Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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I thought we did have a system in this 1st season. A sort of system atleast where we were playing out from the back and were quick with it too.

While I agree the injuries this season have been insane and dont seem to end. Any semblance of a system has gone out the window. We look absolutely clueless with and without the ball. All we know is to counter and if were lucky, we score. our captain have 0 composure and cant retain possession to save his life. Our highest earner cant beat anyone 1v1.

Why we signed Mount for 60m is a mystery. The less said about Antony the better.
IMO we should look at replacements for the manager in the summer as well
 
Dalot - failed under Jose, Ole - agreed
Varane - failed under Ole - started well, mostly injured, hard to daw a conclusion
Maguire - failed under Ole - good for 1 season, bad for the second
Lindelof - failed under Jose and Ole - agreed
Casemiro - failed this season under ETH
Mainoo - hasn’t failed anyone
Forson - n/a
Bruno - Burnt out under Ole - better for 2.5 seasons under Ole than he is now
Garnacho - hasn’t failed anyone
Rashford - failed under LvG, Jose, and Ole - definitely didn't fail under LvG or Ole

Others include:
Martial - failed under LvG, Jose and Ole - definitely didn't fail for LvG or 1.5 seasons of Ole
Shaw - failed under Jose and Ole - got POTY under Ole
McT - failed under Jose and Ole
AWB - failed under Ole

So what magic wand could ETH wield to turn these guys into consistent title challengers?

You can't just say "failed" for every single player in every single season, that would be a relegation team.
 
Moyes, LVG, Mourinho and Ole have won a grand total of 2 x Europa Conference League trophies since leaving United. Combined.

Do United need to overhaul their entire footballing operation? Of course. But the last five Managers you’ve hired were either past their best, or not good enough to start with.

Every Manager failing so far is evidence that things need to change above the Manager. I don’t see a single person arguing against that. But it’s an obvious logical fallacy to assume that means there are no Managers anywhere on Earth that could do a better job. Managers come to Old Trafford every other week with weaker squads and create a myriad of chances. No matter how many injuries United have, their starting lineup and subs are far superior to Luton’s.

I never thought I’d miss the days of United fans having a (justified) sense of arrogance about their team. This thread is actually a little depressing.

Yep. I’ve grown tired of the debates at this point because the people that are staunchly defending ETH aren’t going change their minds, and those of us on the other side won’t do so either barring some miracle 180 change in direction, performances, tactics etc that’s never going to occur. And now that we have some injuries to starters again people are willing to just accept that we won’t be any good and it’s not his fault if performances going forward are crap because he doesn’t have our strongest XI fit b
 
Yep. I’ve grown tired of the debates at this point because the people that are staunchly defending ETH aren’t going change their minds, and those of us on the other side won’t do so either barring some miracle 180 change in direction, performances, tactics etc that’s never going to occur. And now that we have some injuries to starters again people are willing to just accept that we won’t be any good and it’s not his fault if performances going forward are crap because he doesn’t have our strongest XI fit b
It weird cos teams very rarely have a fully fit squad.

Liverpool have got terrible injuries and they're competing on four fronts. Arsenal's good run in form has coincided with the introduction of Kiwior - our 4th choice LB. Our strongest 11 is:

Martinelli / Jesus / Saka
Rice / Partey / Odegaard
Timber / Gabriel / Saliba / White
Raya​

How many games have they played together? Zero. How about we swap in Zinchenko for Timber. Zero. Havertz for Jesus? Zero. Jorginho for Partey? Still Zero.

If you can only avoid being overrun when you have a clean bill of health - you a pretty limited Manager.
 
I understand that we have had a lot of injuries this season but any top team these days have plug and play systems.

Look at the players Liverpool missed yesterday but those who came in didn't have to change much because there is a system of play.

This guy has failed to create that after almost 2 seasons, 4 transfer windows and over £400 million spent. That's the failure, it doesn't matter if a good recruitment setup brings in the right profile of players, Ten hag is incapable of creating a system.

