Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Judas said:
I personally think Mount, Hojlund and Amrabat will end up being good signings in the end. Onana needs a solid defense in front of him first before we can truly judge.
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Yeh I hope so and totally agree about Onana. He needs a solid defense in front of him. The way we are leaking goals is unsustainable.
 
I'd give him more time to turn this around. It just feels like he's compromised too much at the club. I'm extrapolating his handling of awful ref decisions against us and pre-season schedule. It just feels like he's possibly not astute or experienced enough in handling such matters, let alone transfers. I still think a stronger manager would have forced a couple of our unwanted players out the door and brought the players required to play the style he wants. Or at least made sure we had a good pre-season to drill in his vision. This abominable mish-mash just isn't it.
 
DSG said:
And when that manager fails he’s shown the door immediately. And they hire the best manager available.
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Yes. Because Real don't hire managers, they hire head coaches whose task is to work with what they have. Real Madrid teams identity and personality come from the name and brand itself and the fact that no club in the world can compete with them when it comes to attract the very best players in the world. Their model is unique and the closest club that tried to replicate it was Abramovic's Chelsea, but nobody else functions like them.

DSG said:
Zidane wasn’t the protagonist? Mourinho? Ancelotti, twice? Del Bosque? Capello?
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Mourinho and Capello are protagonist managers. Hiring both of them was seen at the time as against the grain for the club. It came at a time when they were going through a bad spell especially in the case of Mourinho and desperately needed a "savior" to stop losing to Barcelona.

The others are not protagonist type of managers by any means. They are facilitators who don't impose a strong personality or playing identity on their teams. Del Bosque was the same for Spain when he allowed the strong Barcelona core to dictate the way of playing whereas Ancelotti is the dream head coach of an organisation that wants a diplomat who will know how to handle the board, the ego of big names and steer the ship with minimum personal input in terms of their own ideologie or vision.
 
The Hilton said:
Literally 99.9% of clubs? That's a lot of hyperbole.
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But it isn't, that's the whole point. Chopping and changing managers is the norm. There is nothing unusual about the frequency of our managerial appointments post SAF at all. If anything, some of them stayed way longer than they would have at most other big clubs. Those sticking with the manager are the outliers. Because most of the time, it doesn't pay off.
 
Extending his contract only to sack him a few months later would the most United thing post Fergie.


Cloud7 said:
He needs to bite the bullet and drop one of Bruno or Mount. Play Amrabat and Casemiro in CM with one of Bruno or Mount ahead of them.

Casemiro, Bruno and Mount isn’t going to work, at least not now. We need some stability in the team and that starts from midfield.
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At this point, he can't. We are too far gone into the "build a team around Bruno and Rashford" labyrinth. We depend too much on one to create and on the other to score. I understand the frustration, but, the way things are, his best bet to find an exit out of this mess remains to wait until these two hit some kind of form. We may spend a lot of money, but it's all supplementary to the main idea. Which is why with his comments about standards and bad execution of the plan, he will lose both these two and the rest of the dressing room. Too heavy a burden for the stars, too much criticism for the team that's trying to carry them. Like Solskjaer, who was talking about how close we are and that we just have to show the right passion and hunger. Identical fates, one could argue. It reminds me of the old Soviet anecdote with the two envelopes.
 
Maybe it was me but he looked a bit upset in that post match interview on MUTV. I do think he hasn't helped the injury situation by overplaying Shaw, Martinez & AWB last season. People like Bruno are just a one off when it comes to that.
 
Rista said:
But it isn't, that's the whole point. Chopping and changing managers is the norm. There is nothing unusual about the frequency of our managerial appointments post SAF at all. If anything, some of them stayed way longer than they would have at most other big clubs. Those sticking with the manager are the outliers. Because most of the time, it doesn't pay off.
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Yeah, I think clubs that didn't have a manager for 25 years have a better instinct on when it's time to move on from someone.
 
The balance of the team is really off, and it's quite basic things. If we're going to press high up the pitch with Bruno and Mount that's only going to be OK if you have someone who's incredibly athletic to cover behind, which Casemiro isn't. Then you look to the balance of the midfield. Casemiro currently loses 1 in 5 passes, Bruno 1 in 4 and Mount 1 in 5. There's no balance - every time they each get the ball they immediately try to find a forward no matter the game situation. None of them can calm the play down and keep things ticking.

Then there is the pressing up the pitch issue. Being proactive is a good thing, however, the majority of our goals conceded are from cutbacks. There's surely no way he expected Casemiro to press high up the pitch and sprint back in time to plug the gaps - and if he did, surely he'd instruct him to lose the ball less often so that he doesn't have to sprint back as much!

