Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Seeing that Case and McT are our leading scorers are pretty grim. Like I said in the matchday thread, I am edging closer towards the sack camp, after his tactical lineup bombed.
 
To me, the United Way is about building a club based on the academy or young players. Styles of play change like fashion but that ethos should always remain constant.
That's wrong interpretation of United way though, when at the end of SAF reign we don't have that new academy as starter under SAF. 40 years old Giggs still around. Experience from Rio, Vida, Evra, RVP still required. If anything Arsenal under Wenger at that time was bold about their young player policy since they keep selling their best players in their prime years,

Cleverly Welbeck got plenty of game time but they're hardly future stars even without hindsight at the time. Young promising talents bought from else where more often than not. Plenty of duds young players signings Tosic, Diouf, Manucho, Bebe, Obertan, Dong...that hardly get a chance under SAF because they're simply not good enough.

United Way is not that special in comparison to Ajax who take pride in home made talents, as well as a style of play that influence its national team.

Without knowing better, LVG approach flooding youth is very much United Way ethos by description. In truth, it's very different for example.
 
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Imo I don't think ETH was talking about that. He was talking about our football philosophy imo.

Our football has always been direct. So same goes for our recruitment and academy. Before ETH we've never recruited or taught our senior players or our youngsters to play possession football not like in Ajax or Barca or City where they've been doing that for years.

Imo he would have a much easier time to implement his football if he manages Barca or City for example instead of us.

Lvg built himself a team to play zombie footy I don't see how Eth can't do the same for himself.
 
Lvg built himself a team to play zombie footy I don't see how Eth can't do the same for himself.
LVG gut the first team. Flood in youth who would listen to him while quite many of them are not good enough. In long run it may work, but as evidence showed, it's too much too quick.

It's not wrong to take it slow. However, players has been very bad, so we're becoming even more reliant on players and the style we should move away from. If we pamper to these players, we should have gotten a different coach that align with these players instead of this Frankenstein team,
 
He's been deploying terrible tactics and making terrible selections in his starting 11, despite the issues like injuries and off the pitch drama, nothing excuses such performances and he is culpable for it too.
 
Lvg built himself a team to play zombie footy I don't see how Eth can't do the same for himself.
The thing with LVG is his football was pure possession football. You just keep the ball at all cost (even at the cost of scoring) you'd have that. It's having the ball purely for the sake of having it. Nobody play like that anymore. And tbh LVG was able to play that kind of football only against much worse teams who played for a draw. They simply let us to have the ball because they knew we'd do feck all with it. If my memory serves me right we were never able to play like that against any decent team. It was more like Fellaini and hoofing I think.

Nowaday imo possession football has evolved into a mix of possession football and gegen pressing. The idea is still to dominate, control the game via having the majority of possession and high pressing and pinning your opponent to their own half. But then to create and use situational advantage of superior number and fast transition from turnovers high up the pitch to score. It's much more complicated and demanding imo. I'm no expert though so that's all I could say.
 
Not the time to sack the manager. We need to sort the structure out above him, create alignment across all things transfers / how we want to play. Sporting Director is crucial as part of any shakeup of the football club. One thing we do need to see from Ten Hag though is him finding his backbone, Rashford is clearly out of form yet we’re persistently playing him. Give Garnacho a run on the left.
his changes yesterday - you could see we where being overran in midfield within 10 mins of the second half kicking off. Why not bring Mainoo on at that point ?
 
The very least we expected of ETH was to get us playing a set style. Why can not 1 single manager do that for us? Managers come in and say we want to play attacking football and dominate games. Blah blah but it never happens! There’s no excuse for him anymore looking at the likes of Emery and Ange and how little time they’ve had. They’ve got styles already. Surely ETH knows this.
 
Now we're talking about changing the habits of multiple players at the same time in order to play a new kind of football. Obviously it'll look like a mess. Some might make it. Some don't and we'll have to replace those. I don't know if we'd ever make it but one thing I'm sure about is it'll take time. Until then we'll unfortunately look like a mess I think.
I forgot one thing that's our injuries. What I said might makes you think that we've always been a mess under ETH but that's simply not true.

