I don't understand why people expect Rangnick to basically change things in a few months, without his first choice coaching setup and without any signings.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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I don't even understand that notion. Teams generally sack managers when things aren't going well. Managers are responsible for things on the field, which are the things we see. They also have a massive say in recruitment. When people talk about the structure, it really doesn't gravely affect a good manager. It just puts a spotlight on the ones who can't handle having more responsibility than at some other clubs. The current structure is poor because it puts too much trust in the manager.
Ten Haag isn't simply failing because he doesn't have players to fulfill his plans. He's failing tactically. The spaces, movement, and structure of the team are and have been off all season. A good manager would be able to get good performances against teams they are considered better than. When judging managers at teams outside the top 6, this is how they're evaluated as good enough to move onto a bigger platform. These managers don't have the resources the Ten Haag's and LVG's get to work with, and therefore rely heavily on loans and utilizing first xi's, which break down due to injuries due to overuse. They have to rely on academy players and free transfers far more often. If they don't play good football or succeed, their sacked and forgotten.
United actually provide resources, moreso than any other team. United also have talent these other teams wish they could have, which have been treated like afterthoughts due to the poor use of them by our manager. Does anyone think if De Zerbi had Varane or Casemiro at Brighton he won't find a way to use them effectively? Would Unai Emery not figure out how to use Bruno's creativity and Rashford's pace and goalscoring ability? Our fans act like we don't have any quality in the squad and Ten Haag shouldn't be expected to perform well. That's absolutely not true in the slightest. Mount has a lot of talent, as do Onana and Hojlund. The Maguire's, Amrabat's, Lindelof's, Dalot's etc have all been used positively in their international careers and are actually good footballers. They maybe should not start for United, but acting like they can't be in teams who can play good football is ridiculous. People would rather believe that a squad of 20 + players with different profiles is poor than to assess that the direction, communication, and tactical set up of the manager is poor. They can sell and tear apart squads with multiple players departing, but find it hard to believe that out of 5 managers we've had in 10 years, all of them were poor. 2 of which were known to be poor prior (Moyes and Ole). One of which has had poor spells at other clubs, with his prime coming in the mid 90s (LVG) and another who had just been sacked at Chelsea for the same issues he displayed at United ( Mourinho).
Other clubs have to and have had to go through this process of finding a good manager. It's not a foreign concept. They also realized that most managers aren't nearly good enough to have the level of trust we had in Sir Alex and therefore put a DOF for them to report to. Yet despite hoping for this structure, our fans are still acting like the Manager is a victim, when the structure would exist to actually protect the club from the manager. so the idea that once a structure comes in place that ETH would do better doesn't actually make sense. At present, Ten Haag has been managing with near full autonomy. A DOF would change that and would not afford our managers the time and space to experiment and fail in the ways they have. They'd have a person they'd be reporting to questioning decisions, closely monitoring and evaluating the team. Unlike in previous years, the poor performances and lack of style would be addressed far earlier. As the failures would be assessed earlier and more proactively. With a DOF seeking to challenge for trophies, Ten Haag would have been sacked by early November.
Keane just pointed it out as well and it’s so obvious but for some reason the club just doesn’t get it: the club needed to commit to a rebuild that didn’t just include signing new players but getting rid of old ones who have been here for years and have had so many chances. EIGHT fecking players that are in their fifth season or more here played against Newcastle. As someone rightly said above Martial has more appearances than Eric Cantona 
EtH deserves criticism and his signings haven’t inspired but what happens when another manager comes in and the likes of Rashford, Lindelof, Maguire, Dalot, AWB, McTominay get yet another manager giving them a chance? Also the recruitment cycle continues where more dross comes in and then takes years to go away or loses value (Sancho, VdB).
EtH deserves criticism and his signings haven’t inspired but what happens when another manager comes in and the likes of Rashford, Lindelof, Maguire, Dalot, AWB, McTominay get yet another manager giving them a chance? Also the recruitment cycle continues where more dross comes in and then takes years to go away or loses value (Sancho, VdB).
