Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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tomaldinho1 said:
He inherited a strong City team and then had some mega windows to appease him - Stones, Gundogan, Jesus, Sane, Bravo, Nolito all in the first, then had a tantrum that he was miles off Conte's Chelsea so they bought him an entire new defensive unit (Laporte, Mendy, Walker, Ederson, Danilo) AND Bernardo Silva in the second.
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I don't think this ("appease", "tantrum") is a realistic description of what happened at City.

They signed a new defensive unit because the previous one was old. When Guardiola signed for them, the only 2 defenders under 30 were Otamendi and Mangala. Otamendi stayed for a few more years. Mangala has not played regular football since 2017.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
I don't think this ("appease", "tantrum") is a realistic description of what happened at City.

They signed a new defensive unit because the previous one was old. When Guardiola signed for them, the only 2 defenders under 30 were Otamendi and Mangala. Otamendi stayed for a few more years. Mangala has not played regular football since 2017.
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I have zero doubts he went there with the promise he’d basically get what he wanted and post that interview where he said he’d be fired if he was still at Barca, he certainly did.
 
Grizzly B said:
The reason I highlighted the Semi-Final is that you highlight the almost unbelievable achievements. He took a Dutch side to a Champions League Semi-Final, a team that would be ecstatic with getting to the quarter finals most seasons and probably should be being knocked out in the group stages or possibly the first knockout round. All of his achievements with Ajax matter, because he did so with a constant turnover of his best players leaving, and was consistently able to build title winning teams season on season.
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I don't say this to be critical of Ten Hag, but 'smaller' teams reach the semifinals of the Champions League with some frequency.

Villareal made it to CL semifinals last year. Lyon and RB Leipzig both made it to the semis in 19-20. Roma made it to the semis in 17-18 (after famously beating Barcelona).

It's an achievement, yes, but not a foolproof sign that the manager is "it."
 
Matt851 said:
As well as being given more help, casemiro needs to be told to play as a holding midfielder and not some roaming playmaker
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True, but I feel a better midfield selection would enable this, that Casemiro gets a more clearly defined role again. At the moment it looks a bit like he is a one man midfield trying to help out everywhere, that can't work.
 
pocco said:
U21s got stuffed in the last 2 games I think. Including an 8-1 against the mighty Bolton Wanderers from League One. We're currently 14th in the league I believe.
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Nope, won the last game 5-2. The match against Bolton was against the senior team.
 
My main problem with the way we play (as I can see what they're trying to do) is that we are incredibly direct but to no effect.

It's not like we're super open because we're absolutely knocking the door down in games with our relentless attacking. There have been some spells in games where we've attacked well but it only seems to last 10-15 minutes. So we're sacrificing so much defensively for not much upside offensively.
 
Solius said:
My main problem with the way we play (as I can see what they're trying to do) is that we are incredibly direct but to no effect.

It's not like we're super open because we're absolutely knocking the door down in games with our relentless attacking. There have been some spells in games where we've attacked well but it only seems to last 10-15 minutes. So we're sacrificing so much defensively for not much upside offensively.
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We are a very odd team at the moment. Obviously injuries have unbalanced the team but the team appears confused about what we should be trying to achieve. If we are a direct counter attacking team why are we so often so open defensively? I was expecting more of a shift to a possession based style with clear patterns of play but its not discernable to date
 
Matt851 said:
We are a very odd team at the moment. Obviously injuries have unbalanced the team but the team appears confused about what we should be trying to achieve. If we are a direct counter attacking team why are we so often so open defensively? I was expecting more of a shift to a possession based style with clear patterns of play but its not discernable to date
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When a team is playing badly it becomes difficult to seperate low confidence from tactics. Its no different from the way that strikers miss easy shots when they're low on confidence, perfectly valid tactics stop working when the team is off colour. Are we wide open at the back and flubbing direct passes forward because of the tactics? Or the form of the players? Hard to pick apart.
 
quadrant said:
When a team is playing badly it becomes difficult to seperate low confidence from tactics. Its no different from the way that strikers miss easy shots when they're low on confidence, perfectly valid tactics stop working when the team is off colour. Are we wide open at the back and flubbing direct passes forward because of the tactics? Or the form of the players? Hard to pick apart.
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Andy Mitten said yesterday that he knows for a fact the players aren’t responding to the manager. Whether that’s on the players or the manager I don’t know but the players are no longer fulfilling what he wants them to do for some reason and they’re just descending into survival mode football.
 