The other concern I have is that the whole team is clearly low on confidence right now, it happens. When it does happen, we need to go back to basics. Keep the ball, don't concede. But our players are still forcing the issue constantly then losing the ball. If it is happening consistently it has to be by instruction which is also very questionable.

For what it's worth I think we will look like a different team in January. Martinez and Shaw alone improve our buildup tenfold... I am hoping by then he sees sense and pairs Amrabat with Casemiro too. Whether or not he makes it to January, however, is another question.
 
As much as I criticised him before and questioned him I don’t want him sacked. Our performances aren’t reflecting the results recently just like our performances weren’t reflecting of the wins under Ole. Crystal Palace didn’t deserve the win neither did Galatasray. Some mad blunders not mistakes but blunders are being committed on the pitch by our players. It’s not sustainable and we’ll be better. I’m sure of it.
 
NinjaZombie said:
As a manager, how do you stop individual errors? Serious question. Because our individual errors led to last night's loss.
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Preparation and confidence. Plus find gameplans that make things easier for the team. Right now, this "bomb it forwards" will only lead to frantic football, where everybody has to be alert at all time. If we want to keep playing like this, adjust the overall shape, sit deeper to compress the space and make more use of the pacy players.
If we want to play further forward, we have to get more smart with the ball. Hope is low on this point.

I see your point and I would agree, yesterdays game was dictated by single events while the overall picture was alright. But just like under Ole, individual errors occur more frequently, when players have to make too many decisions on the fly and have roles/responsibilites, that arent suited to their skillset. I think, this is the current crux, ETH wants to play a certain way but the players don't really fit.
 
Robbie Boy said:
Same shite for Ole and Jose. If only Mou was backed more, if only Ole got who he wanted and a DM. Blahhhh.
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I don't think there are many clubs that back their managers more than we do in terms of financials and allowing them to pick and choose their targets.
 
Cloud7 said:
He needs to bite the bullet and drop one of Bruno or Mount. Play Amrabat and Casemiro in CM with one of Bruno or Mount ahead of them.

Casemiro, Bruno and Mount isn’t going to work, at least not now. We need some stability in the team and that starts from midfield.
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It's like Craig Burley stated on ESPN: its' obvious that you cannot play Amrabat at left-back. It's not fair on him, or on the team. Play Lindeholf at Right Back and Dalot at left back. We do lose that attacking aspect of full backs, and we just have to accept that. But at least we can then play two, defensive minded midfielders in there, and get ourselves a solid foundation to build on. We are leaking goals! Against any half-decent attacking unit (ie not Burnley or Palace) we tend to concede quite a few goals.

Why can't ETH understand the need to tighten things up?
 
Rista said:
But it isn't, that's the whole point. Chopping and changing managers is the norm. There is nothing unusual about the frequency of our managerial appointments post SAF at all. If anything, some of them stayed way longer than they would have at most other big clubs. Those sticking with the manager are the outliers. Because most of the time, it doesn't pay off.
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Chopping and changing isn't the norm at all. Appointing from a list of succession candidates is a lot more common, and a lot more sustainable. That's the point I'm trying to get across.

If we were to get rid of ETH, then we need to replace him, immediately ideally, with a manager who can continue to build on the progress he's made so far, with a similar vision to keep us pulling in the same direction. Constantly hitting the reset button and going off in a different direction (or falling back to the Mou/Ole style of the past 6 or 7 years) will just waste more time before we have a chance of getting back to the top, especially given that we can't actually afford to throw money around anymore.
 
Tom Cato said:
What mess? Antony? Onana?

Ten Hag has signed half a first team squad. Its on him to deliver on his own merits now
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The shocking standards and cultural issues at the club are not the fault of Ten Hag. We didn’t lose last night because of Antony or even Onana.

We caved in after going ahead.
 
He needs to start aiming for boring 1-0 wins if he wants to stay on. But I doubt our players have the composure for that.
 
stefan92 said:
Exactly. It's unbelievable how many fans have dropped their standards while still thinking they are fans of an elite club.
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We are not an elite club. Our club is not run like one. Most of our departments are poor and years behind any elite clubs.
Calling ourselves an elite club is like Americans calling US as the greatest nation on earth.
 
Sarni said:
I don't think there are many clubs that back their managers more than we do in terms of financials and allowing them to pick and choose their targets.
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They don't. That's why the excuses regarding recruitment for all post-Fergie managers has been tiresome.
 
It’s insulting to Ole that this is the football we are playing. Got rid of him because we wanted to progress beyond Oleball. Now we are playing a worse brand of Oleball.

