Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[laughtersassassin]

The way he seems to have nailed his colours to McTominay is very Van Gaal and Fellaini.

Using the midfield battering ram may be new and exciting to Dutch football traditions. But its nothing revolutionary here and it'll get found out against anyone with half decent quality.

I've been stunned by the way he has abandoned any intent to play through midfield, simply to accommodate McTominay. I'd rather he dropped Bruno for McTominay, to maintain some sense of shape and order.

I thought if we were going to go off a cliff we'd at least do it playing some kind of Ten Hag style. What we seem to be doing is no improvement on what Ole was doing at the end. At least Ole's teams tried to get shots off. We've become an unholy mix of a team that pushes everyone forwards but then dilly dallies on the ball.

Maybe with time it'd get better? Not sure anyone thought Lego Pep would go from 8th to title challengers. But I'd be lying if I said I could see it.

With Klopp you could see what he was doing though. They scored goals for fun but conceded like crazy.

Sure the jury was initially out on if he could fix the defence but it was clear as day he built an insane attacking side

ETH has built a side that is bad at everything.

 

[Lay]

Still wouldn’t sack him

Why? -3 goal difference, only 18 goals scored, bottom of what should have been a relatively easy group, can’t win away against a top 10 side, just lost 3-0 at home to fecking Bournemouth. The football is shite, too slow to make changes, questionable transfer decisions.

What are you holding on to?

 

[V.O.]

What was that when we went 2-0 down? They just folded completely. Players aren't good enough, Downing tools - not working.

Sack him and hire Conte. We deserve it. Bring back Sancho. We don't deserve this playing out from back shit and fullback coming inside tactics. With the players we have , defend and counter is the best.

There's a happy medium somewhere between playing a suicidal setup with no midfield and fecking Conte.

You're allowed to have a couple of midfielders on the pitch and try to play a bit of football.

 

[Raw]

I'm not sure if I can even think of more than 3 good performances by us this season. Palace (cup), Everton and Chelsea.

 

[L1nk]

His ingame management alone should be the end of him i'm afraid, the subs are actually incredibly bad everytime.

 

[Zed 101]

What was that when we went 2-0 down? They just folded completely. Players aren't good enough, Downing tools - not working.

Sack him and hire Conte. We deserve it. Bring back Sancho. We don't deserve this playing out from back shit and fullback coming inside tactics. With the players we have , defend and counter is the best.

I mean seriously, bring back a lazy fecker who has done zero good since we signed him, yeah great call..... I mean maybe Conte in would be a good call but the rest is ridiculous

 

[bosnian_red]

Has to go. Instant sacking performance.

He is lucky that we are in the midst of a takeover and new sporting control people. But the FIRST thing that Ratcliffe and the DOF do should be replacing ten hag.

 

[Sanchez7]

We will lose at least 3/5 and he will be gone by december end

Looking likely. I had us down as a draw/loss against Chelsea but winning today. Either way the rest of the month is likely to seal his fate at this football club.

 

[Fooza]

1) Results are bellow average
2) General play is bellow average
3) His signings are all awful.
4) He managed to get in fight with too many players
5) His tactical decisions are bad. Playing without creative midfielder, nonsense about left footed defender, keep playing with McT....

I liked him a lot when he came here but it is just not working anymore. Time to go.

All this

number 3 is massive, he hasn't spent wisely over his windows....leading to absolute rubbish midfield, and lack of strikers.

needs to go now, I have zero faith in him. I can't believe I didn't see the signs when he kept trying to buy mostly players he only knew.

 

[The Mitcher]

I feel people need to calm down. The score is ridiculous and unacceptable. However, we are continuing to play in the same way, rather than abandon the idea.
My point is that we lost due to the wrong setup by using Reguilon as LB. It completely unsettled our left side, hence the whole unit. It was shown in Chelsea game as well. At least for ETH’s system, Reguilon is a pointless choice.

Blame it on one player? Regardless of who is in what position we lose like this every time because of the SYSTEM.

 

[Danny]

Think he has to go now. Can't be having performances like that consistently.

 

[RedSky]

I wish I was this hopeful. My gut says they will let it get worse as they don't want their first major decision to be a manager sacking that is still for some reason backed by fans.

It makes more sense for the Glazers to sack the manager on their behalf before they come in.

If he's not sacked now he will have until January or February I think

Nah, I think December is where people finally lose it with EtH, the fixtures are just too much for him, we're up against 4 very organised and effective teams.

 

[Lee565]

How do you come to the conclusion that RANGNICK, who has one of the worst percentages in our history, who hadn't managed for ten years, who shat on the players every game and weaponised the fans against them, would build a good squad? This is as bad as defending ETH.

