Some people decided long ago they didn't like him, too late to turn back now.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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Some people decided long ago they didn't like him, too late to turn back now.
But that squad finished 2nd?
I've been told plenty of times that this Utd squad finished second, so it can't be that bad. That ETH is the one who should be doing better.
We all know the gale force winds against Ten Hag, including uncertainty of where club ownership is going, but he’s managed to keep this ship afloat nevertheless. But it really has to be said that some of his transfer decisions have been appalling.
Touchline ban for the next game eh?
I thought that first half yesterday was very controlled and they utilised the space on the wings well. The diagonals from Maguire were finding players, it's just the finishing was bad. The second half things were more back and forth, but attackers were finding more space.
Really it should have been a comfortable two or three-nil win with the chances created.
It's the first game in a while where I wasn't really concerned and I was kind of baffled at people saying Utd were hanging on at the end.
Leaving Hojlund on when he was clearly injured was daft.
I thought that first half yesterday was very controlled and they utilised the space on the wings well. The diagonals from Maguire were finding players, it's just the finishing was bad. The second half things were more back and forth, but attackers were finding more space.
Really it should have been a comfortable two or three-nil win with the chances created.
It's the first game in a while where I wasn't really concerned and I was kind of baffled at people saying Utd were hanging on at the end.
Leaving Hojlund on when he was clearly injured was daft.
Playing devil's advocate here - but Bruno is shit and Rashford is shit, our midfield is shit, our defence is total shit so even if we click, how much better are we really going to do?
I think it was a correct decision to start those players yesterday, no complaints about that. From now on I'd drop Rashford for Mount (I can see him providing some defensive cover, combining with Dalot and swinging some crosses into the box, that's already more than what I expect to get from Rashy now)- obviously it's not going to happen.
The only criticism is playing McTominay is like a sacrifice to football gods, and in return you expect to the ball to fall to Scotts feet every once in a while in the box. So far it's been effective to some degree, I just think it's funny that we are starting to wonder if Amrabat and Mount are really his signings.
The only criticism is playing McTominay is like a sacrifice to football gods, and in return you expect to the ball to fall to Scotts feet every once in a while in the box. So far it's been effective to some degree, I just think it's funny that we are starting to wonder if Amrabat and Mount are really his signings.
The Liverpool squad that finished 2nd had, as top goalscorers, Luis Suarez (31 goals), Daniel Sturridge (21 goals), Steven Gerrard (13), and Raheem Sterling (9). It was a high-scoring squad with a poor defense (conceded 50 goals).
Suarez, Sterling, and Gerrard were all gone by the time Klopp arrived, and Sturridge had begun to seriously struggle with fitness.
In the United squad that finished 2nd, the top league goalscorers were Fernandes (18), Rashford (11), Cavani (10), and Greenwood (7).
United still has the first two.
So what? The Utd squad that finished second had Martial playing well, Greenwood banging in the goals and Cavani scoring.. and Pogba playing.
None of those have been available under the same circumstances to ETH. Pogba gone, Cavani gone, Greenwood out and Martial is a perma crock.
That Liverpool actually slipped the title from their hands. We're never in comparable situation post SAF.
So yeah, their squad that finished second was in better shape than Utds.
Those players aren’t sh*t, that’s not playing devils advocate, it’s just saying this that are factually untrue.
Rashfords form has been sh*t. For all the hyperbolic over reacting nonsense to Bruno, he works harder than anybody for the team and he’s popped up with some really important moments for us. The forward line misfiring has probably robbed him of plenty of assists.
Our team has been poor all season for numerous reasons. There have been way too brief moments of class, but there has been green shoots where you can see what ETH football might look like.
Exhaustion from last season , coupled with chronic injury issues and other drama have made things very difficult. If we can get through this period and cool heads prevail (unlike some of the children in this thread desperate for any other manager) I’d be excited to see what a fully fit squad with some momentum could do.
