If he can build from off the Villa 2nd half, which shown that the players can play and beat a top side, then he can still save his job. Garnacho must start on the right. Mainoo and Eriksen must start in the middle until Casemiro is back. Gore should be given game time sometimes as a sub instead of McTom or Mejbri. Evan’s and Verane should be the CB pairing as these work the best. Until Martinez is fit. I wonder if Antony would work on left side better?
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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havent we been here before, like the Chelsea game? Still no idea what he actually wants this team to do, his signings on the whole are awful. Antony is not good enough to start, Onana is technically flawed, Mount simply has no role, we have no replacement for Eriksen. Not clear that Hojlund suits how we play with no supply. Mct and Maguire went from being for sale to first names on team sheets. He has largely wasted £400m and we are stuck with these players on massive salaries. When he goes I expect we focus on youth with selected top signings, which we should have been doing for the last decade.
If we can secure convincing wins against Forest and Spurs, I’d feel like we’ve found a rhythm under ETh after a dismal start to the season. He needs to earn his right to stay from game to game.
That Newcastle game was particularly baffling. I think the effort wasn’t there, and that is awful.
We played away on a draining, wet pitch a few days prior.
It’s disgusting that we had to play on a Saturday. Tv couldn’t pick us for 12:30 due to UEFA actually looking out for players and 5:30 was taken so they invented a new kickoff time just to feck us over
Against a side that sits deep the Villa line up might not be effective. Especially Rashford has looked poor if there is no space in behind to exploit.
We still have to ‘unlock’ the right tactics and team selection against those teams.
Or it could be simply a matter of performance levels having to go up.
Fully agree especially his stubbornness. Forget the wrong signings, it would takes a few years to put it right. Would be another that manager achieve what he is done? I think likely. He doesn't need to overthink this. Stop compensating lack of goals with McTominay for a start. Don't start Antony unless there is no obvious choice and don't put Rashford on the right. Tell Onana to keep things simple, don't make a pass to make your midfielder or defender under pressure. Quite straightforward and easy. Do it!!
Few people looked a bit silly. Most notably @PoTMS
Exactly the same can be said about Ten Hag's first season. It's not as amazing as you're making it out to be. We lost 6 to Man City and 7 to Liverpool in the league. We lost 3-0 to Sevillea in EL. We didn't encounter a single top 4 team in our run to both cup finals unlike many brutal runs we had under Ole. Considering our lucky draws in both cups and the fact Liverpool, Spurs and City were having a crisis, United achieved the bare minimum last season.
The difficult question: will he be allowed to spend in January and will this be subject to him actually listening to the existing recruitment team (and with Ineos hovering in the background)?
0-2 down, no goal scored in 7hours played and negative gd.
Crazy that people were pessimistic, right?
Nah, anyone with a set of brain cells can see he's not good enough for United. A Villa bottle job might be enough to convince you otherwise but then again, you don't need a lot of convincing seeing as your head is up every manager's ass. I think the sooner he leaves, the sooner we can clean up this mess of a football club.
I enjoyed your little outburst at me yesterday though. Hopefully the warning was worth it.
Looks like the video is down, but @Mickeza posted some tweets with relevant stats elsewhere as well (well, references to stats, I guess):
https://x.com/hemmenkees/status/1740453072911151134?s=46&t=3cSPEXx54yOkvLX_Hq8XPw
https://x.com/hemmenkees/status/1740454766348583150?s=46&t=3cSPEXx54yOkvLX_Hq8XPw
Now how to put all that great work in pressing to work, that's the question...
It was
Anyone with a set of brain cells could see that Villa was there for the taking if we upped our game, which we did!
I based my opinion on the first half which was decent aside from two shitty goals. We were the better team and deserved to win.
The final 45 mins were a joy for us all to see. But it's cheap to criticize those who were exhausted by the last many games.
I gave my opinion, which turned out correct and was heavily criticized because many people had already made their minds up about the manager and wanted him gone.
I reacted poorly, fair enough but it was there for anyone to see if you watched the first half. There were signs for all to see.
Evra said it pretty succinctly during half-time.
ETH does not have much tactical abilities to begin with. He's a discipline master.
Going down 0-2 makes most of us react poorly I'd wager. I know I did.
And yeah I watched and almost turned off the telly for the second half, thank feck I didn't.
We all want the best for our club and if Ten Hag can turn it around then I'll back him, but he's has made many incomprehensible errors this season.
Fair enough
Nobody needs to be Pep Guardiola, but somehow even the basic seems to gone missing from him.
Compared his Ajax side to ours is like A Lexus vs. a Lada
Feels like the Spurs game could be decided on who performs better IF the two key players return
Pts doesn't matter, what matters to me is progress.
