Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Was the best performance of the season, I think it's plausible to consider how bad Chelsea were but on occasion it was the press that forced their errors. Reece James was essentially pressured out of possession continually coming on and their defence became isolated from the midfield.

The biggest issue is United have done this before, decent performance with a starting 11 that's not reminiscent of typical first team members, then the manager changes it and the performances dip. Subsequently repeating the exact same instance against Palace in the cup. Paul Merson cannot be taken seriously but his comments with United being like a bag of revels in this regard is correct with regards to consistency.

So the real success of this result cannot be determined on this one game alone but the following fixture against Bournemouth. Does Eth pick the exact group of players and actually allow this team to become cohesive by laying the same foundations in the next game.
 
About the "light" training sessions mentioned by McTominay, this isn't something new. In fact, ten Hag did this last season too around the same time. When there is a period of the season in which there's a game every 3 days or so lasting for nearly a month (ie. Christmas period), EtH scraps heavy training because the frequency of the games become in essence the intense training.

In other periods with more time between games then there's adequate rest to do intense sessions between games, but in this period the games are the intense sessions.
 
Hoof the ball said:
About the "light" training sessions mentioned by McTominay, this isn't something new. In fact, ten Hag did this last season too around the same time. When there is a period of the season in which there's a game every 3 days or so lasting for nearly a month (ie. Christmas period), EtH scraps heavy training because the frequency of the games become in essence the intense training.

In other periods with more time between games then there's adequate rest to do intense sessions between games, but in this period the games are the intense sessions.
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Yep. And those that didn't play do heavy sessions all the same, since they didn't have the same workout on matchday. It was mentioned again and again last season.
 
Redstain said:
Was the best performance of the season, I think it's plausible to consider how bad Chelsea were but on occasion it was the press that forced their errors. Reece James was essentially pressured out of possession continually coming on and their defence became isolated from the midfield.

The biggest issue is United have done this before, decent performance with a starting 11 that's not reminiscent of typical first team members, then the manager changes it and the performances dip. Subsequently repeating the exact same instance against Palace in the cup. Paul Merson cannot be taken seriously but his comments with United being like a bag of revels in this regard is correct with regards to consistency.

So the real success of this result cannot be determined on this one game alone but the following fixture against Bournemouth. Does Eth pick the exact group of players and actually allow this team to become cohesive by laying the same foundations in the next game.
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Spot on. That was a really uplifting performance and as bad as Chelsea have been this year, they still have a very good group of players. Right now i'll take any positives. I dont nesscarily thik he has to start the exact same 11, for example he play AWB instead of Dalot or Pellestri instead of Anthony, but he absoloutely can not go back to the 4-1-4-1 nonsense hes been trying to work all season.

Lets hope ETH has turned a corner
 
NZT-One said:
We definitely looked more in control of ourselves today than Chelsea did. But they still had a few dangerous moments. Our good outlook came from us being very engaged up front and Chelsea didn't really try to exploit the space that opened up. It is always difficult to distinguish, were we good or was the opponent bad. I think, the opponent was really bad and we, while certainly being better than in probably all our other games this season, weren't fantastic but good enough to not get under too much pressure.
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It was a chaotic game. We created lots of chances and were dominant, Chelsea had a few good spells too. They did exploit the space we left but messed up most of those chances. It could have been 5-2 easily.
 
NZT-One said:
We definitely looked more in control of ourselves today than Chelsea did. But they still had a few dangerous moments. Our good outlook came from us being very engaged up front and Chelsea didn't really try to exploit the space that opened up. It is always difficult to distinguish, were we good or was the opponent bad. I think, the opponent was really bad and we, while certainly being better than in probably all our other games this season, weren't fantastic but good enough to not get under too much pressure.
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They exploited the space and also tried many times in the second half, our positional play was very good that we intercepted almost every attack.

Also our good moments was created because of the tempo of attack. We overloaded the wings and moves the ball quickly, even from defense we played the pass quickly and moved it really well.
 
Redstain said:
Was the best performance of the season, I think it's plausible to consider how bad Chelsea were but on occasion it was the press that forced their errors. Reece James was essentially pressured out of possession continually coming on and their defence became isolated from the midfield.

