Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Neutral view - thought he was what you had needed, especially when he was ready to take some tough decisions (eventually, in Ronaldo's case), but he's been on a downward spiral ever since. From an outside perspective, tactically, United are a complete mess. I don't think his system, whatever mish mash it is, has trickled down to his players at all, and he's also got some mentally ill-equipped players for the style he wants to play.

His recruitment is questionable to shoddy and he doesn't seem to have key members of the squad on his side.

You need to change. And probably pretty fast, otherwise you're staring at a mid table fight.
 
Don’t you all think his biggest mistakes is to spend huge amount of money on players he don’t know how to use? That’s a dealbreaker for me. It looks like he don’t have a plan with the players and are not good enough to manage it in game. Always late with the subs.
I know the players are way to horrible for the kind of level. But he are responsible for the lack of players by overspending on mediocre players.
 
I think I'm right in saying we need at least 2 draws or a win against Galatasary and Bayern or we're bottom of the group. Seems the most likely scenario that we won't even be in Europa league. Shocking.
It'd be quite the achievement considering we couldn't have wished for an easier group
 
I never thought much of Ole as a manager, but he was far better than Ten Hag. If Ole had the same transfer backing, he would have done better than Erik. He struggled tactically but now I look back and wish he’d stayed and we had brought in support staff to help him tactically. ETH has no charisma, no personality, is petty and childish with discipline (would be more effective if he didn’t keep playing people out of position, and had even average results- starting your best players helps) and most damning, he has made it clear that he believes Ajax had better players under him than he has now. If that was the case, Antony, his apparent star man at Ajax (Kudos, Tadic and others were far more effective and important for success) Wouldn’t be effectively one of the worst right wingers in the Prem right now. I would put him behind Dalot in that spot, and he’s an average RB.
Evans over Varane? Can only be trying to force Varane to Saudi Arabia as soon as the transfer market opens. Why else would you be so stupid? It’s not like his mad selections have been successful. So fed up.
 
I never thought much of Ole as a manager, but he was far better than Ten Hag. If Ole had the same transfer backing, he would have done better than Erik. He struggled tactically but now I look back and wish he’d stayed and we had brought in support staff to help him tactically. ETH has no charisma, no personality, is petty and childish with discipline (would be more effective if he didn’t keep playing people out of position, and had even average results- starting your best players helps) and most damning, he has made it clear that he believes Ajax had better players under him than he has now. If that was the case, Antony, his apparent star man at Ajax (Kudos, Tadic and others were far more effective and important for success) Wouldn’t be effectively one of the worst right wingers in the Prem right now. I would put him behind Dalot in that spot, and he’s an average RB.
Evans over Varane? Can only be trying to force Varane to Saudi Arabia as soon as the transfer market opens. Why else would you be so stupid? It’s not like his mad selections have been successful. So fed up.

interestingly I just saw today that apparently Varane was trying to force a move which is why they’ve fallen out
 
Evans has performed 10 times better than Varane this season, but sure. Varane has been dogshit in every game he played since the summer.
 
Critical of ETH for all kinds of unforced errors, but his English comms probably aren't any worse than Conte at Chelsea when he was winning a title with them, or Poch when he was shaping that Tottenham team in the early days, or Ranieri at Leicester, let alone in Chelsea days, to name a few. Might or might not be true in your case but this kind of statement tends to come disproportionately from monolingual English-speakers or people who've never had to use their language skills in a professional context. His English is good enough, although you can always refine it - players are used to dealing with ESOL speaker managers in a cosmopolitan changing room environment. The more important thing is how he manages his coaching staff (who convey instructions to players) and the non-verbal side (team set-up, tactical drills and 'plays', in-game changes)...
I'm seeing @pocco 's side on this and it's not so much his ability to speak English, it's the style, manner and inflections that come from that particular region of Netherlands. There was someone on here who was either Dutch or knew a lot about it and said a while ago he got some stick about it back there. Something like how we diss Ligue Un as a 'farmer's league', it was similar to that; country gent coming into big city type thing. But either way, I think he's just about done for, unfortunately as I can't see it continuing like this waiting for INEOS to get to grips with it.
 
