I can only hope he decides to go like he did against Liverpool this season and just low block and frustrate them.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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I can only hope he decides to go like he did against Liverpool this season and just low block and frustrate them.
That's because Ole and Mou didn't press high. We have a clear structure, but it's difficult to implement with the players we have. Ten Hag is trying to play to our strengths by balancing attacking intent with pragmatism, and that may involve surrendering the ball to pounce on turnovers.
Ole and Mou parked the bus a lot more, and I didnt' think that was as progressive. Of course Ole had some better chance creation in his highs, but in his lows I think he was dire. And Ten Hag is currently in his low, he's just grinding out wins like any good manager would.
I think because that chaos suits us - Gary Neville was right in that regard, we tend to fare well against middling teams when it's a bit chaotic as they think they can go at us, and we have tremendous pace in behind to hurt them. Yes it's risky, but it's working. To answer your question its certainly not the end goal for Ten Hag's style. I think he's working with the tools he has right now because his defence is still at 50% and his DM is over the hill.
20 shots to the worst team in the league yesterday. If that's more resilient I'd hate to see what bad is.
Isolated stats are so bullshit. 20 shots that equated to what, 1.76 XG?
Hey that's not exactly great but it's not as bad as 20 shots would appear to seem. Especially when you consider our XG was almost 3.
They are not the worst team in the league.
Fully agree.
Ok, can you point out an Onana save or even a desperate tackle to clear the ball?
isn’t that the defence doing well? Limiting them to speculative shots over and over and over?
Wow.
Sorry this is rubbish. We don't have a clear structure. Our high press is overrated, we are nowhere now near the top stats now and most games I dont see it. If you are going to press high the whole team needs to push forward and have a proper team structure to reflect that. We have is disjointed groups of players doing a bit of a press. It is directly what leaves us massive exposed when it breaks down, with ETH playing the single pivot and the defensive midfielder overrun, especially if its Amrabat or Casimero. Chaos doesnt suit us, it means we are not evolving as a team and will not compete seriously.
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There are plenty of people who aren’t full convinced by Ten Hag that can elaborate as to why with a clear defined reasons without resorting to childishness, exceptional levels of misery or unrealistic expectations.
And then there are posters who’ll never give him a chance as long as….
The shot count thing is overblown but the real concern should be how much of the ball they had in our half.
Considering they had few shots on target and barely troubled Onana beyond a lucky deflection it's not exactly damning nor are Luton the worst team in the league.
Considering they had few shots on target and barely troubled Onana beyond a lucky deflection it's not exactly damning nor are Luton the worst team in the league.
I don't think we're balancing anything, we either attack with too many players or defend too deep, allowing opposition too many crosses/shots. I also don't think we're any better than under Ole, he was not trying to be too smart with pressing high up the pitch but his counter attacking football was just as, or maybe even more, effective.
One thing I don't get is we are a team that is not suited to pressing high. Our two most dangerous players (on a break) are absolutely terrible defensively (Bruno tries, he's just really weak and easy to go past; Rashford doesn't even try). So when you say "it's difficult to implement with the players we have", do you actually mean that we will be moving those two players in the near future?
The chaos that we create has not been proven effective yet, I think we're doing good job getting the results but eventually with a bit of bad luck we'll be losing points in games like vs Luton - because the actual "gap" is so small (we allow awful lot of chances, it is asking for trouble).
We had many occasions where we've pressed a team very high and been exposed at the back as a result. I'm not saying it's full proof but the plan is clear. The pressing triggers are very obvious to see - we are still up there in terms of teams with biggest turnovers in opponent's half.
Chaos is the interim marriage for us, like it or lump it. Until a structure in the club can be embedded around the manager, we won't see a structure on the pitch (and that's irrelevant of who the manager is).
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Quality of shots would worry me. If we conceded 20 big chances on the regular I’d be 100% Ten Hag out because clearly something isn’t working. But 20 shots for 1.75xg is 0.0875 per shot. Am I happy to average a less than 10% chance of scoring on an average shot against us? Yeah because it suggests sides are taking pot shots or half chances.
We also capitalized on their defender easy mistake, so it goes both ways. This is the reason the sheer "volume" of chances we give away is a big big problem, and will invite crazy results.
Garnacho and Hojlund suit the press and Rashford will need to work on it. I disagree re. Bruno, I think he covers a lot more ground and makes a lot of good defensive work (As the stats would also show).
I am looking at a proper DM and more fullback and CB coverage to enable us to build out better, and press better. Proactive defending and ball carrying from deep with quicker recovery at the back (just look at VDV at Spurs for example) can transform a team. I think a CB, 2 FBs and a DM changes us completely.
That is a weird way of looking at it. "20 shots for 1.75xg" means the team is just as likely to score 1 and 3 goals. Are you ok with taking that chance week in week out?
@VP89 this is also a response to your comment.
If this were true wouldn’t every team be doing it? Why work the ball into the box at all?
They’re not even shots on goal, it’s blocked shots that are going nowhere most of the time.
I understand XG relies on quality of chances based on past games etc but how many non scoring wide men or DMs who have 3/4 career goals taking shots form 22 yards out actually fly in?
There's a problem with your interpretation of XG. Having lots of pot shots with little XG aggregating to a larger figure flatters the perceived chance creation. That's also why XG rarely reflects the actual goals scored in a game.
Jaime Charrager said this himself about Liverpool when they faced United. XG is flawed for that reason, and also when it doesn't consider big moments like a two on one, but one player fails to make the right pass etc. That's seen as a big chance but not registered on XG (side point but we had quite a few of these yesterday and in previous games).
