Wow this is tedious. Look at Liverpool this season, he has turned them around again. Grow up.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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We were awful for a good stretch of last season, its not like we were great, some truly unacceptable defeats including Liverpool match. Why does he obsess with a single pivot. Why did he sell Elanga and buy Antony? What is Mount for? Why did he want to sell Maguire and McT and then make them first choice. Explain his subs and tactics. Watch Brighton with plenty of injuries and see a well coached team. Does anyone know what ETH wants us to do? Its quite possible for ETH to not be good enough. Accept that.
Comparisons to Liverpool aren't that favorable to United.
It is often said here that Liverpool "leaked goals" until they signed van Dijk. In 16/17, the season before signing van Dijk, they conceded 42 league goals. In 20/21, the season with the CB crisis, they also conceded 42 league goals. Last season, United, with Martinez, Casemiro, Varane, Shaw, a "proper defense", conceded 43 goals. So they performed about the same as "leaky Liverpool" and "CB crisis Liverpool."
Not ideal.
Pep Lijnders, Liverpool's assistant manager, quoted in the DT today,
“There is not a good manager without good ownership,” said Lijnders.
Food for thought?
“There is not a good manager without good ownership,” said Lijnders.
Food for thought?
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Thought will get food poisoning.
He also said "intensity is our identity" about a season where all they won was 2 domestic cups in penalty shootouts after 0-0 draws.
No, because that has been discussed and considered on here before. Of course the structure around him affects a manager and bad structures will prevent everybody from reaching the highest levels. But nonetheless there is a reasonable range of expectations a good manager should get results in, and for many on here he is below even that. Others adjusted their expectations even further down so they think he is doing fine.
That quote adds nothing new to this discussion.
I am not talking about his first years at United, i’m referring to his early 2000’s when fans were convinced he was losing it, past his due date.
It’s not as if Ten Hag hasn’t walked into a club that’s a mess from top to bottom, is it? And it certainly isn’t as if this group of players is full of players with a strong mentality either.
Why doesn’t Ten Hag deserve time based on his success with Ajax?
From a fans perspective it can easily be called luck, but from a club perspective i assume their visions are a bit more long term. Fans quickly go from «we can challenge from the title this season» to «Sack the fecking useless manager». It’s a bit like the stock market, some will sell as soon as the stock takes a dip, while some are confident about the long term foundation of the company and are happy to stay long. It doesn’t mean you should always go long.
Ofcourse the situation can be compared? There’s a vast difference between finishing top 3 in the early 2000’s and finishing top 4 in a league like the PL in the early 2020’s. Fact is that the competition is much, much stronger.
So it's possible to turn a club round after a season of key injuries and squad holes?
Excellent.
I think at the very least Ten Hag needs to get the rest of this season to sort things out, especially with the brutal injury record, I suspect he might not be up to the task but he's earned at least two full seasons to show what he can do.
For every Arteta there are dozens of managers who lost their jobs and it proved to be a good decision. I personally find the concept that literally any manager will turn out great if they are given loads of time (because Arteta) quite weird as I don't believe this to be true for any other profession.
It's that and the 'Liverpool struggled when VVD was out'. So basically we are working around the concept that as long as you can find a manager that wasn't sacked and improved, or find a team that did similarly to us under similar circumstances, the manager should be absolved of blame and kept. So basically every manager should be given a lifetime contract.
There doesn’t seem to be much consideration, really.
I mean, you just made a expected goals, expected goals against comparison between seasons, where all you do is compare what we know, what we obviously don’t know is how we would’ve performed if we didn’t have an injury crisis both in defense and midfield. You could just as easily make the argument that the stats would be much better if they’d been available.
I suspect i know the answer, but if you ask the majority of the fans if they’d prefer the opposition to be without key players for the majority of the season, they’d answer yes. Yet, for some bizarre reason, when we look at the situation at our own club it’s «obvious» that the injuries have no impact whatsoever and everything is down to shite management.
Feel free to quote me where i’ve given the impression that the solution for all clubs is to give managers lifetime contracts. Obviously it’s going to be based on the overall situation, it’s not like giving Moyes more time would’ve solved anything. Even Klopp struggled at Dortmund towards the end, and i easily think he’s a better manager than Guardiola. I fail to see how you add something intelligent to this debate, i’ve openly stated that i don’t know if Ten Hag will make it or not, all i’ve said is that it should be fairly obvious to everyone that the injuries we’ve had so far this season has had a negative impact on our performances. Not entirely sure how i am the one with an agenda here when i’m not being binary about anything.