The one thing I would add is that despite the transfer window, our squad is far weaker than it was last year. We technically lost Rashford to poor form, Antony to mental issues with his legal cases, Greenwood to the mob pressure and Sancho for preferring to play FIFA over actual football. Even if he wants to refresh the attack, he only has Garnacho and Pellistri on those flanks.
It's kind of hard to score goals when your line is led by a rookie from Seria A and a couple of players that are either in very poor form on not experienced enough.
In the Fergie days we would have signed someone like Mitrovic/Toney to take the burden of Hojlund and introduce him slowly.But sadly our higher ups don't think in terms of long term planning.
Despite a million problems, in every game (maybe except the City one), we've done enough to win. We lost 80% of the games we lost, because of bad finishing, VAR and refereeing screwing us over and a bunch of individual mistakes.
What makes me happy is that the fans on the stadium applaud and cheer for ETH.
So in my books, he has the support that actually matters.
Because he will be successful here, even more than he is now.
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That is frankly, and I'm not being disrespectful, a ludicrous assessment of Manchester United's season so far. I cannot believe that some people. genuinely, think this.. or observe this. We're playing the most awful football I can recall at United. Just watch us play. Watch. Forget City, Brighton have essentially embarrased us this season. You forget Galatasary (yes, that European powerhouse of a CL team...) who did a job on us at OT, they hit three and could have scored a few more.
And all you seek are excuses. Unreal.
What makes me happy is that the fans on the stadium applaud and cheer for ETH.
So in my books, he has the support that actually matters.
Because he will be successful here, even more than he is now.
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That is frankly, and I'm not being disrespectful, a ludicrous assessment of Manchester United's season so far. I cannot believe that some people. genuinely, think this.. or observe this. We're playing the most awful football I can recall at United. Just watch us play. Watch. Forget City, Brighton have essentially embarrased us this season. You forget Galatasary (yes, that European powerhouse of a CL team...) who did a job on us at OT, they hit three and could have scored a few more.
And all you seek are excuses. Unreal.
Luis Suarez carried that decent at best squad. Him leaving broke that team until the rebuild under Klopp. Only Henderson as starter, is from that squad when Liverpool made their first CL final in Klopp second full season.
They're not in better shape after Luis Suarez left at all. Lot of bad signings under Brendan Rodgers that only Firmino had a prominent role for long period. Lovren was stop gap starting CB for a period. Sterling was sold before Klopp arrived. Coutinho was the prized best player that Klopp only used as stop gap.
His first summer window got him 3 later key players in Mane, Wjinaldum, Matip. Next season, he got Salah, Robertson, VVD (winter window). The third summer, Alison and Fabinho. There was decent squad players and flops, but many bit hits in quite short amount of time to rebuild a barebone frame (Henderson, Firmino).
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You look at United last season under Ten Hag, you see:
This is why I'm a bit skeptical of explanations that are very time-sensitive, i.e. "we're going through an injury crisis right now." It's not like United have gone from this high-flying attacking style to suddenly struggling.
- United could not score much. 58 goals in the league. That is one more goal than the previous poor season. It was less goals than in any of Ole's seasons. Less goals than City, Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool, Brighton, Spurs last season. Just a poor number.
- United were strange defensive. There were a lot of clean sheets, which is great, but the final amount of goals conceded was 43, which is not low. There was the Liverpool 0-7 outlier, but that doesn't account for everything.
This is why I'm a bit skeptical of explanations that are very time-sensitive, i.e. "we're going through an injury crisis right now." It's not like United have gone from this high-flying attacking style to suddenly struggling.
You didn’t address the post, you just disagreed and went on to talk about quality of football which the poster didn’t disagree with.
VAR has been integral to an awful lot of our games. This is a correct statement.
You can argue that most of these incidents are “technically correct” but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been on the end of a disproportionately large amount of these decisions that dont seem to even out.
And some of you seem to act like our injury issues are the same as every other club. Well they are not, no club is having the same amount of chronic, persistent injury issues that we have had.
