Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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No other manager in any sport has had to deal with unrest and inflated egos in locker room, players not clocking in on time, injuries, and organisational restructuring. Almost sounds like the kind of stuff a manager is employed to deal with. Surprised the poor food hygiene rating at OT wasn’t added to the list.

If Ten Hag can/should only be judged when everything is fine - what is the point of Ten Hag?

So true.
 
No other manager in any sport has had to deal with unrest and inflated egos in locker room, players not clocking in on time, injuries, and organisational restructuring. Almost sounds like the kind of stuff a manager is employed to deal with. Surprised the poor food hygiene rating at OT wasn’t added to the list.

If Ten Hag can/should only be judged when everything is fine - what is the point of Ten Hag?
To be fair Jose had the same issues, with Martial, with Pogba and at times Baily and others.

Any time the manager tries to set a standard of discipline, we get some revolt. Im sure INEOS will back ten hag in the matter of discipline.
 
And yet you fail to realise that it was Ten Hag who chose to take these fights with these players in the middle of the season thinking they would just shut up and put up. A manager who knows how to manage keeps a lid on it until the end of the season then fires them into the sun as soon as the window opens. You're right, he's had to deal with loads of shit but he's the person that's gone looking for it as if his job wasn't hard enough as it is. There's a reason no other managers in the PL are throwing players under the bus or talking shit about them first chance they get.

Blaming all of Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford on ten Hag is a stretch, to put it mildly.

What “exactly” did ten Hag do that compelled Rashford to take a private jet to Belfast to get wasted hours before the next s defiled training session?

I can’t wait to see the answer as to why what Rashford did was actually ten Hag’s fault.
 
Blaming all of Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford on ten Hag is a stretch, to put it mildly.

What “exactly” did ten Hag do that compelled Rashford to take a private jet to Belfast to get wasted hours before the next s defiled training session?

I can’t wait to see the answer as to why what Rashford did was actually ten Hag’s fault.
He should've calmly phoned up Rashford and asked him if he wanted to "come home, please?" obviously.
 
He should've calmly phoned up Rashford and asked him if he wanted to "come home, please?" obviously.

I suppose what this guy is arguing is that the players under ten Hag's watch are out of control and thus with that many players of out control -- Ronaldo refusing to play when called on as a sub, Greenwood committing whatever-we-want-to-call-it on his woman, Sancho turning in numerous shit performances and then dogging it in training and now Rashford flying to Belfast to get wasted before the next training session -- the one common denominator obviously is the manager who has allowed his players to careen out of control with their lives. That is his argument.

But I come from a different school, the school that says that individuals must be held accountable for their own actions. When ten Hag gets his tactics wrong, he must be held accountable. When Rashford disgraces himself, he must be held accountable. Neither Rashford can he held accountable for ten Hag getting his tactics wrong, nor can ten Hag be held accountable when Rashford goes on a bender hours before the next training session in the middle of the season.
 
Blaming all of Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford on ten Hag is a stretch, to put it mildly.

What “exactly” did ten Hag do that compelled Rashford to take a private jet to Belfast to get wasted hours before the next s defiled training session?

I can’t wait to see the answer as to why what Rashford did was actually ten Hag’s fault.

When I was (much) younger, at the job I had back then, we got a new manager who was very strict. He fired a lot of people soon after he arrived, just to show us who is the boss. At first, everyone worked harder because we were worried about losing our jobs. Then, slowly, we realized that this guy is simply an asshole, he disrespects everyone, and actually, he is not good at his job (he was a professor at a university before, and he didn't know much apart from his very narrow academic specialization). Soon, nobody respected the guy, he was the butt of every joke, we all hated him, and most of us tried to do the least possible (not all of us, most of us). He was fired in a year and a half and it was a day of celebration for the department!

I have no idea if Ten Hag is like this. But yeah, not everyone can become a good manager. A good manager inspires you to work harder, a bad manager makes you question why you work at all! And I can imagine that it is much harder when you have to manage very talented multimillionaire footballers than office workers. That's why there are only a few world class football managers out there.
 
No other manager in any sport has had to deal with unrest and inflated egos in locker room, players not clocking in on time, injuries, and organisational restructuring. Almost sounds like the kind of stuff a manager is employed to deal with. Surprised the poor food hygiene rating at OT wasn’t added to the list.

If Ten Hag can/should only be judged when everything is fine - what is the point of Ten Hag?
Hello police, there has been a murder.
 
