
Until ETH revamps our midfield, we will never win anything.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

The "get rid of a manager, try this other one, 18 months and then try again" reactionary approach is the process we've followed for over a decade now, and it hasn't worked.

Most of United's managers have lasted longer than 18 months. Van Gaal lasted two seasons, Mourinho lasted 2+, Ole lasted 2+. This is a perfectly normal stint at a top club when things don't go well, which was the case for at least Mourinho and Ole.

 

[Puskas_007]

Same. I was thinking to myself about how hysterical and immature this all is.

But then my mind casts back to sitting down in United Road paddock for the Fergie out protests in 1989. That went well!

My excuse is I was 14 at the time

Since my points seem to be completely ignored I'll try to put it this way.

If you bring a world class athlete to Manchester United, he'll stop being world class athlete eventually. His stamina, fitness, strength, endurance will drop.
And the manager has nothing to do with that.
A professional football club has fitness programs, recovery programs, nutritionists. If all of this is completely shit, the athlete will no longer be on his best physical level.
From that point on, he won't be able to deliver what the manager expects him to do on the field.

There is a reason we get tons of injuries, players returning from injuries are not recovered well enough...

How many people have to come out and say that we are SO FAR behind as club, facilities, training methods and equipment, for you guys to actually pay attention to the REAL PROBLEM?

Jesus, even our social media team is amateurish.

And you can't use the argument that Glazers spent a lot of money on transfers. They didn't spent THEIR personal money, did they? It's all loans and schemes. No investment in the club whatsoever. They are milking the club. If they were losing money, they would have sold us long time ago.

If we can't compete at the highest level at the basis of what is required of a football club, we won't be able to compete on the field. It's that plain simple.

Totally.

Fact is, the managers are serving as a lightning rod for criticism that should be being directed at the vampire squid ownership and corporate shrills that are holding us back.

ETH wants to sort it out and did a good job at Ajax with far less resources, he is not the problem and we should get behind what he is doing and direct the majority of the ire at the upper echelons of the club...

 

[Licha-Vidic]

Since my points seem to be completely ignored I'll try to put it this way.

If you bring a world class athlete to Manchester United, he'll stop being world class athlete eventually. His stamina, fitness, strength, endurance will drop.
And the manager has nothing to do with that.
A professional football club has fitness programs, recovery programs, nutritionists. If all of this is completely shit, the athlete will no longer be on his best physical level.
From that point on, he won't be able to deliver what the manager expects him to do on the field.

I understand your argument, but do Crystal Palace, Spurs, Brighton, Aston Villa, Sevilla, all have better resources than Man United in that their players pass better, run more and overrun us because our facilities are shit?

Using your logic, how comes we are shit in facilities, nutritionist, recovery program but we can't accept MAYBE we are also shit in players and coaches?

Where is this line drawn that our recovery/nutritionists is below par but our coaches are good or very good.?

 

[gaffs]

Since my points seem to be completely ignored I'll try to put it this way.

If you bring a world class athlete to Manchester United, he'll stop being world class athlete eventually. His stamina, fitness, strength, endurance will drop.
And the manager has nothing to do with that.
A professional football club has fitness programs, recovery programs, nutritionists. If all of this is completely shit, the athlete will no longer be on his best physical level.
From that point on, he won't be able to deliver what the manager expects him to do on the field.

There is a reason we get tons of injuries, players returning from injuries are not recovered well enough...

How many people have to come out and say that we are SO FAR behind as club, facilities, training methods and equipment, for you guys to actually pay attention to the REAL PROBLEM?

Jesus, even our social media team is amateurish.

And you can't use the argument that Glazers spent a lot of money on transfers. They didn't spent THEIR personal money, did they? It's all loans and schemes. No investment in the club whatsoever. They are milking the club. If they were losing money, they would have sold us long time ago.

If we can't compete at the highest level at the basis of what is required of a football club, we won't be able to compete on the field. It's that plain simple.

To be fair, you don't have any insight on how good United fitness program is, nor their nutritionists, nor player recovery. Man City, who are said to be the best in class, have a good amount of injuries at the moment. Are all their staff suddenly useless?

Mainoo and Martinez injuries were caused by impacts. The only one i would be pissed off about would be AWB because he wasn't 100% when ETH brought him on for 5 mins against Brighton when the game was dead.

I would love to know what United are missing from their training ground that other teams have? Can you name anything?

I think United social media is pretty damn good. My wife is a Social Media Director at the biggest social media company in the world - you can guess who! She and her team use United as one of the "brands" that do Instagram very well.

Agree The Glazers are bad owners, but the club make more than enough money and invest it back into the team and facilities.

 

[The Hilton]

Most of United's managers have lasted longer than 18 months. Van Gaal lasted two seasons, Mourinho lasted 2+, Ole lasted 2+. This is a perfectly normal stint at a top club when things don't go well, which was the case for at least Mourinho and Ole.

You're being overly simplistic about it though. Giving several managers with disparate, in some cases almost polar opposite, approaches a short amount of time each isn't how top clubs work.

Most top clubs, and successful other clubs, have continuity and structure around and above the manager, so that when things aren't working they can bring in someone else to continue the process rather than just hitting the reset button every few years.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

I'm not being "overly simplistic" by correcting a factual mistake you made.

 

[Blood Mage]

I'm giving ETH time despite how horrendous this start to the season has been, but I have to say that the logic that he shouldn't be sacked because we tried that 5 times before and it didn't work is a bit mental. If this form hasn't drastically improved by Christmas then I think we will have to part ways sadly.