The biggest issue is United have done this before, decent performance with a starting 11 that's not reminiscent of typical first team members, then the manager changes it and the performances dip. Subsequently repeating the exact same instance against Palace in the cup. Paul Merson cannot be taken seriously but his comments with United being like a bag of revels in this regard is correct with regards to consistency.

So the real success of this result cannot be determined on this one game alone but the following fixture against Bournemouth. Does Eth pick the exact group of players and actually allow this team to become cohesive by laying the same foundations in the next game.
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when ETH took over, I recall he stuck to a winning formation in a following week. If i recall correctly, casemiro stayed on the bench for a while because we were winning and ETH didnt want to change a winning team. Hope he goes back to his old ways
 
NZT-One said:
Just to make sure you won't be suprised: Posts like yours will work as fuel once the next bad results is there. Why would you want to stir shit up? It simply bonkers. It seems to be your "I was right moment" but I am sure, you'll be right there complaining about "negativity" and "agenda" posters when other posters will enjoy their "I was right moment" as well.
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maybe but if he’s lost the dressing room then we’d be losing game after game. We wouldn’t be putting in a performance like the one against chelsea. The trouble we have is inconsistency, and selecting the wrong players who are letting the team down. I’ll be very very surprised if he sticks with this team on Saturday… we all know he should do 100%. But he’s done it before where we’ve played decent with a team and then he brings back Rashford. Surely everyone who played against Chelsea deserve another game together. They was all pretty decent.
 
lysglimt said:
our big advantage is that we have won almost every tight match - and then getting hammered when we have lost. That may look bad - but in terms of points, it hasn't been so bad.

The fact is - if we beat Bournemouth, we will have 30 points from 16 matches, on a normal season that would have put us in top-4 - but so many teams have been consistently good - that's why we might end up being 6th even with that points-return - at least at this stage of the season.
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Last nights game we could have easily scored 5+. We made it look a lot tighter. Chelsea did nothing. Don’t even think they looked like scoring in the 2nd halve. You’re right though, teams above us are being consistently good so it makes us look like we’re doing worse then we actually are. To be 3 pts of city is a miracle when they’re normally finishing the season well ahead of us.
 
Credit where credits due there was a proper reaction tonight. They played for him tonight. The press was excellent and we made a Chelsea side that have been decent of late look very ordinary.

Who knows is this the start of a good run? I would love to be wrong about ETH and gave him turn us around and have success this season.
 
Posh Red said:
That’s just management. You never know when you might have to rely on a player. Why alienate them for the sake of it?
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In that case he has alienated Martial ? Both of them should have been made sit on the bench for the whole game .
 
We played against Chelsea the same way we approached games during the November - February period last season. Structured press and a good rest defence to kill off attacks before they get too threatening. Whatever we were doing this season before this was unrecognizable.

Ten Hag needs to go back to what got him results last season. What this team needs is confidence. Last season we felt we could beat anyone, rocking up to the Camp Nou and going toe to toe with them and battering Sevilla at Old Trafford before being cursed by the football gods (or our typical badluck in European games). We need to get back to that level quickly. It's up to Ten Hag, he has the formula. No idea why he tried tweaking our system this year with disastrous results.
 
Got it right last night. Chelsea just didn't know how to react to the pressing and intensity of the play. They were crap in almost every department.
 
This time we absolutely stick with the manager. This was a very good performance and need to keep in mind that our top 3 players from last season I.e. Martinez, Cas and rashford are either injured our out of form and they basically were our leaders last season.

Having the injured back should be something that gets us properly back on track
 
Shark said:
We are a mid table team under him this season by every metric. Comfortably.
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Have you looked at the table?
Not many teams playing well this season. The mightiest blue and their baldfraud are 3 point ahead of us.
Last season were very taxing, It seems. City and United played many games and now paying for it.
 
A huge part of our provlems this season is that we played most of our games with 10 men. Rashford contributes nothing to the team, he's a waste of space currently.
No pressing, no tracking back, no running, no intensity, killing off our attacks, terrible misses.

Yes, sometimes one player in a key role can drag the whole team down.

Hopefully he'll realise he's not the golden prince of Manchester and that he must work hard to earn his place in the team.

Seriously, Rashford is supposed to be our star attacker and I couldn't give two shits if he stays or leaves the club.