We have a manager that did very well with Ajax, also performed well in the Champions League, he’s in a completely different league, our own club is a complete mess from top to bottom in terms of the infrastructure. 10 years or so after Fergie and we’re still trying to sort out how to run a club without him as the manager. We no longer have a core of players with a strong mentality. 1: It’s not easy to turn this around 2: It’s not easy for new players from foreign leagues to walk into this and instantly perform, it’s not even easy for foreign players to instantly integrate and perform in the league when they arrive at well run club.
Exactly… you’ve just made a point for my argument not yours
. Meaning ETH could turn it around next season…Sounds like you played yourself a bit
This is football nowadays, you are as good as your last result.
Remember Guardiola's ability was being questioned after his first season at City and many Liverpool fans wanted Klopp out when the team was down. If the position of arguably the best managers in the past 10-15 years is in doubt, imagine what can happen to the rest.
The competition nowadays may be stronger no doubt, but it's mostly stronger from our perspective because we can't win any major trophy, for City I don't think they care too much tbh.
For me, the one thing that counts against Ten Hag is Antony. He managed him before, how did he not realise he was so limited?
Exactly what Antony must be thinking about ETH right now.
True.
Exactly… you’ve just made a point for my argument not yours
Nah, he's right.
You're just repeating the old "ETH is not doing worse than the worst seasons of the top managers". That's the tedious bit he's referring to.
Pointing out that Klopp had a few bad seasons in the last ten years in which he also won the Bundesliga, CL and PL is completely irrelevant to ETH's competency for this job. It's the boring "SAF took 6 years to win" routine all over again.
Since you’re bringing up repeating things… you want us to keep repeating, sacking managers and hiring managers. Having 200m to spend. Having to sell players the previous managers bought etc. we’ve won trophies during our worse years, we’ve won FA cups, caraboa cup, Europa league. Not 1 manager that’s available will do a better job right now. We have to ride it through and get a structure in place, halve of this fan base are just to impatient, we ain’t winning the league straight away and especially if Pep stays at city we won’t be winning it for another 5 years. So we may aswel let a manager try to improve us… if we’re still shite next season then yes he goes.
Last season, Liverpool started the season in shocking form, quite similar to us this season. They didnt have the same dramas as we have at United or the same injury problems. And yet "fatigue from season before" was generally accepted as the probable reason. Liverpool played 63 games that season.
Last season United played 62 games and we had a world cup squeezed in between, an unprecedented break in the middle of the season. Every team seems to be having some injury problems probably because of the world cup , there is nearly 20% injury time in some games now and players representitives are giving out about players being overplayed.
I get that people will say "well Klopp had success and deserved the benefit of the doubt", but that doesnt mean that our squad isnt suffering from the same exhaustion Pool had last season. Regardless of manager, if squad exhaustion is a legitimate defence of Klopp , its a legitimate explanation to use with ETH.
The issue is some of you are incapable of seeing anything outside of "its ETH fault" and therefore cant digest anything that remotely challanges what you want to believe.
The thing about Antony is, if you watch clips at him at Ajax it's like watching a totally different player at times, it's crazy.
Klopp wanted Brandt, not Salah. Managers not being able to identy quality players doesnt make them bad managers.
Difference of course is that Klopp manages a club thats run well, ETH is working with cowboys and joined a club in a mess.
I really dont get how the Anthony signing is something people bash on about against ETH. I dont care he demanded transfer control, if we were anyway competent football structure it wouldnt of happened.
Forlan says hello.
Theres plenty of examples of players who were brilliant in one league or team and struggled when they took a step up in quality. Theres also examples of players who we shouldnt of expected much from who had the mentality to be strong players , if not maybe as good as we hoped.
Sometimes you dont know until a player joins the team.
By the looks of things there has been no real vetting of United signings for 10 years now , very few have worked out, Anthony is doing no worse then most of them. Hes just flavour of the season, if he goes people will properly focus on Rashford who seems to be getting a free ride from many posters in here. Hes been worse then Anthony this season. Difference is that Anthony will still work hard for the team even if he is playing poor. Rashford doesnt even try to win the ball back.
The Dutch league is like the Championship. Its not a competitive league and Ajax are a giant in it. Its ridiculous to look at highlights from there and think they tell you anything
No, you seem incapable of looking beyond injuries and judging what we see on the field, his signings, his tactics and his subs. All terrible. The football is dross. ETH also refused to rotate last season, one reason we won a tin pot trophy but also a factor in our injury list. Its possible for us both to be unlucky with injuries but also for ETH to not be good enough. Certainly the idea that time in itself will solve anything is not true. From the first game it was apparent we had regressed and his tactics are a mess.
I agree with your points, I was just replying to the affect of Antony looked good elsewhere so to lay the blame on ETH for wanting him isn't correct in my opinion, however he should get the blame for how we pursued him and for how much, along with the recruitment staff.
