Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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It's a shame Ole never got a trophy, because I can't believe I'm sat here ready to say I enjoyed his reign more, at least there was more fun mixed in with tumescent desperately disappointing displays of mediocrity.

Was fun at times, in a messy, chaotic kind of way. Overall, it was pretty shite though. The whole post-Fergie era has been an absolute disaster tbh.
 
Was fun at times, in a messy, chaotic kind of way. Overall, it was pretty shite though. The whole post-Fergie era has been an absolute disaster tbh.

At least with Ole everyone with any sense knew from day one he was out his depth, trying his luck and whatever happens was a bit of a bloody hell how's he doing this?! As you said, fun in the most messiest of ways. Ten Hag has just failed miserably, after so much early hope, and pre-hope before he actually took over officially.
 
At least with Ole everyone with any sense knew from day one he was out his depth, trying his luck and whatever happens was a bit of a bloody hell how's he doing this?! As you said, fun in the most messiest of ways. Ten Hag has just failed miserably, after so much early hope, and pre-hope before he actually took over officially.

Aye, for me, ETH has been far more of a disappointment than Ole for the reasons you mentioned.

I'm honestly not sure wtf I'm actually watching this season. People say we have a style of play, because sometimes we win the ball high up the pitch. To me, we look like a team of individuals with zero plan. This season has been the stuff of nightmares.
 
How are we the 3rd lowest scorers in the league?! Just goes to show the levels we’ve plunged from being a top football club under Sir Alex. Can’t fathom why ETH is still here, as scoring goals is what wins you games.

We used to be goal scoring machines back in the Yorke-Cole days. Now we have a 20 old trying to rejuvenate a squad of has beens, whilst worrying that his career might stagnate with all the toxicity.
 
It's a shame Ole never got a trophy, because I can't believe I'm sat here ready to say I enjoyed his reign more, at least there was more fun mixed in with tumescent desperately disappointing displays of mediocrity.
Was fun at times, in a messy, chaotic kind of way. Overall, it was pretty shite though. The whole post-Fergie era has been an absolute disaster tbh.

Looking back, I agree. Back then the inconsistency drove me nuts. Now, I'd give anything for that sort of inconsistency under ETH! At least we were hitting teams like Leeds for 4/5/6 goals.
 
How are we the 3rd lowest scorers in the league?! Just goes to show the levels we’ve plunged from being a top football club under Sir Alex. Can’t fathom why ETH is still here, as scoring goals is what wins you games.

We used to be goal scoring machines back in the Yorke-Cole days. Now we have a 20 old trying to rejuvenate a squad of has beens, whilst worrying that his career might stagnate with all the toxicity.

Because some of our defenders have been injured.
 
A lot hinged on a one very good CL run and some excellent CL performances from a young side. Had he of just had his Erdevisie experience to rely on he would not have been hired.

I personally don’t have a lot of faith in him due to the basic errors around organising his midfield, the freedom he gives Bruno, Antony, Mount and Onana clearly not being well thought out purchases, his pursuit of FDJ leading to the overpayment and panic buying of Casemiro, his limiting of minutes to youth players despite our first choice options being severely limited, the development of Amad - who I genuinely feel should have been much further advanced by now and could be a real gem. Still don’t see a team that can play with major intensity for more than 20 mins or so which is also concerning almost a year and a half into his reign.

It may have worked out - he may have been the next great tactician to emerge and that was the reason for taking that chance. we rolled that dice and I don’t think it has/will pay off. I hope INEOS take a similarly pro active approach to managers. He has had both time and money at this stage - bar the major injury issues which he can point to as being somewhat out of his control - he just needs to be held accountable for where the team is at - which as an elite level manager - not even half as developed as it should be.
 
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.
I disagree. Last season was the only time I partly enjoyed watching us and was actually looking forward to our games. I never had this since Fergie left
 
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.
The point is that he actually needs to influence everything. He need to buy the players, which obviously did not turn out to be a good thing. In a well run club, this would not happen
 
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.
Obviously. However, he also faced a really shitty situation so whilst he can be blamed on many things, but not all of them
 
He also had no money to spend. If there was ever a Manager/Coach that was given a bad hand it was Rangnick.
He was a temporary manager, they tend not to get mush in the way of money to spend
 
He was a temporary manager, they tend not to get mush in the way of money to spend

Which is why I think it's pretty harsh to compare him to our other Managers that actually had the chance to refresh the squad as they wished. I tend to avoid giving him too much criticism for that reason alone. He was basically a substitute teacher in school.
 
