Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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At least, it will resemble the reality.
Fans are so blind or don't get it. Fergie was already a serial winner who turned a smallish club into Scottish champions (when Scottish football was decent) and won a major European trophy before coming to OT. That earnt him lots of credit, as well as work he was doing on youth side. Klopp earnt time with his consistent achievements at Dortmund, two league wins and 2 runners up, and clarity on what he was doing and direction they were going. ETH is or has none of these attributes. The average fan stuck with Ole far too long, we should have laughed Moyes out of OT, and Mou for that matter.
 
i am still Ten Hag in but his persistent stubbornness with certain things is starting to wear on me.

i get he spent a lot, some wasnt his fault (probably could have bought Antony for half the price if we had competent people)

when balancing what he spent, he has also been handcuffed a good bit also, Wout is the main example along with the other subpar loans we have had to do.

i get last year we were lucky with form and injuries. this year has been the opposite. it happens.

but leaving out varane, mainoo when he came back and keepign with mctominay when he should be a last 15 minutes off the bench is troublesome.
Have no idea how any Utd fan can support ETH at this point. Seriously, loyatly to a failed manager hinders the club. The players signed are on him, the club gave him complete control. Antony for £50m is still a bang average player. Sure he couldnt sign in the last winter window, but he wasted the first summer chasing FDJ and then panic splurge on Antony. Lots of internal leaks blame ETH for injuries for not rotating last season, so I dont think we are 'unlucky'. its all on him.

Even without this, you seen any sense on a football pitch of a team you recognise as Manchester f@@@ing United. Because I dont.
 
His results are so bad that I think he should consider resigning. He might have the worst season ever after Alex retired shows how bad he is. I can't wait for him to get sack, complete fraud.
Why do our fanbase say this kind of stuff? No chance he walks. He's getting paid a huge amount to do a job most people would love to do - the board either sack him or back him.
 
Fans are so blind or don't get it. Fergie was already a serial winner who turned a smallish club into Scottish champions (when Scottish football was decent) and won a major European trophy before coming to OT. That earnt him lots of credit, as well as work he was doing on youth side. Klopp earnt time with his consistent achievements at Dortmund, two league wins and 2 runners up, and clarity on what he was doing and direction they were going. ETH is or has none of these attributes. The average fan stuck with Ole far too long, we should have laughed Moyes out of OT, and Mou for that matter.

Unfair to say that. He won 3 leagues at Ajax, 4th if you include the covid year that was cut short. Plus a good first season at United with a trophy.
 
Manchester United have a net transfer loss of over £1.2b in the last ten years, the highest in the country by some distance. Maybe the world, I haven’t checked.

You need a complete change of strategy, but it will be one that fans really don’t like. Young “no name” manager, young “no name” players replacing your aging, overpaid and undermotivated stars.

You’ll have to stop buying the flavour of the month for extremely inflated prices and invest in better value options and, you know, give them time to develop in a well-structured, organised system.

And when you’re 6th-9th after 18 months, keep with the plan and let the players grow and develop into the system, with the manager’s position not in question.

Of course, none of this will ever happen. It’ll be sacking Ten Hag, getting in next one, spend another £200m, and repeat.

It comes from the top, guys.

Given the state of the current meltdown on here do you honestly think that would be seen as acceptable regardless of who is in charge or what the long term plan is?
 
Unfair to say that. He won 3 leagues at Ajax, 4th if you include the covid year that was cut short. Plus a good first season at United with a trophy.
Ajax are a giant in a second rate league. Its not comparable to Germany or Spain, even France. I didn't see much of Ajax but in season before he joined I saw 2-3 games and they looked very ordinary.

He won a trophy that pretty much all other top teams play their reserves/ youth in. I am not saying he is a bad manager, just not up to the job of MUFC. Not many are, but we shouldn't desperately cling onto whoever is in the dugout when they have so clearly failed. What we are seeing is shambolic. Its not all on him, but nor can he turn it around. I really dont care about results but the football is just terrible.
 
Unfair to say that. He won 3 leagues at Ajax, 4th if you include the covid year that was cut short. Plus a good first season at United with a trophy.
That's being extremely generous. It was an ok season, but not good.