I suppose what this guy is arguing is that the players under ten Hag's watch are out of control and thus with that many players of out control -- Ronaldo refusing to play when called on as a sub, Greenwood committing whatever-we-want-to-call-it on his woman, Sancho turning in numerous shit performances and then dogging it in training and now Rashford flying to Belfast to get wasted before the next training session -- the one common denominator obviously is the manager who has allowed his players to careen out of control with their lives. That is his argument.

But I come from a different school, the school that says that individuals must be held accountable for their own actions. When ten Hag gets his tactics wrong, he must be held accountable. When Rashford disgraces himself, he must be held accountable. Neither Rashford can he held accountable for ten Hag getting his tactics wrong, nor can ten Hag be held accountable when Rashford goes on a bender hours before the next training session in the middle of the season.
How is that anything to do with ETH, he wasn't our manager then!
 
He's played one full match since joining us. It's a bit premature to judge him as a signing.

He was recovering from a pelvis injury when he joined us. Picked up a hamstring injury in September, was picking up pace with increased minutes in early October, niggling issues became apparent shortly after, played with issues in late October, and then a confirmed calf injury in November.

The man has quite literally been fit for one game.
so are you saying that Mount fits the needs of the squad in our midfield?
 
We dont actually know Pep's level since the only 3 jobs he has had have been jobs where any decent manager would have been succesful, some probably more successful.

It's really hard to take some of you serious when you post utter drivel like this :lol:
 
City were never world class until Guardiola.

Barcelona, not really.

In Guardiola's four-year stint at Barcelona, they were undoubtedly the best club in Europe, reaching CL semifinals all four seasons. They played the finals two of those seasons, and won comfortably. Since Guardiola's departure in 2012, Barcelona have only reached the CL semifinals three times (2013, 2015, 2019). One of those times, they lost by a cumulative 7-0 scoreline.
True. There was this moment where everyone literally thought them as unbeatable and really dread playing against them. Which was justified since they always dominated everyone they played and everyone had resorted into jammy goals and sucker punch against them. There was no out playing them football wise. Everyone had this dreaded feeling that them scoring goal was inevitable.

Him managing great players should not take away his achievement as one of the best ever to do it. This is the best marksman and best gun argument all over. Him being the best marksman while using the best gun shouldnt invalidate his achievements. By comparison do anyone truly believe if ETH managed that Barca side they would play as dominant and good ?
 
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To be fair Jose had the same issues, with Martial, with Pogba and at times Baily and others.

Any time the manager tries to set a standard of discipline, we get some revolt. Im sure INEOS will back ten hag in the matter of discipline.

They'll sack him at season's end to up the standards at the club.
 
Blaming all of Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford on ten Hag is a stretch, to put it mildly.

What “exactly” did ten Hag do that compelled Rashford to take a private jet to Belfast to get wasted hours before the next s defiled training session?

I can’t wait to see the answer as to why what Rashford did was actually ten Hag’s fault.
I haven't suggested for one second that their behaviour is the fault of the manager, I'm saying he has chosen to take fights with a bunch of players from a position of relative weakness when it would have been better to do what he's currently doing with Rashford, support him, then feck him off in the summer when you get the chance. There's nothing to be gained by failing out with your own players, whom you need to save your job, in the middle of the season because they're being dickheads.

The question you have to reflect on is why do non of these players respect him? What part has he played to have a large section of the squad be openly disrespectful towards him?
 
I haven't suggested for one second that their behaviour is the fault of the manager, I'm saying he has chosen to take fights with a bunch of players from a position of relative weakness when it would have been better to do what he's currently doing with Rashford, support him, then feck him off in the summer when you get the chance. There's nothing to be gained by failing out with your own players, whom you need to save your job, in the middle of the season because they're being dickheads.

The question you have to reflect on is why do non of these players respect him? What part has he played to have a large section of the squad be openly disrespectful towards him?
It has been said for a while that some of the players dont respect him, thought his signings were terrible and his communication skills have long been questioned. Rashford should be sold but we may be seeing the outcome of this lack of respect/ authority as well
 
It's surprising that people still continue to argue about all other things, except the fact that:
- his style of play is absolutely terrible
- his tactics are a fecking joke from game to game
- his choice of signings have been a total miss which further proofs his knowledge about football.

There is absolutely no argument whatsoever against any of these three, which means he has no business left here to do.
 