I never thought much of Ole as a manager, but he was far better than Ten Hag. If Ole had the same transfer backing, he would have done better than Erik. He struggled tactically but now I look back and wish he’d stayed and we had brought in support staff to help him tactically. ETH has no charisma, no personality, is petty and childish with discipline (would be more effective if he didn’t keep playing people out of position, and had even average results- starting your best players helps) and most damning, he has made it clear that he believes Ajax had better players under him than he has now. If that was the case, Antony, his apparent star man at Ajax (Kudos, Tadic and others were far more effective and important for success) Wouldn’t be effectively one of the worst right wingers in the Prem right now. I would put him behind Dalot in that spot, and he’s an average RB.
Evans over Varane? Can only be trying to force Varane to Saudi Arabia as soon as the transfer market opens. Why else would you be so stupid? It’s not like his mad selections have been successful. So fed up.
I have to say that there is such ridiculous common opinion here that Ole is tactical poor and PE teacher in elementary school. When something has been said by many people and for many times, it becomes as if it’s real no matter how stupid it is.
I agree with you that ole was not backed in transfer if considering the amount of the transfer fee. But Ole made three big mistakes in transfers, VDB, Sancho, Ronaldo. He lost the opportunities to strengthen the squad and improve our Play style due to it. I think we should not let him go in that way and should at least let him finish the season.
 
I think for a season Ole's team had the best record in the league for coming back to win after falling behind.

We did and I almost pointed out that exception, but if you remember that entire record was a bit smoke and mirrors. We’d go down early, play like shit, and then a Pogba or Bruno worldie and Cavani late winner would win the points for us. But even that year was the year of the famous UCL group meltdown with Beskitas and of course the loss the Villarreal in the Europa final.
 
I have to say that there is such ridiculous common opinion here that Ole is tactical poor and PE teacher in elementary school. When something has been said by many people and for many times, it becomes as if it’s real no matter how stupid it is.
I agree with you that ole was not backed in transfer if considering the amount of the transfer fee. But Ole made three big mistakes in transfers, VDB, Sancho, Ronaldo. He lost the opportunities to strengthen the squad and improve our Play style due to it. I think we should not let him go in that way and should at least let him finish the season.

Ole’s problem as far as tactics go is that he never had a real good plan for playing from the back. His build up structure was horrid and often the reason we’d struggle to progress the ball against high pressing teams. Was always the thing that frustrated me the most with those teams.
 
Yeah, apart from winning trophies and being a threat to man city

At this point, I've got to wonder whether I'm in the same reality as most fans in here

Mate, Red Cafe have this weird alternate reality in which Ole was some sort of genius who done a cracking job.
 
9 defeats and 30 goals conceded in just 17 games. 17.
 
Don’t you all think his biggest mistakes is to spend huge amount of money on players he don’t know how to use? That’s a dealbreaker for me. It looks like he don’t have a plan with the players and are not good enough to manage it in game. Always late with the subs.
I know the players are way to horrible for the kind of level. But he are responsible for the lack of players by overspending on mediocre players.

I actually think the problem is getting the squad to play a new tactical style at a reasonable enough level. Ten Hag has 3 players who have been coached in some of the patterns, positional adjustments and press triggers that he wants to use - Martinez, Antony and Amrabat. We know that he was very interested in both De Jong, who turned him down, and Gravenberch, who went to Liverpool. Implementing a complicated and mentally demanding style of play, which Ajax showed last season that Ten Hag ball is, will be very difficult for a lot of players to handle. That is especially true in a squad that doesn't have any players who are capable of acting as reference points (When Antony does that, Dalot should do that, etc).

Even when we play well we look slow, as if our players really have to think hard about what they were supposed to be doing. Contrast that with Ajax that looked like they could hit passes blindly. That is probably why he's so determined to play Antony no matter what, and why losing Martinez was such a blow to our build up and overal ability to play. The reference points for the style of play in our squad were gone. Realising that Martinez will be out until January at the least, he's decided to go ahead with the implementation anyway. We see some evidence of that in our defending. Players are missing each other's movements, moving too quickly or too slowly. We also saw signs of a style being formed in the first 30 minutes against Copenhagen, with good build up. Before the first goal there was a good build up on the right hand side, with AWB hitting a blind pass into the path of McT, who hit a first time pass across the goal to Hojlund on the back post. Bruno stepped into open space as the pass from AWB was launched. Then defensively we saw Rashford getting involved in a double press down the right hand side as he got the red card. We also saw some signs of a good press against Fullham.

When we went down to 10 men against Copenhagen, it looked like we had no idea how to adapt to that. Which makes sense, because we probably aren't at a point where we are specifically working on scenarios where we are a man down yet. Players don't look like they know what to do, because they don't.

Luckily once the style becomes second nature to key-players down the spine of the team (Bruno, Rashford, Martinez, Shaw, Antony, Hojlund, etc) then it is much easier for incoming players to adapt to the style, and the more players we have that plays the style on instinct, the faster we will be with the ball and the better we will look.
 