Essentially, we didn't play that good football, we didn't compete for the league, we didn't compete in Europa, and we got some of the biggest trashing including a 7-0 defeat against Liverpool. We got 1 out of possible 27 points against the top half of the table away from home.

It was a better season than the one before that, but all things considered, it really wasn't good.
 
Given the state of the current meltdown on here do you honestly think that would be seen as acceptable regardless of who is in charge or what the long term plan is?
This guy is taking the p@ss. What plan? That's the whole point, there is isn't one. Even ETH seems to have admitted that. We are not playing Ajax football, whatever that is, no its basically just sh*te. McT for sale now he's first on the team sheat. Single pviot that leaves us wide open since start of season. No goals. Meltdown or people genuinely had enough at the state of our great club...?
 
I am pro ETH and always have been.

But he seems to be out of ideas and has now reverted to using McTom as Jose used Fellaini.

Its the most basic of tactics and ETH was not brought in to do these type of things.
 
I am pro ETH and always have been.

But he seems to be out of ideas and has now reverted to using McTom as Jose used Fellaini.

Its the most basic of tactics and ETH was not brought in to do these type of things.
I don't get how are fans become pro or anti. I am pro MUFC, always have been. I have seen some awful stuff over the years. ETH seemed like a sensible appointment, at least compared to some of the awful ones, though slight concern that even Spurs rejected him and he was untested outside Holland. Ajax fans said he wasn't great on youth and only wanted to buy players he knew, guess they were correct there. He may have done better in a proper football structure, but he just doesnt seem to have the tactical insight or flexibility to manage a big team. Other than being a loyal fan, what exactly makes you pro ETH? His judgement on players like Antony is so wrong it makes me question his fundamental grip of top level football.
 
Ajax are a giant in a second rate league. Its not comparable to Germany or Spain, even France. I didn't see much of Ajax but in season before he joined I saw 2-3 games and they looked very ordinary.

He won a trophy that pretty much all other top teams play their reserves/ youth in. I am not saying he is a bad manager, just not up to the job of MUFC. Not many are, but we shouldn't desperately cling onto whoever is in the dugout when they have so clearly failed. What we are seeing is shambolic. Its not all on him, but nor can he turn it around. I really dont care about results but the football is just terrible.

I agree, the Dutch league is not top tier, but there is as much competition in the Dutch league as there is in Spain and Germany, which are duopolies and in France PSG have everyone outgunned.

At least Ajax have strong and equally resourced Feyenoord and PSV to compete with.

Think it unfair to say he didn't have the pedigree. You said yourself "he would be great" in 2021.....

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/the...eds-to-finish-the-season.466478/post-27971981
 
You’d swear he took over a mid table or relegation team, we’d finished 2nd the year before and always hung around top 4 positions, not a league winning team but hardly this catastrophe that is being implied these days to excuse the manager


It's another weird thing Ten Hag supporters come up with as they try and ignore the fact Ole was actually doing better with this team than Ten Hag has managed.
 
A lot of people compare Ten Hag to Arteta and Arsenal keeping the faith. In his first season, at their lowest point Arsenal lost 8 of their first 14 league games, quite similar to us really but harder games like Man City, Spurs and Liverpool away. But then they had 47 points in their next 23 (which would average as a 77 point season), then a 'bottled' outside top 4 with 68 points, then 84 points last season.

If Ten Hag turned around and won 47 points in the next 22 games, we might be onto something, but does anyone think that will happen? Our next three games are Liverpool (A), West Ham (A), Aston Villa (H), we would need 6 points + from that to get any kind of momentum going. Most likely we will get 1-3 points from those games, possibly even 0 points, could anyone say we are on the right trajectory as well.

Klopp's first few seasons at Liverpool as well you could see the style of play, in terms of crazy pressing and fast-paced attacking. The defence and goalkeeper were just a shambles, but at least they had a clear strength in attack and the rest just needed to be refined. They never lost that verve in attack. What are United's strengths?

