Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Baxquux]

Imagine benching Varane for Maguire. The guys is on borrowed time and even if I was willing to let him have a go once our injuries settled, he's a goner when we finish 7/8 at the end of the season.

Otherwise, we'd have the Arsenal experience for the next 2 years and it won't end with him challenging for the league but being canned if we have a decent DoF.

Yeah, I would give him more of a chance if we could see him adopting the equivalent of what Arteta did (let alone Klopp and getting to European finals, pushing City etc), for all its weaknesses in execution, in terms of revamping the team with younger players, playing a coherent system that has a plan for creating chances as well as controlling possession, and has a plan for counteracting opponents even if sometimes it doesn't pay off.

At the moment, it's a fudged pragmatism moving from week to week on a road to nowhere, which is just being projected into by fans desperate to see some kind of 'project' or reason for believing or just justification for being 'high-minded' regarding not replacing a manager, even where there's scant evidence for any vision and plan we're meant to buy into .

 

[tjb]

At this point the only reason to not accept that the injuries have impacted our team structure in defence midfield and attack is ignorance or agenda.

If you accepted it and then made and argument as to how Ten Hag could have improved the structures despite it then I’m all ears.

See for me, that's not a positive, but rather a knock on Ten Haag.

Other clubs deal with injuries. Yes, they might not win games, but they still keep their playing pattern.

I've seen United use Carrick and Evans as centre backs. I saw us use the Da Silva twins are CM's; yet we could still attack.

We played Carrick and Phil Jones at CM for a lot of the 2012 season, we didn't win the league, but we scored a lot of goals. We were still able to get the ball up the pitch.

A few years after this, we had managers telling us that we couldn't get the ball up the pitch with Pogba and Matic. Apparently, Casemiro, Bruno and Eriksen can't get the ball up the pitch, we need Luke Shaw and Licha to do that.

Yes injuries can in defence can make us more vulnerable defensively. However, the notion that we can't in anyway play well against Copenhagen at home or a Newcastle B team at home because Licha and Shaw aren't playing is pathetic. I want ETH to turn it around, but he needs to prove that he can implement a system good enough to challenge for the league and champions league, as that is what we ultimately want to have again. Yet, he's proving that the current system can't even play well against Fulham when dealing with setbacks. Remember, he's signed Antony, Eriksen, Licha, Casemiro, Malacia, Mount, Onana, Hojlund and Amrabat. He inherited Bruno, Varane and Rashford. He also inherited ( playable but sellable) Maguire, AWB and Dalot. That's a lot of players with enough talent to have or sell. There's really no excuse there. It's not a team of Mctominay's. This isn't the team Ole had in 2020 with Lingard, Pereira, Dan James, Ashley Young (at right back), Fred, Mctominay and Martial getting major minutes. Those teams still finished in Champions League places, so there's no excuse

 

[Acquire Me]

Imagine benching Varane for Maguire. The guy's on borrowed time and even if I was willing to let him have a go once our injuries settled, he's a goner when we finish 7/8 at the end of the season.

Otherwise, we'd have the Arsenal experience for the next 2 years and it won't end with him challenging for the league but being canned if we have a decent DoF.

Maguire is doing a fantastic job at the moment. Think hard and find something better to moan about.

 

[Rightnr]

Maguire is doing a fantastic job at the moment. Think hard and find something better to moan about.

See above but benching our best defender (this season, not just in terms of accolades) is absolutely not what I'd expect from the guy who wanted rid of Maguire himself in the summer.

Some of you have proper drunk the Ratcliffe cool aid.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

It’s a poor season no doubt but what is the plan if the manager is sacked? Who will be appointed? People don’t seem to have an answer to that other than just sack the manager.

Just because you don’t have an immediate perfect replacement locked and loaded doesn’t mean you just stick with the status quo dead end. The two decisions should never be mutually exclusive. It’s the same way with players but people get too wrapped up in “who do we bring in if we sold X to replace him” when the decisions are seperate.

