Our squad is utter wank. We should be doing better.
Both things are true.
Both things are true.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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This is probably the best summary of our situation.
Which shows the weakness of our tactics. The counter attacking kind of worked - 2 goals. Thats not bad is it? Do we really need to score 3 times to win a game? We need to figure out how to attack like that and at the same time not concede. Thats the hard part. Easiest thing for a manager is to sit deep and reduce chances or throw everyone forward and create chances. When he figures out to do both consistently against all styles of play both home and away then we are on to a winner.
It's the hard to swallow pill that people seem reluctant to take for some mental reason.
He's had more than enough time to figure that out, how much longer are you willing to wait? he's not a young manager either, a club like United needs a manager that knows what he's doing from the get go and build on that. ETH is just flip flopping at this point, trying to cobble together anything that'll get him a result. There's no evidence that he's going to just magically figure out English football.
Having a fit set of defenders will help
Last season showed some promise but this season has been the worst by any manager post-Fergie. He's done probably the worst coaching job in all Europe yet there seems virtually no chance he'll be sacked any time soon. He's failed in every aspect of his job this season.
No serious club would still employ a manager after a 9 month run like this yet here we are. It's the Manchester United way... accept failure at every level of the club (players, coaches, executives, scouts, etc.).
No serious club would still employ a manager after a 9 month run like this yet here we are. It's the Manchester United way... accept failure at every level of the club (players, coaches, executives, scouts, etc.).
Imagine we had to sell a world-class striker last summer. Half of this forum would have excused EtH for being in relegation fight. Heck, even if we sold Rashford after last season he would have gained a mythical status of a „brilliant player with the loss of whom no manager can be expected to cope unless given 150m to buy a world-class replacement“ - and that among the same people who are now calling him lazy/entitled/arrogant/not good enough.
It is insane really. And I thought that when people defending Ole they were biased and deluded - now their arguments appear reasonable in comparison to the extent of finding excuses, shifting the goalposts and lowering standards that is going on to make EtH tenure look better.
Ten Hag has relied many times on the long ball to Rashford from the right side launching him behind the oppo's defence, but ETH has tried something more this season. Some days ago someone posted a video that showed how last season we played more through balls on a regular basis, while this season that number got notably reduced while the number of crosses increased.
This is what happens when you purposedly reduce the rhythm of play. ETH has tried to play a more controlled approach this season with calamitous results, with our players unable to create space and do quick combinations from static positions. The mechanics are null and except Bruno there's not much creativity either.
Such approach has led to our team camping in the opposition's field many times with plenty of players bombing forward, but still struggling to create chances by playing at low tempo and crashing against a wall, while being wide open and exposed in defense. We're 13th in xG in the league, and 15th on xG against. To put it simply: ETH is wildly exposing the team while getting absolutely nothing with it.
The problem I see now (as we saw yesterday) is that even when you want to play a more balanced approach the execution is poor. The players' confidence is completely shot. We looked hesitant and missing plenty of basic stuff.
This way of playing isn't being worked on regularly as we did last season during his pragmatic period where we registered at times the deepest defensive line in the league. When you swap approaches as we do at times this season we're a bit lost at everything. Considering also that I doubt ETH has ever worked around these conservative ideas so he isn't the best manager to execute that.
From this point I don't see how there's people expecting him to stay here for 5 months when nothing of what he's trying seems to work, morale is completely shot and results, metrics and performances are the worst I've ever seen at United, only beaten by some periods under David Moyes.
We got 1 win in the league in the last 6 games, and it was a Christmas gift by Emery who kept it open all game despite being 0-2. Someone with a more practical view of things makes a pair of tweaks at half time and we're completely done for the rest of the game.
We're an open book for anyone under this manager. It takes 10 minutes to know how to get a result against us this season but our spineless club and fans want us to keep getting ridiculed for months apparently, as they didn't have enough yet. We have at the minute what many (not everyone) deserve. As simple as that.
This is what happens when you purposedly reduce the rhythm of play. ETH has tried to play a more controlled approach this season with calamitous results, with our players unable to create space and do quick combinations from static positions. The mechanics are null and except Bruno there's not much creativity either.