And Solskjaer was a penalty away from winning an EL. Just because someone wins a cup doesn’t mean they’re going to go on to greatness.

Arsenal are also playing far better stuff than Ole managed to do, and Arteta had a much better league campaign last season than Ole ever managed to do. Outside of here, not a single person would say that Ole done more for us than Arteta has done for Arsenal.

If Arteta walks away tomorrow, he will leave a very good young squad for the next man. What did Ole leave exactly?

I know that you don't really believe what you wrote btw. You have finally come around to the fact that Ole was a-bit shite really and left us with a mess of a squad.
 
Arsenal are also playing far better stuff than Ole managed to do, and Arteta had a much better league campaign last season than Ole ever managed to do. Outside of here, not a single person would say that Ole done more for us than Arteta has done for Arsenal.

If Arteta walks away tomorrow, he will leave a very good young squad for the next man. What did Ole leave exactly?

I know that you don't really believe what you wrote btw. You haev finally come around to the fact taht Ole was a-bit shite really and left us with a mess of a squad.
I’m not bigging up Ole, I’m talking down Arteta because people keep referring to him and arsenal like they’ve cracked the code.

All these things you’re saying about arsenal are what people were saying about us under Ole when we were playing well and finishing second. And this ‘great’ arsenal side are still only 6 points clear of us in our worst season since the 60’s so let’s not act like Arteta is moving mountains or anything.
 
Nothing can ever be his fault.
Well looking at this thread and other thread, it seems either he is at complete fault or has zero fault. When in reality it should be in the middle. I feel our players get some valid excuse as well. Absolute overrated bunch of players we have. And then a stubborn manager who has weird of managing the game situation. Combine both and you get this
 
I’m not bigging up Ole, I’m talking down Arteta because people keep referring to him and arsenal like they’ve cracked the code.

All these things you’re saying about arsenal are what people were saying about us under Ole when we were playing well and finishing second. And this ‘great’ arsenal side are still only 6 points clear of us in our worst season since the 60’s so let’s not act like Arteta is moving mountains or anything.

Arsenal finished 10 points better than Ole, scored 15 more and conceded 1 less. They also looked like proper challengers until the wheels fell off late in season, and they transitioned to a sustainable attacking formation last season too.

I certainly wasn't saying those things after Ole finished second, and neither were plenty of others. That second placed finish looked really, really poor and most felt we would fall away the next season, which we did, in spectacular fashion.

This is coming from someone who thinks Arteta is massively overrated; but he's still a much better manager than Ole who will likely have a much better career in management.
 
Arsenal finished 10 points better than Ole, scored 15 more and conceded 1 less. They also looked like proper challengers until the wheels fell off late in season, and they transitioned to a sustainable attacking formation last season too.

I certainly wasn't saying those things after Ole finished second, and neither were plenty of others. That second placed finish looked really, really poor and most felt we would fall away the next season, which we did, in spectacular fashion.

This is coming from someone who thinks Arteta is massively overrated; but he's still a much better manager than Ole who will likely have a much better career in management.
Well let us not forget the first 2 odd years for arteta. Arsenal played some absolutely awful football finishing 8th twice and bottling 4th spot to a spurs side. I don't think any elite club would tolerate that. He is a fortunate manager who till now is still struggling here and there.
 
Arsenal finished 10 points better than Ole, scored 15 more and conceded 1 less. They also looked like proper challengers until the wheels fell off late in season, and they transitioned to a sustainable attacking formation last season too.

I certainly wasn't saying those things after Ole finished second, and neither were plenty of others. That second placed finish looked really, really poor and most felt we would fall away the next season, which we did, in spectacular fashion.

This is coming from someone who thinks Arteta is massively overrated; but he's still a much better manager than Ole who will likely have a much better career in management.
I never said he wasn’t better than Ole, and I’m not even trying to start a discussion about Ole but you seem insistent on finding a reason to stick the boot in on him when his achievements aren’t that far off what Arteta has done but people here are speaking of Arteta like he’s done a Klopp, he’s fecking light years away from it. Arsenal peaked last season, Arteta is not a valid argument for anything we should be doing as a club surrounding our manager.
 
Looking at our fixtures and the way we’re playing he will be gone by Jan. Luton aside it’s a tricky run of games that will most likely see us crash out of the CL also.

You can’t be losing 9 of 17 games I don’t care what excuse you try and make. The games we actually win are fecking just as dreadful, 90 minutes of absolute shite that relies on a player pulling something out of nowhere to snatch the points

Fallouts with players, questionable line ups and in game decisions, terrible transfers. It’s been a pile of shite since we won the league cup.
 
