There were 2 instances of the said player, one was thanks to Maguire feck up, the other one was not.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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They went on to reach the SF in 2000 and won it in 2001. Coming this close in the final of 99 was indicative of "CL final" being Bayern's level at that time.
Similarly the fact how the chances were distributed against West Ham is indicative of the two clubs roughly being on a similar level right now. It's good to win these matches, but it's not good enough in the long run for where United have to be. Nonetheless I think it's fair to acknowledge a slight upward turn in performances lately. Results don't feel sustainable (yet), but growing confidence can enable improving performances, so let's see where this leads us.
Lets define elite as being PL/CL wuality , not world class not individually the best player for their country but elite professional footballers who can make a difference where a bad game is 5/10 and most games are 6 or 7/10 with at least 1/4 of the season 8/10.
A lot of squads in world football have elite squads of 23/25 players, Liverpool, Bayern, Madrid, City, Arsenal, PSG all have 2 options for each position and they all have emerging young players too, we currently rely on our young emerging players.
United have Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro, Bruno, Varane and Rashford who are all elite but they are not all having an elite season like most did last year.
Garanaucho, Hojlund and Mainoo are all emerging Elite talents but do not have the maturity yet to be considered consistent but they will. Dalot could also be considered Elite as could AWB as an elite specialist defender. United need more and in the age bracket of 22-25.
Totally agree, the problem will be it will be too late by the time the structure has improved as he’ll be long gone!
If he pulls off FA cup win and top4, he won't be long gone. He'll deservedly get a 3rd season.
That was the bare minimum at the start of the season though.
I doubt that.
I said that in my opinion people shouldn't be "ecstatic" after two wins (against mid-table teams as well) and you started talking about me suggesting that "all of OT must be wrong" so I'd lay off who's insinuating what. Nowhere did I say fans should not celebrate a win, but that yesterday needs to be seen for what it is. A decent performance against an average PL side. No more, no less. Take the positives and move on.
I think my point was pretty clear from my first comment - that is, two wins don't mean a great deal at this stage given the disaster of a season so far. Nobody should be pointing to a single or a handful of games as representative of anything.
We played relatively well yesterday, but not as well as some on here seem to think. We didn't create that many chances, nor did we look that good at times at the back. Better sides will take their chances against us.
And it's fantastic to see young players doing well but they won't carry us anywhere significant on their own. Too much pressure isn't going to help anyone. Garnacho and Mainoo look the real deal, but so have others.
The way I look at our squad any average manager should be finishing 6th at the very least.
I’m EtH out but it doesn’t mean I think he’s a dreadful manager. If we had a fully fit squad from the start of the season, I still think we’d be strong favourites to finish 4th even with EtH as our manager.
The reason why I want him out is because I think he’s pretty much the same as Ole, decent enough to keep us in a respectable place but not good enough for us to challenge.
His tactical setup and style of play just look clearly inferior to the teams that were looking to get on their level. He can go on a good run of seven games but we’ll still get shown up when it comes down to it in the tougher moments just as it did with Ole.
I’m EtH out but it doesn’t mean I think he’s a dreadful manager. If we had a fully fit squad from the start of the season, I still think we’d be strong favourites to finish 4th even with EtH as our manager.
The reason why I want him out is because I think he’s pretty much the same as Ole, decent enough to keep us in a respectable place but not good enough for us to challenge.
His tactical setup and style of play just look clearly inferior to the teams that were looking to get on their level. He can go on a good run of seven games but we’ll still get shown up when it comes down to it in the tougher moments just as it did with Ole.
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Is the goal to have a manager who can manage an injury crisis with an understrength squad or to have proper squad depth so the team can cope with injuries to first team players?
No manager needs a fully fit first team but they do need squad depth which we don't have. We have a first XI and not much beyond that. Even then some of our first team are very young and others are on their way out. Not to absolve ETH completely but this our squad is not where it needs to be.
Out of those on our bench yesterday how many many are fighting for a first team spot or could be trusted to come on and change the game?