The point was he didn’t get who he wanted! Now we have a structure in place he will. Go watch another team then if you’re still crying even though we’re winning games. Pathetic.
No but criticising him when we’re winning games makes you a sad person rather then being happy we won. He can’t win really can he with halve of this fan base being the way they are. We could have had Guardiola or Klopp in charge and lose the game… in fact one only just beat Luton like us and the other only just got a draw against them.
Imagine Antony taking a shot everytime he gets the ball around the box. He will score 1/20 times, but 19/20 he'll just lose the ball. Most (top) teams are usually not happy to give the ball away freely. Bottom table teams however will fancy their chances, and we actually encourage them to do so, what will bite us back with "unlucky" deflection, an own goal, or just a 1/100 wonderstrike. This is why top teams don't allow opposition to create as many chances, City have been miles ahead of other teams in that regard in the last seasons because of how they defend as a team, not because they have two CBS that win 100% of the aerial duels. We on the other hand invite the pressure and this is poor tactics long term - especially if your team is known for being poor at defending corners.
No, because even taking 20 pot shots increases the chances scoring a goal, a deflection, badly defended corner, etc. If your opponent aggergates that xG, then it's a problem.
I just don't see why we can't hold to the ball for a few mins and we are so happy to lump it forward for someone to chase. We're making it difficult for ourselves with those tactics. We don't always need to get to their goal with 3 passes, just let them chase it for a while instead of lumping the ball forward.
Think it's about 50/50, which, to be fair, is a lot better than all of our recent managers. If you look at only his permanent signings from both seasons the hit rate probably does go up, some of the signings look worse in hindsight due to factors outside of the manager's control like injuries.
Martinez and Malacia were good last year but have struggled this year due to injuries. Casemiro and Eriksen were good last year but again, have struggled due to injuries and age. I still think all 4 were good additions. Evans has been quality when called upon. Hojlund has been very good.
Mount hasn't even had a chance to make an impact but I still don't see what we really plan to do with him, also signing him for the stupid fee we did let Chelsea off massively, especially given we could've signed him on a free this summer. I think Onana has generally been quite poor, especially given he almost single-handedly knocked us out of the CL. Antony's been an unmitigated disaster.
We don't always lump it forward. We play longer passes, not blind lumps, when the opposition have a suicidal press. Luton and Villa both did that to us and we picked them off. We should have scored a lot more in fact, as shown by our own XG. If a team wants to go ultra attack against us and muster an XG of 1.9, as long as we are carving them up as a consequence and outperforming it's fine (we had an XG of >3, and thats not counting the missed opportunities to play an obvious pass in playing players through).
Can we then stop crying about not getting one player that only a few people are naiive to think would solve our problems? We didn't get De Jong, Eric has to make it work with what we have.
It's funny people moan about Casemiro, and yet he was one of the main reasons behind last season success and he actually gave ETH a lot of breathing space.
Seriously, some people actually think we have a "relegation zone" squad and ETH is working wonders with them getting a 2-1 win against Luton. Again, we are winning the games we should be winning (with or without Martinez), we just make it look difficult.
Regardless of results, we have to realise we have a major issue with our defensive structure. I dont know why, it seems like we are the easiest team in the PL to play against in midfield. All it takes is for the opponent to put a CAM inbetween our CB and CM and a one two and we are open.
I have noticed that our defensive line is very deep which means the space is far greater than other teams. Ten Hag needs to work on the defensive structure before we become a top team.
I have noticed that our defensive line is very deep which means the space is far greater than other teams. Ten Hag needs to work on the defensive structure before we become a top team.
We went 2-0 up against Luton and then lost control of the game. I don't know what is wrong but I'm not the one being paid big money as Manchester United manager. Guy has to sort it out.
But if we sat back like that every week and conceded the same low quality of shots that leaves 1 flukey goal a game on the table then that XG would leave us with one of the best defensive records in the league?
I think part of the problem, actually his biggest problem, is that he too often got exactly who he wanted.
Unless we truly believe that a football team needs Frenkie De Jong to play well.
Conceding 20 shots is not a sustainable way to win games. Top clubs will go years without conceding as many shots in a single game.
playing like we did yesterday is 100% sustainable.
It is if your goal is to be in the upper half of the table and qualify for Europe. It's not if you aspire to be a top team and go toe to toe with the best. That's basically the brand of football that would be perfectly fine at Everton.
Conceding 20 shots and 60% possession to a relegation team on a regular basis will not get you anywhere near contention for trophies. This literally never happens to any of the top teams.
I see XG is never mentioned when it’s in our favour but
1.8 v 2.98 is sustainable and if we do play like that every game we will win a lot more games.
20 this, 20 that. The number is 4. 4 shots on target against us
1.8 xG against a relegation fodder is also terrible.
I didn‘t watch the highlights of those games, but it is hard to imagine anyone getting more 1v1 opportunities than we did yesterday.
What is their average home xG?
To be fair the goal was probably a massive chunk of their total yesterday being so close to goal. They had like 20+ shots so most of the rest is sheer volume.1.3
0.81 v Liverpool
0.51 v Arsenal (despite scoring 3 goals)
0.33 v City
Team has no composure. I'd put it partly down to coaching, but it's also down to some immaturity and some lack of quality of the players. I remember Garnacho dribbling in his own half and losing it, Maguire having a really bad pass that created a chance, and so on. Not all of that can be attributed to ETH.
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