 

[Judas]

See above but benching our best defender (this season, not just in terms of accolades) is absolutely not what I'd expect from the guy who wanted rid of Maguire himself in the summer.

Some of you have proper drunk the Ratcliffe cool aid.

what on earth has Ratcliffe got to do with anything you’re saying or this conversation? Cool aid!

 

[Sarni]

Last season you were playing pragmatically to get the best out of the players you had because you couldn’t develop your field game with DDG stuck on his line and unable to distribute.
This season you’re going through a very difficult change process as TH starts to implement modern progressive football and your players are struggling through the learning curve.

IMO you should be careful what you wish for because regressing back to last seasons style of play would be the the opposite of progress.
Be brave, stick with the task and it’ll pay dividends in future seasons.

That’s not true though. If anything, it was at this point last season that we showed signs of changing our style with some very good performances against Spurs and Chelsea. This year is the exact opposite.

We should not delude ourselves into thinking our performances are poor because we are trying to play amazing, modern football, because we aren’t. We are playing far worse football and resort to hoof ball way more than we did last year.

 

[kouroux]

Just because you don’t have an immediate perfect replacement locked and loaded doesn’t mean you just stick with the status quo dead end. The two decisions should never be mutually exclusive. It’s the same way with players but people get too wrapped up in “who do we bring in if we sold X to replace him” when the decisions are seperate.

Besides if you cannot come up with a suitable replacement for players and/or coaches, it doesn't mean they don't exist

 

[hobbers]

Last season you were playing pragmatically to get the best out of the players you had because you couldn’t develop your field game with DDG stuck on his line and unable to distribute.
This season you’re going through a very difficult change process as TH starts to implement modern progressive football and your players are struggling through the learning curve.

IMO you should be careful what you wish for because regressing back to last seasons style of play would be the the opposite of progress.
Be brave, stick with the task and it’ll pay dividends in future seasons.

No last season we played with an intelligent midfield set up where Bruno and Eriksen were close to Casemiro.

This season ETH has lost his mind and is trying to play a suicidal system with a single past it holding midfielder.

It's not a modern progressive system at all, it's just fecking dumb, it doesnt work and it looks hideous in practice. Pep plays with Rodri and Stones operating in a pivot in front of a back 3. Spurs play with 2. Arsenal play with 2.

Nothing ETH has done since February will pay dividends at any point. It's regression with the signings, regression in the system, regression in the football, regression in the results, regression in the squad cohesion.

 

[christy87]

Ok so explain what is the solution to:

1. Antony - Who do you play instead and why?
2. Evans - Who was fit enough to play?
3. Eriksen - Who else give us his passing ability and control (that was fit)
4. McTominay - Who else gives his physicality and goal threat that was fit?

1. Anyone that has a pulse, even dalot as a winger would offer more than him.
2. Varane, it was tactical reasons he was left out last week.
3. He was shocking out there gave us no control and lost the ball once way too much.
4. The funny thing is he was better than eriksen at passing today and that doesn’t say a lot.

All in all, we were terrible as we have been since the start of season and last 2 months of last season, injuries this injuries that, good managers work with what they’ve got, ETH has shit the bed, injuries in defence shouldn’t Impact our forwards only scoring 1 or 2 goals this season.

 

[FrantikChicken]

See above but benching our best defender (this season, not just in terms of accolades) is absolutely not what I'd expect from the guy who wanted rid of Maguire himself in the summer.

Some of you have proper drunk the Ratcliffe cool aid.

Varane has been extremely average this season I’d say Maguire has comfortably put in stronger performances and he currently deserves to be in the lineup based on form

 

[Sandikan]

Rashford's lack of quality far precedes ten Hag.

Sort of must have had some quality last year scoring 30? Or do you think those were all tap ins, down to other players, or some sort of fluke?

 

[tjb]

It's truly amazing that Jose, Ole, Ralf and now ETH, have gotten us to play the same directionless tripe. This must be the new 'United way', because we're touching on a decade of playing utterly dire football.

