Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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IrishMcD said:
That was the moment for me too! I’ve loved him kicking Sancho to the kerb but he’s been way too soft with Rashford and Martial
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Rashfords been benched for 2 games. Martial came in for a mid table game vs Bournemouth so Hojland can save up for the next 2 bangers against bayern and LFC. Perfectly normal if no 2nd striker is bought.

Maguire is neede bcs Lindelof and Shaw cant do the physical hacking that is needed. There is no Casemiro or Ericksen. Mainoo caused one of Galatasarys goals and is 18. Reguilon played the whole of 2 straight starting games after being out for weeks. Fernandes cant carry that midfield alone on top of his own short comings. Garnacho is better than Rashford but also 19 and perhaps overplaying a bit yesterday.

This lot was praised into heavens just 4 days ago so lets not get into a frenzy. Newcastle is being pummeled as we speak for the 2nd time in 7 days. West Ham just beaten 5 nil. Chelsea, one billion pound chelsea has 19 points and hooray hooray Godlike Poch. They just lost from Everton. Yes Ten Hag can go back to OGS style park the bus and hoof upwards, hope for the best, but now with a keeper that doesnt like playing defence. Ten Hag cant win at all.
 
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The negative goal difference in the league since we won the league cup should be enough to get him sacked. Especially given how utterly poor we’ve played in all those games. We look absolutely toothless in attack and rarely carve teams open. It’s so depressing to watch.
I dont see the new structure keeping him on unless they see something we all don’t.
Replacement…I’m totally up for a Bielsa rollercoaster.
 
I’d be more than happy with the results if you could see the plan being worked on and being beaten by mistakes etc.

What we’re seeing is just depressing. No tactics. No plan. Get rid.
 
mav_9me said:
But the full backs don't, they neither step into midfield nor do they back up the press. And they you have Martial and Rashford who don't have a good engine or work ethic but he still plays the same high press with them.

I don't want him to abandon this but at the same time you can't persist with what's not working. Ultimately if it's not working wether it's due to personnel or coaching or whatever, he has to change to make it work. He has to adapt at least say when Martial/ Rashford are playing or not play them at all.
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Yeah that’s the point I’m making. The players don’t do what they are supposed to do.
 
TsuWave said:
Am I reading that right? You think Ancelotti is the only possible upgrade on Ten Hag?
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Let's make a list of things a clear upgrade to ETH must have

a- he has to understand the EPL ie its intensity, physicality etc. That's something ETH is clearly struggling with. His plan of fitting Mount and Bruno in the same midfield comes to mind
b- he needs to have a huge reputation else he'll end up being laughed at just as Potter did with Chelsea and Moyes did with us
c- he needs to know how to win in the EPL or at least in Europe
d- he needs huge experience in terms of managing egos
e- he needs to be able to switch to different styles without compromising his game play. The focus needs to be on getting the best out of a very poor bunch.
f- he needs experience in navigating in a club were the ownership is basically tripe and the focus is elsewhere
g- he needs to be able to work with a DOF while also take matters in his hands in the absence of a decent DOF.

Ancelotti is the only manager who might be available and would tick all the boxes.

a- He won at Chelsea and did well with Everton
b- very few people has the CV Ancelotti has.
c- He won both in the EPL and in the CL
d- he's got huge experience at that
e- he's been switching systems for quite some time
f- he worked with absolute cnuts such as Real Madrid' and Berlusconi's owned Milan
g- he can work with everyone but he's still an old school manager who can live without a DOF
 
My view is that we need to realise that having a long term manager is maybe not the best thing.

A squad of players with 4 - 5 year contracts freshened up every season or two with a new manager. Fresh ideas, fresh motivation.

It would also fight complacency and clique formation in the squad.

In any case, there's little point sacking ETH at the moment unless there is complete capitulation at Anfield.
 
luke511 said:
He's played a large part in the recruitment problem.
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Telsim said:
On one side, it's true he is a victim of the nonexistent structure inside the club. But the other side of it is that no one put a gun to his head and forced him to spend 80 million on Antony, or 60 million on Casemiro, or 50 million on Mount. Many people even here doubted these transfers, especially Mount. Could have had four or more hungry young players for that amount who would work hard and lay the foundation. He chose this and is now reaping the rewards.
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This is where a director of football navigates this process though. No way should we have been allowed to spunk the fees on players that we have. Money would've been spent more wisely if the right hierarchy was in place.
 