If they were brilliant at the back and lots of 0-0s and 1-0s, at least a top striker might lead to a big upturn in form. If they were brilliant in attack and were conceding 2-3 a game with stupid mistakes, then you could point to needing 1-2 top-class defenders (like Van Dijk and Alisson when they arrived at Liverpool) to hit the next level. Liverpool scored 63 goals... then 78 goals, then 84 goals and scored over 80 goals for 3 straight seasons... we can barely score 60 goals a season.

But there are no strengths. The defence just conceded the most goals of any English team in CL history. The attack is toothless, they are the 15th top scorers in the league (!). -3 goal difference. So what are we supposed to be good at?

Forget about the points, Arsenal were mostly crap under Arteta until things started to click for them. The upturn in their performances (judging by the underlying stats) last season was so significant, it raised more than a few eyebrows. They had no strengths, as you like to call them and, results wise, their trajectory was similar to United's under ETH: Very few draws and uneven games that could go either way, poor goal differences caused by a constipated and unimaginative attacking line alongside a shaky defence that couldn't deal with counters and seemed to melt under pressure in crunch moments. In the opening game of his second full season, Carragher was laughing at them on live TV when they conceded their second goal at Brentford. After that, they lost hands down at home to Chelsea and got their arses handed over to them at the Etihad (5-0). A few weeks later, Liverpool also wiped the floor with them (4-0). If Arteta was managing United, the Caf would be demanding his head on a plate by then, and the toxicity in and around the club would have eaten him alive.

The difference is in the way he was failing. He didn't sacrifice what he was brought in to implement to get immediate results. He stood his ground, instead, and took the hits:" This is how we're going to play, this is what we'll be doing in the different tactical phases, and i don't care if the players like it or not. Why? Because, as a system manager, this is what i know how to teach best". The only thing that kept him in his job was the belief of the people who hired him in his abilities. They allowed him to close his ears to the outside noise and focus on the task ahead. And they also provided him a structure to help him. He found roles for Martinelli and Saliba from the fresh transfers he inherited during his interim spell. Next season, he added Partey and Gabriel. The season after that, it was Ramsdale, Odegaard, White and Tomiyasu. Then, Jesus and Zinchenko from City, plus Trossard and Jorginho. If you add Rice, that's a whole new starting xi, except for Saka. That's for the "work and make the best out of what you have" crowd, who also want to "see" and "taste" the progress, otherwise it's… Off with his head.

United don't have the same MO. Yes, the managers get the money to spend. After LvG's failed overhaul, they also get three major signings and a clear objective to secure CL football. Which means that, one way or the other, they have to work with what they've got instead of implementing any kind of vision. Mourinho tried to do it, saw that he couldn't compete with Klopp/Pep, so he tossed a grenade and left the club in tatters. Solskjaer came in with dreams of implementing a high pressing/high energy game, then he toed the line and, to his credit, he squeezed whatever he could out of the team until he arrived at a dead-end. ETH comes in, changes his tune after two games to "save" the season. The biggest crime he committed (i think the only transfer there's enough sample size to safely suggest that he doesn't belong at this level is Antony) was that he actually thought he could have a second bite at the cherry this season. His second-biggest crime (with the selection of McT, Maguire leading the way) is that he's trying to find ways to mix what worked last season with the new approach. Which is an unmitigated disaster. He's arrived at his own dead-end, and he will get the sack. But the talk has never about progress. The club has far more mundane and immediate needs that must be served. And most of the loudest fans on here, one way or the other, share that point of view. Leave Klopp/Pep aside, they belong to a different stratosphere. The problem is that, at United, Arteta's 22-23 season would probably have never happened. Last chance saloon is someone like Ancelotti but, then again, he will also be a stop-gap solution.
 
