Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Tavern in the town said:
See you just can’t please people like this. You’re not interested in being rational. The only thing you want is to have a moan.
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Sorry if that wasn't clear, I was agreeing with you.

We're balls deep into an absolute bullshit scenario with Barcelona because ETH earmarked De Jong as his centerpiece. Instead of pursuing other alternatives, we're doing everything we can to get his man. All of our targets are 100% ETH targets, without any viable alternatives being considered. So if we're being honest, our problem is not backing ETH too littte, it could be argued we're backing him too much
 
Tavern in the town said:
It’s just facts. I’m not sure what else people are expecting the club to do. We’ve signed Malacia. Eriksen is all but done. De Jong is the subject of a £17m salary dispute which the club can do nothing about - we’ve agreed most of our end with Barca. We’ve bid the reported asking price for Martinez and it still got turned down by Ajax. We were clearly prepared to sign Timber but he turned us down due to a lack of guaranteed football (something the club can’t actually offer him, that’s the manager’s decision.) What exactly do you think the club should have done differently?
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That's a lot of excuses for this shambles of a window so far.
 
Godfather said:
That's a lot of excuses for this shambles of a window so far.
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It's not to excuse the club, but we have to acknowledge that we've made a lot of changes to the back room staff. They are basically starting afresh also with Ten Hag coming in who would need to assess the players to know who would fit and who would have to go.

Unlike our rival Arsenal or Spurs who knew what they needed to do before the end of last season (in arsenal case they've had continuity for over 3years ). Not to mention City and Liverpool.

Compare with Chelsea and you'll see we have almost the same issues at least they are 1.5 year into Tuchel reign (abeit with a new board)

Then transfers are not so straightforward. You have to look no further than the Haaland deal which was just signed today or the Sterling to Chelsea who is still to sign.

This transfer window is not about how fast we are but wether the ones we do sign if they would improve us(quicken the transaction). Yes I think Malacia would add dynamism and competition to the team and the De Jong deal (if it does goes through) would improve the quality of the midfield a lot. I think many would agree that Eriksen definitely adds quality

Then we've got players like Sancho and Varane who have shown to be world class or the potential to be world class. Then there is Bruno and Rashford (hopefully he gets back on form) who will definitely play better.
 
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Tavern in the town said:
No it doesn’t. The board have done nothing but back him this window.
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Depends what you mean by “back him”.

I think it’s pretty obvious that they’ve gone for the players he wants, and haven’t attempted to foist ones on him whose agents have been pestering the club to sign. That’s a first, and really good to see.

There are doubts about the competence and experience of the people actually processing the transfers though. I appreciate that the DeJong deal is a very difficult one, but it seems to be taking a hell of a time to bring other players in; it’s not like the targets weren’t known early on. Woodward and Judge were awful, and it’s great that they’re no longer involved, but it would have been nice to have others in place to facilitate things well before the window opened.
 
This might sound like a weird thing to mention but seeing the players all kitted out in the same clothes when they arrived in Thailand reminded me of the old days when Fergie had his players in club suits.
 
NinjaZombie said:
This might sound like a weird thing to mention but seeing the players all kitted out in the same clothes when they arrived in Thailand reminded me of the old days when Fergie had his players in club suits.
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Everytime we travel they go in club suits. I'm not sure why you think that has been any different recently.
 
It will be interesting to see how the players respond to Ten Hag's coaching, both on and of the ball, although it will take a little while to instill into some players what Ten Hag requires of them.
I believe that most players will improve both individually and collectively, but whether enough to make his first choice team on a regular basis we shall see.
If the.much reviled McFred combination suddenly looks a lot more solid defensively, and more fluid and proactive offensively, then ETH has already made a small mark.
 
Think we will all be surprised at how well he will have this current bunch of misfits playing. Hopefully we can add in the players he wants to come to the club and we out perform all expectations.

Our very own Pep Guardiola is my idol.
 
pascell said:
You can mask the deficiencies of players by drilling a system into them, look at the likes of Blind, Tadic and Schone at Ajax, not world beaters but effect in the ten Hag system.
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My post was in jest, the players will look a lot better this season now that there's a proper coach in charge.

Ole and Ralf were about as good as PE teachers.
 
pascell said:
You can mask the deficiencies of players by drilling a system into them, look at the likes of Blind, Tadic and Schone at Ajax, not world beaters but effect in the ten Hag system.
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You can mask 2-3 players with a drilled system, but as many average / poor players as we do?

Still don't see Maguire, AWB, Shaw, McFred and probably a few others as good enough myself. I reckon most starting XI's he picks you're looking at least 6 players as not good enough
 
Long Time Red said:
My post was in jest, the players will look a lot better this season now that there's a proper coach in charge.

Ole and Ralf were about as good as PE teachers.
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Ralf might have been a competent coach, but he wasn't interested in coaching anything beyond winning the ball back.

I mean just look at the 4-2-2-2 he was playing at the start, as soon as we'd win the ball back we were in a shocking position to do anything with the ball. He forgot he was at a club, where by default he was going to end every game with 50%+ of the ball and where it would really count was what we did when we had the ball.
 
Keefy18 said:
You can mask 2-3 players with a drilled system, but as many average / poor players as we do?

Still don't see Maguire, AWB, Shaw, McFred and probably a few others as good enough myself. I reckon most starting XI's he picks you're looking at least 6 players as not good enough
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Perhaps not good enough to win the league, but our players are still plenty good enough for top 4.

There will be a noticeable improvement from last season's clown show.
 
Skills said:
Ralf might have been a competent coach, but he wasn't interested in coaching anything beyond winning the ball back.

I mean just look at the 4-2-2-2 he was playing at the start, as soon as we'd win the ball back we were in a shocking position to do anything with the ball. He forgot he was at a club, where by default he was going to end every game with 50%+ of the ball and where it would really count was what we did when we had the ball.
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Yep, perhaps once upon a time Ralf was a cutting edge coach but his ideas haven't moved this the times.
 
Long Time Red said:
Perhaps not good enough to win the league, but its still plenty good enough for top 4.

There will be a noticeable improvement from last season's clown show.
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Maybe, maybe not... I reckon it'll be hit and miss for a while at least.

A bit of a hangover from last season and thus far ETH is sounding Moyes / Ole-esque. All very nicey, nicey.
 
Keefy18 said:
Maybe, maybe not... I reckon it'll be hit and miss for a while at least.

A bit of a hangover from last season and thus far ETH is sounding Moyes / Ole-esque. All very nicey, nicey.
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There might be some growing pains from playing out from the back but I'm pretty confident we'll see instant improvement even against Liverpool tomorrow just from having proper day in day out coaching and an tactical plan.
 
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