And the fact that Martial continues to play for Manchester United is scandalous. The guy is 27 and he moves like he's 57, rocking the most punchable face in the history of the club.

Support ETH, he'll get us to the top.
 
I’ve been very critical of ETH but last nights performance was more like it and obviously a good result.

Its whether we do this every game now or if its an outlier and we revert to type.

Says a lot that the first time all season the players work hard the fans are appreciative of the performance and it transforms the side.

Definite mentality issues in the squad highlighted by the fact that we have to reach defcon 3 for them to graft. You see that in league 2 - its a basic requirement. Theres a few champagne Charlie's in the dressing room who think they can turn up and beat teams by just standing there on the pitch. They aren't as good as they think they are.
 
DJ_21 said:
maybe but if he’s lost the dressing room then we’d be losing game after game. We wouldn’t be putting in a performance like the one against chelsea. The trouble we have is inconsistency, and selecting the wrong players who are letting the team down.
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Chelsea are Galatasaray with no strikers. Are you seriously this impressed by yesterday? I'm happy we won, but we learned nothing.

Whether or not he's lost the team depends on how they react in tough circumstances. Not this chaos from yesterday. If Eth's master plan is to turn Scott into a 15 goal a season midfielder, seems a tad unsustainable.
 
Red00012 said:
In that case he has alienated Martial ? Both of them should have been made sit on the bench for the whole game .
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It's called game management, Chelsea were chasing an equaliser and committing more men, Ten Hag brought on his patient forward to attack the space. If we had been chasing an equaliser or winning goal I would imagine Martial would have been a change made instead of Evans for Garnacho.

Rashford from the bench was the profile you would put on to keep the pressure in our play, nothing to do with alienating players.
 
McTominay as match winner is a nice up yours from ETH to his critics. Against a one billion Chelsea team with Poch as manager who was supposed to come to Old Trafford instead of ETH. No, this was a good night for him and for those who believe in his plans for this team. But please Ineos now is the time to come in and bring us Mbappe, Lautare Martinez, Bellingham, Kane, Modric, and all those nice big fantastic players we want to see wear Man United colours.
 
I feel like last night is how ETH wants to play. That’s his style.

But due to injuries he’s had to compromise (as managers do) to keep us somewhat in the hunt.

I would love to see a fully fit United squad play this football. I hope he lasts until all are back fit and gets a proper go at it.
 
Redstain said:
Was the best performance of the season, I think it's plausible to consider how bad Chelsea were but on occasion it was the press that forced their errors. Reece James was essentially pressured out of possession continually coming on and their defence became isolated from the midfield.

The biggest issue is United have done this before, decent performance with a starting 11 that's not reminiscent of typical first team members, then the manager changes it and the performances dip. Subsequently repeating the exact same instance against Palace in the cup. Paul Merson cannot be taken seriously but his comments with United being like a bag of revels in this regard is correct with regards to consistency.

So the real success of this result cannot be determined on this one game alone but the following fixture against Bournemouth. Does Eth pick the exact group of players and actually allow this team to become cohesive by laying the same foundations in the next game.
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Agree. I do think this is the time he needs to stick to his winning team at lest for the start. It would be mental to start Rashford for example.
 
As much as i dislike Rashford. I dont think we are the state to drop him completely. He still deserves 10-20minutes cameo to earn his spot again.
 
fallengt said:
As much as i dislike Rashford. I dont think we are the state to drop him completely. He still deserves 10-20minutes cameo to earn his spot again.
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He had a 10 minute cameo last night where all he needed to do was run a bit, and he couldn't even do that.

He can stay home and play fifa with Sancho.
 
NLunited said:
It was a chaotic game. We created lots of chances and were dominant, Chelsea had a few good spells too. They did exploit the space we left but messed up most of those chances. It could have been 5-2 easily.
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Yeah the scoreline could have looked very different even though it definitely was a deserved win for us.

roonster09 said:
They exploited the space and also tried many times in the second half, our positional play was very good that we intercepted almost every attack.

Also our good moments was created because of the tempo of attack. We overloaded the wings and moves the ball quickly, even from defense we played the pass quickly and moved it really well.
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They did exploit the space on a couple of occasions but not as frequently as they should and maybe could have. There were so many bad decisions by Jackson, Mudryck - seemed like they were trying to create some weit triangle shapes but it often led them to move the ball away from dangerous positions (dangerous for us).