It should be disconcerting that there are so many things he has been dire at that there doesn't have to be universal agreement on any one point for him to be in sackable offence territory:

- Cannot set up an attack
- Cannot set up a midfield
- Cannot set up a defence
- Cannot manage in-game
- Does not make timely subs
- Rarely makes impactful decisions
- Has wedded himself to a system we are incapable of playing
- Has fallen out with numerous players *
- Has a totally confusing policy with the youngsters
- Sticks to underperforming players for so many games past due that morale of others is bound to be affected
- Cannot win away against any team that has anything about them (correlates with top 8/9)
- Is frequently battered by multiple goal defecits
- the 7-0 (this is so bad and infamous that you can put in "the 7-0" and Google refers you to the game)
- Spent a fortune on so many poor and/or undercooked players**
- Has had complete reliance on a sole goalscorer (last season) and is lost at sea this season due to the single point failure issue
- Constantly sets his #6 up for failure. (Casemiro became a lazy out on here when it was obvious that the tactical setup had him flailing; Amrabat is left with too much to do by himself and Mainoo was essentially fed to the wolves vs Newcastle's henchmen)
- Plays favourites (as much as it might be said all managers do this, the extent to which he sticks by some players and tosses others is bound to unsettle and demoralise the squad)

* the whys and wherefores can be up for discussion
** the blame for this lays on more shoulders than his

I like to be objective as a poster, but there are no redeeming qualities to the management of this season from the very start of the preseason. Alarm bells were ringing for so many of us that it wasn't funny and the product bought to the games proper has been even worse than the worst the preseason imagination could muster. There can't be a soul on here who thought we'd be where we were by November, let alone December.

If you are going to stick by or believe in what a manager is doing, there has to be some aspects to the work being done that can be honed in on as shining beacons that once the chaff is removed from will really come to the fore. What aspect of anything ten Hag is doing points towards that?
As time goes by doubt is compounding because he does not show any capacity to change, adapt, learn or even identify gaping, fundamental issues, and worse still - if he is aware of the issues, he is being so inflexible and stubborn that the capacity to fix it appears to be beyond his remit. We've now reached the point where his second season contests as our worst post-Fergie, inclusive of Moyes and Ralf. Results wise, that wouldn't be so bad if something genial and progressive was being concocted, instead, we're looking more lost and deflated, and him more than out of ideas as the season unfolds.

There's not long to go now until his position should be untenable. It's a shame because he comes across as a likeable fellow, but by now, not one you hang your hat on in belief he can turn things around. From July until now, it's been an unmitigated disaster of a season and he is more accountable for that than the players, which is damning.

That description is grim but I can't find any lies or even exaggerations. :lol:
 
I don't get how are fans become pro or anti. I am pro MUFC, always have been. I have seen some awful stuff over the years. ETH seemed like a sensible appointment, at least compared to some of the awful ones, though slight concern that even Spurs rejected him and he was untested outside Holland. Ajax fans said he wasn't great on youth and only wanted to buy players he knew, guess they were correct there. He may have done better in a proper football structure, but he just doesnt seem to have the tactical insight or flexibility to manage a big team. Other than being a loyal fan, what exactly makes you pro ETH? His judgement on players like Antony is so wrong it makes me question his fundamental grip of top level football.

I think he underestimated the quality of the Premier League when he signed Antony. He perhaps didn't account for the step up in quality of defenses in comparison to Holland. Or thought Anthony could improve, which we are yet to see.

You are right though, you have to question his top level ability when he makes so many poor signings. Hojland looks to be another.
 
That's being extremely generous. It was an ok season, but not good.

Essentially, we didn't play that good football, we didn't compete for the league, we didn't compete in Europa, and we got some of the biggest trashing including a 7-0 defeat against Liverpool. We got 1 out of possible 27 points against the top half of the table away from home.

It was a better season than the one before that, but all things considered, it really wasn't good.

That's why last season was distorted. Because fans used the 21/22 season as benchmark, where we gave up on the season mid way through.

As you said it was an ok season, any criticism on the style was countered by using McT, Maguire and DDG as excuses.
 
This can’t be true… can it? :lol:
Unfortunately, it is true. To some degree cause teams who lose lots of matches in the league, do not play in Europe (where we lost 4 matches).

Either way, it is a terrible statistic. Almost as bad as the one where we not only were the club that conceded most goals in UCL this season, but we were the English club to have conceded most goals in the group stage of UCL, ever.
 
This can’t be true… can it? :lol:

It is. From TheAthletic article today.

Incredible stuff, really. I want people to read it over and over:

Only three teams in Europe’s five major leagues have lost more games than United’s 12 in all competitions this season (Burnley, Union Berlin and Almeria).
 
