The way we approach every single game is to not be open, but compact. Ten Hag is not an idiot. The execution isn’t there consistently.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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The way we approach every single game is to not be open, but compact. Ten Hag is not an idiot. The execution isn’t there consistently.
I think people are being a bit generous saying we didn't give them good opportunities. We should have scored from the Garnacho and Hojlund chances, and those were the best chances of the game, but they could easily have scored the Diaz chance if Nunez wasn't a donkey, and Gakpo should have stuck that free header late on, that Konate turn and shot can easily go in the corner on another day etc etc. Not clear cut chances like our two were but on another day those go in, a shut out this was not.
Oddly they didn’t carve us up once. Their best chances were a VVD header and a shot from range be TAA.
United actually carved Liverpool up for the Hojlund chance and again when Kobbie picked a Scholes like pass to play Garnacho in.
Has anyone spared a thought for @el3mel? His whole week was turned into complete dissaray after yesterday's result. He had boxed off multiple hours across every day this week to spam the life out of every ETH thread with his incessant horse shite. Now he has to wait until Saturday and hope it goes tits up at West Ham
Has anyone spared a thought for @el3mel? His whole week was turned into complete dissaray after yesterday's result. He had boxed off multiple hours across every day this week to spam the life out of every ETH thread with his incessant horse shite. Now he has to wait until Saturday and hope it goes tits up at West Ham
I agree generally, just saying people seem to constantly reference how much we need his goal scoring when in reality he hasn't scored as much as you'd be made to believe.
The problem with playing him up top is he's not really someone that's a great runner, and I think he'd find it much more difficult to get into his normal positions when he's now a focal point up top as opposed to ghosting in unmarked as a midfielder.
We limited them to half chances and created some really good ones ourselves.
No need to not give ourselves credit for a disciplined performance.
Yeah sure on another day they score two, or we score two and steal a win.
Seems like your making things up as you go along, critiquing a functioning system has little to do with results. I just provided a game United won against Wolves as an indicator for poor performance tactically, therefore the relevance of results is absconded.
The manager has had the opportunity to correct those problems (tactically), he's failed to do so because there has been numerous fixtures where the team has lost leads as a result of the issues aforementioned.
Nothing of the posts that have been made in relation to this topic has anything to do with sacking the manager. What I find comical is this unrealistic sentiment where in the absence of critical thinking, any criticism of the manager is automatically denoting them to be sacked. We're all adults here surely.
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It is not generous, it is nonsense. They had 34 shots and 2.38 xG and 69% possession, compared to us having 6 shots, 0.75 xG and 31% possession. We were very lucky to not concede. I am not even sure that we had the better chances, Alexander Arnold's attempt was literally two inches away, Van Diijk and Gapko missed free headers from 6 yards away, Nunez had a good chance, Konate too.
We weren't particularly that good defensively yesterday. Much better than the previous matches where we were awful, but we were lucky to leave the match with 1 point.
Agree. People who have been on the inside say what PN is saying again and again and yet there are still loads of people who know jack sh1t happy to pontificate it's all the manager's fault and the Glazers have been generous in funding transfers. The clueless cnuts are in the fanbase too.
Has anyone spared a thought for @el3mel? His whole week was turned into complete dissaray after yesterday's result. He had boxed off multiple hours across every day this week to spam the life out of every ETH thread with his incessant horse shite. Now he has to wait until Saturday and hope it goes tits up at West Ham
He will be back, that we can be sure
Has anyone spared a thought for @el3mel? His whole week was turned into complete dissaray after yesterday's result. He had boxed off multiple hours across every day this week to spam the life out of every ETH thread with his incessant horse shite. Now he has to wait until Saturday and hope it goes tits up at West Ham
No I have him on ignore, I recommend it.Has anyone spared a thought for @el3mel? His whole week was turned into complete dissaray after yesterday's result. He had boxed off multiple hours across every day this week to spam the life out of every ETH thread with his incessant horse shite. Now he has to wait until Saturday and hope it goes tits up at West Ham
I'm worried he's going to play McTominay vs West Ham and revert back to his kamikaze tactics against Bournemouth. It's quite obvious we need two sitting midfielders ie Mainoo and Amrabat/Casemiro (when fit). I have no idea what his coaching staff say to him.