The only manager that made us looked like we were coached was LvG. But, his football was insomnia inducing. How we never thought about implementing a proper footballing structure after endless failure, is beyond me.

For me, its actually amazing that after 10 years of playing poorly, we've only had 5 non-interim managers. On average, despite not playing good football or challenging for top trophies, we've given each manager 2 years to waste. We have fans crying about us potentially sacking another manager and the job being impossible, when we've literally only had 5 managers despite their level of failure. Abramovich was sacking Scolari and Ancelotti for not winning the league. We're sacking managers threatening to have us in the bottom half of the table. The club has been talking about standards, yet it's really our inability to maintain those standards with managers that has been our issue over the years.

As a club, we hired Moyes, a past it LVG, a Mourinho coming off similar crisis at Chelsea, Ole with no true experience and are crying about potentially sacking another manager. If Madrid or Barca hired a manager like ETH, noone would be talking about what he acheived at Ajax, as that would have been seen as too small. Similar to how we treat Brendan Rodgers' success at Celtic. Why do we treat every manager like a genius that is doing us a favor by managing us. We are the biggest club in the world with the most fans. Why aren't we acting like that?

 

[Redstain]

No last season we played with an intelligent midfield set up where Bruno and Eriksen were close to Casemiro.

This season ETH has lost his mind and is trying to play a suicidal system with a single past it holding midfielder.

It's not a modern progressive system at all, it's just fecking dumb, it doesnt work and it looks hideous in practice. Pep plays with Rodri and Stones operating in a pivot in front of a back 3. Spurs play with 2. Arsenal play with 2.

Exactly last season the team were playing better than this season. The decision to change the midfield shape putting Mount as an advanced 8 fell on its head. The distances between the full fit midfield in the Wolves game was an atrocity.

Fans honestly need to come of off the excuses, injuries have some relevance but even with a fit team the performances were lack luster. In all honesty this is what Erik's employment will hinge on, he has to raise the performance levels significantly. It's not signing 4 more players in a next window, these players are far better than the quality of opposition they have been struggling against. That's on the manager.

 

[Baxquux]

No last season we played with an intelligent midfield set up where Bruno and Eriksen were close to Casemiro.

This season ETH has lost his mind and is trying to play a suicidal system with a single past it holding midfielder.

It's not a modern progressive system at all, it's just fecking dumb, it doesnt work and it looks hideous in practice. Pep plays with Rodri and Stones operating in a pivot in front of a back 3. Spurs play with 2. Arsenal play with 2.

Yeah, the only way it works is with a Kante regen or someone with brilliant positional awareness like Rodri, with the fullback being able to support by tucking in, and with both CBs being swift enough to cover both directly behind and against the space left by the FB when necessary on the turnover. Not anything we're capable of right now. A Casemiro in physical decline is getting mullered against any kind of dynamic opp midfield with the huge gaps.

 

[Snow]

So EtH has become the joint fastest manager to reach 50 wins. That's something.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

@mintyred so you’re saying if a team has first team players injured it affects their performances?

Glad we agree

That’s just not true. We’ve had injuries to the following:

Shaw
Malacia
Martienz
Mount
Højlund
Amrabat
Casemiro
Varane
Lindelöf
AWB
And now Rashford too.

We’ve never played our best XI as a result.

Also @Valencia Shin Crosses (love the name btw)do you understand how attacks are built? You can’t just have Bruno, Rashford, Antony and Højlund and expect goals galore. It has to get to them in good places and to do that you need effective build up. Which comes from deeper and if you lose your best players from defence AWB, Varane, Shaw and Martinez it’s going to massively change how you can play.

You named a bunch of players that have had injuries but are acting like each one has happened at the same time. Trust me I’d understand if we were playing horribly with 9 first choice players all out simultaneously but it’s not the case.

