I wish you lot could have a day off after we win, you can come back tomorrow
just go have a wank or something
just go have a wank or something
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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Good result from an average performance. The ability to look at results and performances in separation isn't for everyone.
We will have to play better to get a consistent run of positive results, but we were ok today and got a good result. But were not at blowing smoke up ETH"S backside just yet.
A not actually that convincing win at home to a solid but unspectacular West Ham isn't worth any fanfare.
The point is, you said I claimed EtH treated Sancho a certain way. I asked you to provide evidence, I’m still waiting. As I said, I’m happy to discuss Sancho & EtH in the relevant thread.Good job on again ignoring the point though.
The point you’re ignoring is, I didn’t say what you claimed. You could just as easily dial it back & say it was a misunderstanding but instead you’re playing all kinds of mental gymnastics badly.
You chose to interact with my post, not the other way round. Only reason I’m aware of your username is your attempt to lie failing terribly.
You’ve made 2 claims today about what I’ve said, neither are true. You can drop all the emojis you like, but first provide quotations that link back to my actual posts or leave it & return to the subject of this thread.
United fans are so used to watch crap, unorganized football every week to the point basic football stuff like this blow their mind away.
This is basic football movement. Watch some games for other teams and you will see it often. Players moving to cover for players rushing forward and the fullback overlapping. Are you telling me this is something worth mentioning? Seriously?
Have we really though? Mainoo's no. of touches/passes these past two games have been below par for me.
I'm not looking too deeply into it but if I had to guess, I'd say ETH hasn't changed anything or much with regards to the midfield instructions whether it's been Mainoo or McTominay. I just think Mainoo naturally likes to come for the ball (therefore, his heat map is more deeper) and McTominay likes to get forward.
I know it's insane to think ETH just lets them freestyle it but having seen what we've witnessed this season, it wouldn't surprise me.
Mainoo against Newport was positioned right next to Bruno. He might prefer to drop deeper, but that game was positioned high like mctominay or mount were in that role. The same player doing 2 drastically different roles over 2 weeks, it's definitely instructions.
Ten Hag is very detail oriented, there's not a chance it's free styling it. It was a plan and he made an adjustment recently.
Touches per game, whatever, that's also game plan and whose main role it is to be the deep creator. Mainoo is still a kid and he won't demand the ball over Bruno and Casemiro yet. He's involved to a normal level, not like Van de Beek levels so it's not a concern
Just for the record, I have no concern with Mainoo, it's ETH's instructions that I have issues with. Whilst the bolded may be true, based on what we've seen this season, I don't think that necessarily means we're going to see 'better' tactics and adjustments (but rather it's simply the personnel change), which is why I queried the validity of whether we have truly moved from the single pivot. McTominay bombing forward and playing almost in tandem with Hojlund and way beyond Bruno leaving us hopelessly short in midfield game after game after game doesn't really convince me of ETH's management of details.
I guess the proof is in the pudding because if we have changed tactics, then it will ETH's job now to get Mainoo more involved going forward.
This has been what we were doing forever, nothing new (under Ten Hag). The criticism still applies (need an extra body to support Casemiro).
All that the arrows are indicating is that we have a rotating 3-1 in build up.
Well, not trying to blow smoke up ETH's ass, just saying we can pause the moaning for at least on a day when we won 3-0 against a decent team. How many saves Onana had to really make apart from the one from a corner early in the first half? It was more convincing that what you'd like to believe. You probably just looked at stats and that xg close to 2 for West Ham and think somehow our performance wasn't convincing ? Them having potshots from wherever the feck they want doesn't make their performance any better. Why do people have this need to downplay any good performance we have?
Ego, probably.
Like you said we’re not use to watching it. But not every team plays like that. That is the movement ETH wants to see and it creates openings. Were use to watching statues with no movement at all.
When it works it’s very effective though. Creates chances. When everyone’s fit we do look a lot better. There was movement. Last few months we’ve been watching statues.
2 good wins, but how we play isn't really conducive to being a top team.
We let the opposition have too much territory and the ball. And I don't see that changing under ETH.
We let the opposition have too much territory and the ball. And I don't see that changing under ETH.
Not so bothered about west hams XG or shots. We kept them at arms length largely. They are dangerous from set pieces so no surprise there best chance came from a corner anyway.
It was another game we struggled to really create any good chances. Our goals came from a poor Clarence followed by individual brilliance from Hojlund. A slice of luck with a deflected shot, and a mistake very late on when west ham were in risk taking game chasing mode.
On another day that game has 0-0 or 1-0 either way written all over it.
We seem to have three types of games under ETH, crazy high scoring end to end spectacles that could go either way. Or very tight games where we struggle to create that could go either way. Or against quality opposition if they turn up we get played off the park.