Imo one very important thing about this kind of football is it's very sophisticated. Like anything sophisticated it got broken easily when one or a few important pieces are missing and there's no adequate replacement. For example as well oiled and having a huge squad as City they were still having a pretty hard time missing only Rodri for the their last few matches. So atm we look like a mess imo it's hugely because we're missing our first choice players.

Last season we were able to implement his football to some extent and played fairly well when we have the most of our first XI available. So imo we'd look much better when we have them back. Hope soon enough to save his ass though. And also us from watching this crap.
 
Not the time to sack the manager. We need to sort the structure out above him, create alignment across all things transfers / how we want to play. Sporting Director is crucial as part of any shakeup of the football club. One thing we do need to see from Ten Hag though is him finding his backbone, Rashford is clearly out of form yet we’re persistently playing him. Give Garnacho a run on the left.
his changes yesterday - you could see we where being overran in midfield within 10 mins of the second half kicking off. Why not bring Mainoo on at that point ?

New structure above would bin him off in an instance.
 
If we don't make it out of the CL group, perhaps he'll be sacked then. Would McLaren take an interim role until the summer?

It's possible we scrape through in second and the performances gradually start getting a little better, but I see no sign of that.
 
I genuinely can’t believe he started Maguire and Jonny Evans against Erling Haaland… :lol:

Wtf is he doing!?
Not sure if you watched the game, but that was the least of our problems yesterday.

Signing and persisting with crocked players such as Varane and Shaw caused that situation.
 
The injuries have been terrible, but the way he’s used the squad this season, the tactics have been at best naive.

Im sad how little hope I’ve got left in him turning this around, and in truth i doubt he gets enough time to now anyway.
 
So now Ten Hag says we are never going to see United play like Ten Hag let Ajax play? But he has to play United the United way. Who decides that then? The United way leaves us behind the way teams like Arsenal, City and Liverpool play.

And it also is because he doesn’t have the players to play like he let Ajax play. Who buys this players then for 400 million? I just don’t understand what he says here, it’s the beginning of the end for him I think.
 
Not the time to sack the manager. We need to sort the structure out above him, create alignment across all things transfers / how we want to play. Sporting Director is crucial as part of any shakeup of the football club. One thing we do need to see from Ten Hag though is him finding his backbone, Rashford is clearly out of form yet we’re persistently playing him. Give Garnacho a run on the left.
his changes yesterday - you could see we where being overran in midfield within 10 mins of the second half kicking off. Why not bring Mainoo on at that point ?
Why are we the only club in the world that needs a DOF to beat teams like Palace and Galatasary?
 
Why are we the only club in the world that needs a DOF to beat teams like Palace and Galatasary?
You are not. But signing a good DoF first increases the chances of signing a well fitting manager next.
 
Cannot see what ETH has done to survive Sir Jim’s initial cull. Time for a totally new start gut all senior management CEO the lot get rid. Hopefully Sir Jim has a plan because currently there isn’t one.
 
Don't think ETH will go so easily since he still has the team backing.

Plus he's a good disciplinary coach and every one manager last longer than the previous manager after Moyes.
 
You are not. But signing a good DoF first increases the chances of signing a well fitting manager next.
It doesn't, it just means we'll have to fire two people when that ultimately fails also because the manager isn't doing his job and the DOF picked the manager. A DOF isn't always the answer, Arsenal haven't had one since Sven Mislintat, Brighton don't have one, Tottenham don't have one, Liverpool didn't have one since Edwards left. We just need a manager that isn't shit and most of this stuff will work itself out.
 
So now Ten Hag says we are never going to see United play like Ten Hag let Ajax play? But he has to play United the United way. Who decides that then? The United way leaves us behind the way teams like Arsenal, City and Liverpool play.