It is entirely fair. You are either up to the job or not, and its hard. We dont need to win every match but at least play some decent football. We have the highest wage bill in the league, and ETH has spent £400m. Should that not give us a pretent decent squad, given starting point and youth players coming through? Or does he need another £400m and two more windows, but he cannot be trusted when so much of the money has been wasted. Las season he kept playing Weghorst, the technically worse player to wear a United shirt, and not playing Elanga, who has shown he can score and assist in the PL. This season he keep playing Antony who is beyond awful, both cases its like playing 10 men. THere are other options.
Ange has suffered injuries, lost Kane from start and then Son for a period, yet has Spurs playing good football and a clear style. Sounds like you are absolving ETH.
Elanga showed feck all for us (and isn't a CF or a number 10) and was rightly sold, just like Andreas looked decent at Fulham, Garner is doing well at Everton and McT would look a lot better at a mid-table club. He was quite inconsistent as far as I remember and I don't recall a huge outcry to get Elanga into the team.
I don't think ETH should be given any money at all. He's not supposed to be in charge of recruitment. Hopefully, that is sorted by the Summer, whoever the manager is for next season.
I'm not saying he's not made mistakes but the hand he's been dealt this year with long-term injuries to an already understrength squad is played down quite a bit.
As for Ange we'll see where he finishes in May and how he does in his second season.
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I agree with this 100%. The pressing part is interesting, I don't think we're particularly good at this but it did work yesterday on two occasions.
Seriously you are going to bring up Spurs now? Did they not just draw against fecking Everton?
They have not suffered anything like the injury crisis we did. And it is not over yet.
Elanga
The delusion is strong. Contenders for top four: Cheaty, Pool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Tottenham, Chelsea, Brighton and Villa. The PL is getting stronger every year.
Top four is no longer a must for managers of top teams : Klopp didn‘t manage it last season.
The delusion is strong. We have one striker.
Elanga has shown in a terrible team he can score in assist in the premier league, in fact more than Rashford and . Seriously, if you are laughing at Elanga what were you doing when Weghorst was stinking the place out wether up front or even more incredibly in midfield. Or Antony this season? What is your point?Seriously you are going to bring up Spurs now? Did they not just draw against fecking Everton?
They have not suffered anything like the injury crisis we did. And it is not over yet.
Elanga
The lengths that some muppets go to defend ETH. I am pointing out that the best managers make do and improve what they have got. They don't need 2 years, £400m and an empty treatment room. Sure Spurs drew with Everton, but I Spurs again played well and should have scored more, a recurrent theme even when they lose or draw. They have played much better football this season than us, he's spent a fraction of what we have, and lost their best player. Thats a manager that can make a difference early on. Sure he may not win a trophy, but its clear what he wants. They paid with a bravery against City in the cup that I would love to see from United, playing out from the back and going toe to toe with the best team of the country.Seriously you are going to bring up Spurs now? Did they not just draw against fecking Everton?
They have not suffered anything like the injury crisis we did. And it is not over yet.
Elanga
Like the fact that you laungh at Elanga. He has more goals and assists this season than Antony and Hojlund combined. So £155m worth of talent vs a player we sold for £15m. To be clear, as you seem slow on the uptake, I am not saying he was the answer, but he was more likely to score for us than Weghorst (0 Pl goals, one assist).
No wonder the club is in such mess when expectations are so low and we want to excuse continued underperformance.
I believe that mentioning statistics is perfectly acceptable, provided that they are utilized to construct more comprehensive arguments and not to promote agendas.
There's nothing wrong with saying that we found ourselves 2-0 up in the 50th minute with an 0.19xG. After all, we are a team that finds it hard to score goals, more so against deep and compact defences. And we didn't exactly pin WHU down yesterday. Two goals came from high turnovers, which allowed us to produce the transitional attacks that suit us the most. The other one was a huge deflection. In this sense, we didn't become any wiser. It was a game in which we managed, for a change, to make the most of our press. The attempt to play a more controlled game failed more or less, since it didn't prevent WHU from accumulating an xG close to what PL sides average against us this season. Many factors may have contributed to this, like Mainoo having a bad game, Bruno showing up only in the second half and one among our back line having a couple of brain farts. Add the entire frontline's proclivity to always be direct and look for transitional moments. All of these things pertain to the sad reality we have been witnessing throughout the season. United are a team that aren't able to play the game in the opponent's half while, at the same time, leak at the back when the game is played in our half of the pitch.