Yes I’m quite aware how building attacks works it’s why I raged against De Gea last season for being inept and was happy to see us go after Onana. But this isn’t a situation where we are getting suffocated in our own half because our defenders can’t get it into the midfield/final third. We progress the ball well enough there but are completely hopeless in the final third and our structure in the opposition half is so poor that we get easily countered anyways. That’s strictly on ETH whether you like it or not. He’s the one that chose to buy a 60m attacking mid without a true position and an 80m winger that might be the worst attacker in the entire league. Both of those decisions were his alone, and he continues to select a group of players that lack either sufficient technicality or physicality to give us this mismashed lineup of profiles without a clear identity or style. That’s also strictly on the manager.

Last year it was understandable that we weren’t that dangerous going forward. We had 0 fit strikers and were largely looking to build a solid base to grind out results. But it’s year 2 now and weve gone significantly backwards while the manager looks so out of ideas that he’s starting Scott McTominay every game to hope he can bundle one in while offering nothing in the midfield.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Besides if you cannot come up with a suitable replacement for players and/or coaches, it doesn't mean they don't exist

Correct. Just means you have a shit ability to identify any sort of talent that isn’t immediately obvious

 

[Fortitude]

Yeah, the only way it works is with a Kante regen or someone with brilliant positional awareness like Rodri, with the fullback being able to support by tucking in, and with both CBs being swift enough to cover both directly behind and against the space left by the FB when necessary on the turnover. Not anything we're capable of right now. A Casemiro in physical decline is getting mullered against any kind of dynamic opp midfield with the huge gaps.

You also need the #10's to be able to hold on to the ball for more than a second so that the shape behind them can be formulated.

He went for a system he had none of the personnel for. Even in Mount, if that is what he wanted, he should have gone for a different profile of player. It was always going to be absolutely ruinous for Casemiro, too.

 

[Jericholyte2]

Last season at this point we had three excellent, convincing wins over Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham to draw encouragement from.

This season our wins have almost all been undeserved and flukeish, against 20th, 19th, 16th, 14th, 13th and 9th placed teams.

We’ve also had a ridiculous injury crisis which has lead us to playing 4 different left backs, 3 different right backs and I believe 7 different CB partnerships.

 

[Still ill]

We’ve also had a ridiculous injury crisis which has lead us to playing 4 different left backs, 3 different right backs and I believe 7 different CB partnerships.

This, bizarrely, seems irrelevant to Caftards and pundits alike.

 

[norm87cro]

Yeah one of his purple patches.

A whole season is a purple patch? Ok mate

 

[Acquire Me]

This, bizarrely, seems irrelevant to Caftards and pundits alike.

Moan FC

 

[Jericholyte2]

Rashford who has proven himself in the PL against a manager whos CV is in the dutch league + a SF of the CL one season? Where was this understanding in the Pogba vs Mourhino case?

When has Rashford proven to be more than a ‘form’ player?. Where has the consistent, season after season 20+ goals return come?

 

[hobbers]

We’ve also had a ridiculous injury crisis which has lead us to playing 4 different left backs, 3 different right backs and I believe 7 different CB partnerships.

And we have Varane and Reguilon sat on the bench. ETH's top two midfield targets sat with them.

 

[glazed]

He went for a system he had none of the personnel for. Even in Mount, if that is what he wanted, he should have gone for a different profile of player. It was always going to be absolutely ruinous for Casemiro, too.

This seems to me to be the heart of the problem. Injury seems to be a big part of that equation. But also the belief he can eventually coach the players he does have and that it will take time. I think that may well be true but the dysfunctionality of the club is why he has the wrong players and why the ones he has are injured. Other less visible dysfunctionalities are also present. His job is very difficult.

 

[IWat]

A whole season is a purple patch? Ok mate

It wasn't a whole season, he was on fire from the very end of October until mid February.

 

[Redstain]

This seems to me to be the heart of the problem. Injury seems to be a big part of that equation. But also the belief he can eventually coach the players he does have and that it will take time. I think that may well be true but the dysfunctionality of the club is why he has the wrong players and why the ones he has are injured. Other less visible dysfunctionalities are also present. His job is very difficult.