And it also is because he doesn’t have the players to play like he let Ajax play. Who buys this players then for 400 million? I just don’t understand what he says here, it’s the beginning of the end for him I think.

He said that? What was the point of hiring him then?
 
So now Ten Hag says we are never going to see United play like Ten Hag let Ajax play? But he has to play United the United way. Who decides that then? The United way leaves us behind the way teams like Arsenal, City and Liverpool play.

And it also is because he doesn’t have the players to play like he let Ajax play. Who buys this players then for 400 million? I just don’t understand what he says here, it’s the beginning of the end for him I think.
So all of this is based on a misunderstanding. They hired him to bring the Ajax way, and he came thinking he needs to do the United way. That is tragic. :(
 
My thought on Bruno is why put a player who is out of form in a position he is not comfortable with. Better to leave him out especially against a team like City.
 
I’ve like ETH since he arrived. Takes no prisoners and dealt with some tricky stuff in his first season brilliantly.
This season though he’s been poor. The injuries have hurt, no question but is stubbornness to play players that are showing no form, no hunger and seemingly no idea is just foolish. If he doesn’t start changing it up in the coming weeks we’d have to consider his position.
 
How he thought Bruno was captain material is beyond me. That's terrible judge of character right there.
Also, you don't strip the captaincy from Maguire until you have him out the door.

ten Hags decision making at this club has been a disaster for some time now and I think the job is far too big for him.
 
but is stubbornness to play players that are showing no form, no hunger and seemingly no idea is just foolish. If he doesn’t start changing it up in the coming weeks we’d have to consider his position.

The same thing cost Ole his job.
 
He’s picking players who have left other managers to drown. Some because there’s no other options, but Bruno and Rashford do have competition for their places, and yet are stinking game after game. It’s bizarre. His stubbornness is killing him.
 
It's unfathomable to me that every man/woman and their dog on this forum knows that we lack physicality as a team - and yet a man who is paid millions to coach/manage the squad is attempting to implement a system that requires high levels of fitness, mobility, power and speed.

I'm sick of modern football managers and their "philosophies". Footballing principles and ideas are fine, but your primary job is to get the best out of the 23 man squad you have.

We have a slow back four, but all four of our first choice options and very good defensively.

We have a midfield who have technical attributes but lack physical attributes.

Our wide forwards are suffering from being too far away from goal when they receive the ball and/or from having to spend too much time running backwards.

For me, the squad is crying out for a counter-attacking system. Sure, we can't win the league that way because we'd likely end up with too many draws, but it's the best way of maxising the points total of this current group.
 
He doesnt play Sancho because the player did not apologize to him yet he doesnt drop Rashford and Bruno for being piss poor. If he wants to be a hard man he should be with all the players and not pick and choose.
His problem is that he's rapidly going to run out of allies in the dressing room if he does that. Everybody knows what a lot of players in this squad are like. If they don't fancy the manager, they stop trying and start talking to their mates in the media instead. Yes, in an ideal world Ten Hag would take a hard line and eventually change the dressing room culture, but I simply don't believe that's possible without turfing out half the squad, and that's simply not going to happen (especially given the club's financial situation). I think he's already played his cards as far as binning players goes. He got rid of Ronaldo, he got rid of De Gea, he got rid of Sancho, he took the captaincy off of Maguire. He's brought in a bunch of people he's previously managed and should be willing to run through brick walls for him. At some point he actually has to start getting some results before he can throw any more people under the nearest bus. Sir Alex could do whatever he liked because his position was untouchable. Ten Hag is a few players downing tools away from losing his job.
 
How he thought Bruno was captain material is beyond me. That's terrible judge of character right there.
Also, you don't strip the captaincy from Maguire until you have him out the door.

ten Hags decision making at this club has been a disaster for some time now and I think the job is far too big for him.
Nah I agree with his big decisions, Ronaldo, Sancho, Maguire captaincy, Id want our captain to be a regular starter, but yeah giving it Bruno wasn't the answer, although who else in our current team could we give it to. My only shout would be Martinez.
 