He must be the most ignored poster on the forum
ETH stans are out of the woodwork. Refreshing to see after the mighty draw we had
This just delays the inevitable. We need a far more competent manager to even sniff top 4
This just delays the inevitable. We need a far more competent manager to even sniff top 4
If ETH learns from yesterday’s game and plays Mainoo, Amrabat (or Casemiro if fit) and Bruno in our next game, I’ll be fully back behind him. If he reverts to a Bruno, McTominay and an other then I’ll definitely be leaning towards sack as soon as we have a new ownership structure in place.
So… sack next year then?
What if he plays the latter 3 (i.e. drops Mainoo) but still gets a convincing 3 points?
If he hasn’t figured out now that McTominay isn’t a DM then absolutely.
So he has been doing this all season and you still believe this is possible?
Worked against Chelsea, but can you answer the question?
I mean that's not a smart approach though. And his tactics aren't "highly rewarding" at all, we haven't hardly had a single performance where we utterly dominated a team through our tactics. We haven't lacked "fight" this year, we've been exposed running a suicidal single pivot while pressing super high without closing the space behind the initial press. It's not "risky", it's tactically naieve and wrongly structured. Choosing to go direct from the back and constantly selecting a box crasher CM that doesn't offer much else is hardly a decision made by someone looking to challenge for titles.
Can you answer mine? What do you consider a "convincing 3 points"? Because good finishing and getting lucky at the other end that we aren't punished isn't convincing, it's just getting positive variance. But yes if all of the sudden we trot out the same lineup that's failed all season and suddenly Bruno and McTominay are combining and pressing well while we suffocate teams in the space behind then absolutely I'll applaud him. But asking for that is like asking for Antony to suddenly become Arjen Robben, it's not going to happen.
There is underserved and deserved luck. We and ETH fall into the former category against Liverpool. On another day, it could so easily have been 3-0 to Liverpool.
Marginal improvements in effort shouldn't be celebrated. It should be the norm.
Marginal improvements in effort shouldn't be celebrated. It should be the norm.
Yeah this is the big question for me and part of my frustration this year. If he changes tactics to the system we played last season with Eriksen + Casemiro deep we'll be more balanced even if it's not exactly the prevailing tactical meta. That means giving up on his 4-1-4-1 and I doubt he'll do that. We have the perfect side for it:
DM: Case / Amrabat
#8: Mainoo / Eriksen
#10: Bruno / Mount.
Pick some combination of these players and it feels like we'll be so much more balanced.
Even if this is a fluke result (im not saying it is), a smart man will learn from this and will not go with bruno and mctom together again. If we can do it in anfield, we can do this anywhere. For love of god, please learn and adapt from here. This selection is what every fan has been calling for months now, i hope ETH don't put his moronic ideology ahead of good momentum building.
When you have 34 shots, but only 2.38xG is reflected that we are good defensively side, they haven't create so much chance except TAA shot for that (0.07xG per shot).....i don't think this is a luck.....
So far he hasn't won an away game against a top 9 opponent in his entire stint with us. So, any away point under him should be celebrated. That's how the standards are at this club now.
A plucky underdog bottom half club performance is the best we can hope for and should be appreciated.
Unfortunately it's not an easy chance when you still haven't got a league goal under your belt. Damn if only Rashford had kept that ball in play against Brighton. That goal back then would have been huge boost for Rasmus.
I suppose you are right. Just hard to accept…for me at least.
Yes, that's exactly what everyone watching United sees every week, a nice compact team that is difficult to break down and play through.
