Groundhog day is upon us again.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
- Thread starter sewey89
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You say this but I don’t think he is asking them to put a shift in. They don’t press at all. That’s a choice.
I'm firmly in the give Ten Hag some time but Gary Neville and a lot of fan's points about Ange and De Zerbi getting their teams to play proactive progressive football is where my faith starts to stutter. As well as to your point, most of that newcastle team were diabolical before Howe got in charge, almost meme players and now they are playing some of the best football in the league. I would put the blame on Ten Hag but then I look back at the team under Rangnick, Ole, Jose and I see the same thing. The one constant is the players. Neville also made another good point which is LVG's team was the last team to have an actual stylistic blueprint a philosophy that you could see, however boring it was. The further we have moved on from players that were connected to Sir Alex the further in this malaise we have gone.
At the end of the day we can point fingers to Ten Hag but when your star player is a player like Rashford, when your captain is incapable of knowing when to tacticaly play conservative then you will not win any of the major honours and you will be this champions league yo yo team that we are.
It still has merit with all the niggling injuries our players outside of match we have, despite not exactly working hard on the pitch.
As expected, leaks are coming. Coincidentally, just after pundits openly started criticising a certain player.
I think it’s time to sell / get rid of Rashford… yes, it’s at his lowest point, but I think we just need a clean break. You can’t count on him season to season and his mentality is a bit fragile. I respect him for all he’s done at the club, but it’s best for all if he moves on. The difference between in form Rashford and out of form Rashford is probably the largest gap of any player in Prem, maybe in the top 5 leagues.
I do believe many of our players have mentality issues. Only Lisandro seems to have the “Roy Keane / Eric Cantona Mentality” that we need to challenge for trophies.
Others I would absolutely sell, even at a discount:
Lindelof
McTominay
Maguire
Wan Bissaka
Van De Beek
Martial
Evans (he’ll likely retire I’d think)
Those I’m on the fence about:
Dalot
Bruno
Leftovers:
Shaw
Martinez
Onana
Varane
Casemiro
Eriksen
Mainoo
Hannibal
Malacia
Mount
Garnacho
Hojlund
Pellistri
Amad
Greenwood
Antony (probably need to sell him later, I don’t think he’ll come good)
‘Sancho (I want to see him under a good manager)
That’s 8 first team regulars that you need to replace, or 10 if you include Dalot and Bruno: 3 CBs, a LW or winger, 2 attacking MF, 2 RBs, one striker and a box to box MF.
That’s 400m - 500m in players. If we sold Bruno and Rashford, plus all the others, maybe 200-250m in player sales. Net spend of 200m-300m, roughly.
it will take 2-3 windows to turn the team over.
Some of the players dont believe Erik is touchy feely enough apparently
How about playing a simple pass? He‘s not starting because he was atrocious.
I hate these players so much
Did they? We were still pulling off comeback wins at the very end of LVG, Mourinho, and Ole's tenures. There's no real evidence the players ever "downed tools" for any of them. More likely explanation is the squad and the managers just weren't good enough, which I also believe is the case now.
People need to stop falling back on cliches and look at things objectively. He’s a poor manager. Zero man management skills and zero tactical ability. That’s obvious just from observing things.
Does that save the players blame? No, they’re terrible. Building a team around Rashford and Bruno is the worst thing you could ever do, they’re not elite players.
Does that save the players blame? No, they’re terrible. Building a team around Rashford and Bruno is the worst thing you could ever do, they’re not elite players.
Nah, I’m not buying that. ETH teams have always pressed, you could see us doing it last season. I’m sure there was also a stat at the start of the season which had us top for ball recoveries in the oppositions final third so we did press at one stage. This just looks like a classic case of the players beginning to down tools and ignoring the manager’s instructions. I mean there’s no way ETH is telling the players to go out and serve up the garbage they do on a weekly basis. Now I’m not saying the manager is blameless because he’s clearly got a lot wrong this season but a lot of this squad have previous for doing the exact same thing under different managers and I’m sick of it.
"My sources tell me the players aren't happy with where the club is heading"
"one source told me the training is too intense"
"a source says the squad feel Sancho's punishment is too harsh"
"a source says ETH has favourites and others don't get a chance"
Not reading it but I bet these all feature
Give over. Name our top 5 worst performers this year and Varane doesn’t even come close.
This. Based on his man management decisions and transfers, I get the impression he's a very stubborn, inflexible, "my way or the highway" type who doesn't listen to other people's ideas. Not to absolve the players, but if he's lost the dressing room, it's because he's dug that hole for himself.