That didn't change in the last two games. There's been some tinkering with Bruno's role and with Hojlund looking to occupy the right half-space when we build from that flank, but these things will take time to provide us with anything concrete. What has changed is that we were able to control "the narrative". Not so much by affecting the game (although we are trying to), but, yes, because we had the rub of the green. Two early goals at the Molineux put us in the driver's seat, and scoring right after their penalty kept us there until the known issues hurt us. Yesterday, we were out of sight at the start of the second half by doing very little with the ball. It's easier to overlook these things when you're winning.
But luck and momentum are a big part of the game, and we had very little of both this season. This is the one thing the people who suddenly fell in love with stats this week refuse to acknowledge. Because there have been games in which we pressed well, we created chances, and we were on top for a good portion of the 90 minutes, but failed to capitalize in the end. The lengthy injury list hasn't allowed us to build any sort of momentum, either. Is it such a mystery that we scored 3 or more goals in our last 3 games when Hojlund is looking to be getting into his stride and Garnacho seems to have found a good vein of form?
This doesn't take away the importance of the structural issues in our game. But, my God, we can't catch a break this season. It's OK to applaud what Emery and Ange are doing at their respective clubs, but they've also been riding the crest of the wave all season. Spurs and AV are over-performing in every single metric imaginable. Son goes away for the Asian Cup and freaking Richarlison suddenly is in the form of his life, scoring world-class goals. Sometimes that's what you need to either turn the tide or keep the momentum.
I think if we get CL football and nothing else he'll get another season. It'll have to be a strong finish to the season to do that and back to back CL is a marker of consistency (that's why Ole got more time in my opinion even when we kept losing big knock out games).
We rank really high in a random stat about how much teams struggle to hit their passing accuracy average (Spurs 1st, Arsenal 2nd and we are 3rd but basically the same as Arsenal) but we aren't that high for the key PPDA and pressing stats which are dominated by Pool, Chelsea and Spurs this season.
If we played like Spurs did against Everton you would have a meltdown.
Elanga got his chances here and failed. Good player for Forrest, Leeds and the likes.
Ten Hag replaced him with Hojlund which is the right move. Much higher potential.
That's not the point. Every game will have this near moments which will take us to this "what if" moments . Sadly, the game doesn't work like that. Look I get the point but if you are using that to criticise then use it when we also had the near moments against others. Fair ?
SJR is apparently gagging to hire the guy the chavs fired.
You can repeat the same line as many times as you want mate. Doesn’t make you right.
We’re Manchester United and we’ve spent a lot of money on his transfers. This season has been fecking appalling. With us out of pretty much every trophy before Christmas and the football being abysmal.
I’ve been pretty pro ten hag and I feel like he’s been dealt some shit hands so far, but to say top 4 and a trophy is acceptable is some revisionist bullshit given what we’ve seen.
I’m not gonna begrudge anyone celebrating scraping top 4 (which is unlikely) and grabbing a trophy. Trophies are what it’s all about after all. But it’s not delusional In the slightest to call out the performance of ten hag this season.
I'm not disagreeing that our squad depth can be better, but a good manager knows how to change his tactics, lineup and strategy to fit the team that he has. ETH can't put all his eggs into injury-free basket and that's it. It's not all about having 2 world class talents in every position to cover for injuries, as only a couple of clubs in the world have the money and status to do this while keeping everyone happy. He has already pissed quite a few players off with his man-management style.
To have lost the number of games we have this season is not really acceptable regardless of reason, and it doesn't help that he keeps buying players who are arguably worse than those he inherited so the squad depth remains terrible.