Injuries are certainly not part of that problem (Wolves midfield running through United like butter on bread) to play this system because there has never been a moment where it's had any tangible evidence of being successful. The purchasing of Mount was to accommodate that system and it didn't work, there's nothing in the slightest to suggest that buying more players will fix this issue, it will be something the manager tried but couldn't execute.

 

[Robbie Boy]

For me, its actually amazing that after 10 years of playing poorly, we've only had 5 non-interim managers. On average, despite not playing good football or challenging for top trophies, we've given each manager 2 years to waste. We have fans crying about us potentially sacking another manager and the job being impossible, when we've literally only had 5 managers despite their level of failure. Abramovich was sacking Scolari and Ancelotti for not winning the league. We're sacking managers threatening to have us in the bottom half of the table. The club has been talking about standards, yet it's really our inability to maintain those standards with managers that has been our issue over the years.

As a club, we hired Moyes, a past it LVG, a Mourinho coming off similar crisis at Chelsea, Ole with no true experience and are crying about potentially sacking another manager. If Madrid or Barca hired a manager like ETH, noone would be talking about what he acheived at Ajax, as that would have been seen as too small. Similar to how we treat Brendan Rodgers' success at Celtic. Why do we treat every manager like a genius that is doing us a favor by managing us. We are the biggest club in the world with the most fans. Why aren't we acting like that?

Totally agree; our fans also have a weird obsession with our failed managers, too. There was a thread yesterday where people were genuinely suggesting that we should have given Ole more time. I mean, it's absolute lunacy.

I've said it already, but I would rather we set ourselves up with a world class footballing structure and cycle through managers until we find one that works. All top clubs sack managers when it becomes evident that things aren't working, and most remain successful with this model. However, we keep managers until we sink to the lowest ebb possible, and then generally make a bollox of replacing them. All this nonsense that started with Ole about 3 year squad builds is absolute madness, and no other serious club operates like that.

 

[Robbie Boy]

A whole season is a purple patch? Ok mate

Was it a whole season? Had he not scored 2 or 3 goals pre the WC.

Anyhow; I've no idea what you're arguing about. ETH has been shite, and Rashford has been shite. Rashford has also had these spells under plenty of other managers, so blaming ETH for his form is a stretch, to say the least. Especially since he literally had his best season under said manager.

 

[Manncunian]

Totally agree; our fans also have a weird obsession with our failed managers, too. There was a thread yesterday where people were genuinely suggesting that we should have given Ole more time. I mean, it's absolute lunacy.

I've said it already, but I would rather we set ourselves up with a world class footballing structure and cycle through managers until we find one that works. All top clubs sack managers when it becomes evident that things aren't working, and most remain successful with this model. However, we keep managers until we sink to the lowest ebb possible, and then generally make a bollox of replacing them. All this nonsense that started with Ole about 3 year squad builds is absolute madness, and no other serious club operates like that.

Yep. We pull the trigger once the rot has firmly set in and culminated in an extremely toxic environment. This makes the job for the next manager even harder, and boosting morale back up becomes near impossible in some cases.

The approach should be to be far more proactive in our sacking and hiring of managers. We could have got through Moyes, LVG, Jose and Ole in half the time we did, and be much closer to the perfect appointment.

But instead we keep hanging on to each and every failing manager hoping that by some miracle they will suddenly turn into SAF overnight.

We have fans who would have us keeping each manager for even longer than we did, which is complete and utter madness. And they’ve convinced themselves that the next manager will be just as bad as the previous one/s, to the point where you’ll even hear them say stuff like “there’s no point sacking the manager now, it’ll just be rinse and repeat, another failure, and we will be going round in circles”. Insane logic.

Moronic is the word.

 

[glazed]

Injuries are certainly not part of that problem (Wolves midfield running through United like butter on bread) to play this system because there has never been a moment where it's had any tangible evidence of being successful.

A fit Varane/Martinez partnership would have really helped, or Luke Shaw. The pre-season tour was a disaster. Not ETH's fault.