Keane just pointed it out as well and it’s so obvious but for some reason the club just doesn’t get it: the club needed to commit to a rebuild that didn’t just include signing new players but getting rid of old ones who have been here for years and have had so many chances. EIGHT fecking players that are in their fifth season or more here played against Newcastle. As someone rightly said above Martial has more appearances than Eric Cantona
EtH deserves criticism and his signings haven’t inspired but what happens when another manager comes in and the likes of Rashford, Lindelof, Maguire, Dalot, AWB, McTominay get yet another manager giving them a chance? Also the recruitment cycle continues where more dross comes in and then takes years to go away or loses value (Sancho, VdB).
Getting rid of players isnt as easy as Keano describes it. I am sure the management team has tried -- Maguire and Donnie are prime examples. They can refuse or just suddenly get muscle injuries at the most inopportune time, like right before the summer.
Signing players is much easier than getting rid of players you dont want.
If we’re going to keep ten Hag, he must be stripped of sole authority over new signings. To suggest his signings have been disastrous would be an understatement.
I didn’t have the feeling it was this bad:
This post could have been written by me. Exactly where I was when we first got ETH and last season was so good in so many ways.
But even if we are not a serious club, that doesn't excuse how poor he is managing the current squad. We are underperforming so much because of how he is setting the team and midfield.
"First time EVER that United have been beaten 1-0 by Newcastle at 8pm on a Saturday night, after drawing 3-3 with Galatasary during an early Wednesday CL game
Wtf? This is rock bottom. /s
21 Games: 10 w 1 D 10 L
Some weird selective stats about our league form against bottom sides pre Galatasaray away game made it seem like we're doing well. In reality, our best winning streak so far this season is the 3 win against Brentford, Sheffield United and Copenhagen at home all by dreadful performance. Plenty rude awakening defeats in between our 10 wins, but somehow people choose to ignore.
This is the modern way
Faking it everyday
Taking it as we come
We're not the only ones
Is that what we used to say
This is the modern way
Yet. /s
He biggest feck up was giving these players a clean slate when he joined. How many of these players have seen last 2 or 3 managers. They know they are untouchables.
We will get peppered again,find it very hard to forget we lost 7-0 at our bitter rivals under Ten Hag. Like many have already said we haven't played well since League Cup Final 8 months ago
Went from the second best to the absolute worst!
I blame it on two things mainly:
(1) Him running players into the ground last season by not rotating the main players. Now most of them are either injured or out of form. I think the overwork last season has taken a toll this season.
(2) The sub standard recruitment. The first XI and rotation players we got are worse than the first XI and rotation players they were supposed to be replacing.
Even though I wasn't as impressed by our style of play, 3rd place finish and League cup win last season as some others, there was still some hope that with a decent transfer window we could see signs of improvement. I though ETH/Murtough will look to sign an upgrade for Eriksen, a young back up for Casemiro, a top CB, who could stay fit for more than 2 games, to partner Martinez, a young ball playing GK to eventually take over from De Gea; by the at the very least by the end of the season; and a striker who could put the ball in the net. But for some reason ETH decided that he would try to change the whole system instead of building on last season and went on a shopping spree which was surprising to say the least. Now the squad is more messed up & imbalanced and ETH doesn't know what kind of football he wants to play.
Exactly. Yet some want them to see another new manager, in which case we will be back here again in a couple of years in the exact same position.
Or we can do both - get a better manager and bin the lot that have been stinking up the place for years. Also, ETH is playing some of those players because that ones he bought are bigger duds.
I knew I wouldn’t be quick enough to make it clear that wasn’t me saying I back Ten Hag to turn this around, at this point I don’t sadly. I want wholesale changes all over.
Do I think things might have been different if Ten Hag had been able to bin off the players who simply aren’t good enough and have been here for years? Maybe, but I’m less confident due to the simple fact he’s been idiotically given control of recruitment and his signings for the most part have been crap. Again it points to above him being just as badly to blame as him and the players. It’s a big mess.