The argument would be weak since the actual numbers when they were available (last season) weren't great.
Ultimately it goes back to something people have debated a lot, which is: how good was 22/23.
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Ruud and Suarez werent terrible aquisitions. Daley Blind actually wasnt that bad for us, its very difficult to work out how players abilities will transfer.
I can see beyond injuries, You cant even factor it in becasue you are too focused on ETH being the problem. You didnt even answer the question I asked which says it all, you arent able to objectively reflect on the state of the club so revert to the headline "ETH is bad mkay" narrative.
The objective truth that many of you refuse to see, is that we really dont know how much all the issues at United this season are mostly down to manager or a combination of things.
This "well that shouldnt stop united being coached better" is a pile of moronic nonsense. United players dont train and play in a vaccum. The dramas and issues that have been plaguing us since the day ETH joined affect the team. It affects morale. It affects consistency. It affects how our our players feel about themselves, they dont like playing badly. It affects coaching because you cant seperate all these things.
The best teams in the world never chop and change their teams for a reason. Thats why ETH doenst chop and change and even at that, hes never really had any decent options. People act as though we have a world class bench, even when fully fit, we have an ok bench. But you can only do that when you have consist ability to choose the same team.
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I'm not asking for him to be sacked. I'm just saying that the arguments for him not to be sacked are in the bolded part above. That's it. He seems to be a mediocre manager and we can let him hang around while we put the house in order. I have no evidence to believe that in the meantime he'll somehow turn us into a good team. By "good", I mean a team that is capable of going to away games and giving any team in the league a proper challenge. I don't even care about trophies. All I want now is for other teams to hate facing us. I'm not even asking for fear.
And just because top managers had bad seasons like ETH doesn't mean ETH is capable of having their kind of good seasons. That's all the other poster was pointing out and I agreed.
Meh, fergie agreed to sign Bebe, Bellion and Djemba x 2 among other dross signiings, managers get things wrong. Its fine if people want to mark Anthony down against ETH, but it happens.
He is doing great with Mainoo and Garnacho, they seem to be thriving under him.
The way I see it, this fascination with sacking or keeping a manager really is a red herring. I havent said ETH deserves not to be sacked, but you get responses like you are a "manager cultist" because some fans are hyper focused on the managerial position to the point of blindness.
I see potentially great things with INEOS if they do the kinds of things they are talking about. If we are being run like the best clubs, I do not feel the manager position will be as big a problem. I feel United, given its resources, should be a top 4 team regardless of manager. I feel when we replace a manager we should only need a few new players and not an entire squad rebuild.
I see "ETH out" as the small picture. I see "lets get somebody in to save this season" as the small picture. I would rather any new manager to come in after INEOS have actually put structures in place so the new manager starts with a new slate.
Whether INEOS decide to replace ETH or wait until the summer, I am ok with it because I am trusting their process. I think ETH has been very very unlucky and alot of people just cant see beyond headline news to see that. But results have been bad and its not acceptable where we are at, so while I do not want him sacked, you cant really argue if INEOS does it.
Those were cheap punts though. If Fergie splashed Rooney money on Andy Carroll and thought he was the one then I'd be worried.
Veron, Anderson, Poborsky (big money back then)
Veron in particular was a shock, he was best player in Serie A that was really strong back then
My point is managers get things wrong. Sure Pep can buy anybody he wants and discard them fairly quickly, most top clubs will discard poor performers, our club doesnt do that.
Fair enough mate. But I guess it’s something we won’t know just yet. We can’t say if ETH has what it takes to turn us around if he isn’t given the chance to. He might not even make it to the end of the season if results and performance go even more backwards… but on the other hand he could put together a winning run and keep his place in the dugout for the start of next season..
The trouble with our club is that they offer new signings ridiculous wages so when we do eventually want to get rid of them we can’t because no one els can afford their wages.
Exactly, our managers are constantly left with disgruntled players or players not good enough and they have to figure out how to manage them.
How can any manager harness a culture of excellence with this dysfunction ?
I mean Phil Jones with contract extensions. Martial, Smalling and many others were contract extensions simply to retain squad balance sheet value and pad out numbers (as its cheaper then signing new players).
Then our managers might get a couple of new signings, but are left also managing and having to use these squad rejects.
Alot of fans have a low bar, they think we change manager and get a bounce and maybe things keep improving. I reject that and dont want it. I want consistent results, I want Uniteds worst levels to be the current best levels we have seen the last 10 years and I do not see it changing until INEOS have installed propery changes.
Yep. And if he doesn’t turn it around this year, we will never know whether he could turn it around next season if we don’t give him a chance. And if he struggles next year then we just have to give him another one as third season is always tough.
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