It's surprising that people still continue to argue about all other things, except the fact that:
- his style of play is absolutely terrible
- his tactics are a fecking joke from game to game
- his choice of signings have been a total miss which further proofs his knowledge about football.

There is absolutely no argument whatsoever against any of these three, which means he has no business left here to do.
I doubt many are denying that, however, they also see the big picture and dont blame him alone on our poor situation. The overall circumstances have been dogs hit for 10 years now and no other manager was successful here either
 
I doubt many are denying that, however, they also see the big picture and dont blame him alone on our poor situation. The overall circumstances have been dogs hit for 10 years now and no other manager was successful here either
The big picture doesn't really matter as far as manager is concerned. It's not like he's expected to win anything. If nobody is denying the above then he surely has to go regardless of everything else.
 
Presumptious. There are a lot of factors that are against us outside of Ten Hag's mistakes.
Out of curiosity, with many players back in the squad, how bad do you think our current injury crisis is? Is it still at historical level or just merely very bad?

Assuming we keep the same team until the end of season (with Mount, Malacia, Martial and Maguire still out), would the next 17 games be a fair sample size to finally assess ETH or does he need the remaining players to also return before we can pass any judgment?
 
The big picture doesn't really matter as far as manager is concerned. It's not like he's expected to win anything. If nobody is denying the above then he surely has to go regardless of everything else.
Of course it matters, a manager alone cannot influence it all. Hence if United had a proper structure, he would have gotten much better support. How can anyone work successfully in an environment that is absolutely dogshit? That does not mean that he should not be doing so much better and has been very poor this season, but look how much better our managers have been in the past 10 years ffs
 
I doubt many are denying that, however, they also see the big picture and dont blame him alone on our poor situation. The overall circumstances have been dogs hit for 10 years now and no other manager was successful here either
It can be true for the club to be a mess and the manager to be inadequate and short on skills. Which is the case here.
 
I can’t believe people are actually trying to have a Pep v ETH discussion. :lol:
One of the main reason I don't argue alot with people in here. The level of delusion is epic.

Pep is same age with ETH.
Pep has been involved in 9 Champions League Semi finals as a manager in his career. 4 Finals to his name
ETH has been involved in ONE champions league Semi Final game in his life. Never been in a UCL Final game.

But in some ways Pep is overrated and ETH is the messiah.

ETH is the Bruno Fernandes of the managers. Old enough to have multiple titles but with nothing on his name while being revered.

Bruno is going to 30 years, he has never played in a Quater Final of a Champions League in his life. Played ONCE in round of 16.
But in some ways he's in KDB or Bernardo Silva stratosphere :D :D people involved in big games every season for the last 5 years.

Alot of our fans are delusional and wild.

We've had very limited players and managers over the years.
 
ETH has achieved very little in his career for him to have this much credit in the bank. That semi final for Ajax is being heralded far too highly.
 
Out of curiosity, with many players back in the squad, how bad do you think our current injury crisis is? Is it still at historical level or just merely very bad?

Assuming we keep the same team until the end of season (with Mount, Malacia, Martial and Maguire still out), would the next 17 games be a fair sample size to finally assess ETH or does he need the remaining players to also return before we can pass any judgment?
I think he should be able to steady the ship, he has his spine back all together (casemiro, Licha, Shaw, hojlund, mainoo). I agree there's no real excuses on that front.

That said, ownership uncertainty, a childish and frankly brat like attidue from some high earners and injuries in the first half of the season is not ideal for any manager.
 
I haven't suggested for one second that their behaviour is the fault of the manager, I'm saying he has chosen to take fights with a bunch of players from a position of relative weakness when it would have been better to do what he's currently doing with Rashford, support him, then feck him off in the summer when you get the chance. There's nothing to be gained by failing out with your own players, whom you need to save your job, in the middle of the season because they're being dickheads.

The question you have to reflect on is why do non of these players respect him? What part has he played to have a large section of the squad be openly disrespectful towards him?

It is fairly normal for players to turn on the manager when his ideas aren't producing results, their income suffers because of it (bonuses, wages and sponsorship) and their reputation in the game takes a hit. Especially if they don't see progress or agree with his decisions. If players aren't being "punished " for poor performances that can create an unfortunate dynamic too, where players feel like their team-mates are getting away with underperformances. If you couple that with iron discipline and a constant standards spiel, like Ten Hag seems to be doing, that is bound to cause issues on the pitch. Players are left wondering "well are we crap because "x player" is ruining things for us and not following instructions, or are we crap because the plan is just crap?". "Why the feck isn't he subbing this joker off?!". Once they start doubting the plan, thinks twice about making a pass to a certain player (Hojlund's lack of service for instance), holds back on a movement because they expect a player to lose the ball (Antony) or position themselves slightly too close to another player because they don't trust their team-mate to deal with issues (This happens A LOT in our defence) that quickly becomes an issue that both sabotage their performances on the pitch and their relationship with the manager.