We don't win alot of games on genuine merit where you can say we outplayed them and thoroughly deserve the win. It's concerning. We got the result today that's good maybe he will turn it around and we will see improvements in performance and results. But I'm not convinced yet.
This is it. Its nice to win a couple of games but perspective is needed. ETHs comments after match suggest he can only be judged when he has his strongest 11. Injuries are inevitable and when you spend £400m and have highest wage bill in league you need to be able to adapt. Even when we do win we do not control matches or shape of the game in the way top teams do and remain far too open and give away too many chances. For all the talk of 'philosophy' from the next Pep I rarely see anything innovative on the pitch.
We've also beaten a mid table Wolves and West Ham at home. surely the minimum level for MUFC? Villa away a much bigger test, ETH still yet to win away at a top 6 team where his results remain terrible. I think this goes to the point above that tactically he's really not on the ball.
His subs and game management are generally still poor, something bizarrely managers rarely seem to get better at. Also more minutes for Antony. if ETH survives the summer, Amad will be gone and we will still see Antony stinking the place out. He is too stubborn to admit his horrible mistake.
Some of you will look pretty feckin dumb 1 year from now.
I think any fan who thinks two wins in a week (one of which was rescued by an 18 year old in the last minute) signifies a turnaround is a fool
You can be happy that the team won, whilst acknowledging that there's a very long way to go for this season to be considered an acceptable step forward and for the manager to not have to answer for the performances and recruitment.
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Another game where we play 2 midfielders in front of the defence and no surprise that we play well, I hope against hope that this sinks into ETHs mind, however I suspect that the next time Mainoo or Casemiro are not available he will default to playing 2 10s and leaving our midfield empty and our defence exposed.
At this point I am convinced that ETH will probably survive this season and start the next, I hope that by the summer we have somebody over ETH who can make effective transfers, the INEOS take over might just save ETH at Utd.
At this point I am convinced that ETH will probably survive this season and start the next, I hope that by the summer we have somebody over ETH who can make effective transfers, the INEOS take over might just save ETH at Utd.
Because we've been on the lucky side in this game. It's rather unusual to score 3 goals from the xG we had, and we scored 2 out of 3 real chances we had + one heavy deflection. This is simply not sustainable.
I think people consider this game as good performance because of the scoreline. Fans tend to think that the normal situation is to score with every good chance, so it's not unusual to find people on here who think we deserved to score 2-3, or even 4 goals from the chances we had. But in reality if we play this game again, it's more likely to end 1-1 than another 3-0. It doesn't matter if WH chances were a result of tiki-taka or well played set pieces, in the end we give away the control/possession/fouls what will be our downfall next game, or the one after, if we continue playing like this.
I fear you may be right. I'm equally convinced we will never really challenge with him. People keep talking him up in terms of 'philosophy', but we still have no control in matches, give away too many chances and his game management and subs are terrible. He insisted on having control over signings so lets see how he feels when its taken away. We also need to hold him to account for likes of Antony and Onana plus others, not only buying Antony and then playing him continuously suggests a massive flaw to me.
Imagine getting a few key players back from injury and all of a sudden looking more of a team and more of an attack threat. Defending is still a bit shit, West Ham still had way too many shots on goal for my liking.
2 games is by no means a huge range to judge, but there are postive signs there. If he can keep them getting this level of performance going forward and tighten the backline up a bit, put a good run of wins together and this could be a good end to the season.
2 games is by no means a huge range to judge, but there are postive signs there. If he can keep them getting this level of performance going forward and tighten the backline up a bit, put a good run of wins together and this could be a good end to the season.
We were a Emerson Palmieri 2 better shots away from another meltdown game. So I will wait for a bit more consistency before drumming our apparently well coached team. We still are very vulnerable IMO.
Not sure you can use that logic. If we had taken most of our (easier) chances this season we would be right near the top.
Do we?
Our xG vs WestHam was 3rd lowest this season. Just because we managed to get 3 goals out of it doesn't mean we are actually that good attacking wise. Defensively we still concede way too many chances.
There are some positive signs but I'm not reading too much into this game.
Yeah. It's quite clear if you watch and don't just focus on xg after the fact.
Plenty of situations where good positions and space are engineered, but the pass taken is the wrong one or just delayed too long. Decision making in the final third lets this team down big time.
I dont think you can blame the manager or the tactics when Harry Maguire just gifts chances to the opponent though.
A lot of people have been saying they were reserving judgement on ETH until seeing the bigger names coming back. There is a clear improvement with Licha and Case, even with the latter being a bit slower these days. Against a very difficult WHUM I thought we did well, Maguire gifted them a chance, Onana had to make one good save from memory, I don't really care if teams want to bombard us with long low % shots, it's actually appalling from them that they had 22 shots and only 3 were on target.