If he fluke a win here and there but he already lost the plot there's no point keeping him. On the other hand I don't mind losing pts here and there if the progress is visible and there are signs of good football at the end of the rainbow.
400M and we're nowhere close to even midtable football.
100% this.
He's the man. Let the new structure bed in, sort out recruitment so we're not constantly in a cycle of buying aging and/or overrated "superstars" on silly contracts and then having no money to sort out problems, and we'll fly. A season out of Europe will also do us good so we can focus on the league and training the systems without Thursday evening distractions.
FFs, will you give over about the 400 million spent. United are shite at transfers regardless of managers, that’s a club issue, not a managers issue. A new Co owner insisted on being in charge of the football side specifically because we are a mess in that department.
I can’t understand how any fan can find this hard to get. If United pay 2-3 times what a player is worth, that’s nothing to do with a manager. It just means that a manager isn’t getting “400 million of transfers”, they are effectively getting half that because of the club’s dysfunctional transfer policy/competency.
The injury issue is something some of you really don’t get. We bought a keeper specifically to play out from the back and our first and second choice central defence and full backs are missing for a lot of the season. That’s not even discussing our starting central midfield that’s equally missing most of the season. Even Mainoo was out for months aswell, and then we get some of you whinging about McT starting as if there’s a conveyor belt of options available.
I think a lot of you just don’t understand how difficult this season would be regardless of manager. I can’t remember ever seeing this level of injury issues. I can’t remember a manager having so many injuries , having to rely so much on youngsters while at the same time having no striker options.
The club has let the manager and the squad down yet again and some fans think the manager is the issue.
I’m not sure how you expect progress with all this sh*te, to go with the other sh*te I haven’t even mentioned. That said , I thought some of our football against Villa was really good. And that wasn’t luck and it wasnt pumping the ball to Fellaini (like some person quoted a comeback against Newcastle a while back). We played some great football.
Our players are short in confidence, teams short of confidence play poorly and look badly coached. On the rare occasions our team has built some momentum in games we have looked good.
Soke of you only look at the negatives. In an alternative univers, Hoijland doesn’t have 2 goals dissalowed and he scores early in the EPL and we beat arsenal away. We could have beaten spurs had we taken advantage of the first half display.
I don’t see us like Jose’s last days, we look short in confidence, not like players are giving up. We aren’t lumping the ball up to fellaini/McT. For players to be still with a manager, after so much of an awful season, says a lot about the manager. Also points to players believing that the manager isn’t necessarily problem.
FFs, will you give over about the 400 million spent. United are shite at transfers regardless of managers, that’s a club issue, not a managers issue. A new Co owner insisted on being in charge of the football side specifically because we are a mess in that department.
I can’t understand how any fan can find this hard to get. If United pay 2-3 times what a player is worth, that’s nothing to do with a manager. It just means that a manager isn’t getting “400 million of transfers”, they are effectively getting half that because of the club’s dysfunctional transfer policy/competency.
The injury issue is something some of you really don’t get. We bought a keeper specifically to play out from the back and our first and second choice central defence and full backs are missing for a lot of the season. That’s not even discussing our starting central midfield that’s equally missing most of the season. Even Mainoo was out for months aswell, and then we get some of you whinging about McT starting as if there’s a conveyor belt of options available.
I think a lot of you just don’t understand how difficult this season would be regardless of manager. I can’t remember ever seeing this level of injury issues. I can’t remember a manager having so many injuries , having to rely so much on youngsters while at the same time having no striker options.
The club has let the manager and the squad down yet again and some fans think the manager is the issue.
I’m not sure how you expect progress with all this sh*te, to go with the other sh*te I haven’t even mentioned. That said , I thought some of our football against Villa was really good. And that wasn’t luck and it wasnt pumping the ball to Fellaini (like some person quoted a comeback against Newcastle a while back). We played some great football.
Our players are short in confidence, teams short of confidence play poorly and look badly coached. On the rare occasions our team has built some momentum in games we have looked good.
Soke of you only look at the negatives. In an alternative univers, Hoijland doesn’t have 2 goals dissalowed and he scores early in the EPL and we beat arsenal away. We could have beaten spurs had we taken advantage of the first half display.
I don’t see us like Jose’s last days, we look short in confidence, not like players are giving up. We aren’t lumping the ball up to fellaini/McT. For players to be still with a manager, after so much of an awful season, says a lot about the manager. Also points to players believing that the manager isn’t necessarily problem.
Except it is the manager issue. Ten Haag identifies the player himself, the modus was "EX Ajax". I don't care if we overpay due to United taxed, at least make sure the players are worth it. He bought Mason Mount and still have no idea where to play him, that's a sign of ineptness. You don't spend 60M on a player, give him No. 7 and don't even know where to play him.