Such approach has led to our team camping in the opposition's field many times with plenty of players bombing forward, but still struggling to create chances by playing at low tempo and crashing against a wall, while being wide open and exposed in defense. We're 13th in xG in the league, and 15th on xG against. To put it simply: ETH is wildly exposing the team while getting absolutely nothing with it.
The problem I see now (as we saw yesterday) is that even when you want to play a more balanced approach the execution is poor. The players' confidence is completely shot. We looked hesitant and missing plenty of basic stuff.
This way of playing isn't being worked on regularly as we did last season during his pragmatic period where we registered at times the deepest defensive line in the league. When you swap approaches as we do at times this season we're a bit lost at everything. Considering also that I doubt ETH has ever worked around these conservative ideas so he isn't the best manager to execute that.
From this point I don't see how there's people expecting him to stay here for 5 months when nothing of what he's trying seems to work, morale is completely shot and results, metrics and performances are the worst I've ever seen at United, only beaten by some periods under David Moyes.
We got 1 win in the league in the last 6 games, and it was a Christmas gift by Emery who kept it open all game despite being 0-2. Someone with a more practical view of things makes a pair of tweaks at half time and we're completely done for the rest of the game.
We're an open book for anyone under this manager. It takes 10 minutes to know how to get a result against us this season but our spineless club and fans want us to keep getting ridiculed for months apparently, as they didn't have enough yet. We have at the minute what many (not everyone) deserve. As simple as that.
The only thing that worked was isolating Rashford against Tottenham defenders in the first half. But we were not effective offensively, we had 2 shots on target and scored 2 goals. This is not sustainable.
Oh I agree. I did not mean to imply that he needs time etc. I think his style is flawed and unfixable.
Yeah its sht but scoring is scoring. 2 goals should win you a game. Our game plan is to rely on individual brilliance. Kind of works like last year. But sustainable? No. Not for catching City. But we can win games that way. Its been proven.
I don't agree with this at all.
Managers job is to make the team generate a lot of chances and limit the number of conceded chances. You can't score 2 goals from 2 shots and say it's all good, because the next game you will have 2 shots and score 0.
On the flip side you can have a game where you generate a lot of high quality chances, but then scrap this because it happened you didn't score a goal.
We didn't, and we got in behind them plenty of times in dangerous positions and didn't capitalize.
Overall in the season I agree, yesterdays game we should have won based on the way we setup, we didn't defend well though and for all of Spurs possession they created little aside from set pieces (where we sucked at defending)
This is the kind of game that leaves no stone unturned.
There has been some effort from some posters to deride Spurs and particularly their manager as a flash in the pan flavour of the month with extra emphasis added to the notion that he and Spurs were struggling, like us, because of injuries yet they rock up and really drive home the difference in coaching and nous between the two teams.
As sorry as we are, cross examining this stuff is extremely boring now because the conclusion is clear: the manager is not up to the task at this level so most posts become an exercise in kicking a dead horse instead of scrutinising and analysing where you still believe things can be turned around, which ties in with the morale of fans and I’m sure, players, plummeting.
When situations go beyond tenable, ire and resentment becomes palpable, which is now evidenced by the open hostility toward ten Hag. If the club keep through to the end of the season, this place will look like The Purge and the club will hit the worst nadir of the entire post-Fergie era.
- Both sides depleted (perhaps Spurs even more so, but the pedantry around this is irrelevant.)
- Both coaches given ample prep time, more akin to playing a cup final.
- Both sides having strengths and weaknesses to go after or cater to.
There has been some effort from some posters to deride Spurs and particularly their manager as a flash in the pan flavour of the month with extra emphasis added to the notion that he and Spurs were struggling, like us, because of injuries yet they rock up and really drive home the difference in coaching and nous between the two teams.
As sorry as we are, cross examining this stuff is extremely boring now because the conclusion is clear: the manager is not up to the task at this level so most posts become an exercise in kicking a dead horse instead of scrutinising and analysing where you still believe things can be turned around, which ties in with the morale of fans and I’m sure, players, plummeting.