Couplee With this and probably related to it was last season where our squad played more games than most when a World Cup has been squeezed in between the season. There is no benchmark comparison but Klopp seems to of gotten a pass when his team had as many games as us last season , when there wasn’t also a World Cup.
Klopp having credit in the bank explains why he was correctly kept on. But the fact still remains that one of the best managers of the modern game struggled badly to manage his squad the season after a punishing season. ETH is now having to manage our squad after an even more gruelling season and yet people think we should be playing solid football when he hasn’t been manager 2 years yet.
Ultimately ETH May run out of time but I feel he’s been so unlucky that so many factors have transpired against him. As such , any mistakes he makes are far far worse because there is zero room for them that other managers can afford.
He makes Jose and LVG look like prime Klopp or Fergie when it comes to the attack, bottom half manager at best.
Some people could just do a PhD in making excuses for this guy. VAR, injuries, more games... next they would start blaming air quality for bad performances.
It's a strange example too because it's not even comparable in results.
This is Ten Hag's second season.
In Klopp's second season at Liverpool, they were in the top 4 of the PL for all but 4 of 38 matchdays (2, 3, 4, 26). It was their 2nd highest point tally in the previous 7 seasons. They were not competing for a league title but they were achieving the minimum objectives.
Those people have eyes and use common sense, unlike others.
[X] DOUBT
Of course they do
I know right.
It's not like great managers like SAF were knocked out of European competitions because the referees were incompetent(tie vs Porto, Rafael's red vs Bayern, Nani's red vs Real). And it's not like someone like SAF lost a title race due to the fact that his key players were injured for a good portion of the season. And it definitely is not the fact that SAF had to literally pull out of the FA cup after our treble due to the insane hectic schedule we would've had at the time.
Nope, these are only conspiracy theories and excuses used by ETH supporters.
As i said, people are genuinely good at making excuses.
At this stage you’re making excuses as to why wins don’t really count to be honest
Liverpool had a season where they had a load of games. The next season (last season) they struggled badly.
United had a similar amount of games last season , with a World Cup in the middle of it. I’d consider that more gruelling and yet zero account is being taken of it.
ETH not being Klopp or having “credit in the bank” doesn’t change the fact that United are now having to contend with similar issues that pool had last season; only we had a more gruelling season last year and have way more issues in other areas that are being navigated.
ETH hasn’t ever had the luxury of having a settled squad in any capacity, unlike Klopp who’s had plenty of years to mould Pool to a point where he can quickly recover. ETH is at a club in turmoil and seems to be moving from crisis to crisis on 2 year loop.
Pick some handful number of occurrences in the tenure(26 years!) of probably the best manager in club football, equate that with horrendous performances served for a period of almost a year under the current management and make excuses. Easy.
I haven't said anything on that front. I watch us play and see us going nowhere. Poorer teams are playing better football than us but there's justification for everything. People can carry on doing that as far as I care. I dont put a blindfold on while watching us play.
No they won those games when having a settled team with good rhythm, arguably arsenal aside which was hardly convincing and uncontroversial. In the spell theyve had some injuries that are even close to ours, I would argue theyve been as bad as united, and look disjointed and clueless. Bournemouth could have had several goals yesterday, dortmund taught them a lesson twice.
There is just an ongoing willful resistance to admitting that having your entire back 4 missing for so long will fundamentally impact the way you play. This is football in 2023, everything starts from the back. If anybody predicted in july that jonny evans would be out of retirement and playing in uniteds back 4 beside reguilon, it would have seemed like a bad dream. Especially after how solid we were defensively last season, with the exception of city and liverpool demolitions.
These 'records' are absolutely idiotic. There are a couple that are someway relevant, but stuff like 'hadnt lost a cup game versus newcastle since..' is just instagram and youtube comment section nonsense. How often do you play any given team in cup competitions? You might go 40 years without facing a side in the cup. Then lets say you lose after the 40 year gap - is that someway predictive of the manager being among the worst in 40 years, stooping to an embarrassing loss that no others suffered. No, only a fool would think to even mention it. Then there's just a ridiculous amount of overlap of some. And almost all can be explained by having a makeshift defence.