We tend to forget that poor managerial performance, training standards and selection issues directly affect the players financially, in terms of selection for their NT, their prospects of winning things and their mental state. It's not reasonable to expect players to respect the manager if they disagree with his methods, aren't seeing results, don't see actual standards on the pitch applied, don't agree with squad decisions, and his methods aren't producing results. At the end of the day, a manager's authority is directly linked with his ability to get his players to perform - results is everything in football.
 
Of course it matters, a manager alone cannot influence it all. Hence if United had a proper structure, he would have gotten much better support. How can anyone work successfully in an environment that is absolutely dogshit? That does not mean that he should not be doing so much better and has been very poor this season, but look how much better our managers have been in the past 10 years ffs
He doesn't have to influence it all, he needs to do his part. He has been backed, he has been supported without high expectations. This "absolutely dogshit" environment is still better than the situation in vast majority of clubs. Not sure what the point about the other managers is. We've appointed extremely poorly. I mean, Moyes, LVG, OGS? Should have never been near the club. You could argue the same for Mourinho in terms of style.
 
Blaming all of Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford on ten Hag is a stretch, to put it mildly.

What “exactly” did ten Hag do that compelled Rashford to take a private jet to Belfast to get wasted hours before the next s defiled training session?

I can’t wait to see the answer as to why what Rashford did was actually ten Hag’s fault.
Favoring players, tolerating there shit output, and all while glossing it in a nice juicy "rashy" on every occasion, certainly has an effect on players mind. So he had it coming IMO, shit man management if I ever saw one.
 
ETH has achieved very little in his career for him to have this much credit in the bank. That semi final for Ajax is being heralded far too highly.

Exactly. You get these stories every few seasons.

Jardim's 16/17 Monaco side were brilliant to watch and pulled off the same thing. Roma did it in 2018. Villarreal reached the semi-finals in 2006 and 2022.

At the end of the day, Ajax bottled it vs Spurs out of all teams. Spursy.
 
Of course it matters, a manager alone cannot influence it all. Hence if United had a proper structure, he would have gotten much better support. How can anyone work successfully in an environment that is absolutely dogshit? That does not mean that he should not be doing so much better and has been very poor this season, but look how much better our managers have been in the past 10 years ffs

Other than Rangnick maybe, every other manager has been considerably better than ETH. Or I should say none of them have the team on such a wretched spell of results and performances for such a length of time and survived. Previous managers were sacked long before.

Thanks to the club sale shenanigans, causing something of a leadership vacuum above him he has been given more time to right a sinking ship than any previous manger. To the point where is the end of January and our top 4 hopes are in tatters, and we are compleatly out of Europe and we are basically scrapping for any European place now. In the last ten years we have never been in such a hopeless position at this stage of the season. With a negative goal difference to boot.

So yeah even comparing him to previous managers who have worked under similar conditions with similar players, he is still absolute rubbish, and possibly as it stands is bottom of the pile.
 
ETH has achieved very little in his career for him to have this much credit in the bank. That semi final for Ajax is being heralded far too highly.
To be fair it was a great achievement and the football that Ajax played was awesome. They completely dominated Spurs in the first leg and should have won by more than 1, and were cruising at home before second half collapse (which was sort of a red flag in terms of game management but because of how unexpected Ajax presence in those semis was in general it didn't raise much concern).

In the grand scheme of things it means very little though. Many managers have got their teams into CL quarterfinals/semifinals against odds and didn't actually go on to achieve anything of note afterwards. Jardim did the same with Monaco which made him hot property at the time too, and has now been managing in oil states for the last 3 years. Pochettino actually took Spurs to final by beating Ten Hag's Ajax and has had an underwhelming career ever since as well. Eusebio took Roma to semifinals, beating Barcelona, and is now managing Frosinone. Even Emery who has done so much more on top of getting Villarreal into CL semifinals, winning trophies with both them and Sevilla, has failed at Arsenal and now manages a level below at Villa (albeit very successfully). A CL semifinal and a League Cup win should not get you nearly as much credit in the bank as ETH seemingly has with our owners and fans.
 