When situations go beyond tenable, ire and resentment becomes palpable, which is now evidenced by the open hostility toward ten Hag. If the club keep through to the end of the season, this place will look like The Purge and the club will hit the worst nadir of the entire post-Fergie era.
I don't think Tottenham game was that bad, we had some good moments where Rashford decision making let us down, and defensively we looked alright apart from those two occasions that the opposition was able to turn into good goals.
This game left a bad taste in my mouth because we looked clueless playing out from the back. However, we scored 2 goals from 2 shots on target, so that can't be considered as a good game. For example Rashford had a lot of good runs yesterday, but I would still consider dropping him if we could for example play someone else on the right and move Garnacho on the left.
Didn't say it was a good game, and we know the issues around playing out from the back without Martinez and Shaw etc
But I replied to 2 goals from 2 shots which wasn't true.
If you had asked before the start of the season who had a better squad compared to Spurs, nearly everyone would have argued that United had it better. That’s also reflected in the predictions across most websites (the Guardian had us for 3rd, BBC had us 4th while they had Spurs at 8th!).
So now we’re revising history that Spurs have a better squad than ours? Or if that’s true then it should be a damning indictment of ETH rather than him having to navigate a poor squad, which seems to absolve him of responsibility.
So now we’re revising history that Spurs have a better squad than ours? Or if that’s true then it should be a damning indictment of ETH rather than him having to navigate a poor squad, which seems to absolve him of responsibility.
I think you've got to allow people to update their opinions. Especially when its a team that's made 5 or 6 new signings. Can we see how they perform then revise what we thought?
But this doesn't absolve ETH. He's been a big part of our recruitment
Of course, 2 goals from 2 shots on target, xG of 0,8. But I think you knew that already.
If we drop to 15th place you will have people arguing that our squad is championship level and EtH is doing well to keep us above relegation zone.
Most wanted some of the players Spurs signed at United by the way
Ten Hag needs to abandon whatever this is he is trying to create, because we can all see that it is not working. We are stuck in this rut where nobody seems to know what they are doing. Individuals are making their own choices on the pitch, instead of playing as a cohesive unit.
Most teams now are so well drilled, that they know where each other are at all times, in and out of procession. Everyone has a defined role and job to do. There are no doubts in their mind when they step onto the pitch. And we can see this week in and week out with our opposition.
We are conceding goals where teams are finding themselves with a ridiculous amount of space. Spurs second goal yesterday, Bruno and Erikson were so far forward that when we lost the ball, they had no chance of getting back. It was too easy. And we have been playing like this since the first game of the season and he hasn't adapted or tried to resolve it. If you don't change it, nothing will change.
You put any other teams in the same situation and they have a plan when they lose possession with midfielders committed too far forward. The fullbacks cut in, the defenders push out to close the space.
We don't do that, we drop off and panic. Players are looking around at each other, looking for someone to blame. Nobody knows who was supposed to follow runners, who is marking who in the box.
It really is quite embarrassing, and the truth is if he doesn't fundamentally change what he is doing with this team, he's going to be gone.
Most teams now are so well drilled, that they know where each other are at all times, in and out of procession. Everyone has a defined role and job to do. There are no doubts in their mind when they step onto the pitch. And we can see this week in and week out with our opposition.
We are conceding goals where teams are finding themselves with a ridiculous amount of space. Spurs second goal yesterday, Bruno and Erikson were so far forward that when we lost the ball, they had no chance of getting back. It was too easy. And we have been playing like this since the first game of the season and he hasn't adapted or tried to resolve it. If you don't change it, nothing will change.
You put any other teams in the same situation and they have a plan when they lose possession with midfielders committed too far forward. The fullbacks cut in, the defenders push out to close the space.
We don't do that, we drop off and panic. Players are looking around at each other, looking for someone to blame. Nobody knows who was supposed to follow runners, who is marking who in the box.
It really is quite embarrassing, and the truth is if he doesn't fundamentally change what he is doing with this team, he's going to be gone.
You corrected yourself with on target but I think you knew that already
Is there anyone left here who still believes that Ten Hag is the man to take us forward? I would love to hear arguments in favour of keeping him beyond May. We have never been this consistently shite, ever. He gets schooled by almost every other coach he comes up against.
