Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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The result you maybe can't judge him on but you can ask have we in any way, having watched today, changed from the football under Ole? Against City I mean.

I think the answer is an obvious no. We play exactly the same way but with even less quality.
He's the manager, he's supposed to be.
 
Only one way utd are going and thats backwards.


Haven't progressed since League Cup win last year.

See no improvement at all in football being played.

How many fans here can turn around and say I can see what Ten Hag is trying to do with this team/squad football wise?

Too many. That's the scary part for our long term future.
 
They have. But on a personal level they've all been varying levels of terrible.

That's just overly reactionary really. Moyes was terrible from start to finish, but the rest have all had highs and accomplishments, along with lows too. Generally they've all failed when trying to take the next step from top 4 stability to actually challenging for the league.
 
He's won just 1 game vs top half teams away during his entire tenure and that was the Villa game.

Anyone that thinks we're going anywhere that even closely resembles the right direction under this guy is smoking elite crack.
 
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It’s become delusional at this point, I understand he can’t come out and say “well we are shit”, but the whole progress thing is also madness, progressing to what? We play the exact same way we did with Ole and it’s criminal.

I would have happily sacrificed last season to implement his style he had at Ajax and just said “whoever can’t play it can leave”.


I was a big critic of Ole, but this is far, far worse than anything we saw under him and it's been like that throughout the whole season, even towards the end of last season after the Carabao Cup win. I can genuinely only think of 2 decent performances in the last 35 or so games.

I have never enjoyed watching football less than at this moment and I somehow managed to survive/endure the LVG era. At least then it was boring, but it was clear we were making progress towards a certain style of football. As far as I remember, we were pretty good against the big teams too.
 
He's the manager, he's supposed to be.

Yeah but we're playing a better team. Even if every one of his signings had worked out, we had no injuries, we could still lose to City. That's what I mean by maybe not judging him on the result.

The performance, how we go about it. Different thing all together. We haven't progressed one bit.

I don't think Shaw and Martinez makeuch of a difference today either. It's that front four that needs sorting.
 
That's just overly reactionary really. Moyes was terrible from start to finish, but the rest have all had highs and accomplishments, along with lows too. Generally they've all failed when trying to take the next step from top 4 stability to actually challenging for the league.

"Varying levels of terrible" is pretty apt considering they were all sacked after reaching rock bottom. Maybe except LvG who literally just won the FA Cup. Barring Moyes, they all had decent spells but nothing more than that.
 
He's won just 1 game vs top half teams during his entire tenure and that was the Villa game.

Anyone that thinks we're going anywhere that even closely resembles the right direction under this guy is smoking elite crack.

Can't agree more, what he prepared for almost 2 years in charge is invisible and non-existent.
 
We've been pretty much diabolical since the cup final last year so it's not just down to the latest injuries.

A year of complete dross with the odd sprinkle of hope that is quickly squashed as soon as this squad gets the opportunity to let the fans down.

And that's down to the manager.
 
Yeah but we're playing a better team. Even if every one of his signings had worked out, we had no injuries, we could still lose to City. That's what I mean by maybe not judging him on the result.

The performance, how we go about it. Different thing all together. We haven't progressed one bit.

I don't think Shaw and Martinez makeuch of a difference today either. It's that front four that needs sorting.
So what? It's a derby, and every single game from now to the end is a must win or the very least, no loss allowed. It's not an excuse.

The performances and results are often connected, and he is one common denominator.

It doesn't matter who he puts out, we will still be shit against most sides.
 
Which top clubs are clamouring for Graham fecking Potter?

Prior to going to Chelsea, I'm pretty sure he had a couple of teams looking at him, and rightly so. He had Brighton outplaying a lot of top clubs in the EPL, and its for that reason De Zerbi is linked with some top clubs now.

Having said that, does it matter if top clubs are "clamouring" for a manager? That argument means absolutely nothing, just as it does when top clubs are clamouring over players. We've had top class managers who have come to United and pretty much done feck all.
 
Just listened to his post match interview and it's utter delusion. He's talking about the Garnacho/Ederson challenge and Rashford/Walker moments as if we were cutting City open and on another day we'd go two up.

The reality is, we scored a screamer and only had a few half openings all match.
 
He's won just 1 game vs top half teams during his entire tenure and that was the Villa game.

Anyone that thinks we're going anywhere that even closely resembles the right direction under this guy is smoking elite crack.

Assuming that’s just away from home? We’ve beaten everyone except Brighton in the top half at some point by my reckoning.
 