No-one was expecting us to be immediate title challengers within 2 seasons of ETH appointment, but what we should be seeing, is his style of play being evident. We've no football identity. Klopp wasn't an overnight success, but you could see right away the style he was implementing. Even Arteta at Arsenal, he's not won anything but he's been a lot closer in the league than we've been, same thing, he took his time to settle but you could see what he wanted to install. Ange at Spurs, same thing, you know right away how he wants to play. I'm all for giving the manger time but he needs to start implementing his style of play. Right now we are back playing Ole style, trying to play on the counter or rely on brilliance, such as Bruno's volley recently, but when teams sit back we can't break them down
 
Needs to start making some tough choices or it could cost him his job. I’d play that new GK we have tomorrow to take the firing line of Onana. Play a CB at LB and Amrabat into midfield, rest Casemiro. Play Garnacho instead of Rashford. Let them all know that no one’s place is guaranteed. This is meant to be a manager that has balls to make big decisions. Needs to do it
 
marktan said:
The key difference between those 3 clubs specifically and United is the transfers - all 3 of those have scouting and recruitment structures in place that largely excludes the manager. Brighton everyone knows, Newcastle with Dan Ashworth (previously at Brighton), and Spurs made loads of good transfers over the last 2 years that Conte didn't even use.

Whereas we've let ETH sign whoever he wanted and it's been a disaster.
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I agree Brighton have a much better system in place than ours but I think people are too quick to whip out terms like "disaster". It's not going well so far but it's too early to judge any of these players. It's barely 2 months into the season. Remember Evra and Vidic were rubbish for the first 6 months. Last year you might've said disaster about Spurs signings. They weren't exactly doing very well.
 
mintyred said:
Restarting doesn’t help but let’s not pretend it’s the same. What ETH is trying to implement is dumb and so is the fact he does everything himself. Why is he In control of all transfers? Why is he in control of how the youth academy plays? Doing everything yourself is the sign of a poor leader, good leaders trust and delegate.

liverpool and Arsenal have better footballing structures, whilst we don't have on at all.

we’ve also been in the same cycle for a decade and it shocks me people cansee that. Sit back and suffer through the ride, it’s all we can do.
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mintyred said:
Have you not heard? He demanded they play in a certain way, which is fine but if we were to sack him next week, what do we do then?
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What on earth are you talking about?

There is no structure at this club. of course Ten Hag tries to do all himself cause the ones in charge have no idea how to do their job.

All the clubs with good structure in the club tries to make the academy teams play the same way like the senior team so the younger players know how to play if they get promoted to the senior team, its just logical.
 
poleglass red said:
Even Arteta at Arsenal, he's not won anything but he's been a lot closer in the league than we've been, same thing, he took his time to settle but you could see what he wanted to install.
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At this relative point in Arteta's tenure, Arsenal played horribly. You couldn't 'see' anything.
 
He needs to them to play as a team, that includes dropping players who is not performing. Bruno is declining and Rashford is out of form so why are they pick regardless what state they are in? I simply cannot understand. If McTominay and Maguire needs to be move then move them at all cost. Why are we keeping unmotivated and unhappy players at United? This is really a dumb club for sure. We could have 1 CB and 1 ST signed with players moved but no, we decided that bids submitted didn't meet our valuation and we rather they sit on the bench and sulk.
 
AlexUTD said:
Klopp and Arteta had even worse second seasons.

Arteta had a period of with 11 games with 6 losses, two draws and 3 wins. They only beat Molde, Rapid Wien and Dundalk FC in Europa League

Klopp Had in the middle of his second season 2016/2017 where he had two wins in 12 games. One of the wins were against Plymoth in the FA cup.

Can we please calm down and trust in the manager?

What good does it do to restart with another manager that wants different players again? It is going to be a endless loop of changing managers.
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In his 2nd full season Klopp reached Champions League final. No, we can't just calm down and trust in the manager when there are red flags everywhere.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
At this relative point in Arteta's tenure, Arsenal played horribly. You couldn't 'see' anything.
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Yeah they where terrible and Arteta was on the brink of being sacked two or three times. It changed when he got the older players out and they signed a lot of younger players.
 