For me, such a strange one. I still like ETH a lot - but I am now leaning to letting him go, even if it's only to bring an interim in. From the outside looking in, I just can't see how we finish the season any higher than 8th or 9th with ETH in charge. We're losing games that we simply shouldn't. Away to Newcastle? Fine - even if it was an embarrassing performance. Away to any of the top 5 or 6? Okay, maybe. Home defeats to Palace, Bournemouth, Brighton? No. Out of Europe entirely by December? Unacceptable.

This combined with a lack of any identifiable playing style or consistency means he has to go, I'm sorry to say. I think we'll lose the next 3 and he'll be gone.
 
The game on Sunday will be the easiest way to prove whether he has any credit left in the squad at all.

All the usual problem characters will be absent. Rashford, Bruno, Martial etc. Everyone he picks will either be players he's backed/signed (Onana, Dalot, Amrabat, Evans, McT, Antony and Hojlund) or youth players he's given chances to (Garnacho, Mainoo, maybe Hannibal).

The result is one thing, but if he cant get that group of players fired up enough to even show any fight at Anfield, then we know categorically he has nothing left to offer us.
 
The game on Sunday will be the easiest way to prove whether he has any credit left in the squad at all.

All the usual problem characters will be absent. Rashford, Bruno, Martial etc. Everyone he picks will either be players he's backed/signed (Onana, Dalot, Amrabat, Evans, McT, Antony and Hojlund) or youth players he's given chances to (Garnacho, Mainoo, maybe Hannibal).

The result is one thing, but if he cant get that group of players fired up enough to even show any fight at Anfield, then we know categorically he has nothing left to offer us.

The players can be fired up, but still have no where near enough quality to compete with Liverpool.

Look at the players we have to take to Anfield. Not one would get near the starting Liverpool XI.

As much as I am not a fan of what Ten Hag has been doing of late, judging him on the performance of a weak XI at Anfield is a little unfair.

Getting thumped by Bournemouth is much more of an issue.
 
Some belters now in the battle for most ridiculous and we've only just started.

One of you is going to make it more personal than it needs to be but which of you want's to achieve legendary status in doing so.

Huge excitement
 
I think he underestimated the quality of the Premier League when he signed Antony.

Not unreasonable.

He looks like an utterly mediocre player who may be capable of carrying out instructions - but who has nothing about him in terms of the qualities you want to see in a genuine top player (which is what you should get at that price).
 
Fans are so blind or don't get it. Fergie was already a serial winner who turned a smallish club into Scottish champions (when Scottish football was decent) and won a major European trophy before coming to OT. That earnt him lots of credit, as well as work he was doing on youth side. Klopp earnt time with his consistent achievements at Dortmund, two league wins and 2 runners up, and clarity on what he was doing and direction they were going. ETH is or has none of these attributes. The average fan stuck with Ole far too long, we should have laughed Moyes out of OT, and Mou for that matter.

Great point

Not many people know this or just don't want to admit. SAF was a serial winner and had sky high standards everywhere he went.

Success breeds success. You don't bet on a lame horse and expect them to consistently win the race.
 
The injuries excuse is kinda crazy in light of reports that he is rejecting player requests to turn down the intensity of training a notch.
 
I can't take you serious if you start with :lol: calling an actual fact clutching

Even worse now as well. 13 out against Liverpool by the looks of things.

None of them important players of course.

But for those of us not relentlessly waffling shite, let's just think about that for a minute, 13 players out and squad sizes are 25. Under 21s help compensate for it a bit but the numbers are ridiculous.
 
The injuries excuse is kinda crazy in light of reports that he is rejecting player requests to turn down the intensity of training a notch.

I think it’s an absurd choice to introduce a system predicated on high intensity pressing actions to a team that was coming off of a 65 plus game season along with the World Cup.
 
This guy is taking the p@ss. What plan? That's the whole point, there is isn't one. Even ETH seems to have admitted that. We are not playing Ajax football, whatever that is, no its basically just sh*te. McT for sale now he's first on the team sheat. Single pviot that leaves us wide open since start of season. No goals. Meltdown or people genuinely had enough at the state of our great club...?