Which is why I think it's pretty harsh to compare him to our other Managers that actually had the chance to refresh the squad as they wished. I tend to avoid giving him too much criticism for that reason alone. He was basically a substitute teacher in school.

He made us worse and all his press conference were mainly about him washing his hands stating the entire squad needs to be flushed down the toilet, he didn't exactly improve the situation and we achieved pretty much the exact opposite of what we were hoping by bringing in a new manager.
 
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.
Yeah. They actually got quite lucky imo, we were dominating that match til they got a goal out of nowhere from Eto'o. I think if you replayed that game a hundred times we win most times.
 
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.
You're purposely choosing to highlight the extreme cases as a defence to Ten Hag's man management. They have chosen (incorrectly) to react to however they've been treated by Ten Hag in an extreme way. That's down to them and their personalities, not everyone makes the right choices.

Lets broaden the picture though, people you're forgetting to mention: Maguire, De Gea, McTomminay, Varane, Martial, Wan Bissaka, Bailley, Fred.

All these players have been dropped or targeted by the manager at some point during their time at United. Some spoke to the press while on international duty, some just shut up and got on with it and left in the end when they could, De Gea just left instead of signing a lesser contract and playing under Ten Hag again.

Before you make this out as me defending the players, I'm not. A lot of them either aren't good enough for United or didn't deserve to play anyway, which means they were in a position of weakness from the start so they couldn't complain like Sancho, Rashford or Ronaldo, because literally no one will take them anyway. They still deserve to be treated with respect however, otherwise the guys that you are playing and are relying on will turn on you at some point also, because they know one day they'll fall into that category.
 
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

That's not true. Neither of them won the CL or PL, but some of them did okayish. Even Ten Hag did okay last year.

What's the main point here is that neither of them were successful after us either(or before us for years, except Mourinho), which means they weren't good enough to begin with.
 
He made us worse and all his press conference were mainly about him washing his hands stating the entire squad needs to be flushed down the toilet, he didn't exactly improve the situation and we achieved pretty much the exact opposite of what we were hoping by bringing in a new manager.
He was right though wasn't he, and if he had stayed and did the job he was supposed to move on to I rather suspect things at United would be very different, he would never have sanctioned most of ETH's signings for starters
 
That's not true. Neither of them won the CL or PL, but some of them did okayish. Even Ten Hag did okay last year.

What's the main point here is that neither of them were successful after us either(or before us for years, except Mourinho), which means they weren't good enough to begin with.

Calling Mourinho successful after his time at Manchester United is a bit of a stretch.
 
He made us worse and all his press conference were mainly about him washing his hands stating the entire squad needs to be flushed down the toilet, he didn't exactly improve the situation and we achieved pretty much the exact opposite of what we were hoping by bringing in a new manager.

Which was what the club brought him in to do. He wasn't a normal Manager appointment, he was brought in to assess the squad and give his opinion on what needed changing. He was never getting the Manager gig in the Summer it was always a temporary solution. He actually had a decent start with us, 1 loss in 13 in the League. It all went to hell once we got beat by City and then knocked out of the CL by Atletico in March.

Oddly, he shares something in common with Ten Hag, both of their best unbeaten runs in the PL is 6 games, something he managed twice and Ten Hag only once.
 
Yeah. They actually got quite lucky imo, we were dominating that match til they got a goal out of nowhere from Eto'o. I think if you replayed that game a hundred times we win most times.
I do not remember the game like that. We started very well but after they scored (and I think it was within 20 minutes), they dominated the match.
 
Why are people still whining about possession football? We had it and you wanted something different, like high pressing direct football.

Why are people whining about playing 4 2 3 1? We did, and you wanted to play 4 3 3 , 4 1 4 1 or one of those ‚Pep’ formations with inverted fb‘s.

Rangnick‘s assessment was most of the squad sucked and he was right.
 
Which was what the club brought him in to do. He wasn't a normal Manager appointment, he was brought in to assess the squad and give his opinion on what needed changing. He was never getting the Manager gig in the Summer it was always a temporary solution. He actually had a decent start with us, 1 loss in 13 in the League. It all went to hell once we got beat by City and then knocked out of the CL by Atletico in March.