On the dutch paper site AD, there are quotes from Ten Hag talking to VIAPLAY saying we will never play like how he played at ajax, that's not why he came here. "The way we played at AJAX, you won't ever see that here." "The player material decides how we play. That's why I can not let this team play the way I did at ajax. I have to, I can't play the same way here. It's also not in the DNA of Manchester United. Ajax football is very specific, here we have to play more direct. We have the type of players for that."

He speaks like at United we do not accept or want Ajax type of football and he is forced to play a different brand... I'm sure many on the caf were dreaming of our team playing like his Ajax team and that it was a big reason many wanted him here for... Is this shit football and his player acquirement strategy just a confused Ten Hag thinking we want hoofball? :wenger:
That's a horrific quote. Who the feck demand this? We'd have brought in Guardiola after Fergie if he didn't promise Bayern to go there. Don't think he would be happy to play on the counter.

Ten Hag is talking bollocks.
 
Bruno shouldn’t be captain but can anyone name one player that should be captain ahead of Bruno? I can’t cause there is not one leader in that team. Not one. Pay cheque merchants with a league two mentality.
 
His problem is that he's rapidly going to run out of allies in the dressing room if he does that. Everybody knows what a lot of players in this squad are like. If they don't fancy the manager, they stop trying and start talking to their mates in the media instead. Yes, in an ideal world Ten Hag would take a hard line and eventually change the dressing room culture, but I simply don't believe that's possible without turfing out half the squad, and that's simply not going to happen (especially given the club's financial situation). I think he's already played his cards as far as binning players goes. He got rid of Ronaldo, he got rid of De Gea, he got rid of Sancho, he took the captaincy off of Maguire. He's brought in a bunch of people he's previously managed and should be willing to run through brick walls for him. At some point he actually has to start getting some results before he can throw any more people under the nearest bus. Sir Alex could do whatever he liked because his position was untouchable. Ten Hag is a few players downing tools away from losing his job.
Spot on. In my country there is a saying 'if the chair of a manager seat has four legs the players have three of those'.
 
That's a horrific quote. Who the feck demand this? We'd have brought in Guardiola after Fergie if he didn't promise Bayern to go there. Don't think he would be happy to play on the counter.

Ten Hag is talking bollocks.

And what’s the use of hiring him if he isn’t going to play the style of football that gave him success and made him a famous trainer. It’s just ridiculous. Could have gotten every other trainer if we didn’t want to change anything.
 
That's a horrific quote. Who the feck demand this? We'd have brought in Guardiola after Fergie if he didn't promise Bayern to go there. Don't think he would be happy to play on the counter.

Ten Hag is talking bollocks.
He talks so much guff

We were a very good counter attacking team under ole but it was clear that wasn't enough

Surely he was brought in on the basis of the style of football his ahax team played not in the hope he could coach a more direct style
 
On the dutch paper site AD, there are quotes from Ten Hag talking to VIAPLAY saying we will never play like how he played at ajax, that's not why he came here. "The way we played at AJAX, you won't ever see that here." "The player material decides how we play. That's why I can not let this team play the way I did at ajax. I have to, I can't play the same way here. It's also not in the DNA of Manchester United. Ajax football is very specific, here we have to play more direct. We have the type of players for that."

He speaks like at United we do not accept or want Ajax type of football and he is forced to play a different brand... I'm sure many on the caf were dreaming of our team playing like his Ajax team and that it was a big reason many wanted him here for... Is this shit football and his player acquirement strategy just a confused Ten Hag thinking we want hoofball? :wenger:

If this is a restriction from higher up, it's fecking stupid. It's like hiring Sam Allerdyce to manage Barcelona. The way Ajax played was the whole reason we hired him in the first place. His coaching style and playing style are intrinsically linked. High discipline, little creative freedom in favour of team structure. If we didn't want that, there were plenty of alternatives out there.
 
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