It is sad watching another manager fail as it means going through the same process again. It's disheartening. It's deflating. It's tiring.
However, we have little choice then to go through with it again. Like you,I hope it starts with a huge clear out. I wouldn't mind us finishing outside the top 6 for a couple of seasons if it shows that we are building something long-term and sustainable. The first step will be to get our recruitment right. Some tough decisions need to be made.
His biggest feck up, by an absolute mile is abandoning his own principles and philosophy, which has led to the halfway house you refer to as well as a myriad of issues as direct result.
By his own hand, he has rendered his own signings mostly useless or ineffective as, contrary to his words, they aren't at all suited to the kind of football he is now attempting to play whilst these very same players you refer to, are.
He's trying to play blunt force, vertical football with the wrong pieces, which is why the backline sit deep and the attack sit way too far forward, leaving the absolute chasm in midfield he's now having a sole 18-year old with 2 PL games under his belt man. Alone.
Worst than having players he wanted out now forces into the team, he's made it harder for his own signings to function and integrate, which is absolutely shambolic.
He's abandoned his principles for a kind of football he doesn't know how to play.
It's his fault if he plays Mc Tominay every week and in this system.
It's his fault for falling out with Varane.
It's his fault for playing Dalot every week.
It's him playing this stupid football, where the team half press and half wait the opponents.
It's his fault of not changing anything to his style and not adapt.
The players are rubbish, and we can mention 10 that doesn't perform the level we need, but he's the one in charge of making them performing and we see for a year that the are becoming worse.
It's his fault for falling out with Varane.
It's his fault for playing Dalot every week.
It's him playing this stupid football, where the team half press and half wait the opponents.
It's his fault of not changing anything to his style and not adapt.
The players are rubbish, and we can mention 10 that doesn't perform the level we need, but he's the one in charge of making them performing and we see for a year that the are becoming worse.
I stand corrected. You are absolutely right. No matter the players he should not have abandoned his principles and philosophy.
Though I still believe he should not have given these players a clean slate.
He’s just quite shit at almost everything you look for as part of the job of a manager.
The other huge problem is most of signings are awful, so the very players meant to be the foundation of a style changed cant cope with premier league. This is the biggest problem, the idiots in charge gave him free reign and ignored our own recruitment team to sign average players for huge fees. That's why he gets sacked and I suspect a big part of the morale problems in the dressing room.
Agreed with this.
The signings he made in the 1st season all pointed towards playing a more balanced possession heavy game. It seems like he saw that our best outfield players are Rashy, Shaw and Bruno, so in order to maximize their strengths, he's gone for a transition based structure. But my God, he has no idea on how to set tis structure up!
I have 0 idea, why the feck did we sell Fred if we wanted to play this sort of football, and did we really need an Onana afterall for this?!
Watching us reminds me of how clueless Leeds looked against us in that 6-2
Which players has he given a clean slate to?
EtH has pretty much bought an all new XI, and had it not been the players from previous regime that our fans wanted gone and he tried so hard to sell, he would have been gone by now.
But apart from the keeper the team that started against Newcastle is largely Ole's. He seems to have given up his own signings too.
He didn't, initially and then he did and decided to make them the bedrock of what will be his demise, which just baffles me. I've not seen a coach of such repute do this before - if there's a hill to die on, it's what you believe in, surely? Not what you yourself have reintegrated into the team at the cost of your own signings, and more particularly because you aren't versed in the football you've abandoned your principles for.
What's even more bizarre is that he's abandoned the Cruyffian school whilst simultaneously insisting on some of the things that make it easier to play Dutch, such as left foot for left side and right for right in a backline. If you aren't even going to try and play in a way that best utilises this, why stick so steadfastly to it concerning your CB's?
There are so many why's to this second season that it's maddening!