Oddly, he shares something in common with Ten Hag, both of their best unbeaten runs in the PL is 6 games, something he managed twice and Ten Hag only once.

We didn't bring him in to fail as a caretaker manager while hanging the squad out to dry in public, at least i hope that wasn't the plan. It's fine that he was there to assess the squad and help organize the club, but i have a feeling they wanted that assessment in private and not during press conferences when Rangnick wanted to defend his abilities as a manager...Bringing him in as a manager was the wrong move.
 
Yeah. They actually got quite lucky imo, we were dominating that match til they got a goal out of nowhere from Eto'o. I think if you replayed that game a hundred times we win most times.
Eto'o scored in the 10th minute and they were a better team from then on. I don't think being a worse team for 10 minutes and better for 80 is 'lucky' really.
 
Eto'o scored in the 10th minute and they were a better team from then on. I don't think being a worse team for 10 minutes and better for 80 is 'lucky' really.
That's true yeah, I don't mean to say they smashed and grabbed it, just we went to pieces after conceding for some reason and I don't think that team was actually nearly as good as what they became in the next 3 years after that, we had a great chance to win.
 
You're purposely choosing to highlight the extreme cases as a defence to Ten Hag's man management. They have chosen (incorrectly) to react to however they've been treated by Ten Hag in an extreme way. That's down to them and their personalities, not everyone makes the right choices.

Lets broaden the picture though, people you're forgetting to mention: Maguire, De Gea, McTomminay, Varane, Martial, Wan Bissaka, Bailley, Fred.

All these players have been dropped or targeted by the manager at some point during their time at United. Some spoke to the press while on international duty, some just shut up and got on with it and left in the end when they could, De Gea just left instead of signing a lesser contract and playing under Ten Hag again.

Before you make this out as me defending the players, I'm not. A lot of them either aren't good enough for United or didn't deserve to play anyway, which means they were in a position of weakness from the start so they couldn't complain like Sancho, Rashford or Ronaldo, because literally no one will take them anyway. They still deserve to be treated with respect however, otherwise the guys that you are playing and are relying on will turn on you at some point also, because they know one day they'll fall into that category.

I basically knew his man management was going to be underwhelming when his reaction to 4-0 loss at Brentford was asking players to run 14km in heat during training. That's U15 coaching which over the long run will only alienate people and make them think he's a nutter. In a perfect world your entire squad consists of 25 full blown professionals who commit to their work and do their best 24/7, however in real world you are dealing with a bunch of overpaid, immature, arrogant boys and being able to manage their characters is a massive part of this job. Possibly the most crucial one in terms of impact.
 
Even so, he wasn't able to translate that into anything on the pitch.

He's targeting players that would setup United for years. EtH's might setback United for years.

And give EtH that Ragnick squad and coaches, i doubt he'd do better. Just see EtH's first 2 games without his "players".
 
Well, that I can agree with. Brutal honesty was his approach, probably the wrong approach for these players.

I don't really see it that way. Rangnick is about selling himself, like all his talk about being behind gegenpress, his personal influence on Klopp, Tuchel etc. He has a big ego and talks a big game, but there isn't much content.

He just wasn't a very good manager and his response was blaming everyone else, i doubt you'll find many footballers that will respond well to that. Fergie was happy to be brutally honest with his players, but he'd offer very little of that to the press.

Maybe he would've been a decent fit as a technical advisor, giving his assessment on the squad and what needed to be done, but there's a big difference between theory and real life.
 
He's targeting players that would setup United for years. EtH's might setback United for years.
Didn't he just name really obvious targets, some of whom probably wouldn't have come. Remember that Rangnick hasn't worked with a top in years either.

We don't need to big up RR to put down ETH, he's doing just fine putting himself down.
 
Well, that I can agree with. Brutal honesty was his approach, probably the wrong approach for these players.
I wouldn't be surprised (considering his planned consultant role) if the expectation he had was that he would manage for that half season while also being influential in planning the squad and manager selection for the next season. If he had gotten that influence he would also have been in a situation to make some winter transfers which would be in line with what would happen in the summer.

And then he had to realize how bad everything was and that his internal assessment wasn't welcome and he wouldn't get that influence he expected to get. He didn't immediately go public about how shit everything is, I am quite sure he started doing that after some heated discussions wirh Murtough etc.
 
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