Ten Hag has done so many baffling things since being here that the average caf member would tell you wouldn’t work. The other managers we’ve had have made mistakes and have put their faith in the wrong players but never did I feel they were making rookie mistakes that EtH has.

An example was really early on putting Fred at the base of midfield, or when he played Eriksen in a 2 man midfield away at City. He makes stupid decisions quite regularly that make us easy to play against.

We have a bad defence right now and have defenders out yet he still pushes the team and defenders high up. He’s honestly been moronic to start this season and he takes the majority of the blame for how poor we’ve looked.
 
Sarni said:
I don't think there are many clubs that back their managers more than we do in terms of financials and allowing them to pick and choose their targets.
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Or other clubs have functioning recruitment and scouting department and a proper system in place that is fairly independent of whims and fancies of the manager.
 
I don't want to keep sacking managers, but the idea of ten Hag getting a new deal in this moment. Is such a United thing to do.
 
A manager Ajax fans were glad to see the back of fails at Manchester United shocker!
 
RedDevil@84 said:
He needs to start aiming for boring 1-0 wins if he wants to stay on. But I doubt our players have the composure for that.
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Doubt you can do that with Onana in the goal. This was applicable when we had De Gea and his god like shot stopping skills in his prime. Currently the opposition will score from any half a chance and they will get it thanks to our leaky defense anyway.
 
Ubik said:
Were they? Seems to be working out well for them if they were.
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They weren't. They were aware of some weaknesses but that doesn't mean that they wanted to get rid of him.
 
The funny part is, now people are starting to get nostalgic.

"Hey, Moyes was never given a proper chance, he has proven himself in westham (?!), get him back!"
"Only LVG implemented a new system, it was boring, but a system!"
"Mourinho was never backed properly, he was amazing!"
"Ole did great job, the Ronaldo transfer fecked him, he needed midfielders not this!"
"Ragnick was right about everything why didn't we listen!"

I reckon in exactly 2 years, when our new manager who had his bounce period over and has the team struggling at the moment, many posters will go "ETH achieved so much in his first season, we were foolish to sack him, we just hit bad form then!".

So many managers changing, same pattern appears.

MAYBE the main problem starts somewhere else, who knows.


P.s. Yes, if ETH doesn't show ruthlessness towards Rashford/Bruno, then he should go. He made many mistakes since summer. But nothing will change ultimately.
 
stefan92 said:
They weren't. They were aware of some weaknesses but that doesn't mean that they wanted to get rid of him.
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Yeah that was my recollection too. Unfortunately we're at the "make stuff up" stage now.
 
RedUnited86 said:
A manager Ajax fans were glad to see the back of fails at Manchester United shocker!
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I see we're now at the making shite up stage.

I'll also have a go, Pep really wanted to join us after City's treble last season.
 
Donny will come good when he has a system to play in. You will see his class when we get ETH.

De Gea is the problem. With ETH we need a goalkeeper who can play from the back. This will change our play completely.

Sincerely, posters of the caf 2022
 
Toshey said:
The funny part is, now people are starting to get nostalgic.

"Hey, Moyes was never given a proper chance, he has proven himself in westham (?!), get him back!"
"Only LVG implemented a new system, it was boring, but a system!"
"Mourinho was never backed properly, he was amazing!"
"Ole did great job, the Ronaldo transfer fecked him, he needed midfielders not this!"
"Ragnick was right about everything why didn't we listen!"

I reckon in exactly 2 years, when our new manager who had his bounce period over and has the team struggling at the moment, many posters will go "ETH achieved so much in his first season, we were foolish to sack him, we just hit bad form then!".

So many managers changing, same pattern appears.

MAYBE the main problem starts somewhere else, who knows.


P.s. Yes, if ETH doesn't show ruthlessness towards Rashford/Bruno, then he should go. He made many mistakes since summer. But nothing will change ultimately.
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I think it's entirely possible that all manager we have hire were just crap.
 
His signing isn't as bad as it made to be. This season his signing was poor, but last season it was good. Martinez, Malacia, Eriksen, are all decent to good players to add to the squad. Maybe Antony was the odd man out.
This season was the disaster. I don't see why he changed the tactics instead of doubling down on what's working last season.
Funny thing from his signings this season, is that the best player of that bunch is Hojlund, who Ten Hag has no previous connection whatsoever.
 
crossy1686 said:
At the next manager will have to deal with Ten Hag's mess, and therein lies the cycle that people keep talking about without understanding.
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It’s a mess because we keep chopping and changing but the surrounding environment remains the same.
 
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