And for that reason he's gotta go. Don't waste another 2 years on this
 
It really is a bad reflection on Ten Hag that at this late stage of the season the same problems and issues are still unreloved.

The very first game of the season against Wolves we conceded a record 23 shots on goal and countless times turned the ball over in attack leading to their midfield charging through the middle of the pitch against our defence.

The same exact problem has been going on for the entire season, along with our terrible passing and lack of control of the game.
 
It weird cos teams very rarely have a fully fit squad.

Liverpool have got terrible injuries and they're competing on four fronts. Arsenal's good run in form has coincided with the introduction of Kiwior - our 4th choice LB. Our strongest 11 is:

Martinelli / Jesus / Saka
Rice / Partey / Odegaard
Timber / Gabriel / Saliba / White
Raya​

How many games have they played together? Zero. How about we swap in Zinchenko for Timber. Zero. Havertz for Jesus? Zero. Jorginho for Partey? Still Zero.

If you can only avoid being overrun when you have a clean bill of health - you a pretty limited Manager.

Exactly this! Injuries are just poor excuses. You don't need to be constantly at full strength to have a game plan or a structure. The fact that it all goes out the window because a central defender is injured is the sign of a shite manager. Teams with limited resources have set up teams a hell of a lot better than ETH has
 
Even if you are in the "keep", "sack" or "not sure" camp, it is probably not going to surprise you if he is done after this season.
Takeovers in football often bring big changes, and for them to have a clean slate to work from - starting with the manager is not all that strange.
While you can argue that their recent spells were even more terrible, Steve Bruce and Tuchel both got the sack from new ownership.

The most discussed topics during his tenure has been his discipline (although he seems to have selected a few to treat more harshly), transfers and playing style. The United players have proven to be good at evoking unrest and pushing for manager exits. At one point one has to start thinking that the managers may not all be so terrible at their jobs and hold all the blame.

For transfers, Antony has so far not proven his value. The price tag skyrocketed as United needed quick reinforcements nearing deadline day. We should also remember that Martinez was already bought (one can argue that it's been a quality signing). Ajax did not need to sell, and Antony's record domestically and in CL had been very good. The club has not seemed like a good collective for long spells, and perhaps he could have proven himself more in a better environment. That being said, along with the rest of the players, the basics of the game seem to be hard at the moment. Casemiro has not been terrible, but has probably peaked some time ago and is not the player that was actually wanted, so this one also looked a bit random. Casemiro has (had?) a good reputation and was for years a central piece in a well oiled machinery. He just doesn't have the work rate (or right cover in midfield) needed. Mount has a lot of football left in him, but after his star rose quickly in Chelsea, he was brought to United on a bit of a wane.

EtH quickly made his intentions clear as to who he wanted out. There were some spanners in the works, and seeing the injury situation that might have been for the best. Players like Maguire and McTominay have proven to be too one-dimensional, and their wages are too high to be squad/backup players. Not that they would really be happy with that long-term. Martial should be set for release. Donny should, for his own sake, move far away.

With the entrance of Berrada, we are likely to see a more nuanced wage structure based on performances. Something tells me that some of these players are not likely to relish the idea. A squad rebuild will take time, as offloading the players without covering wages is less likely now. But it is a process that should be began sooner than later.
 
Not one of the managers we've sacked so far has done anything of note after leaving us, apart from Mourinho maybe but that was only after he failed miserably at Spurs.
LVG shouldn’t be counted for this as he’s international manager. Moyes won the conference thing with West Ham and doing an alright job with them. Solskjær hasn’t got back into management since leaving us. Mourinho as you said did alright at Roma. So I’d say they’ve all been good at the very most since leaving us… it’s hard to judge them on winning things at other clubs when the expectations will be lower and they won’t have the money we have.
 
It weird cos teams very rarely have a fully fit squad.