It's the meltdown of fans, who probably have no idea whats going on inside the club or what the plan is. We had the same arguments and meltdowns with Moyes, LVG, Ole, Jose and now ETH. Going nowhere, style, signings, results, players etc etc etc..

Just sacking ETH now and going back to an interim for 6 months makes sense? Rubbish players out of contract in the summer, they'll be signed back on for another manager. Why? Well because of FFP, lack of time to find and sign replacements, unsure of the market. The usual shite and the next guy will be lumbered with dross like Martial, AWB, Lindelof etc for another 3 years.

Nothing will change unless everything changes, change the manager, the structure, the players. Burn it all down and start again. Only then will you see Man Utd on the up.


ETH is just like LVG all over again. Rubbish outside of Holland, signing are shite, changes his formation, doesn't change his formation, injuries, should have got more out of players at the club..should have bought a striker etc etc etc.. the arguments and meltdowns are almost identical.

For reference the LVG stuff, sound familiar?

Read the history books and you'll see the LVG carries the same risks which is why he's been fired from every managerial job outside the dutch league for relatively short stints as well.

6 winless, 3 wins out of 15 ? Confidence is shot and while injuries have played apart, we had two senior defenders and still lost to norwich at home. The domino effect has already begun, the longer he is here the worse it will get and we cannot allow loyalty to let us miss out of champs league football again.

I agree we have a great squad that is being badly mismanaged, people throw around 250mil and forget 63m of that was dimaria.

One way or another we need to put that horse out of its misery, defiantly VG should not get any money, either sack him before January, or the summer one way or another he does not deserve a third year

I am with you mate I think very much along the same lines. The transfer dealings have been nowhere near as bad as people make out when you look at the net spend. OK we made a blunder with Di Maria but we've made a lot of very good signings as well.

The past 2 months have been awful though and the way he had us scraping points and wins means he has been walking a tightrope for a while.

LVG has a reputation for being a tactician but why persist with one system all season even when things are not working? I can't think of one game this season where he hasn't played 4-2-3-1, it's like he doesn't know any other formation? You would think he would try to mix things up as the current formation is not working. He does appear to be one dimensional.

Also what made him abandon the 4-3-3 that we were playing so well with in the second half of last season?

Been one of LvG's biggest critic, but not going to complain about the players he has signed, love all the signings except maybe Rojo. Problem i have is the way he is using those players and some of the players that he sold. Yes, there was garbage that he needed to clean out, but if he was anywhere near his reputation of a good coach, then he would have managed to get performances out of the players he sold.

I do think we lack quality more than anything, If he had Messi Neymar and Suarez instead of Rooney Lingard and Mata we would be winning the league by miles. Injuries don't help but then chopping the squad short is his own fault, we could have more options.

LvG's two biggest mistakes were his belief in Depay and Rooney. If both of them had been performing on a higher level things would look a bit rosier than they do at the moment. LvG clearly must understand that we need to sign an established striker and winger, but can he do it January and save our season?

You don't need the cream of the crop to try be attacking and entertaining

It's the mentality that needs drastic change, not players
 
But for those of us not relentlessly waffling shite, let's just think about that for a minute, 13 players out and squad sizes are 25. Under 21s help compensate for it a bit but the numbers are ridiculous.

I know right, so many. It's almost like the manager royally cocked up their preseason conditioning/early season workloads.
 
That description is grim but I can't find any lies or even exaggerations. :lol:
I was vehemently ten Hag in well before he got here and was very much on board with most things in the first season, but honestly, I don't think I've seen a manager sabotage himself like this before.

From the moment the next phase began, it's been akin to accelerating into a wall and he's made bad decisions on top of bad to even exacerbate that. He's really shredded confidence with each turn and I don't know what possible positive or constructive thing you can say he's done whilst his negative column has enough against him to fill an A4 page.

More damning than that is if/when he goes, we're left with all those dud signings on massive wages that nobody will touch. For as long as this could go on for (INEOS), he might be fairly labelled our worst post-Fergie manager outright, which is unfathomable from the end of the '22/'23 campaign when all signs pointed upward.
 
