Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Ten Hag hasn’t done or shown anywhere near enough to gather the sort of support he seemingly still has. You don’t stick with something that evidently isn’t working out, out of blind faith or fear of change. It’s over
 
From a great ETH fan, please bring back Ralph as our director of football this time. Let the guy focus on everything he is good at. I couldn’t care less about them firing or keeping ETH
No manager of Manchester United should be spending hours scouting his own players or giving a list of preferences. We basically limited our transfers in the past 15 years to players the manager knows or players that everyone knows. That’s going to be a small sample of players and you will never be competitive.
Question that we need to ask is
Was any of the players we signed in the past 10 years the best money can buy at that time? I can only think of Bruno Fernandez.

1.Cassemiro was the least talented midfielder in Madrid.
2. Martinez was not even our 1st option in Ajax
3. Antony in a year where Ralph recommended Diaz 6months before .
4.Onana can’t be the best keeper outside teams that can’t sell players to us. I’m not even convinced he is better than Henderson
5. Malacia probably is for that money as a safer bet for Shaw backup.
6. Mount can’t be sold for that amount even if we wanted him to replace Bruno. For there should be a midfielder somewhere who can do a better job.

You need a strong scouting team in 2020s football to survive. People with contacts in multiple countries watching those leagues that no manager in Europe watch.



L.
 
Ten Hag hasn’t done or shown anywhere near enough to gather the sort of support he seemingly still has. You don’t stick with something that evidently isn’t working out, out of blind faith or fear of change. It’s over

I've literally just heard Gary's interview and he's probably the first pundit to make a good comparison between Eth and De Zirbi / Ange. Erik ten Hag is incapable of imposing any meaningful ideas with this team. People are saying give him time but for what ? This isn't Arteta, the manager has used sound bites to describe what he wants to do but the application of that said intention has shown nothing in the way of materialisation. It's like saying my neighbour wants to become the next prime minister.

I said from the fourth or so game in this season that Erik will go because his position will become untenable. Untenable not on the basis of results but the disposition he will put the team in with his own accountability as the manager. It's clear as day that his ceiling has been reached, there is no amount of money, time or players that is going to change the lack of legitimacy and success with his intended direction.

You cannot have relative success in one season and then start the following campaign doing a factory reset to adopt a totally different philosophy in a competitive environment as unforgiving as the league is. When Erik is sacked there will be no feasibility to look at the club with any disdain as the manager has single handedly been both the rise (last season) and downfall of his own success and imminent failure.
 
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EtH need to go beacuse of his tactics and away results.

But honest to God I can't stand some of our players anymore. They are like clocworks with every manager. Start good, get new contracts, smell the blood of manager and give up on playing football. Bad tactics are one thing, but not giving your all on field is something elese. At least try for the fans.

In 30y of watching UTD tomorow will be first game that I willingly chose not to watch. I am gona take kids on ice skating or something. Can't waste time watching overpaid players who thinks they above any critism or responsibility for they behaviour on the pitch.

I just hope that Jimmy came in and clean the house, or we will same conversation in 2-3 y.
 
Erik looks like a strong manager but he isn't really brave enough to drop players. At the beginning of the season after those losses, I have already written off our season as a lost cause. I rather him developing our youngsters by throwing them into the deep and see who comes out strong. Now, he is on survival mode trying to save his ass by continuing playing Rashford, McTominay, Maguire, Antony and Bruno. I agree that Maguire has improved but what about the rest? McTominay, seriously?? Rashford is useless on the right, Garnacho is already playing well on the left. Rashford has no place in this squad. Worst signing Antony, no place anywhere? He isn't a EPL player, see if any Italian or Spanish side want him. He is suitable for the sunny weather in Spain. Play the freaking youngsters and if you are a real coach, they should improve with right coaching. If you are a fraud then get the sack and move back to Holland.
 
Alvaro won the Denzil Haroun Reserve Player of the Year in 2022 and was then sent out on loan to Preston for a year with Erik telling him that he wanted him to get a more expiriance before joing the first team, after his year at Preston where he won the Young Player of the Year award he reurned to Man Utd and played alright during his appearances in pre-season trying to earn a place in the first team only for Erik to tell him he wasnt part of his plans and to find another club then signing Reguilion to cover for Shaw and Malacia instead with Alvaro having to leave for Granada in deadline day.

What an awful way to treat a hard working young player who has done everything asked of him and wants to play for club while people like Rashford and Martial get to play despite putting little to no effort in.
You just explained some irrelevant stuff that's not related at all. I will rephrase my question - how is telling a 20 year old kid coming from a championship loan that he isn't part of plan, a bad thing ? Have you watched all games of Preston to think he is better than Shaw ?