Liverpool have got terrible injuries and they're competing on four fronts. Arsenal's good run in form has coincided with the introduction of Kiwior - our 4th choice LB. Our strongest 11 is:

Martinelli / Jesus / Saka
Rice / Partey / Odegaard
Timber / Gabriel / Saliba / White
Raya​

How many games have they played together? Zero. How about we swap in Zinchenko for Timber. Zero. Havertz for Jesus? Zero. Jorginho for Partey? Still Zero.

If you can only avoid being overrun when you have a clean bill of health - you a pretty limited Manager.

Yep this was all litigated in another thread that was making the case for how bad our injuries have been. I’ve said that missing Martinez and our LB’s for much of the year has sucked, but none of that really explains the pure structural issues we have.
 
Maybe he will, although Ashworth may not be in post for a year anyway. Ratcliffe doesn't seem to me like a man who will delay on making key decisions. My opinion is the team will need to show more on the pitch to get backing from him than it's showing now. If the executive appointments are exciting, there'll be top managers who would want the job.

The resources I refer to is the investment in the squad he's had. Whatever the issues with the footballing structure of the club, he can't say he hasn't been backed to bring in his own players.

But there is probably only been 3 players Antony, Malacia and Martinez that we could say were players he wanted along with DeJong.

The rest just look like opportunistic things he has agreed to.

There we’re stories that when told he could have Casemiro or no one for Dm he was supposedly also told it wouldn’t affect our ability to buy a striker only for it then to affect our ability to buy a striker. Hence we had to get Weg in on a loan as we had no money for anything else.

So I don’t think it’s as clear as he has been given everything he wanted.

I also doubt he wanted to pay 90 mil for Antony or 60mil for mount.But given all the fecking around and lack of options we ended up getting done over.

We know the club has been terrible at doing buisness ever since Gil left. Hopefully that is going to change and we will move in a direction where managers are actually given the tools to succeed here.

Anyway I’ve seen enough to give him another year anyway. Hopefully he can get rid of a few more high profile wasters so we can actually start to become a proper football team.
 
It weird cos teams very rarely have a fully fit squad.

Liverpool have got terrible injuries and they're competing on four fronts. Arsenal's good run in form has coincided with the introduction of Kiwior - our 4th choice LB. Our strongest 11 is:

Martinelli / Jesus / Saka
Rice / Partey / Odegaard
Timber / Gabriel / Saliba / White
Raya​

How many games have they played together? Zero. How about we swap in Zinchenko for Timber. Zero. Havertz for Jesus? Zero. Jorginho for Partey? Still Zero.

If you can only avoid being overrun when you have a clean bill of health - you a pretty limited Manager.
Difference being you’re had 4 years+ of the same manager to cultivate a squad in his image so when you do lose Partey. You’ve got someone like Havertz and just move Rice.

It’s disingenuous to suggest Arsenal have had it remotely bad as us.

Liverpool have literally only in the last week had terrible injuries. Up until that point the only clear first teamer with significant absence was Robertson.

Timber in your best XI is also based on less than 2 games of competitive football with Arsenal? Really?
 
Crazy stat on sky just now.

Klopp has faced 20+ shots just 2 times in 322 games.
Ten Hag 12 in 64!
Arteta 7 in 161
Pep 4 in 292.

People are defending the indefensible at this point.
 
Crazy stat on sky just now.

Klopp has faced 20+ shots just 2 times in 322 games.
Ten Hag 12 in 64!
Arteta 7 in 161
Pep 4 in 292.
It only means they were never clever enough to allow opposition to do that, knowing it is all low quality shots.
 
It only means they were never clever enough to allow opposition to do that, knowing it is all low quality shots.
Low quality shots create turnovers in possession which can then in turn be used to create from an offensive transition (counter) it’s what we did against Luton.
 
How many more managers will we have before somebody cottons onto the common theme on the last 10 years?
I really hope INEOS have the backbone to support the manager and shake up or ship out our squad of snowflakes.

Do you think the squad we have now is the same one we had 10 years ago or something?
 
Do you think the squad we have now is the same one we had 10 years ago or something?
Do you think we have brought in players over the past 10 years that are of the required quality?

I am not tied to ETH but quite clearly the new manager needs serious backing and the squad needs a real revamp.