If one thing has been clear from the recent years in Premier League, you don't need to spend extraordinary amounts of money to play decent football (note that this doesn't necessarily translate into a top 4 position). I'd swallow these bitter defeats a bit more easily if we played decent football but that's not the case. Ten Hag has completely failed on this account for the most part. Injuries and personnel cannot be an excuse if you can't coach and train your players to tactics that amount to decent football. The level of football has been subpart for the most part and the fact that we still rely on individual moments of brilliance means the coach isn't actually doing his job properly.
 
devilish said:
ETH's game is based on high tempo and high work rate. That's a problem in a squad made up of either lazy players or players who joined us because they thought that we are Real Madrid's retirement house. Now he added players of his own, some of whom were a success (ex Martinez and Eriksen) and some did not. That's understandable considering that he's a manager not a DOF + the success rate of signings isn't very high. Unfortunately most players who can play his system are injured.

That doesn't mean he doesn't have a share of mistakes. The Amrabat, McT and Bruno trio is diabolical. Yet let's put things into perspective here.
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That's the problem. You see that most of our players are not physical. You can't expect them to play high tempo game like against Chelsea, in every 3 days.
 
devilish said:
Let's make a list of things a clear upgrade to ETH must have

a- he has to understand the EPL ie its intensity, physicality etc. That's something ETH is clearly struggling with. His plan of fitting Mount and Bruno in the same midfield comes to mind
b- he needs to have a huge reputation else he'll end up being laughed at just as Potter did with Chelsea and Moyes did with us
c- he needs to know how to win in the EPL or at least in Europe
d- he needs huge experience in terms of managing egos
e- he needs to be able to switch to different styles without compromising his game play. The focus needs to be on getting the best out of a very poor bunch.
f- he needs experience in navigating in a club were the ownership is basically tripe and the focus is elsewhere
g- he needs to be able to work with a DOF while also take matters in his hands in the absence of a decent DOF.

Ancelotti is the only manager who might be available and would tick all the boxes.

a- He won at Chelsea and did well with Everton
b- very few people has the CV Ancelotti has.
c- He won both in the EPL and in the CL
d- he's got huge experience at that
e- he's been switching systems for quite some time
f- he worked with absolute cnuts such as Real Madrid' and Berlusconi's owned Milan
g- he can work with everyone but he's still an old school manager who can live without a DOF
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Why does this potential new manager have to tick all those boxes when ETH ticks... none basically? How come there is nothing between ETH and this perfect hypothetical manager?
 
Big Ben Foster said:
I reckon he'll get the sack when the INEOS announcement is made, along with Murtough and probably various others.
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I actually think he will be left in post until the Summer, even if INEOS want him gone. I think they will use the next few months to sort out the sporting side, get the new DoF to start negotiations for Summer buys and so on, before lining up a clear successor.
 
mav_9me said:
Then why doesn't the manager not change the set up to accommodate their deficiencies?
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You’d have to ask him that! But if you want me to speculate, he is determined to implement his system and his rules now and he’s trying to get the players we have to adapt or perform as close to what’s required as possible. New players will be recruited but he wants them coming into a team that is playing (or trying to play) to his blueprint.

Probably he overestimated his players and underestimated the drawbacks but does not want to go back to sitting deep and counterattacking. Frankly, we weren’t very good when we did play like that either.
 
Would be disappointing to lose him as his project does not feel finished. He's been blindsided with our forward line. Not a single player within it has performed and it has meant a rejig of midfield to incorporate two tens - including a ludicrous berth for McTom, where normally Mount could feature.

We did not play so badly, Saturday, we did not. At least until their sucker-punch second. Everything broke down up top where Martial (a player EtH cannot get rid of) and Hojlund both flopped. We were good wide, constantly creating overlaps but finding nothing in the box. Simply not enough movement and nowhere near enough incision.

This is not a total exoneration - EtH has made various bad calls this term but I cannot help feel he has not yet fashioned his own side.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
How was the crowd behaving during the game?
How's the support for ETH among the match going fans?
As any division started to be seen among match going fans?
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Restless. Frustrated. Bewildered. Annoyed. But also not surprised. It feels toxic.

“feck off you Dutch Bald C*nt” was shouted by one fella close to me.
 
devilish said:
Let's make a list of things a clear upgrade to ETH must have

a- he has to understand the EPL ie its intensity, physicality etc. That's something ETH is clearly struggling with. His plan of fitting Mount and Bruno in the same midfield comes to mind
b- he needs to have a huge reputation else he'll end up being laughed at just as Potter did with Chelsea and Moyes did with us
c- he needs to know how to win in the EPL or at least in Europe
d- he needs huge experience in terms of managing egos
e- he needs to be able to switch to different styles without compromising his game play. The focus needs to be on getting the best out of a very poor bunch.
f- he needs experience in navigating in a club were the ownership is basically tripe and the focus is elsewhere
g- he needs to be able to work with a DOF while also take matters in his hands in the absence of a decent DOF.