So what? It's a derby, and every single game from now to the end is a must win or the very least, no loss allowed. It's not an excuse.

The performances and results are often connected, and he is one common denominator.

It doesn't matter who he puts out, we will still be shit against most sides.

I feel like we're having two different conversations here.

I'm criticising not defending ETH.
 
He's won just 1 game vs top half teams during his entire tenure and that was the Villa game.

Anyone that thinks we're going anywhere that even closely resembles the right direction under this guy is smoking elite crack.

I mean, that's just not really true though, is it? We beat all of City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs etc last year, probably most of the rest of them as well.

You're thinking of the away record maybe?
 
Absolutely want this clown out of the club. We play like relegation fodder regardless of the opponent. No quality going forward. No solidity at the back and no game plan to fix any of this. I genuinely cannot see what this guy’s philosophy is. At least with OGS we had one where we relied on fast slick counters. Here we cannot even hold on to the ball for long enough to spring a counter.
No patterns of play to break down opponents when they sit back. And whats with his subs man. He takes off Rashford when we are chasing a goal and puts on Antony. Though we had been on a winning run the signs were there for all to see. The run was not some big turnaround. The style of play was really poor even during the purple patch.
 
Really? There were journalists recently saying is crucial to their plan due to the revenue. If not then fair enough, let's faster for the rest of the season.

While that sounds logical, it doesn't actually make sense. Our limit is 80% of our revenue (on wages, transfers and amortisation). With wage-clauses regarding european football, that winds up at around £500M regardless. Our biggest limiting factor in our ability to spend is our current wage budget, outstanding transfer fees and the need to sell players. Our summer budget should be 200-250M. Sell Rashford, McT, Sancho and Greenwood, have casemiro and varane on reduced deals, and you're looking at a budget of £500M (because of amortisation)

That budget doesn't actually meaningfully change if we get CL revenue. The biggest issue with no CL comes down to our ability to attract talent - which INEOS decisions going forward and who they appoint as the next manager will influence.
 
There needs to be revolution, not evolution. Ten Hag can go but there needs to be a major overhaul of the playing personnel as well. If Sir Jim thinks just replacing the manager is going to make Antony a productive attacker, or get a mentally fragile Rashford banging in goals again to compete at the top of the table, then I think you're going to be in for some disappointment. I don't think a single player from today's starting 11 gets into that Manchester City side's starting 11, maybe Bruno and Rashford make the bench but think about that for a minute. That's astonishing for the biggest club in english football.

INEOS has a lot of work to do beyond just finding a new manager, I hope their up for the challenge and have the financial muscle to see it through.
 
He's won just 1 game vs top half teams away during his entire tenure and that was the Villa game.

Anyone that thinks we're going anywhere that even closely resembles the right direction under this guy is smoking elite crack.
A goal difference of -2 after 27 games. Awful football to watch. You can go on and on. It’s not one game in isolation. The Ineos team are looking to appoint world class in all positions. The only thing ETH is world class in is delusion. He’s not capable for the Job. If anyone is trying to defend him now then good on you. You must love watching dire directionless football. Come summer he must be out.
 
Really? There were journalists recently saying is crucial to their plan due to the revenue. If not then fair enough, let's faster for the rest of the season.
Radcliffe said so too in his BBC interview.
 
His post match comments are seriously deluded. He thinks we'd be close to competing if we didn't have injuries and is talking about two games against City as the barometer (both of which they won and dominated). But completely ignoring all the other games in the season which is what really sets us apart.

If he thinks we're close then we're done, this guy doesn't get what it takes to win trophies at the top level.
 
Unbelievable that LVG is the only manager we’ve brought in that demands possession based football, in over 11 years.
That & the Zlatan year were the only time I went into big games not expecting a possible humiliation.
 
He's obviously not done his maths as we apparently have £500m to spend with a few sales. There's been reports that we'll be very restricted in the summer due to FFP, so these journalists must be getting their figures wrong as @Laurencio paints a much different picture in his post above.

What Ratcliffe actually said:

Well, I mean, firstly FFP has become a new aspect of running the football club, and it's clearly a really critical part of running a football club. And you have to think about how you can manage FFP to the benefit of the club. There are different ways in which you can do that. But ultimately FFP says you have to operate the club within its own means. And, effectively, it takes into account your prior expenditure, and the club's spent quite heavily in the last couple of seasons. So that does impact FFP going forward, because they've used quite a large part of their allowance if you like. So we need to be quite clear in the summer as to what the extent of… I don't know the full answer to that question at the moment. It’s obviously related to sales as well as purchases, and so we need to get our heads around that well before the summer window, so we understand the number but yeah, there's no question that history will impact this summer window.