Ragnick had good history for building good sides, he would have at the very least built a good side and was probably the only manager that would have not struggled having to deal with recruitment

 

[flappyjay]

I have no idea how someone watches that performance and thinks the issue is coaching. So much great play but the amount of times our quality let us down on the last pass or touch in obvious goal-scoring situations is shocking.

You mean to tell me that you haven't noticed how open we are because of his system? I am sure you have noticed even in the matches we win that we leave so much space. The difference between this and Chelsea is that Bournemouth were clinical.

 

[Revan]

Why are you worried? No big club would touch him with a ten foot pole after this season.

I am just being sarcastic about the idiocity of the vast majority of posters in the Caf, who created this absurd cult of what was clear to see is nothing more than an awful manager.

He will go back to Holland, that is his ceiling.

 

[Stretfordender]

If your will to accept mediocrity back him, he’s done at this club. Clueless!

 

[Toshey]

This is the last straw for me personally.
As I generally do, I hope for good performances and results and I'll support any manager that comes, but generally I don't think he's good manager for the Premier league.
He has a few crucial mistakes in him and I don't think he's at an age where he can learn and change.

1. Once again something worked in game A and he immediately did the same in game B. But Chelsea and Bournemouth are two completely different teams. Bourne beat Newcastle 2-0 the same way. It's extremely naive to play so open against them.

2. Refusing to shape the team by actually paying attention to player weaknesses. Today we needed Mainoo and his ability to hold the ball under pressure. Amrabat was outpaced by the game once again and McTominay went invisible because Bourne defended with many people in the box, so there was no space for him to attack.

3. I don't understand why he doesn't want to change team shape during games. We started brightly and pressed well, but it was obvious at 25th minute mark that we can't beat the low block. He should have immediately reverted the team because it was painfully obvious that we were extremely vulnerable to counterattacks. Our passes getting intercepted, players losing 1 on 1s. Get Hojlund and Martial in together, step back, change approach to attack. Obviously you can't pressure them into mistake, can't beat them with intensity. Play for free kicks and corners, get McTominay, Maguire, Hojlund in, try crosses.

4. The state of the squad is just horrible. He never adressed the fact that our RB options are awful. Dalot is just a bad player, AWB is inconsistent and not very quick or talented. Good tackler does not cut it for United. Why go for Mount in the summer. Why absolutely not a single minute to VDB?

Overall I don't want to talk about the positive things he has done. Because his flaws are too strong to overcome.

Again - I generally hope some miracle happens, but it's unlikely. A few years back Ole was a dead man walking, then pulled off wins vs Spurs and City in a row.
I wonder if ETH can pull off some miracle and beat Bayern and Liverpool. Unlikely.

 

[golden_blunder]

A team of amputees could run through this midfield, it’s an insane tactic for us in the PL, we don’t have the players for it. Either he adapts very quickly or he’ll be sacked soon. If he’s not already gone after today

 

[Salford_Red83]

Up next: Bayern and Liverpool..how he will survive this week is the question?!

I think, regardless of the results he will.

 

[city-puma]

Blame it on one player? Regardless of who is in what position we lose like this every time because of the SYSTEM.

I am not blaming Reguilon but ETH. He made the wrong choice to set up the team and didn’t adjust in game as well.

 

[erikcred]

Klopp - you could see progression.
Arteta - you could see progression.
I don’t see anything this season - not one single game - where I’ve thought, we are making progress. The games we’ve won we could have easy lost. Not sure he survives this because when we capitulate….we proper capitulate. The players clearly aren’t confident they can play their way out of these situations.

I can help you there.

After each match day, pick one team, a poorly performing one in that moment and say "Look despite that team spending so much or being praised a lot, or playing well by their standards, we're only x points behind them in our worst season".

Start with "We're ahead of Chelsea despite their big spending".

Then move on to "We're only 6 points away from the top despite our shit season." Then Arsenal and Liverpool extend the gap while City falters, so can't use the gap to top anymore.

So it became "We're only 3 points behind Man City despite our shit season."

Win the next match and Villa lose a couple, it'll become "We're only 2 behind title challengers Villa."

 

[Irwin99]

18 goals scored. ETH managed to build the worst United team I've ever witnessed.

That's some achievement

LVG 2nd season but with a much worse defensive shape and less possession.

I mean it’s obvious you can’t rely on Martial, it shouldn’t need to be said at this point, which means we were hoping on Rashford scoring near 30 goals again and Hojlund taking the league by storm. Bad calls and will cost him his job sadly.