I agree, we played well and we executed the tactic of the crowded front line very well. But I thought we were very light in defense and could have conceded easily. Chelsea opening up in 2nd half also helped to a degree because it opened even more room for us.

DJ_21 said:
maybe but if he’s lost the dressing room then we’d be losing game after game. We wouldn’t be putting in a performance like the one against chelsea. The trouble we have is inconsistency, and selecting the wrong players who are letting the team down. I’ll be very very surprised if he sticks with this team on Saturday… we all know he should do 100%. But he’s done it before where we’ve played decent with a team and then he brings back Rashford. Surely everyone who played against Chelsea deserve another game together. They was all pretty decent.
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That really wasn't the point of my post. Maybe read it again.

fallengt said:
Have you looked at the table?
Not many teams playing well this season. The mightiest blue and their baldfraud are 3 point ahead of us.
Last season were very taxing, It seems. City and United played many games and now paying for it.
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Stop looking for comparison with other teams. It is obvious, that we aren't playing well this season. Yesterday, for now, is an outlier, hopefully the start of an upward spiral in terms of results but especially performances. That other teams have some struggles might be the case but we shouldn't really care. We are not becoming a better football team just by other teams playing badly as well.
 
miliebrowndivorceattorney said:
McTominay as match winner is a nice up yours from ETH to his critics.
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is it? He was trying to sell the bloke just 4 months ago :lol:

Delighted for Maguire, McTom & ETH mind.

edited for @Alex99 who has serious issues with the word desperate, hope he sees this as a win and stops acting crazed over one word that changes nothing with the point above.
 
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Stinkypete said:
It's called game management, Chelsea were chasing an equaliser and committing more men, Ten Hag brought on his patient forward to attack the space. If we had been chasing an equaliser or winning goal I would imagine Martial would have been a change made instead of Evans for Garnacho.

Rashford from the bench was the profile you would put on to keep the pressure in our play, nothing to do with alienating players.
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Rashford came on and did feck all . He couldn’t even be arsed to press .
 
Red00012 said:
In that case he has alienated Martial ? Both of them should have been made sit on the bench for the whole game .
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I would suggest he is far more likely to need to rely on Rashford at some stage this season, our top scorer and best forward last season, than he is Martial, who is frequently injured and hasn’t contributed anywhere near as much during the managers tenure.
 
I think the key for any manager is ensuring that they have a number of loyalists in the dressing room that will give 100% no matter what.

I listened to the Jon Obi Mikel interview on TalkSport recently and it tells you everything you need to know about the modern game really...if you don't have the senior players onside, then unfortunately it's a lost cause.

However...having said that...every club will have players who are unhappy. That goes for any level of the game from Sunday League to Premier League. Everybody thinks they should be playing and/or that someone, somewhere should not be.

The key is to make sure their are more 'loyalists' than potential turncoats. This is why I think EtH was very lucky that he DIDNT manage to shift Maguire and McTominay...because regardless of what we might think of their abilities, they will never down tools.

I strongly believe this is why we need to be ruthless in who we move on. Varane, Casemiro, Sancho and Martial would all be on my immediate priority list. None are loyal to EtH, all will believe they have been treated unfairly/should be playing more (I know Casemiro is injured but I feel that only kicks the problem down the line)

Get those four out and four more 'loyalists' in and it won't matter if there are sulkers, like Rashford, because they'll be in the minority. They'll be isolated. They will have no choice but to graft or leave.

Contrast that with the Jose/OGS eras. Too many cliques. Too many whispering voices in the changing room. Not enough players loyal to either manager.
 
Red00012 said:
Desperately ? We turned down a bid for him .
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Because the board wanted more, he’s still here because West Ham tried to be cheap after getting in a feck tonne of money for Rice, same with Maguire.

It’s great for all of them, but I don’t see how it’s a big feck you to any doubters when a player who was on the managers Summer scrapheap and “replaced” by 50m Mount is pulled back from the cold and is now producing. Some probably see it as proof he wasted a feck tonne on Mount, I personally don’t, I have a feeling Mount will be a very good player for us once fully settled into a functioning side.
 
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