He is a good coach at Eredivisie and maybe even Bundesliga/Ligue 1 level but there are levels to this shit and the PL has exposed him just as it exposed De Boer.
He is a good coach at Eredivisie and maybe even Bundesliga/Ligue 1 level but there are levels to this shit and the PL has exposed him just as it exposed De Boer.
Exactly ,as one journo said Spurs looked the much better coached team. He's been here for 18 months. What happens in training? its a mystery
You saw that first, could've told this right away saving us both some time!
I did...
It's an impressive skill to spend as much as we do and get worse after every transfer window.
Agree
Wrote this in the new Ten Hag thread right after it was locked so will post it here instead. On his tactics...
The way he's instructing us to play, absolutely not in a million years in this league. He's vastly underestimated the difficulty of the league and other also top manage to s have just figured him out, and Ten Hag hasn't adapted. Things can work in the Dutch league that don't work here, that should be common sense.
First, our build up structure asks far too much of the lone midfielder. Others tried blaming it on personnel like McTominay. Nonsense. It's the same garbage pass map with Eriksen in his place. Eriksen has been a deep playmaker since he joined, and yet, his position on the pass map is right next to Bruno, way up the pitch, while Mainoo is all alone deep in midfield. Having that massive gap in there is suicidal and sets our players up for failure. Your system should make it easy to build up, always have easy options to play and progress. That is the sign of a successful system. Ten Hags system requires a perfectly press resistant midfielder with impeccable passing, just to not put us under severe pressure when we give it away during our build up. It's doing the opposite of what it should be. The trade off theoretically is having more players in attacking areas, and yet mctominay is the only other player who is supporting the CF in the box. But it's totally against having any control in games. In my eyes, it just won't work in the prem due to the level of competition and he hasn't realized it yet, which is shocking after failing for so long.
Secondly, our press is a mess. It's entirely disjointed from the rest of the team. It sounds like common sense, but we see this repeatedly. We have a group run up the pitch to press, and yet we regularly leave the rest of the team deep. The fullbacks often don't follow the press, giving opposition an easy out ball. The only answer to that is he must not trust us to press as a whole team, but then you're neither doing one thing or the other, and just setting your team up for failure again. The defence stays deep to protect slower CBs from being exposed, which again, should mean an acceptance that we shouldn't be pressing high. Do one thing or the other. Not this half committed nonsense.
They are garbage tactics, and I'm open to changing my opinion on Ten Hag IF he comes to his sense and makes adjustments. It's been a long time though and so far he's only shown that he's incapable of coaching a competent system. Also, we really need to stop seeing the same idiotic pass map show exactly what I described. It's horrendous.
The way he's instructing us to play, absolutely not in a million years in this league. He's vastly underestimated the difficulty of the league and other also top manage to s have just figured him out, and Ten Hag hasn't adapted. Things can work in the Dutch league that don't work here, that should be common sense.
First, our build up structure asks far too much of the lone midfielder. Others tried blaming it on personnel like McTominay. Nonsense. It's the same garbage pass map with Eriksen in his place. Eriksen has been a deep playmaker since he joined, and yet, his position on the pass map is right next to Bruno, way up the pitch, while Mainoo is all alone deep in midfield. Having that massive gap in there is suicidal and sets our players up for failure. Your system should make it easy to build up, always have easy options to play and progress. That is the sign of a successful system. Ten Hags system requires a perfectly press resistant midfielder with impeccable passing, just to not put us under severe pressure when we give it away during our build up. It's doing the opposite of what it should be. The trade off theoretically is having more players in attacking areas, and yet mctominay is the only other player who is supporting the CF in the box. But it's totally against having any control in games. In my eyes, it just won't work in the prem due to the level of competition and he hasn't realized it yet, which is shocking after failing for so long.
Secondly, our press is a mess. It's entirely disjointed from the rest of the team. It sounds like common sense, but we see this repeatedly. We have a group run up the pitch to press, and yet we regularly leave the rest of the team deep. The fullbacks often don't follow the press, giving opposition an easy out ball. The only answer to that is he must not trust us to press as a whole team, but then you're neither doing one thing or the other, and just setting your team up for failure again. The defence stays deep to protect slower CBs from being exposed, which again, should mean an acceptance that we shouldn't be pressing high. Do one thing or the other. Not this half committed nonsense.