I haven't suggested for one second that their behaviour is the fault of the manager, I'm saying he has chosen to take fights with a bunch of players from a position of relative weakness when it would have been better to do what he's currently doing with Rashford, support him, then feck him off in the summer when you get the chance. There's nothing to be gained by failing out with your own players, whom you need to save your job, in the middle of the season because they're being dickheads.

The question you have to reflect on is why do non of these players respect him? What part has he played to have a large section of the squad be openly disrespectful towards him?

So the question is, why did Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and now Rashford refuse to respect ten Hag? Each had their own reasons and of course it’s hard for any of us to know for sure, but let’s start by excluding Greenwood whose actions in no way can be ten Hag’s fault, at least as I see it.

Ronaldo? Sorry, but I can’t blame ten Hag for Ronaldo’s physical decline and poor performances before being benched on the ground that his performances weren’t up to standard. My recollection could be off but I distinctly recall Ronaldo refusing to turn up for summer training. One could argue that if a player refuses to turn up for summer training that it’s obviously the manager who’s at fault but I find such an argument to be preposterous. Then Ronaldo refused to come on as a sub and again I fault to see how a player’s petulance because he didn’t get the start is the manager’s fault.

Sancho is the close call between these four. It’s been debated at length here so I’ll make it brief. Sancho had been performing at criminally poor levels before he lashed out at his manager. And it is widely known that Sancho had training discipline issues before we signed him.

Rashford? There is no universe in which it can be argued that a player going on a drinking binge in Belfast, or down the road from Carrington, is the manager’s fault.
 
Might want to look at his teams, and then Pep's teams.

For example, when he lost to him in the 2009 CL final, it was Carrick-Anderson-Giggs against Xavi, Iniesta, and Busquets.
And their defense consisted of Pyoul, rookie Pique, Sylvinho and Yaya Toure while ours had Vidic, Rio, Evra all on their prime, and O’Shea.

Teams in 2009 were very much evenly matched.
 
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so are you saying that Mount fits the needs of the squad in our midfield?

I don't think any of our recruitments under Ten Hag have fit our squad needs.

So the question is, why did Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho and now Rashford refuse to respect ten Hag? Each had their own reasons and of course it’s hard for any of us to know for sure, but let’s start by excluding Greenwood whose actions in no way can be ten Hag’s fault, at least as I see it.

Ronaldo? Sorry, but I can’t blame ten Hag for Ronaldo’s physical decline and poor performances before being benched on the ground that his performances weren’t up to standard. My recollection could be off but I distinctly recall Ronaldo refusing to turn up for summer training. One could argue that if a player refuses to turn up for summer training that it’s obviously the manager who’s at fault but I find such an argument to be preposterous. Then Ronaldo refused to come on as a sub and again I fault to see how a player’s petulance because he didn’t get the start is the manager’s fault.

Sancho is the close call between these four. It’s been debated at length here so I’ll make it brief. Sancho had been performing at criminally poor levels before he lashed out at his manager. And it is widely known that Sancho had training discipline issues before we signed him.

Rashford? There is no universe in which it can be argued that a player going on a drinking binge in Belfast, or down the road from Carrington, is the manager’s fault.

He was given leave to be with his family after losing a child and taking care of the twin that survived who was sick. Ronaldo's ego is well documented and Ten Hag wasn't met with anything that every other manager he's ever had hasn't had to manage. Trying to sub on Cristiano Ronaldo with 2 minutes left of a match you're winning 2-0 is stupid, that's treating him like a youth player. It was a power struggle, plain and simple. Ten Hag wanted to show no-one was above him, and he picked Ronaldo do to it. That's fair enough, it even seemed to have worked for a while, but Ronaldo issues was entirely of his own making.
 
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He is one lucky manager and to still be in the job. If it wasn't for other teams around us dropping points and league all over the place he be gone by now. Just seen we are the 3rd Lowest scoring team in league, only Burnley and Sheff Utd behind us.

Thats a sackable offence on its own with money he spent.

Depressing to see.
 
I can't get over just how badly he's failed this season. It'll be interesting to see when the dust settles and he's gone how he ends up being ranked alongside the post Fergie managers.
 
I can't get over just how badly he's failed this season. It'll be interesting to see when the dust settles and he's gone how he ends up being ranked alongside the post Fergie managers.
Better than Moyes and Rangnick but below Van Gaal, Mourinho and arguably Ole.
 
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