Ancelotti is the only manager who might be available and would tick all the boxes.

a- He won at Chelsea and did well with Everton
b- very few people has the CV Ancelotti has.
c- He won both in the EPL and in the CL
d- he's got huge experience at that
e- he's been switching systems for quite some time
f- he worked with absolute cnuts such as Real Madrid' and Berlusconi's owned Milan
g- he can work with everyone but he's still an old school manager who can live without a DOF
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I didn’t read all that, but it seems as though I read your initial post correctly and you really think Ancelotti is the only possible/clear upgrade on Ten Hag, and that’s just ludicrous.

I don’t even know what Ten Hag has done that has caused people to elevate him to this status. He is not what some on this forum think he is, evidently.
 
Rista said:
The way some fans talk about him, you'd think he had at least a few PL and CL wins on his CV.
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Rista said:
Why does this potential new manager have to tick all those boxes when ETH ticks... none basically? How come there is nothing between ETH and this perfect hypothetical manager?
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It’s crazy. Legit feels like open-air Arkham Asylum.
 
Atheist said:
If one thing has been clear from the recent years in Premier League, you don't need to spend extraordinary amounts of money to play decent football (note that this doesn't necessarily translate into a top 4 position). I'd swallow these bitter defeats a bit more easily if we played decent football but that's not the case. Ten Hag has completely failed on this account for the most part. Injuries and personnel cannot be an excuse if you can't coach and train your players to tactics that amount to decent football. The level of football has been subpart for the most part and the fact that we still rely on individual moments of brilliance means the coach isn't actually doing his job properly.
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I agree with this. Aston Villa, Newcastle last year etc. showed that you don't need arrogant players on super wages to be a top 6 team. You do need to start introducing world-class talent once you want to win EPL or UCL, but we are nowhere near that. To be stable team in top 6, we are better off clearing the house off the primadonnas we have. Once we achieve THAT we can start figuring-out how we add more, but right now we are a mess.
 
Atheist said:
If one thing has been clear from the recent years in Premier League, you don't need to spend extraordinary amounts of money to play decent football (note that this doesn't necessarily translate into a top 4 position). I'd swallow these bitter defeats a bit more easily if we played decent football but that's not the case. Ten Hag has completely failed on this account for the most part. Injuries and personnel cannot be an excuse if you can't coach and train your players to tactics that amount to decent football. The level of football has been subpart for the most part and the fact that we still rely on individual moments of brilliance means the coach isn't actually doing his job properly.
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We have hardly any moments of brilliance.
 
My favourite manager post SAF is Ole. Which says a lot about the clubs work under Glazers.
LvG was superboring with the possession obsession without any penetration. Jose ultra negative cynical football, the less said about that man the better.
EtH is more likeable but could not be further from what the team needed at the moment. We can`t create chances, we can`t score, we can`t defend, we can`t keep possession. Under Ole we had some goalthreat at least. 18 goals scored in 16 is a sackable offence in itself.
 
OrcaFat said:
You’d have to ask him that! But if you want me to speculate, he is determined to implement his system and his rules now and he’s trying to get the players we have to adapt or perform as close to what’s required as possible. New players will be recruited but he wants them coming into a team that is playing (or trying to play) to his blueprint.

Probably he overestimated his players and underestimated the drawbacks but does not want to go back to sitting deep and counterattacking. Frankly, we weren’t very good when we did play like that either.
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What is his system? He's already said he can't do what he did at Ajax.

When the buy-in is finalised, he won't be recruiting any players after the money he's wasted. No way they don't have DOF lined up already.

My opinion, he'll not be able to spend any decent money in January and the new ownership will sack him in the summer.
 
flameinthesun said:
If you take the united shirt off of all these players and replace it with an Everton shirt and ask yourself how many of them would a City, Pool, Bayern, Madrid etc buy or even take on a free, you then realise exactly how poor this squad is. It is effectively Europa league level and with the stengthening of teams such as Brighton, Villa etc there is an argument to say its just a top half level team. There are a few standouts in Rashford (mainly for his pace) and Bruno for his creativity but the damning thing is player for player the majority of our players are no better than players from Villa, Brighton, West Ham etc. For goodness sake we have one of the worst set of right wing options in the entire league. Our midfield is barely top half level and our defence as well. I think the reality is in our minds we see Manchester united, trophies in the cabinets, star players but in reality its a shadow of a top 4 squad for me.