Don't bring up the injury reason now. The injury to full backs happened after the loan was agreed and even then he wanted to have a full season as a starter.

This isn't fm or fifa mate. Shit like this works only on games.
 
I feel Rashford being played on the RW (and likely yelled at for lack of work rate) resulted in downed tools as well. He kept the english contingent happy as long as he was happy but now that's no longer true.
 
You cannot rate the manager but how can people still give excuse to the players.

I don't think anyone's doing that. It should be clear to any objective fan that both need replacing. Honestly, the club needs a complete shake down, top to bottom. Management, coaching, directors and players. Everyone. Nobody survives bar a select few players.

I think Sir Jim understands this, he knows what he's getting into and preparing for it. Whether those changes work is the question. Here's hoping it improves the situation and we can start to prepare for the Summer and just accept that this entire Season is a write off.
 
All perfect hindsight 20/20 observations.

In the height of their respective success points, most of us would not have come up with those points

Not really. May be "most of you", but not me. I was questioning the decision making at this club long before it was cool.

When they hired Ole as an interim, the club said that he is in it temporarily and in consultations with him they are going to come up with a genuine solution at the end of the season. But then he had a few good games and they rushed to give him the job permanently when there was no need to do so. Our season also fizzled after the initial bounce: neither did we progress in the CL not did we finish in the top 4. In fact, it was a struggle towards the end. We only won 2 of last 8 league game after Ole was made permanent. Lost the CL quarter final too.

In similar manner there was no need to give him and Jose contract extensions when the club rushed into them. It was not like they were coveted by other top clubs and we were in genuine danger of losing them.

Another one I recall now is the bumper contract they gave to Bruno when they should have simply waited for the next manager to come in and asses him as a player for his system.

I am sure there are others, which I can't recall right now, which were genuinely curious at the time and not just "perfect hindsight 20/20 observations".
 
Ten Hag hasn’t done or shown anywhere near enough to gather the sort of support he seemingly still has. You don’t stick with something that evidently isn’t working out, out of blind faith or fear of change. It’s over

What support does he have? There are barely any fanatics compared to the Ole days. He might finish out the season if results pick up but it's highly unlikely he starts next season as manager.
 
It doesn't matter who the manager is.

A team with Rashford as their star player, is going nowhere.
 
You just explained some irrelevant stuff that's not related at all. I will rephrase my question - how is telling a 20 year old kid coming from a championship loan that he isn't part of plan, a bad thing ? Have you watched all games of Preston to think he is better than Shaw ?

Don't bring up the injury reason now. The injury to full backs happened after the loan was agreed and even then he wanted to have a full season as a starter.

This isn't fm or fifa mate. Shit like this works only on games.
I read that article from The Athletic. He said he did everything the manager asked of him, and was still told that he wasn't in his plans for the season. Imo he doesn't have to be better than Shaw, only Malacia, which isn't very difficult. He's a modern fullback with a good first touch, a very technical player, the kind we've been crying out for, seeing as we can't seem to string 3 passes together.
 
I really dislike almost every single one of our players.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that ETH is getting up to very much good these days, but that is totally independent of the fact that I really do not like our players. There is almost nothing to like about the vast, vast majority of them.
 
I mean, we could do that. But, then what? It's probably cheaper for the club to renew a contract than to fork out millions for a player and put them on the same wages as the departed player.

The list I agree with. Most of these players need replacing. But, we have to renew some contracts just to keep a squad together.
Why would we want to keep this squad together? Also it's likely we won't be in Europe at all so we won't need a big squad.
 
I really dislike almost every single one of our players.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that ETH is getting up to very much good these days, but that is totally independent of the fact that I really do not like our players. There is almost nothing to like about the vast, vast majority of them.

If we didn't have Garnacho or Mainoo can you imagine just how unlikable the whole squad would be.
 
Just like Ole, he talked a big game about how he wanted us to play… best best transition team, running more than the other teams. We are so far away from this and he has had enough time to at least show positive signs towards achieving that style of play. He needs to go once the new owner comes in and puts a proper recruitment structure in place
 
Bigger things at play then x's and O's, scumbags like Sancho can't be allowed to just wait out the manager and get back into the team.

Don't give a feck if we lose ten-0 to Liverpool.
 


Talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. Hardly a novel phenomenon, even outside football. Perhaps even some of the more tactically astute people on the internet can point out what is need, but that hardly means they should be made managers.

If he knows what is needed, why doesn't he do something about it? Or does that include spending another 400 million to maybe finally deliver a marginal long-term improvement since 2 years ago?
 