For whatever reason I kept believing that one day he will get it right and play the football we saw at Ajax, the reason why I and most of other Utd fans wanted him here.
Then he came out with that tripe of "impossible to play like Ajax". Mate, it was your job to make us play like that!
I don't trust a manager who can't trust himself to implement something that made him so successful.
Just changing the manager alone will not change anything, some of these players are on their 3rd and 4th full time Utd managers. It's gotten to the point at Utd where player power has been embedded for far too long. It takes more than 18 months to weed that out and get everyone pulling in the same direction.
ETH is not blameless, but he's not stuck to his guns with how he wanted to play. It looks like you have a team out there where half are told to press high, the other half are told to defend deep. The whole midfield area has seemingly been abandoned.
The whole thing is a mess and it's going to be a long time before anyone is able to sort it out.
I am completely lost on what he wants to achieve playing style-wise.
We are a dysfunctional counter-attacking team these days, something utterly different to what i expected from him.
We are a dysfunctional counter-attacking team these days, something utterly different to what i expected from him.
Exactly, he is responsible of who plays, who is brought it and to some extent who is sold.
He wanted Maguire and MCT sold in the summer and now he is relying on them to save his bald ass from the sack, imagine that for a thorough planning.
And let's just not talk about Mount's transfer.
He has no courage to take important decisions and I don't even think he has the ideas to improve us.
This halfway house has caused such disarray for the team because he's forcing round shapes into square holes and everything points to it not working.
A run of wins against the literal worst teams in the league whilst struggling mightily was an indicator that things weren't as OK as the points accrued suggested, and it wasn't even a case of being found out or flattering to deceive, as the better teams simply will not be contested against with those huge issues that could just about contain vastly inferior players. There's every reason to be concerned about this run of games and it's not even due to looking at the "scary" names of the opposition, but rather how we're set up and how, even on paper it looks like floodgates are due to be opened.
At this rate, we won't even get to see what we could do against these sides as a proper version of ourselves; currently you just point to the gaping holes they have to play into and the players he invariably sends out there and you know the odds of it being a mauling are high, higher than it should be by a distance.
I reserved judgement on Fred to see if it was some kind of masterplan where we'd upgrade upon him by the end of the window, instead we took away a player who has it in him to play the high press and be effective. I don't particularly like digging out Mount, but the misinterpretation of him as some all-action Matthäus like figure who could take over from Fred, knit the midfield and contribute to the attack is one hell of a misjudgement. Certainly not a like-for-like that you get rid of Fred's attributes for.
It just seems like the manager lost himself in this chaos to me, and he's so stubborn he has to see it through. Ultimately, his inability to adapt and correct mislaid paths will be his end - when he messes up, he really goes in, both feet and compounds errors with more on top. It's a ruinous trait at this level of football where your squad isn't head and shoulders above everyone else's to mask and carry these mistakes, instead exposing and exacerbating them, leading to even greater scrutiny.
Didnt Kane say he would never go to another PL club? So in that case it wasn't about the offer.
Most of his transfers are players he has a history with, and considering the amount of money hes spent i find it hard to beleive he was somehow shafted by the owners and had to make do with his second/third choice picks.
No one knows it. It is nearly impossible to comprehend what - even theoretically - could be achieved with McTominay in midfield
He lost and confounded me at this juncture, tbh. Nice way to word the bolded; it's led to so much doubt about his tenure.
We shouldn't look like this so deep into his rein. Everything has regressed, and that's unbelievable.
Perhaps the reason why he went with those players is because his first choice targets weren't obtainable. So, he decided to go down the list and sign with players he felt he could trust because he knew them.
Not necessarily shafted by the owners for every choice, but maybe unobtainable for other reasons, like the Barca kid.
Still, his knowledge of players that did work for him previously, has been found wanting in the PL. Perhaps de Jong would have been found wanting too.
I am sure the players are confused too. What sort of muscle memory has been built?
The last person to tell you guys we needed wholesale and not cosmetic changes you have have hauled him away.
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