I think Ten Hag did very well to achive what he achieved last season. This season its becoming clear the squad just doesn't have the quality to fulfill what he wants tactically especially with these injuries. If we are set on implementing what his tactical goals are (the transition to 4 3 3) then we will have to ride these results and hopefully the new owners can implement a transfer team to take transfer decisions away from him so he can focus solely on coaching. If not we may as well get rid of him and switch to someone else with a different tactical approach. For me I'd do the former, keep him but take transfer decisions away from him.
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He couldn't coach any of our existing players.

He cannot coach any of his own signings and players he has worked with for years.

Yet, there exists this mythical transfer team, who Get him players on which he has no say and he will coach the shite out of them.
 
gaffs said:
Restless. Frustrated. Bewildered. Annoyed. But also not surprised. It feels toxic.

“feck off you Dutch Bald C*nt” was shouted by one fella close to me.
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are you even dutch?
 
bleedred said:
He couldn't coach any of our existing players.

He cannot coach any of his own signings and players he has worked with for years.

Yet, there exists this mythical transfer team, who Get him players on which he has no say and he will coach the shite out of them.
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Yep. Very weird logic
 
RedRover said:
What is his system? He's already said he can't do what he did at Ajax.

When the buy-in is finalised, he won't be recruiting any players after the money he's wasted. No way they don't have DOF lined up already.

My opinion, he'll not be able to spend any decent money in January and the new ownership will sack him in the summer.
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Christ, if one more person asks what his system is I’ll eat my own face.
 
NewGlory said:
I agree with this. Aston Villa, Newcastle last year etc. showed that you don't need arrogant players on super wages to be a top 6 team. You do need to start introducing world-class talent once you want to win EPL or UCL, but we are nowhere near that. To be stable team in top 6, we are better off clearing the house off the primadonnas we have. Once we achieve THAT we can start figuring-out how we add more, but right now we are a mess.
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ETH would more than likely get rid of quite a few of our players and if he sticks around he will eventually overhaul the whole place. He couldn’t do it all immediately- no-one can come in and say “you’re all sold” on day one.
 
OrcaFat said:
ETH would more than likely get rid of quite a few of our players and if he sticks around he will eventually overhaul the whole place. He couldn’t do it all immediately- no-one can come in and say “you’re all sold” on day one.
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You are right - just a manager cannot. A new director of football, who is in alignment with manager and owners - hells yes, a person like that could. And I hope he / she will, if we get somebody good like that

I do wonder if Erik genuinely likes some of these players that fans don't want. That would be bad
 
NewGlory said:
You are right - just a manager cannot. A new director of football, who is in alignment with manager and owners - hells yes, a person like that could. And I hope he / she will, if we get somebody good like that

I do wonder if Erik genuinely likes some of these players that fans don't want. That would be bad
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Yeah that would be hell!
 
bleedred said:
He couldn't coach any of our existing players.

He cannot coach any of his own signings and players he has worked with for years.

Yet, there exists this mythical transfer team, who Get him players on which he has no say and he will coach the shite out of them.
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Shaw, AWB, Garnacho all say hi.
 
Gordon S said:
My favourite manager post SAF is Ole. Which says a lot about the clubs work under Glazers.
LvG was superboring with the possession obsession without any penetration. Jose ultra negative cynical football, the less said about that man the better.
EtH is more likeable but could not be further from what the team needed at the moment. We can`t create chances, we can`t score, we can`t defend, we can`t keep possession. Under Ole we had some goalthreat at least. 18 goals scored in 16 is a sackable offence in itself.
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Agreed.

1. Solksjaer
2. Carrick
3. Ten Hag
4. Van Gaal
5. Giggs
6. Mourinho
7. Moyes
...
100. Wreck-It Ralf
 
It's just so odd. We played fine last year for the most part with normal tactics. Why has he gone crazy with 4141 this season? Can he not go back to the normal tactics of last season....
 
At least I was right that after Chelsea there will be 3 new pages in this thread.
After that fiasco there are 30.

We beat Bayern and there will be 2 pages, we lose to Liverpool 40 new pages.

Either way, whoever is our next manager, he will be fecked straight from the beginning.

At Manchester United you don't get to make mistakes. ETH has made too many, and I think whoever comes will fall into the same pattern of pressure.
 
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