Until we see it as it is, no amount of DOF can fix this. Analysing player's ability, strength and weaknesses is the bread and butter of manager, if he can't identify the players he coached in the past, what hope do we have in the future?
Assuming the DOF is good he could have given him Young Scholes and he'll botched it up.
Ditto with fitness and confidence, it's up to the manager to make them train to a required level. You can't expect 1st game of the season and players come not fit, that's simply unacceptable. The preseason is where you conditioned everyone for a grueling long season, and if he fails to make them fit at the start, what hope is there?
Difficult season? What's difficult? You don't need to win the league, you just need to play like a top team, visible pattern, solid passing, and make the team looks well coached and well drilled. It's basic football management. I don't expect him to maintain 99% win rate, just show us something that we can cling on to. If the player is the problem, axe him. If he can't reign the squad he's as good as finished anyway
I only take the negative? We're 7th and most of our points are won with miracle last winner gasp. It is that bad.
Sorry, i don't accept mediocrity, maybe you shouldn't or we should just be happy for 7th
United managers shouldn’t have to identify anybody. The signings are not ETH fault. Klopp didn’t want Salah, you don’t hear pool fans complaining about his signings because he doesn’t decide who they sign. That’s the problem , not ETH or wanting certain players.
Not just that, as the athletic have pointed out, he wasn’t aware of how much the club was spending on signings and the Mount signing sounded like on for our many signings (Mata , Di Maria etc) whereby our manager was told “we can get this guy” as opppsed to it being a player the manager really wanted.
So he don't identify, he can't play with the player he's given, he don't speak up when given carrot instead of apples, he don't give input, he can't motivate, he can't make Rashford run, he don't even read newspaper on how much we spent on players, he didn't even knock on Board room to say... hang on a second... who are you buying, he doesn't recommend, he doesn't mind being given players he should know offers nothing?
Tell me, what good can he do then?
Is he even the manager?
Good manager will want to be involved, how much are our transfer fund, how many players you can get, what's the priority if we can only get 2 instead of 3, what are cheaper alternatives to fund more important players, buy me X at all cost, we can loan Y if you don't have the fund, etc.
You seems to want to absolve ETH from any managerial aspect.
So tell me again, what good is a manager like that?
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What are you about, 'the signings are not ETH fault'? It was reported when he signed he wanted input over signings, and several journos at the start of season wrote about how Arnold and Murtough had gone all in backing ETH on players. 80% of his signings either from Ajax or played against him in Dutch league, stats that are unprecedented in a top European club. Yes the football structure is poor and despite all the PR spin it seems our recruitment was still a joke. But ETH absolutely wanted these players, from the pointless summer pursuit of FDJ (ex Ajax) to the panic and ridiculous singing of Antony (Ajax), to the signing of a keeper who was available the previous summer on a free from Ajax, to Mount who is pointless but had a great game against Ajax when on loan in NL, to Weghorst (played in Dutch league), Malacia (Dutch league). The list goes on.
The £400m is gone and he has been shit enough to get the sack but he is here now and sacking him won't do too much for the club's fortunes. I am now more interested in seeing what he can do in the next five months in what is effectively an audition to be part of a new regime coming in.
Because honestly speaking who is out there who can come in and take us where want to be? There is no clear candidate to place our hopes on so we should support him and see how the second half pans out. He also needs to do his part and stop going back to players who he knows offer nothing in the long term and really try to ensure that come May we have a youngish team on the up.
That's the only thing that can save him, build on the youth who all look to be technically well rounded and thus fit for the modern game and try and get some understanding going amongst the front 3.
Because honestly speaking who is out there who can come in and take us where want to be? There is no clear candidate to place our hopes on so we should support him and see how the second half pans out. He also needs to do his part and stop going back to players who he knows offer nothing in the long term and really try to ensure that come May we have a youngish team on the up.
That's the only thing that can save him, build on the youth who all look to be technically well rounded and thus fit for the modern game and try and get some understanding going amongst the front 3.
Yes, out of all the strikers in the world Weghorst was his top choice.
Mount wasnt “an ETH signing” he was a player the club could get, as per athletic correspondence.
ETH didn’t tell United to bid 80 million for Anthony. In many regards Anthony was available earlier in the transfer window but we paid way over the odds again because we were desperate as always leaving things late and end up paying United muppet tax. So again, the 400 million spent didn’t get us 400 million worth of players because of the clubs idiocy, nothing to do with manager.
A manager shouldn’t have to pick and choose signings, most managers, even the top ones, don’t do this. This happens at United because of our dysfunctional football infrastructure.