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I should add that no one should ever spend their entire cap in one window (I'm looking at you Chelsea), so with no sales and no changes to contracts we would expect a cap of 200M, but an actual spend of £100-150M. Which are the numbers the Telegraph are referencing.
 
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It’s become delusional at this point, I understand he can’t come out and say “well we are shit”, but the whole progress thing is also madness, progressing to what? We play the exact same way we did with Ole and it’s criminal.

I would have happily sacrificed last season to implement his style he had at Ajax and just said “whoever can’t play it can leave”.

I entirely agree with this. Felt like it would have addressed so many problems long term.
 
Only once since Sir Alex retired have we been in a position worse than our current one after 27 games and that was Ole's first full season when we got 41 from 27 although we were still 5th at that point and only 3 points of Chelsea in 3rd.

The sooner Sir Jim gets rid of ETH the better.
 
ETH football is much better than any of his predecessors post SAF in that he tries to play one touch attacking football, invests in youth and often succeeds. I think eventually he would have come good with a proper footballing operation to back him up. Unfortunately his style of training plus an exhausting pre season tour plus several players made of glass has injury ravaged his season. For that you can blame him, the transfer dpt and whoever insists on money making summer tours. Throw in a couple of players that are too old (Casemiro, Varane) and a few that aren't good enough and we are where we are.

I don't think he will get a second chance even if only some of this was his fault. FFP requires Champions League football to be competitive and we will miss out on that now. Not being better than City is understandable. Finishing below Villa is not. He will be sacked at end of the season unless he gets very lucky.
 
ETH football is much better than any of his predecessors post SAF in that he tries to play one touch attacking football, invests in youth and often succeeds

ETH's football hasnt been good from day 1, we some occasional good counters but other than that its mostly pannic stricken defending and playing hit an hope longballs to the front.

Ole's Football was much better than this until we signed Ronaldo and went from a philosophy of working as a team to a philosophy of just get the ball to Ronaldo as soon as you can.
 
There's some good managers currently unemployed. The likes of Lopetegui etc. If they're lying and actually not bothered about CL football, which would be daft given the financial impact and the need to invest in the squad, then fair enough.

But I think everyone would be happy with an interim with pedigree being given a chance to turn it around and make a case for getting the job going forward. If they don't then we hire who we would have anyway.

The elephant in the room is the links to Potter. The guys coming in seemingly rate him. If that's who they want anyway, then why not now? A free hit for the season to put in work in implementing tactics etc and getting a better view of the squad.

An interim with pedigree works if that interim fits the profile of football that we want to play. Without that, it's just throwing a new manager bounce at the problem. That kind of short sighted approach is just a continuation of the same bad decisions we've been making for a decade.
 
I think I will log out now



I don't think he believes that bullshit. He's just trying to ease out the pressure on him, anyway there's no way Ineos will keep him past the summer. I think this season has already been written off and we'll se management and squad changes in the summer.
 
And everyone said it was boring
Which it was, as bad as ten Hag ball is currently I would chose it every single time over Van Gal's borefest. I literally felled asleep during games more times that I can remember.
 
We could still win the FA cup but in the PL we are on course for 62 points, which would be the second worst season post Fergie (the worst being the Ole + Rangnick season obviously). I have given Ten Hag a lot of slack because of the injuries, but it reaches a point where the results (and the football) are so poor that the excuse stops being relevant.

We're not catching an 11 point deficit in 11 games, which means that 5th is the best we can dream of now. 5th might be enough to get CL football next season, but that is completely outside our control. This would have been a sackable offense for every other manager before him. Van Gaal got 5th with 66 points and won the FA cup and he was still sacked. Moyes did better in the league as well as in Europe and didn't even get to finish the season. Not to mention the goal difference! :lol:
 
I like EtH but I don't think he deserves to be here next year. As for who replaces him well thats up to those above him. There must be a better alternative.
 
I don't think he believes that bullshit. He's just trying to ease out the pressure on him, anyway there's no way Ineos will keep him past the summer. I think this season has already been written off and we'll se management and squad changes in the summer.
It's clearly not working, that line of thinking is only sparking more criticism than ever. He's been seen as a very very delusional person.
 
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