I just hope he lasts longer than the Glazers because I'm done trusting the Glazers to bring in the right manager or personnel for any department.

 

[gaffs]

The issue for me is no one seems to know what "Ten Hag" football is. And if they do, we have not seen it at United yet.

I think Ange and Spurs success isn't helping Ten Hag right now because he has managed to come into a team with, on paper, a much weaker squad, who had lost their best player, and still managed to stamp his brand of football on his team within a matter of months.

Good article on "Ange Ball" here...

https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/06/ange-ball-explained-how-postecoglou-could-reinvigorate-tottenham/

 

[Toshey]

I admit my main insight is what former players and managers have said about the club, especially Ronaldo, Mourinho, LVG, even Ole.

They say we are behind. And honestly, you can see. It's October and we have many players who look like they play 5 times a week and can't run anymore after 50th minute mark. And this has been a patern for a while now. Can't remember a game in recent memory where we were able to hold our tempo for a whole game. I'm talking about looking years behind.

Our social media is on fire, because we are failing on the pitch, which attracts a lot of attention. If we get back to winning days, our reach and engagement will drop off massively. That's the least of our problems anyway.

And yes - I'm a big fan of ETH. And he made many mistakes in the past year. One of the main mistakes is a pattern of Ole's reign too - not willing to drop underperforming players. I actually see what he's trying to achieve on the pitch, but it won't happen with Bruno in the middle and this version of Rashford.

Is anyone in this forum certain that getting rid of Eric will suddenly solve every problem we have? Because I'm certain nobody in the world can turn this around until the whole club improves and updates.

 

[RedDevil@84]

They will get it right eventually, not because they're competent but simply because you have more chance of getting it right if you just try something else when the thing you're currently trying isn't working.

That is not guaranteed. There are so many managers out there. Not all of them are geniuses who can work well at any club.

 

[Bole Top]

I can't help but think Glazers are such a lazy excuse this time. competing against the City is one thing, but doing the basics right and making the team look like they are actually coached is another. forget Arsenal and Tottenham games, there was certainly enough quality on the pitch against Wolves and Palace. in fact, every one of his players was available in our first game yet we were still pretty shit. the simple fact is - some things are entirely on the manager. he shouldn't get free pass just because Glazers aren't the best owners you could possibly imagine.

 

[sparx99]

There is no way our fitness coaches and nutritionists aren’t all top class. If they were crap we’d have heard endless stories by now after players leaving the club or when called up to International duty about how their levels weren’t good enough at Utd.

 

[gaffs]

I'm giving ETH time despite how horrendous this start to the season has been, but I have to say that the logic that he shouldn't be sacked because we tried that 5 times before and it didn't work is a bit mental. If this form hasn't drastically improved by Christmas then I think we will have to part ways sadly.

I just hope he lasts longer than the Glazers because I'm done trusting the Glazers to bring in the right manager or personnel for any department.

Not saying that i think ETH should be sacked, but I agree. You cant carry on with the "wrong man" indefinitely.

The Glazers wont be picking the next manager. It will be Richard Arnold and John Murtough, though no one trusts them to make a good decision.

We have heard that Brighton picked De Zerbi because they data they collected showed him to be the best candidate for what they were trying to achieve.

Stylistically, i don't believe United have a "blueprint" of what they want to see on the pitch and a manager that would suit that. Because of this, selecting a new manager would be a roll of the dice.

There is no chance United picked Ten Hag based on data or analysis. We picked him because he was a hot name, who fans believed would be a progressive, new school manager.

 

[Ubik]

I'm giving ETH time despite how horrendous this start to the season has been, but I have to say that the logic that he shouldn't be sacked because we tried that 5 times before and it didn't work is a bit mental. If this form hasn't drastically improved by Christmas then I think we will have to part ways sadly.

I just hope he lasts longer than the Glazers because I'm done trusting the Glazers to bring in the right manager or personnel for any department.

It would be a bit mental, but I think most people are like me in not particularly wanting to go through the "the new manager will fix everything!" stage again when we know how many fundamental issues there are at this club. Everything we do as a club is from a position of weakness, and that includes how we brought in ten Hag in the first place. We don't sign midfielders that can pass and we don't sign forwards that can score. Our idea of good scouting seems to be checking which former Real Madrid Champions League winners are available, or not checking which side of the pitch Sancho likes to play and whether he has a good work ethic. Failing that, who does the manager recommend from former clubs. It would just be nice if for once we could put someone in a position to succeed rather than try and survive.

 

[crossy1686]

That is not guaranteed. There are so many managers out there. Not all of them are geniuses who can work well at any club.

Might take 30 years like it took Liverpool but it will take even longer if you cling to a mistake.

 

[AshRK]

The issue for me is no one seems to know what "Ten Hag" football is. And if they do, we have not seen it at United yet.

I think Ange and Spurs success isn't helping Ten Hag right now because he has managed to come into a team with, on paper, a much weaker squad, who had lost their best player, and still managed to stamp his brand of football on his team within a matter of months.

Good article on "Ange Ball" here...

https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/06/ange-ball-explained-how-postecoglou-could-reinvigorate-tottenham/

Too soon to say anything about spurs or ange. People were raving about eth when we won the carabao. Our football post WC till europa win was sublime. Maybe we should have given up on Europa or FA cup but we lost our way somewhat.

Spurs have an advantage of focussing just on league football, smartly got knocked out of carabao as well. I hope if we miss out on CL then we completely miss out on European football and have one game per week.