So let’s look at it another way. Would you rather this dysfunctional setup decided on who we sign? See the issue here? ETH shouldn’t be picking players but if he didn’t we’d get sh*te signings anyways. So the club shouldn’t be letting managers pick signings but since the club is sh*te it can’t be trusted to make its own signings. Therefore blaming the manager for a role that managers at functioning clubs don’t need to do or get judged on, is redundant.
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That sounds like rubbish regardless of what the athletic article says it's incomprehensible for there not to be a respectable level of communication regarding signings. Your painting a picture like Murtough is signing who he wants with no deliberation with the manager. I find that impossible to believe given man of the clubs signings have had experience in the Eredivisie or have played under the manager previously. There might be truth that Eth didn't get his primary targets in some specific positions, but just because a manager doesn't sign Kane or Frankie De Jong doesn't all of a sudden mean they are devoid of criticism and accountability for basic responsibilities.
This is a very poor league environment this season and in any other campaign the team would be lucky to scrape the top 10. What's being witnessed is a capitulation, while injuries are a contribution the biggest issue however has been the performances and the tactical insufficiencies with vulnerability in the defence and voids of spaces in the midfield. Having a new director of football and CEO doesn't rectify a teams shape and system from misfiring.
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I made a thread about this a few months ago close to when United demolished palace with some of the young lads. Youth should be clubs priority and focus but the reality is it's not going to be the managers approach because they are getting opportunities consequently due to circumstances. As soon as injured players return (Amrabat) Mainoo will play less games and Gore / Hannibal are already on the fringes. Eth has never been described to be a youth orientated coach even at Ajax from what I remember.
What's evident is that the younger players are more receptive to instructions than the senior individuals in the dressing room so it would be logical for a manager to choose them when forming a philosophy. It's a huge reason as to why Arteta has had competitive success with having a good core of younger talent and older seniors spread throughout different positions on the field.
This is what I fear too though I think ETH's plan for the season was to have Mainoo and Casemiro as his main midfield duo but then we chased Mount hard and gave him the 7 so I don't know. As things stand he has some sort of free hit to build a legacy and hopefully save his job if he turns this season into a youth crusade.
Long term I think we need most of the young guns to grow into legitimate first team options because we need capable back ups for the first team and we have blown a large chunk of money on rubbish. So if we can get Kambwala to be the 3rd choice RCB behind a new signing and Evans we will be doing fine cost wise because we can then dispose of Maguire, Varane and Lindelof for maybe £50m in fees and millions saved in wages. That's a far healthier outcome than having to keep Maguire and Lindelof whilst spending at least £50m + wages on a starting CB.
Same with midfield, say we sell Case to Saudi for 30m and replace him with Zubimendi for £60m we still need an 8 and a couple of back up midfielders. Those players could be Hannibal and Gore whilst Mainoo is a starter who can stand in for the DM when needed. If we give them the required minutes we will get the answers we need and most likely won't have to fork out millions on multiple players.
One thing we can all praise ETH on it’s his willingness to give youth players a chance. Garnacho and Mainoo have big careers ahead of them.
Erik is a dead man walking if he got a functioning brain, he will start playing the younger players. Most of the senior players are shit and everyone knows it. If he is able to get the young players to play the way he wants and we start winning games, he might have a way his job back. Even if we didn't finish top 5 and finish 7-8, if everyone can see the young players establishing themselves and having a role to play, he might still have a job next season. Erik, please be smart and stop playing McTominay, Martial, Antony, Lindeloft, Amrabat and etc.
This plus they have a higher technical floor than the seniors, they are built for the style he is struggling to implement. Imagine that Gore, Hannibal and Kambwala helped us see out a game against an in form Villa when the seniors couldn't hold off Galatasaray and the great Danes.
For this season maybe we should revert back to counter attacking football to get results to qualify for next year CL?
We should stop trying to build up from the back and keep passing the balls between the defence and GK?
Let the opposition attacks us since our midfield is so bad. Let them come at us and we hit them at the break.
We were so deadly against Villa playing counter attack and almost won in Liverpool.
I know it's a shit football and all that. But ETH can't coach proper attack at PL level now.
We should stop trying to build up from the back and keep passing the balls between the defence and GK?
Let the opposition attacks us since our midfield is so bad. Let them come at us and we hit them at the break.
We were so deadly against Villa playing counter attack and almost won in Liverpool.
I know it's a shit football and all that. But ETH can't coach proper attack at PL level now.
Kambwala came on at 90th minute mark while Mejbri and Gore were only subbed in at 95th minute with 3 minutes of stoppage time left. I really think way too much is being made out of their contributions.
Amrabat will rotate with Mainoo (simply because of how underwhelming Amrabat has been) but pretty sure the minute Casemiro is back Mainoo will not see much game time.
I would love for Mainoo to cement his place as a starter but he's probably a temporary solution only.
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