Our top players Shaw Rashord Bruno
Maguire are players who have not done it at the top level or are past it if they have Varane, Casemiro

Most of the players you would keep or build around are either kids (Mainoo Garnacho, or have injury issues Martinez)
 
Do you think the squad we have now is the same one we had 10 years ago or something?
Obviously not, but they are not all ETH’s either.
Somehow when a manager is on thin ice it always comes back to downing tools, players not respecting/responding to the manager, players questioning tactics/training etc.
It seems to be an engrained culture at the club, like the moment SAF left the building for the last time they players all breathed out and it infects every fecker we sign.
Something else needs to change because we’ve changed the manager time and time again and we always end up back here.
 
Low quality shots create turnovers in possession which can then in turn be used to create from an offensive transition (counter) it’s what we did against Luton.
Genius, innovative, bold.
 
Moyes, Mourinho, LVG, Carrick, McKenna, Solskjaer, Rangnick and ETH can’t all be ‘shit managers’ and indeed have proven so at other clubs.
To be fair, which one of the above would you choose as manager for Real Madrid right now, for example. Nobody. I think they are all a bit shit. Past their time or not good enough when we appointed them.
 
They failed given the context and expectations of being key players in the Man Utd team.

i think that's quite ridiculous. most of those players have finished 2nd and 3rd twice each. you don't achieve that if every season is a "failure", man united or not. put the individual good/best performers from those seasons into a better team and they'd be title contenders.

there's been undoubted individual and collective failure seasons, from the collective (this one + ole/ralf + jose's 3rd) and from individual players (too many to count, but anything martial did after 2020 is a good place to start from). if it was all failure all the time for all players, it would be worse than the moyes or ralf seasons, every single time.
 
How many more managers will we have before somebody cottons onto the common theme on the last 10 years?
I really hope INEOS have the backbone to support the manager and shake up or ship out our squad of snowflakes.

This. I know people think what EtH is doing right now means something. But it doesn’t mean anything more than him batting a very unbalanced team with players who most of them will not be around for long.

Arteta was a laughing stock on here. Only difference was he had a proper setup behind him and they knew they would get there. No way were they going to sack him, they had a plan.

Patience is the key.
 
It is unprecedented the amount of teams that have played us this season and have matter of factly stated how they went about dismantling us, and it is said with such clarity that there is no doubt whatsoever we've been turned over by superior tactics, planning and execution, often with players far, far inferior and less regarded than our own.

Post-game it should always be a strong topic of conversation; the word embarrassing has been misused on the Internet for as long as I can remember, but when supposed inferior coaches and players are able to state with such certitude how they have found themselves winning against you, it's a disgrace and an embarrassment.

Ole got absolutely pilloried for the final run that led to his sacking, with the likes of Troy Deeney declaring, in this same great detail, how and why they beat us, yet we're seeing it so often now, it barely warrants discussion amongst the fanbase.

It's one thing to lose games once in a while, it's a wholly different thing when teams play against you with conviction and certainty of purpose because they feel they have you sussed and have a collective, tactical goal to hammer home. Lesser teams than yourself should never have such overwhelming collective confidence in making you crack, or in outright out-strategising you. Sure, they may win on the crest of a wave and in-game flow, but their first priority should be staying in the game and the second, avoiding a demoralising tonking. Look at how teams approach those in the top 4 and even the collective shock they have when they get anything out of those games and contrast it to us. Manchester United are viewed as a team they can play and have genuine hope against, and with how often our dire midfield set up is strolled through compared to other sides, you can see where that well of belief and conviction or sense of purpose teams have when they play us comes from.

I don't even wish to cite the halcyon days of Fergie, where teams absolutely feared a pasting from us, rather, you can look to even LVG, Mourinho and even Ole (before the wheels came off) and see that standards and expectations are rock bottom now.

Under LVG, for as boring and staid as the football could have been called, teams getting the ball of us or having any concerted period of time with it was utterly exasperating and demoralising for them. He might have bored our fans to death, but he also absolutely crushed the spirit of the opposition, particularly fodder.