I get that.

But if he's taking that info from one or two disgruntled players and putting it out there, people already know how well connected he is and will take it as almost fact. That this is what is happening. Fast forward a few weeks and he talking the managers side. After getting a different point of view.

Almost like painting a balanced view doesn't really come into it when you're striving for clicks on a subscription based platform.

It was on a podcast back at the start of October. If I recall correctly he didn't say he didn't back the manager at the time. He was saying that the players, or some of the players, don't seem to be responding to the manager and he wasn't sure why. Performances at the time weren't good and they haven't really improved and quite a few players aren't playing as well as they can. Given that and the leaks coming out now, I'm not sure you could really say he was wrong. It doesn't mean he can't also think the manager can turn things around. It would seem a lot of things would need to change for that to be the case.

Leaks likes this are never good. It could be over-exaggerated or sensationalised but this type of stuff usually comes before a sacking.
 
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I really dislike almost every single one of our players.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that ETH is getting up to very much good these days, but that is totally independent of the fact that I really do not like our players. There is almost nothing to like about the vast, vast majority of them.

If I was going by players who annoy me the least:

Garnacho--------Hojlund---------Amad
-----------------------Bruno------------------------
------------Mainoo------Casemiro-----------
Shaw------Lisandro---Varane----- Dalot
------------------------Onana------------------------

Tough choices were:
1 - In goal, I've decided Bayindir being signed as our backup GK when his fans didn't rate him annoys me more than Onana making insane mistakes in the CL since we're not good enough for that to matter the normal amount
RW - Amad edges it here as I've not had time to be annoyed with him, but Antony annoys me much less than others since he defends and creates space on the RW
CM - Casemiro annoys me way less than McTominay.
CB - Maguire has played well lately but he certainly annoys me more than Varane
RB - Dalot i'm sometimes happy with, sometimes mad at, whereas I'm generally displeased with Wan-Bissaka.
 
I get that.

But if he's taking that info from one or two disgruntled players and putting it out there, people already know how well connected he is and will take it as almost fact. That this is what is happening. Fast forward a few weeks and he talking the managers side. After getting a different point of view.

Almost like painting a balanced view doesn't really come into it when you're striving for clicks on a subscription based platform.
Well it is fact. I don't think he necessarily ever laid the blame at manager, just the fact he's lost the ear of players.

I think if you have a source, you take the information you're given at face value. I don't think it's striving for clicks, personally anyway.
 
If I was going by players who annoy me the least:

Garnacho--------Hojlund---------Amad
-----------------------Bruno------------------------
------------Mainoo------Casemiro-----------
Shaw------Lisandro---Varane----- Dalot
------------------------Onana------------------------

Tough choices were:
1 - In goal, I've decided Bayindir being signed as our backup GK when his fans didn't rate him annoys me more than Onana making insane mistakes in the CL since we're not good enough for that to matter the normal amount
RW - Amad edges it here as I've not had time to be annoyed with him, but Antony annoys me much less than others since he defends and creates space on the RW
CM - Casemiro annoys me way less than McTominay.
CB - Maguire has played well lately but he certainly annoys me more than Varane
RB - Dalot i'm sometimes happy with, sometimes mad at, whereas I'm generally displeased with Wan-Bissaka.

This would be my least annoying team as well, except with Eriksen for Bruno. Bruno annoys me less than most of the rest, but his haphazard style of play still annoys me
 
With the information tonight on Sky (loathsome little toad that Kaveh is) it is starting to feel like the writing is in the wall….. which frankly is a joke and we deserve misery.

Not too sure why the fans deserve misery? If anything, the fans have generally been too passive towards underperforming players and managers for the past decade. Most want the club to adopt and turn into a modern club that's serious about wanting to be successful. We're not the ones who have made reckless decisions at Board level for the past decade.
 
Honestly - I think we all had hopes for him to succeed.

But Jesus Christ, what a boring and clueless bloke his been.
Those empty eyes and the humourless attitude paired with strange tactics and decisions. I know I would not have liked him as my boss. Bring someone with some charisma, attitude and humour. Someone who are able to talk to players. Just don’t put them on the sideline when they don’t “behave”. That kind of mentality went out in the eighties. We don’t even put kids in the corner anymore since the society has developed since then. Read the (dressing) room.

Further, if he signs one more player who he “worked with” I want my money back. There is consulting firms who can help with transfers if he and the other clowns can’t do it themselves.

Tired of this farce now. And always blame the players right? Wrong. All human beings are pack animals, we all need a leader and a path to follow. Clearly this is not that.