Buying a younger defensive midfielder of Casemiro's quality seems to be essential. The whole midfield transfer area has been a disaster. It's not ETH's fault he couldn't get Rice or similar. Mount is not the player we need at all but maybe given time ETH can coach him into something better. That is after all why we have him. But it takes time and stability and patience.

Ultimately world class players in their prime don't want to come to a graveyard club no matter how much you pay them. It will take success to turn that around. Until then we're stuck with overpaying for the tier below.

 

[honirelandboy]

Not impressed with Ten Hags signings whatsoever is my main concern with him. Looking at Doku today and you can immediately say what a player he is going to be unlike Anthony who cost 30 million more than him. Liverpool basically redeveloped their whole midfield this Summer with GravenBach, McAllister and Sobalaski for 120 million while we have Casemeiro in decline and Mount for the same price. I'm not impressed with Hojlund either for the price tag we paid for him and wasn't a regular starter even for Atlanta last year. There were much better options out there for 72 million.
I'm not convinced by Ten Hag and not sure how much involvement he had in his transfers but they have not been good enough whatsoever for a club looking to join the elite again.

This is a different point but Casemerio and Varane were not good signings to bring United forward. Did we not learn from the signings of Matic and Mata. If a top club like Real Madrid or Chelsea were willing to sell these players to Manchester United with no other clubs interested in them does this not tell us something that there in decline or simply not good enough for the top teams and the signings of Casemeiro and Varane should have been blocked by our board. I dunno just fed up now at the minute with how the whole club is run from top to bottom and sadly don't think it matters what manager we bring in now as nothing will change until the Glazers are gone. At the moment I would say stick with Ten Hag for the remainder of this season but his transfers have been absolutely awful.

The club giving mediocre players five year contracts like Dalot where we should be getting rid of them is also a major concern. We have no scouting system whatsoever and every other top six club in the league are miles ahead of us in recruitment.

 

[IWat]

Ferguson won a CL away game 3-1 with a back five of Kuszczak , Park at RB with Fletcher and Carrick as CBs and Evra at LB. A world class manager will find a way, and even if they don't they won't look as pathetic in the process. Some people are seriously saying that after £410m spent we shouldn't expect any better than the torrid shite that has been served up game after game this season?

 

[el3mel]

I'll take the win as it came few and far inbetween these days, but doesn't change anything from the fact we were shit today, still shit and he'll get sacked eventually.

 

[kundalini]

I think Ten Hag would help his cause enormously if he abandoned Antony. It would demonstrate that he recognised that he had made a massive error of judgement, instead of the current situation where it appears that Ten Hag still has faith in such an underwhelming signing.

Fernandes and Rashford should get fewer mins; it really shouldn't be an issue to bench a player in poor form, or take them off after 60 mins.

 

[madzo2007]

Ferguson won a CL away game 3-1 with a back five of Kuszczak , Park at RB with Fletcher and Carrick as CBs and Evra at LB. A world class manager will find a way, and even if they don't they won't look as pathetic in the process. Some people are seriously saying that after £410m spent we shouldn't expect any better than the torrid shite that has been served up game after game this season?

We also got beaten 3-0 against Fulham with a backline of similar players around the same time as the game you mention

 

[Still ill]

A fit Veron/Martinez partnership would have really helped, or Luke Shaw.

I mean I liked Juan Sebastian as much as the next guy but he's 48 ffs. This penchant for aging Galacticos has to stop.

 

[el3mel]

Also Rashford was out of the squad and he subbed off Antony. I'll take this as an absolute win.

Still Ten Hag out though.

 

[BootsyCollins]

I am a little bit worried from how he talks up the performance today. Hope its just mediatalk and he gives the team the real deal behind closed doors.
Its always the same, when we win we ”dominate” and plays good and when we loose its ”not good enough”
The performance is the same in most matches though, and to take anything else than the result as a positive from this match is a huge mistake imo.

Still thinks he got it in him to turn this around, but its going the wrong way right now, even with todays win.