IMO one significant factor often overlooked when comparing ETH to Arteta is what they've spent. Not to mention Arteta inherited a worse squad than ETH (we were 10th when he arrived!). Comparing their first 3 transfer windows, Arteta spent £80mil and ETH about £400mil. If we take into account 4 windows for Arteta (as he arrived mid-season), he still spent half (about £200mil) of what ETH has in 3 windows. ETH was heavily backed straight away. We couldn't afford to do that so our squad rebuilding was more gradual and we first had to offload players and restructure our wage bill. As we (very) slowly improved, Arteta was increasingly backed in the transfer market.
This isn't a dig against this post in particular, but more the constant use of the 400m (360m but fine) as a if it bought ETH a whole squad of his choices to use. It didn't. Because we're Manchester United and our signing department is the worst in the world, all it bought was Onana, Malacia, Mount, Antony, Hojland, Martinez, Bayindir, Eriksen and Casemiro as full transfers. This season, we've basically not seen half of his transfers (Mount, Malacia, Martinez, Casemiro, Eriksen).

Both Pep and Arteta, after two full summer windows has brought in upwards of a dozen new players.

Given the history well before ETH, United's inability to churn through a squad is what is killing us. ETH is forced to use players we should have sold years ago. Martial is a starter for us, because the only other forward the club were able to get is a kid who has never played a full season in a major league. That's pathetic. We've spent half a season without a fit LB. We desperately need numbers.

Maybe ETH could have forced the recruitment team to buy 2 lesser-known players rather than spend a fortune on Mount, I'm not sure. His first summer was a disaster not because of him. The club basically had to see us get absolutely destroyed in the first two matches, then panicked and overpaid on both Casemiro and Antony. Realistically, the 400m should be 300m just on the over-paying our ineptitude cost on those two transfers alone.

Of the players he clearly wanted, I'd say Antony and Onana are looking like poor decisions. Malacia was fine. Hojland is a good striker, but we overpaid (again not ETH). Martinez is obviously a good buy. He didn't want Casemiro, and I've no idea about Mount because we've broken him and he can't play football anymore.

Anyway, I think the recruitment issue is more around the clubs overspending and inability to get many deals done. We can't spend 360m and then desperately hope for random loan signings on the lats day of each window to flesh out the squad.
 
Other clubs do many things right that United haven’t been doing for over 10 years. One thing other clubs do far better is recruitment and sales. Other clubs prioritise how to get on field success over retaining the book value of a squad with contract extensions to the likes of Jones and Martial.

We get a new manager and what happens while nothing changes? They inherit an unbalanced squad of players who have over seen the sacking of multiple managers. The club still struggles to move on players who aren’t good enough. The manager has to decide who to sign , because that hasn’t been remidied, but since there is no funds they got some half arsed Burnley loan signings that does nothing for the team except bring in a body.

Even if we finish mid table under ETH I don’t see the benefit of bringing in a new manager who can’t do much between now and the summer.

The potential and reward of ETH turning things around versus getting in some intermim alternative makes keeping ETH preferable for me
There is no funds because that same manager wasted it on dross. We've spent pretty much more than any other club during that period, the funds excuse is very thin. Do you really think almost every other manager doesn't face all those exact same issues? Inheriting unbalanced squads who have overseen the sacking of multiple managers. It is absolutely the norm. The only difference is that 99.99% of them do get to spend 400 million.
 
Even worse now as well. 13 out against Liverpool by the looks of things.

None of them important players of course.

But for those of us not relentlessly waffling shite, let's just think about that for a minute, 13 players out and squad sizes are 25. Under 21s help compensate for it a bit but the numbers are ridiculous.
Extremely. Yet here some here who will have us believe they expected us to lay a glove on a full strength Bayern trying to make their fans not give up on them. With the number of those out and our shit form.

Honestly anyone who found yesterday as their "tipping point" for wanting ETH gone is far from serious. Hands down the nadir of the season has been a nil 3 climb down vs Bournemouth after the Chelsea performance. Even those like me who still have faith in him, have all but given up on him staying in the job beyond the next 3 games after that. (1 down, 2 to go)
 
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