It's not inconsistent execution, we barely ever do it!
'ETH is not an idiot'. So I can only assume he sits on the bench with his eyes closed. We were carved upon on the first day by Wolves and its continued since then. It cant be execution otherwise he is also an awful coach. You can see how we set up we commit lots of bodies forward and then leave one DM to cover.
It's a weird feeling because it wasn't long ago that we would've been happy to get a point at Anfield, purely because it is good to get a draw there. Now I just feel dread over the next match that's coming up.
The point isn't even making me think "this will come in handy at the end of the season when we need to edge Top 4" because every game is just bleeding into the next right now.
I think Eriksen is more a #10 now. He doesn't have the stamina to play #8.
Maybe we could use him at#8 for 1 half and then replace him
I think the switch to 4 1 4 1 vs last year's formation has been over exaggerated a little bit by us as fans. Effectively all over the pitch the entire team plays very similarly to last year, postionally as well. I think the openness that we get comes from the way the different players play in those positions vs being asked by ten hag to play as a double 10/8 for example.
For example last year there were loads of examples of Casemiro being left on his own, I think the difference was you had Licha and to a degree Shaw who could take advantage of the gaps in the midfield to find a Bruno and an Eriksen who just plays that 8 role the best out of all our midfielders. Licha again was very aggressive in turnovers and positioning, so when the ball goes through those gaps Licha is very often there if Case wasnt. Mct when not playing as CDM was still box to box and going missing, Bruno was still galavanting forward but Eriksen really helped to knit the attack and defence together, and Licha helped to pad out the defensive mid area on turnovers with his aggressive positioning.
This season we started with a Mount who is pretty new to that role, then Mct who at the best of times goes missing as well as a half fit Licha who then got injured. Against Pool I saw pretty much the same tactics that we've done all season just in a lower block and with Mainoo who I think suited that 8 role well (even though he didn't get the ball much) and mct who I thought was positionally more disciplined than a Bruno would be.
This is why I think the inconsistency we see with effort or gaps etc is coming more from the constant changing of players whether due to injuries or EtH's decisions. For me it's clear that for Ten Hag's tactics to be effective every player has to do their job i.e. not play to their strengths but to do what is required of their position. This is no different to Pep or Klopp (not that we are there yet) where the players have to perform what their role's require, which is why certain players can play in their systems and other can't, regardless of talent. You see Rashford vs Garnacho and its clear Rashford is overall attacking wise on a different level, but when you ask who of the 2 performs the role in this system better....Garnacho right now seems to be the one.
Which is a crossroads I think the club will need to cross at some point, its not just about getting rid of the players who technically aren't good enough but at the end of the day some of our most talented players just may not be suited or want to play the roles that EtH is asking of them.
I'm sorry but if he didn't set his team out that way and they never did what he said then he'd just leave if he wasn't an idiot.
He's setting them up that way. One DM, two forward midfielders, zero cover, wide open.
100%
I just think that the opinion that our tactics are poor and that we are wide open is some what of an illusion. If we were actually able to score, as you highlight we actually had the players to score, then people would be a lot more positive with the way we play.
What is it exactly that makes you believe we are actually wide open? Our issue is scoring not conceding.
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Be interesting to see how he sets up the next 2 games.
West Ham might be a tricky one, they won't set up to allow Utd to sit in and will not leave much space to hit them on the break.
Villa I think could be another like the Chelsea match, they play quite high and leave quite a few gaps in behind. Could expose them with pace.
West Ham might be a tricky one, they won't set up to allow Utd to sit in and will not leave much space to hit them on the break.
Villa I think could be another like the Chelsea match, they play quite high and leave quite a few gaps in behind. Could expose them with pace.
I think the way he approached the Pool game was smart. Can't expect to dominate them at Anfield. Rather, play the waiting game and don't concede. That's a good step forward in terms of adapting to the bigger away games in the league.
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