 

[Sgreddevil]

I also read this was Bournemouth's first ever win at OT.
[/QUOTE

We were blessed.

Anyone speaking of EtH in the same breath as the great man needs firing out of the same catapult EtH does.

I didn't realise what an incredible home record we had with SAF. No wonder old trafford had been well known as the fortress. Now any team can come and snatch a win at our home. It is an embarrassment. I wondered if the players felt ashamed at all.

 

[The Mitcher]

Why? -3 goal difference, only 18 goals scored, bottom of what should have been a relatively easy group, can’t win away against a top 10 side, just lost 3-0 at home to fecking Bournemouth. The football is shite, too slow to make changes, questionable transfer decisions.

What are you holding on to?

He's just one of the fan boys. It's hope and delusion they cling onto. He'll go on to tell you there is no one out there to hire so we should keep him and hope and pray we get better.

 

[LDUred]

He's presided over so many absolutely shambolic performances this season. We have essentially lost 4-0 at home to Bournemouth and barely had a decent chance to score.

The tactics are utterly predictable. The midfield lacks quality and has no structure, but he insists on playing the same system game in, game out. The attack is bull in a china shop stuff, no subtlety, just charging forward in numbers and hoping.

We never looked like scoring today, but we certainly looked like conceding every time Bournemouth came forward.

That's even before you get on to the issue with signings, which have somehow made us worse off, and the fact he has managed to freeze out a handful of players, which is made worse by the fact that he's shown inconsistency by giving Rashford and Martial way more leniency than Sancho, Ronaldo, and Varane.

Keeping him at this stage is simply a holding pattern until some better option comes along. This is absolutely dire.

 

[Sarni]

How did he win manager of the month?!

We fluked a win at Fulham and Everton, both of whom could have easily beaten us with the chances they had, and sneaked past Luton at home, giving a false sense of good performances.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

Is De Zebri attainable?

 

[hobbers]

Without McTominay's 5 goals we'd be 14th. 19 points from 16 games. -8 goal difference.

Let that sink in.

 

[Rustyspider13]

You need precision to break down defensively resolute teams like Bournemouth. Starting McT won't get you that. I understand the reasoning as he's been scoring goals. But persisting with him after the first half has to be seen as an error. I just don't understand how we can see it yet a professional manager can't. Too many outright bad decisions.

 

[Lay]

I have not seen another United manager be given so much leeway whilst being this bad at their job.

Yeah. It’s bizarre. This is Moyes level but Moyes actually got us out of the UCL group

 

[Sarni]

Why are you worried? No big club would touch him with a ten foot pole after this season.

City would literally immediately fire Pep if ETH became available.

 

[Skills]

I am very worried that he might walk away and join Real or Bayern.

That's what I heard in Caf just two-three months ago.

Or else the great honourable manager may just re-sign and not leech us for a massive pay off. Remember that?

 

[grahamo]

Tactics are non existent. They can't do the basics. They can't even defend a corner. This is down to the coaching.

 

[black country red]

Always been ten hag but no fecking way should any United lose to Bournemouth at home let alone by 3 goals

 

[FootyGirl88]

It all good and well sacking managers but the lack of accountability for the players makes me sick. How many of these same players since LVG days have had contract extensions. Honestly this club is just pathetic.

 

[The Mitcher]

I am just being sarcastic about the idiocity of the vast majority of posters in the Caf, who created this absurd cult of what was clear to see is nothing more than an awful manager.

He will go back to Holland, that is his ceiling.

My apologies, sarcasm is hard to read. Yep, and the cult like mentality has been here since Rangnick. Both these managers have weaponised the fans against the team (who are no saints) to save their arses.

 

[always_hoping]

United lost one league game in Old Trafford last season (the first game) beat Liverpool,Arsenal,Man City etc at home. Remarkable to think looking at that flaky group of players in action right now.

 

[V.O.]

A team of amputees could run through this midfield, it’s an insane tactic for us in the PL, we don’t have the players for it. Either he adapts very quickly or he’ll be sacked soon. If he’s not already gone after today

Nobody has the players for it. Nobody in the history of football could play as a one man midfield like we're expecting Amrabat to and make it work consistently.

Casemiro looked every part the best DM in world football for most of last year, and was an absolute turnstile trying to play in this system.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Still wouldn’t sack him

Agree, it's not the time.

 

[The Mitcher]

Ragnick had good history for building good sides, he would have at the very least built a good side and was probably the only manager that would have not struggled having to deal with recruitment

He built mid table sides, not trophy winning sides. Such delusion.