At the end of the day though, I guess we can agree that both squad depth and manager skills should improve.
I agree mate. I know most on here share a deep frustration with the Glazers and what they have done to the club.
This is so right. If we wait for the perfect alignment of the stars we wont ever challenge. £400m spent, massive wage bill, lots of youth coming through, and ETH still to beat a top 6 team away. Maybe Villa? Who knows.
If we're backing a manager with £400 million in two years and then struggling to finish above Brighton and Villa then that's a problem.
Clearly it get's harder every year, but with what's been invested in transfers and wages, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect obvious and sustained progress on the pitch. Villa and Spurs highlight that in a short space of time the right manager doesn't have to spend the money we have, nor need years in the job to show some progress.
If Klopp spent the money Ten Hag had and Liverpool had turned in performances like we have 90% of the season fans on here would be laughing their backs off.
Dont understand your point about Spurs. Still a limited team but every match I have seen they look good on the ball. I mentioned the City cup game, I have yet to see a single match under TH where we were capable or brave enough to play like that.
Hojlund didnt replace Elanga, Elanga mainly played on the right, look at his heat maps for Forest. ETH continually favoured Antony over Elanga. I'm not that fussed about selling Elanga but he was rated by Rangnick (who ETH refused to speak to) and then ETH wasted £82m on Antony. I would be much happier to have Elanga playing for us now than Elanga. And with £70m in the bank and lower wage bill we could pay another forward or Casimero replacement.
While we haven‘t had a game where we dominated from start to finish, we were playing brave and nullified ….. Spurs at the start of the season. Still the best half if football we have played this season if you disregard that we did not score.
THis is getting desperate now. 45 minutes at the start of the season after £400m. Really no idea what you are saying at this point. 'best half we have played'.. 'if you disregard that we did not score'. Say it all.
XG is not a statistic. Goals scored is a statistic.
The consensus is that we overperformed last season.
This season we have a massive injury crisis.
The delusion is strong.
If we somehow get top four this season, it‘s a fecking miracle. We will have overperformed again.
We have one striker. I‘m gonna keep saying it cause it‘s fecking delusional you‘d think we can compete with an injury riddled incomplete squad.
It's really not. The fact that teams like Villa and Brighton are even remotely capable of challenging is because of how weak the top teams are outside of City, Liverpool and Arsenal. It's a weak league with a couple of really good teams.
Huh? By definition, xG is a statistic. Of course, like all other statistics, it's not the 'end all be all' and shouldn't be treated as such.
How is it a statistic? What is it measuring? Imaginary goals?
It's a probabilistic statistic measuring how many goals you would have expected to score given the quality of the chances created. For instance, if your team had 10 shots that each had an xG of 0.2 (indicating a 20% probability of scoring from each one), you would end up with an xG of 2.0. That's all it is - a simple 'expected value' statistic.
"Probable events" does not constitute a statistic in my opinion. You're talking about something that didn't happen. And who decides on the quality of each chance? Show the same chance to 10 different people and they're not all going to agree on the quality of it.
It is indeed, but not at this end.
Injuries have obviously had an impact, but if you think that's the whole story then I can't help you. If you can tell me what exactly we've seen this season from the manager that indicates he's ever going to get us challenging for a title then fair play.
He needs more than a couple of wins against mid-table fodder to gloss over the dreadful recruitment and generally poor decision making we've had for 90% of the season.
There’s been feck all in terms of progression. We were pretty shite at the back end of last season too and we had barely any injuries in comparison.
I haven’t said I expected us to compete. But the man has led us to horrific PL and CL campaigns in which the performances have been stale and his tactics questionable. That’s where the criticism stems from.
This idea that he’s got an incomplete squad is a bit redundant when he’s brought in several duds himself for money which could’ve been divided into more PL effective players.
There’s an expectation for a manager to come in and implement a style and build a squad. He hasn’t done that.
Statistics is literally the analysis of events governed by probability!
I did not say it was a foolproof metric - like I mentioned earlier, it should not be treated as the holy grail. But by definition, it is a statistic.
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