I never said he wasn’t better than Ole, and I’m not even trying to start a discussion about Ole but you seem insistent on finding a reason to stick the boot in on him when his achievements aren’t that far off what Arteta has done but people here are speaking of Arteta like he’s done a Klopp, he’s fecking light years away from it. Arsenal peaked last season, Arteta is not a valid argument for anything we should be doing as a club surrounding our manager.

So this stemmed from you saying he had done more for United than Arteta did for Arsenal. But now, Arteta is better, but not by much? Ok.

I'll always stick the boot in when people try romanticise our post-Fergie managers. Call it what it is; they were all poor to varying degrees and contributed to the mess we are in.
 
Well let us not forget the first 2 odd years for arteta. Arsenal played some absolutely awful football finishing 8th twice and bottling 4th spot to a spurs side. I don't think any elite club would tolerate that. He is a fortunate manager who till now is still struggling here and there.

He sure is fortunate. I also think he's had massive amounts of luck since last season too.

He's still a better manager than Ole, though.
 
We really are approaching Spuds prison FC loss levels of banter.
 
More than another transfer window, what ETH needs to do is to hire a sports psychologist. Just incredible how mentally fragile this squad is when put under pressure. And it's not just limited to last night's unique circumstances with the sending off, but it's been a recurring theme all season. Just the basics like "how to manage the game when you've gone a man down" or "how do we consolidate our position now that we've taken the lead" are totally underdeveloped.
 
So this stemmed from you saying he had done more for United than Arteta did for Arsenal. But now, Arteta is better, but not by much? Ok.

I'll always stick the boot in when people try romanticise our post-Fergie managers. Call it what it is; they were all poor to varying degrees and contributed to the mess we are in.
Our managers have been shit, but don’t think that Arteta and Arsenal are the answer. You’ll see he’s viewed in exactly the same light as Ole in a couple of seasons.
 
He sure is fortunate. I also think he's had massive amounts of luck since last season too.

He's still a better manager than Ole, though.
Well if arteta was also sacked like Ole no one would have said that, though. You need luck, arteta got backed to stay in the job like no one. He could get rid of auba laca ozil pepe and their board supported it. He could finish 8th and 8th , to a point he was battling relegation in December 2020 and early 2021 , he still got backed.

No way such things can be backed at United. Point is arteta, rightly or wrongly, would have been sacked at an elite club.
 
Our managers have been shit, but don’t think that Arteta and Arsenal are the answer. You’ll see he’s viewed in exactly the same light as Ole in a couple of seasons.

Will he be viewed in the same light as Ole? Already, any neutral would view him higher, and he would leave a very good squad for someone to work with. Ole is viewed as a total and utter meme outside of this place.

As I said, I think he's overrated and the wheels will eventually come off for him - last season Arsenal had a monumental amount of luck. There is no real model to work with either. He was lucky af to keep his job but he then started getting rid of the deadwood, bad influences etc. and replaced them with talented young players. He struck gold; but he did eventually get it right.
 
Will he be viewed in the same light as Ole? Already, any neutral would view him higher, and he would leave a very good squad for someone to work with. Ole is viewed as a total and utter meme outside of this place.
Is this squad now really better than the one Ole left behind? Currently it doesn't look like it. Ole definitely isn't viewed as a genius manager, but the longer this drags on the more EtH's reputation dwindles away.
 
Great point, love these comments that thrown out there but never backed up newbies...
it's not like one of the first priority of Pep or Klopp was to make sure those areas were filled with class players. Before eth joined our rb and lb position was bang average and inconsistent
Sorry for being a simple newbie , I should know my place better. Ok here's a back up . We had areas to cover and after that we had no money. Your suggestion seem to point that we should have bought replacement for AWB and Shaw as they are not good enough. Well i would point out that if that the level we need to buy another 11 to cover for injuries and poor performance as all our areas at present in bang average to poor.
 
More than another transfer window, what ETH needs to do is to hire a sports psychologist. Just incredible how mentally fragile this squad is when put under pressure. And it's not just limited to last night's unique circumstances with the sending off, but it's been a recurring theme all season. Just the basics like "how to manage the game when you've gone a man down" or "how do we consolidate our position now that we've taken the lead" are totally underdeveloped.
We already have

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ball-news/man-united-ten-hag-rainier-25823403

Rainier Koers has been brought in by Manchester United to instill a positive spirit within the squad.
 
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