People need to reign in their expectations, first half was a slog but quite even, second half we were really good i thought. That's progress from the sludge we've seen over 90mins in many games earlier this season.
Played some good stuff at times yesterday. More possession is required though. You can't be having a 50/50 split with Wolves and West Ham if you want to be successful long term.
So is it "all of a sudden looking more of a team and more of an attack threat" or " the pass taken is the wrong one or just delayed too long. Decision making in the final third lets this team down big time"?
Both can be true, however I still believe we've overachieved massively last game in terms of result vs how the game actually went. You can still build a momentum on such games, so it is a positive sign, but we might as well lose the next game 0-3 with the same chances for both teams, it's just this time it went our way.
The biggest "change" compared to our recent games is having an attacker on the right and Hojlund finding his form.
Yeah, but Liverpool was the same, loads of shots, but no decent chances. Xg is grand, but if people focus on that rather than actually looking at the chances created agaisnt, they get the wrong impression. 22 shots, no real clear cut chances and only 1 shot troubled the worst keeper to have ever played football anywhere in the history of the game.
Starting from a low place, but you can see straight away the difference players like Martinez, Shaw and Casemiro make to the starting xi. In the backline especially, the ball playing ability of Shaw and Martinez in terms of getting it forward and breaking the lines in the first phase is a huge asset. Just hope Martinez isn't out for long, he's the biggest loss in there.
West Ham has 22 shots, but no clear chances. Only 1 shot troubled the keeper, aside from that Emerson blazed over from 8 yards and Dalot made a superb block on what would have been a 1v1.
The changes have been playing 2 in midfield, having players in the backline who can play on the ball and be the first phase of play making and play those line breaking passes into midfield quicker. Having a proper left back making forward runs allowing Rashford to drift in and on the other side Garnacho to stay wide right and Dalot to move inside to the half spaces. There's a lot that's changed, because the returning players allowed for it.
Hojlund has added goals to his overall game, because the chances are coming for him now. He was doing everything else before hand, he just had no luck in front of goal.
It's more that xg doesn't take into account that Maguire 'created' a one on one for Emerson for example. So just looking at xg in isolation for a single game is a hazardous way to decide how the game went. I'd imagine xG also calculates the Soucek header from much closer to Onana if it hits the WUHM player.
Agree re Martinez, real shame and it looked bad. Unsure why you have to bring your Onana hate into every thread, he was good yesterday, you've already bombarded that thread with 200+ messages and are leading the 'Who replied' section with staggering ease. Feel like there comes a point where you take a breath and decide you don't need to post at such high volume about a single player?
My bad, the Onana comment was a joke based from what gets posted in his thread and the match day thread. Most of my comments have been supportive of him and defending him. I actually like his style of keeper, wish he was more aerially dominant, but I still have hope he can come good behind a more settled defence. In truth, I probably should stay out of there a bit more than I have done.
I said the same. People are just trying to see something that isn't there yet. Dismissing West Ham chances but believing ours were clear cut - because we scored.
I cannot believe some of the lot is crying about xG even after the team winning 3-0. Can you lot stop moaning and enjoy the victory.
He's got a decent Plan A with a fully fit team, it was apparent last year too. But how often does a PL manager have a fully fit team for a whole season? Almost never.
Part of the skill is how you manage your resources through the season with inevitable injuries and suspensions. ETH is always a couple of these away from a full on form collapse.
Part of the skill is how you manage your resources through the season with inevitable injuries and suspensions. ETH is always a couple of these away from a full on form collapse.
Yeah, it almost feels like the set pieces don't count so we're good. The fact is, the scoreline is unusual for how the game went, scoring 3 goals from 5 shots on target is unusual, scoring 3 goals from xG at the level of 0,9 is unusual AND not conceding a goal with xGA of 1,6 is unusual. It doesn't mean we're not making progress, but the fact we have players available now is far bigger reason for optimism than the actual football we play.
It’s so funny how people quote you and then insinuate that you said something different. I have never said this signifies a turnaround, I was responding to the comment that we shouldn’t be celebrating the wins because we used to only lose three of four games a season. My point is that as a fan I celwbrate every win no matter how bad or good the season is.
And actually you saying anyone is a fool for thinking this is a turnaround. Well it may or may not be but the younger players definitely showing promise so why not be pleased about the potential future as well as celebrating the win!!
Without a doubt. The flip side though is to ask, is it realistic that with the players coming back we suddenly completely outplay a very solid West Ham team?
Broadly speaking, that game is how we've played for years in my opinion - had periods under pressure, not created loads of clear chances but better players and quality has seen us through. That's a good starting point when you consider how poorly we've played this season at times. I do think we should recognise the pressing is much better under ETH than we've seen for all the other faults though, 1st and 3rd goal both come from this.
Bayern were just a "tackle/ block" away in winning the CL in 99.
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