They are garbage tactics, and I'm open to changing my opinion on Ten Hag IF he comes to his sense and makes adjustments. It's been a long time though and so far he's only shown that he's incapable of coaching a competent system. Also, we really need to stop seeing the same idiotic pass map show exactly what I described. It's horrendous.
Maybe the problem isn't the manager but the recruitment and philosophy of the club. We've the hamstrung every manager we've ever had post fergie.
Would you say that if we’d hired Dyche, Big Sam and Hodgson? Or does it only apply to managers you think are good?
He needs to stop playing 4231 and drop the Bruno Fernandes position. We need a 433 or 451. It's so obvious. We need Casemiro, mainoo & Eriksen in a flat midfield 3. We're too open and have zero control. Please god see the light Eric.
I agree with almost all of this. I’m not sure anyone knows what Ten Hag is thinking.
Let’s say he expects us to do better at playing through the press: this is why Onana was bought and why Mainoo plays.
We should be able to do it better consistently. Yesterday Spurs cut out the passes from the wide cb’s / fb’s into midfield. We should have been quicker, or played long to take advantage of that.
If we do get through with two/three passes, we have space in midfield and wide open space to release our forwards. into.
He does not want to give up pressing high, even though when we line up with Maguire and/or Evans we can’t really do it. The question is: will it pay off, sticking with this risky business?
If you want to see tiki-taka pass maps, you will be disappointed. Erik wants to play through the press quickly, attack with speed, press and force turnovers from which we can create chances.
We are suffering trying to play this style, not just due to injuries. Maybe things will get better, but our baseline performance has to go up; otherwise we will not consistently beat smaller sides in the table, and yesterday’s Spurs.
you're heavily overrating someone like Mainoo who still has it all to prove/achieve. Guy's played a handful of first team matches, bloody hell.Agreed. The team has fallen apart tactically this season more so than injuries. I watched a few fixtures with his Ajax team the other day and there are some similarities in the flaws which was a vulnerability through the middle when out of possession, the defensive shape was disjointed when on the break and the structure of their attack was similar lots of wide play but there was intricate passing into the attacking midfielders. I said before that there could be an element where the culture at Ajax had as much influence as the managers philosophy, now the managers removed from that environment (where the players are indoctrinated behind Cruyff's model) his capacity to coach the team adequately is more ineffective.
It feels like no matter what Erik does with his visualisation of the game he's not finding success. Last year the team was more balanced but the wide players aside Marcus were very passive when it came to threat. This summer he proactively purchases new midfielders to play the advanced 10s (likely in response to last season) but the team is poor at playing narrowly. The identification of Mount was also absolutely comical, a YouTube post that highlighted this season issues gave a good comparison with City and Arsenal's use of the same shape last season. City can play two advanced 10's because they are comfortable as 8s. I think Peps time coaching the Barcelona 3 man midfield has given him a more astute judgement in playing the midfield higher, it's also seemingly why he won't play Foden there given his lack of discipline.
It takes the right manager to recognise the finer details to make something work. So the idea that giving Erik time will mend this season's misfortunes is a broken remedy when his ideas are insufficient. This is personally why I think Arteta has a higher ceiling as a manager compared to Erik, in his fourth year as an inexperienced manager he's already successfully challenged for the league and played the best football throughout the majority of a season.
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I've pointed this out before: It's genuinely impressive to have spent over a billion in a decade on utter dross, for the most part.
I don't think any of those are on the level of LVG or Mourinho, I also think ETH is a lot better than he's shown this season, although a level below the prior two. But I guess you think you made a good point in your head.
Same. I think the caf's gone rabid. Even if we sack ETH now there's no first choice to take over. Might as well give him the chance to continue for the rest of the season with most of his first team back.
I was also of the opinion that we shouldn't have hounded mckenna and Carrick out and hired Rangnick. Still think we could have salvaged the season and qualified for CL. Not so confident for this season but hey, might's well use ETH instead of paying him off and hiring an interim with some random coaches.
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