Shark said:
Even though at every single club Pep has been to, he 99% of the time gets his first choice man along with an open chequebook, which means even if he does make errors he can quickly rectify them. At United he'll be delivered his 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice targets. On a rare occasion he would get his first and the club would still be useless in selling players like Maguire and VDB.
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Having Pep helps get your first choice targets because you've got the best manager.
 
AlexUTD said:
What on earth are you talking about?

There is no structure at this club. of course Ten Hag tries to do all himself cause the ones in charge have no idea how to do their job.

All the clubs with good structure in the club tries to make the academy teams play the same way like the senior team so the younger players know how to play if they get promoted to the senior team, its just logical.
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Playing devil's advocate a bit, but there is a structure in place now which is relatively new. The issue I see is that to get ETH in we had to hand him a lot of control over things, which seems to have largely watered down their role/ impact.

Whether they'd actually do a good job is a different matter. But I suppose you could say them agreeing to give Ten Hag so much power was a bad move from them anyway.
 
Rista said:
In his 2nd full season Klopp reached Champions League final. No, we can't just calm down and trust in the manager when there are red flags everywhere.
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Not sure you can just ignore that first season, where he was in charge for 30 league games. Funnily enough, their league record after 9 games in that first season (3 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses) is exactly the same as the record after 9 games the season they got to that CL final.
 
Amsterdam Devil said:
Yeah they where terrible and Arteta was on the brink of being sacked two or three times. It changed when he got the older players out and they signed a lot of younger players.
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Well, the majority of RadCafe thought he was a joke. But myself and a few others saw something with what he was doing. You could see the shoots of something good in the way he was trying to get them playing, even if the results didn't follow. They also had a poor team at that point, nowhere near comparable to what ETH has at his disposal.

Same for Klopp. Anybody trying to draw comparisons is either being disingenuous, have a poor memory or just don't know what they're talking about.

https://talksport.com/football/5514...iverpool-everton-alisson-van-dijk-mane-salah/
 
If you sack him then who is there to replace him? Another manager who will want to put his own stamp on it and another 2 or 3 transfer windows "trusting the process".

Ten Haag has had to deal with a lot especially recently. I'm not sure if he can turn it around but surely give him the season.

Onana is clearly better than what he is showing. The back four hasn't been settled with injuries and he needs time to integrate Ambrabat into his midfield which should provide more energy.
 
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quadrant said:
When a team is playing badly it becomes difficult to seperate low confidence from tactics. Its no different from the way that strikers miss easy shots when they're low on confidence, perfectly valid tactics stop working when the team is off colour. Are we wide open at the back and flubbing direct passes forward because of the tactics? Or the form of the players? Hard to pick apart.
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That is true, but I am still confused when I refer to the comments eth has made on playing style (best transition team in the world) when compared with what I was expecting from him (possession based). Even when we were in form last season I don't really know we had any sort of style or patterns going forward and we're heavily reliant on rashford
 
He looks pretty fraught snd dejected in the press conference which isn't a good sign.
 
Matt851 said:
That is true, but I am still confused when I refer to the comments eth has made on playing style (best transition team in the world) when compared with what I was expecting from him (possession based).
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Why did you have that expectation? His Ajax was likely the most transition-focused Ajax in quite a while.
 
izec said:
He is done here
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I think so too but we won't sack him until top 4 becomes mathematically impossible. It's going to be a bruising, unpleasant season.

I think he was the right manager at the wrong time. The cultural issues, off-field drama and uncertainty around the club have doomed him.
 
AlexUTD said:
What on earth are you talking about?

There is no structure at this club. of course Ten Hag tries to do all himself cause the ones in charge have no idea how to do their job.

All the clubs with good structure in the club tries to make the academy teams play the same way like the senior team so the younger players know how to play if they get promoted to the senior team, its just logical.
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It's not the manager's job to do these things in a functional modern club. If the manager leaves then his ideas leave with him and you have to start again, like what happened with Fergie. If you want continued consistency then the structure has to be implemented by the higher-ups. Ten Hag hasn't been here for 2 minutes and he's trying to change the club in his image, I understand why, but he's not even guaranteed to be here by the end of the season. If he was to get sacked we have to start from scratch and it will take a while before anyone figures out what they're doing.
 
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