Mourinho and his rubbish, bruiser boy football made games about attrition and hardship, putting opposing teams through the grinder (oo err); it took genuine quality and superiority to beat us then.

Ole's teams were basic but without a smirk, one of the best counter-attacking teams in Europe, let alone the league. You could know exactly what we set out to do in Ole's first two seasons and still not be able to stop it. We carried a clear and apparent threat and there was little to be done to stop it.

Fast forward to now? We aren't good at anything. The vaunted pressing data that stops only at the initial press but omits the fallout and yawning chasms in midfield it causes counts for nothing - if your biggest so-called strength is an inlet to your biggest weaknesses, it is categorically not a strength. We cannot defend set pieces; we are dire at attacking set pieces; we do not control games and we do not have an overabundance of supplying the frontline, further, we rely on individual brilliance at a higher rate than Ole did, something Ole was absolutely dragged through the coals for.

Not one of the managers post-Fergie has been good enough or complete, but this is par with Moyes for zero discernible strengths and an abundance of weaknesses.

Ten Hag was quite infamous for vastly overplaying his first xi at Ajax, so much so it was the biggest warning Ajax supporters gave us. What seems to have happened here is that in the absence of a strongest xi, the manager is lost at sea - if everything is not functioning to the wire with optimum efficiency, he doesn't know what to do and cannot use viable workarounds, which sees us doggedly sticking to 'the plan' because without it, at it's optimal best, there's nothing. It's such a letdown.

The conceptualisation of the "modern manager" is someone who is eclectic with contingencies for most things and a clever counter plan prepared in advance should the initial one be breached - you certainly should not hear of opposing players and managers stating how easy it was to do their thing against them. The biggest surprise and letdown of ten Hag's tenure for me is that he has been the antithesis of modernisation, entrenched and unadaptible as he is. By now, there is only Moyes who it might be argue has been more outcoached than ten Hag. Never in my life did I think I'd ever say that about an appointment I was so eager for.

It's like Black Mirror episode by now. You don't need to look beyond the pitch to see this is not and will not be the guy.
Missed this earlier. Spot on.
 
Obviously not, but they are not all ETH’s either.

For clarification, is the implication above that a manager can/should only be judged when every member of the first team squad is one of “theirs”?

Somehow when a manager is on thin ice it always comes back to downing tools, players not respecting/responding to the manager, players questioning tactics/training etc.
It seems to be an engrained culture at the club, like the moment SAF left the building for the last time they players all breathed out and it infects every fecker we sign.
Something else needs to change because we’ve changed the manager time and time again and we always end up back here.

This makes no sense - as the players that were here when Ferguson retired are largely - if not allgone. The current squad is by all intents and purposes Ten Hag’s. It’s not even that similar to Ole’s.

lastly, this was you after we beat Villa:

Bald is best mother feckers! Stick with Erik, he will see is right!

this was you after we beat West Ham:

Two decent wins, good performances and plenty of goals. Who’d have thought missing our best players would have impacted our performances and it might not be the manager? Football, bloody hell. :wenger:

so when we bag wins = Ten Hag! Ten Hag!

when we lose = it’s the players! (and attacking ghosts from 10 years ago that aren’t even here any more)

is it Oochie Wally Wally or is it One Mic? :confused:
 
I doubt Gary knows anything, but it wouldnt be surprising would it.
 
Crazy stat on sky just now.

Klopp has faced 20+ shots just 2 times in 322 games.
Ten Hag 12 in 64!
Arteta 7 in 161
Pep 4 in 292.

People are defending the indefensible at this point.
Liverpool's squad was far shitter when Klopp took over, too.
 
To be fair, which one of the above would you choose as manager for Real Madrid right now, for example. Nobody. I think they are all a bit shit. Past their time or not good enough when we appointed them.

We have appointed absolutely terribly. Tbf, Jose and ETH looked on paper like they could be good appointments. The rest I wouldn't have touched.
 
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