United did not score much last season and are not scoring much this season. There is no "fundamental" change here.
Everton
Galatasaray
Newcastle
Chelsea
2 draws and 2 losses are quite likely, maybe 2-3 goals scored. A normal club would then sack the manager but nothing will happen until Jim has arrived.
Galatasaray
Newcastle
Chelsea
2 draws and 2 losses are quite likely, maybe 2-3 goals scored. A normal club would then sack the manager but nothing will happen until Jim has arrived.
If you cant see a fundamental difference between how we play this season versus how we played for much of last season, then let's just leave it.
I can’t take the people that want him sacked seriously.
This club has struggled with a poor football culture for a decade. The idea we can be transformed in a short space of time is fanciful. A lot of people talk about Arsenal but forget things Arteta’s faith or sixth year.
The club has made serious mistakes with ETH. Giving him outsized control on transfers was the first mistake. Why give him more responsibility than he had at Ajax? The simple answer the club has a weak structure. You’re supposed to compensate your coach’s weakness, not exacerbate them.
This club has struggled with a poor football culture for a decade. The idea we can be transformed in a short space of time is fanciful. A lot of people talk about Arsenal but forget things Arteta’s faith or sixth year.
The club has made serious mistakes with ETH. Giving him outsized control on transfers was the first mistake. Why give him more responsibility than he had at Ajax? The simple answer the club has a weak structure. You’re supposed to compensate your coach’s weakness, not exacerbate them.
I'm just going by popular opinion on the Caf, I actually love both Bruno and Rashford haha
Notice the red card loses you mention we’re against the best teams in Europe, Bayern Real, not fc copen rubbish , and as you say, lost the title race due to injuries not lost the top 5 race. As for mentioning the treble in the same sentence as Ten Hag well no need to say anything there.
If he can keep stringing 1-0 wins along, he'll keep his job and I'm okay with that. It's not like an interim manager could do much better anyway.
The football must improve next season onwards though.
The football must improve next season onwards though.
We once finished bottom of a group containing Villarreal, Benfica and Lille, with only one win, and scored just three goals over the six games.
We also finished third in a group, behind Benfica and Basel, and only above Otelul Galati. We then lost three from four against Ajax and Bilbao in the Europa.
Not sure there were any red cards involved there.
My problem with Ten Hag is that he doesn’t seem to know how to properly coach, manage and organise a team that doesn’t play a passing game. He wants us to play out from the back, having bought a goalkeeper specifically for that, but then admits his players aren’t capable of playing a passing game. He seems to be stuck between two entirely different modes of play.
But then we have Ratcliffe and (presumably) Mitchell coming in. How will they see things? What type of game will they want us to play? If it’s not a passing game there’s no point in retaining Ten Hag.
But then we have Ratcliffe and (presumably) Mitchell coming in. How will they see things? What type of game will they want us to play? If it’s not a passing game there’s no point in retaining Ten Hag.
It's not a solid argument when you arbitrarily select one team to make the case.
Real Madrid played 61 games last season, Manchester United played 62. Comparable amount. I looked at the minutes played by each player, sorted high to low. United's 1st and 2nd most used players (De Gea, Fernandes) played more than Real Madrid's 1st and 2nd (Vinicius Jr., Courtois). From #3 to #19, every United player played less minutes. Real Madrid's squad basically ends at #19, United's squad continues until #22 (Sabitzer with 1041 minutes). United has a deeper squad that distributed its minutes more evenly. United should be less fatigued. Yet they are the ones losing every other game; Real Madrid are doing fine.
Manchester City played 58 games in 20/21, again, similar situation. Most of their players played more than the corresponding United players, because their squad was smaller. The next season, did they struggle with the grueling fatigue? No, they won the treble.
You can account for injuries, yes. But those are, to some degree, random. The luck of the draw. Talking about "gruelling season" as if what's happening at United is near-inevitable... it just isn't true.
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