Quality control
I hate these players so much
There’s nothing wrong with those statements, not sure why you all expect the players to just shut up and take whatever shit some dickhead manager decides to throw at them like they’re slaves.
It‘s naive to think that what we saw on Saturday is how Ten Hag wants to play. Clearly he wants the team to be more compact, they are not doing it though.
Ten Hag is not airing the dirty laundry in press conferences, he still hasn‘t given up belief he can turn it around.
Rashford, Varane, Case, Onana, Dalot for me
Ultimately the manager is responsible for a teams awful performance and it’s his job to set them up to succeed. The tactical set up and personnel decisions he makes are awful. He’s out of his depth and he’s just winging it at this point.
If you buy Onana, which was completely his choice, you commit to playing out properly. End of story. No matter how many mistakes are made. That’s what brave coaches do. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on when you see Spurs this season or Brighton last season.
This is crap and you know it. There is no way he would have been successful at Ajax or had players following him if your statement was true.
Bruno and Rashford were world class not too long ago last season, what are you talking about.... The main problem lies somewhere else
No Antony, Sancho, Martial, Amrabat or McTomminay?
Because these statement should be taken as absolute gospel? After everything that has happened under previous managers? Were all the previous managers dickheads as well were they?
Martial, Rashford, Varane, Cashmere and Onana. No, not Bruno, he‘s our best player currently.
I actually give up at this point.
Can only see this going one way now these kind of stupid reports are coming out.
Sickening because under Moyes/LvG/Mourinho and Ole when time was up it was almost a relief because you knew something better (in theory) was coming. This time though, who is actually available to take over if Ten Hag goes? Some poor soul that in 2 or 3 years time will have to deal with the same shit no doubt.
Can only see this going one way now these kind of stupid reports are coming out.
Sickening because under Moyes/LvG/Mourinho and Ole when time was up it was almost a relief because you knew something better (in theory) was coming. This time though, who is actually available to take over if Ten Hag goes? Some poor soul that in 2 or 3 years time will have to deal with the same shit no doubt.
With all due respect, Ajax is Ajax and this is the PL. It’s a completely different level. He also had no input in the building of the team, which he shouldn’t have had here either. They are not world class players it’s very simple.
The previous managers had different players so ask them what they did to piss pff those players.
From all reliable accounts, there are no toxic players within the club, there were apparently but they’ve all been shown the door since Ten Hag came in.
Imagine siding with these players. Haha.
These players that have reached finals and finished high in the league? Yeah, imagine that.
Ajax, particularly under VDS and Overmars, were even better run than Brighton. I've seen lots of people credit the structure for De Zerbi's success, which may well be true, but why isn't the same being considered for ETH? He had some pretty amazing players too, like FDJ and De Ligt. Instead, the Ajax period is THE evidence for him being an elite manager for some.
After years of putting up with the bad attitudes of our players, I would back ETH over them even if he got us relegated.
We have had a squad full of unlikeable individuals for a very long time.
We have had a squad full of unlikeable individuals for a very long time.
Spot onYou've properly lost it mate.
And I certainly won't say you're wrong at all. I think I'm just done with the idea of caretaker managers coming in, even if we do get a dozen games of improvement. The danger there is they then give the job to the caretaker and then it nosedives like it did with Ole. This also gives the players a pass... players who have failed under multiple managers
Antony missed a chunk of games and had a huge amount of issues off field so I'm not including him (not that he was been great), I don't think Sancho has played has he?
Those other three have been poor but they weren't really starters - my expectations of them were already quite set apart from Amrabat who was a cheap loan and is a squad player, Varane was 1st choice CB and his decline is genuinely shocking. He's only behind Rashford and about level with Case for me.
It’s bizarre, isn’t it. So many have lost their head. Doesn’t mean I don’t think Ten Hag is done, he is.
What exactly do you guys want? Whenever we’ve replaced a player we’ve ended up with a worse player, but instead of blame Ten Hag for his recruitment you’d rather just go after our best players and make claims based on your feelings about them not caring or not trying. You won’t be happy until we’ve sold all our best players and we’re starting players that just do a lot of running.
Yeah sure, I’ve lost it because the players have asked Ten Hag to be more flexible in his handling of things and I think that’s a reasonable request.
The players are downing tools already, think this is a record even for these guys, it's only the start of December. They can fuxk off, as can this 'journalist'.
Just imagine how bad you’ve got to be to have a team with half the players you’ve signed turn against you.
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