Worst football played in history of this club. No heart, no tactics, no pace, nothing.

Stop with “it’s the Glazers”. They live in effing Florida. They don’t missmotivate Rasford from there, do they? They have brought in bundles of cash who a lot of people have misplaced on players we don’t need or in the EtH case don’t can get to perform.

Just thank him for his service, give him all his money and bye bye love!
 
Oh yes, its this time again



These players aren't good enough and they know it. It's easier to down tools and blame the manager than to work your arse off to prove your worth.


Well it is fact. I don't think he necessarily ever laid the blame at manager, just the fact he's lost the ear of players.

I think if you have a source, you take the information you're given at face value. I don't think it's striving for clicks, personally anyway.

The athletic seems to be all about clicks these days, it started off as a good idea, but now it's almost as bad as the rag tops for peddling shite.
 
Not too sure why the fans deserve misery? If anything, the fans have generally been too passive towards underperforming players and managers for the past decade. Most want the club to adopt and turn into a modern club that's serious about wanting to be successful. We're not the ones who have made reckless decisions at Board level for the past decade.
Fans deserve misery because they are stupid, impatient and unrealistic.
It’s too easy to blame the manager and get rid when we’ve seen this time and time again from these players.
If they can’t or won’t perform the way the manager is asking them to then they need shipping out and replacing with those who will.
Erik has made mistakes, of course he has but I’d argue he hasn’t been under performing, if anything he has over-performed relative to our situation when he took over and the absolute mountain of shite he’s had to deal with since.
We will never get anywhere meaningful if we don’t build something first. This club has been torn down to bare bones by the absolute incompetence of our hierarchy, and needs building up again - just like Arsenal, and the Arteta project is now starting to come good and look like bearing fruit, after a rocky start. I just think we have to ride out this rough patch and help Erik to build, but most want to rip it all up and start yet again - and if we do what we’ve always done we will get what we’ve always got - misery heaped upon failure and it will be deserved.
 
What support does he have? There are barely any fanatics compared to the Ole days. He might finish out the season if results pick up but it's highly unlikely he starts next season as manager.

I mean, the previous page in this thread shows a tweet by Mitten with 13k likes. You don’t even need to go far in this thread to see the support he has. You can also read the “player power” thread, and go take a look at the “sack or keep” poll in the other thread
 
Fans deserve misery because they are stupid, impatient and unrealistic.
It’s too easy to blame the manager and get rid when we’ve seen this time and time again from these players.
If they can’t or won’t perform the way the manager is asking them to then they need shipping out and replacing with those who will.
Erik has made mistakes, of course he has but I’d argue he hasn’t been under performing, if anything he has over-performed relative to our situation when he took over and the absolute mountain of shite he’s had to deal with since.
We will never get anywhere meaningful if we don’t build something first. This club has been torn down to bare bones by the absolute incompetence of our hierarchy, and needs building up again - just like Arsenal, and the Arteta project is now starting to come good and look like bearing fruit, after a rocky start. I just think we have to ride out this rough patch and help Erik to build, but most want to rip it all up and start yet again - and if we do what we’ve always done we will get what we’ve always got - misery heaped upon failure and it will be deserved.

Some of our fans fall into this category, yes. But, overall, the majority just want a well run club that has an actual vision and purpose. No manager is going to work out here, until the sporting side of the club drastically changes.

Ralf was right; open heart surgery is requited. But, the majority of our fans don't have the stomach for it. I didn't expect us to do anything of note last season, and I wanted ETH to start building a proper team with an identifiable playstyle. We ended up finishing 3rd and winning a cup which was good. But, the squad building and playstyle implementation seemed to be lacking. I'm not strongly married to keeping or sacking ETH.

All I know is that, no one is going to have any meaningful success here with the club run the way it is. I haven't expected any quantifiable success from any of our post-Fergie managers, but the least we should expect is tangible improvements season-on-season and a clear playstyle and direction. LvG was the only one, literally the only one, who had us coached in a specific manner and we played consistently the same football from day 1 to the day he left. It wasn't pretty, but at least he actually managed to implement a really clear identity. Post WC last season, ETH had us playing lovely stuff, but as per usual, we revert back to the same shite Jose and Ole served up. It's utter madness that we've spent around 700m since Jose left and we're realistically no better off.
 
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What support does he have? There are barely any fanatics compared to the Ole days. He might finish out the season if results pick up but it's highly unlikely he starts next season as manager.

Exactly. The 'support' is nothing remotely close to the toxic mentalists who attacked people in packs to defend Jose/Ole.
 
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