As fans, I believe we overestimate him. We overestimate his tactical ingenuity, ability to change, and vision for the club as a whole. For me, it's all about the Ajax connection. People will go to great lengths to prove he is as good as they think he is because they believe Ajax is an aesthetically superior football brand. If Ten Haag had accomplished his Ajax success at Sporting or Lyon, I doubt we'd be having as many people defending him. It's the same reason Mason Mount has been entirely ignored after only a few games for us, yet it took fans over two years to stop believing in VDB.
The idea is that, if he's played good football before, he should be able to replicate it. Yet our fans aren't truly understanding the gulf in quality between the Premier League and the Eredivisie. You're playing against some of the best players and managers in the world. They are used to facing certain challenges on the pitch and aren't as easily overrawed as teams in the Eredivisie were. Managers in England have to account for pace, technicality, physicality and consistently changing tactics. It's not simply about having ideas to play pretty patterns. It's about creating tactical set ups to account for the pace and physicality of the league. It's about being flexible and having different plans. It's about squad management and accounting for injuries given the amount of games played and the physicality of them. It's about ensuring Premier League standard fitness levels. It's about knowing how to use the squad available to you and not dumping and blaming players on account of not being perfectly suited for your tactical set up. It's about communicating effectively. Most importantly, it's about having urgency to ensure that gaps are covered/fixed as quickly as possible. Ten Haag hasn't shown he actually has the skillset to keep up with the requirements of managing a top club in a top league over his two year stint.
He completely falls apart in big away games, he puts out physically weaker midfield set ups and expects success, the pace United play with on the ball is slow and tepid, he hasn't shown flexibility in tactical approach both in game and from game to game. The poor fitness level's we've had and inability to keep the squad fit has been quite apparent. He's also been unable to use players available to succeed, the league doesn't allow a team to have an excuse of injuries, as that should be expected and the tactical plan should be strong enough to account for that. He's had multiple instances where he has been unable to use players available to him and hasn't even tried to alter his tactical approach to fit them in. Ronaldo last year was an example. Fans are happy with how he handled it after Ronaldo's strop. However, my concern is his use of him priro to that. The argument surrounding Ronaldo's pressing was a failure on Ten Haag's ability to adapt, and for me suggests that he can only play with a particular type of striker. He isn't skilled or flexible enough to adapt to having different types of players. He has also shown weaknesses in communication, as there have been articles about players not understanding and getting what he wants on the pitch. People love to call our players dumb, however for me, that's evidence that the teacher isn't doing a good job of actually getting them to execute the plan. In addition, I do think there's a barrier in language that might make his communication different to what it was at Ajax. Most importantly for me, this preseason, last preseason; the failure to test tactical set ups, the failure to get players prepared, the failure to account for a plan b and even his transfers in the market ( Mount coming in didn't account for a plan b formation if the 4141 failed) highlight naivety and a lack of urgency from the Manager, similar to what we saw with Ole at the start of 20/21. The league is intense and you can fall out of the title race in the opening weeks. Ten Haag doesn't seem to have that sense of urgency.