Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Sunny Jim]

I always feel that if something is not a definitive yes then it's a definitive no. I have plenty of doubts regarding ETH and I'm not 100% sure he is the man to take us to glory.
However, I'm also pragmatic. If we sack him before summer we will be at best 4th best job to take: Barca, Liverpool, Bayern, Chelsea will also look for managers and i don't think we are a better project.
The lack of alternative leads to me to thinking we should stick with him until his contract ends and then maybe prolong it by a year or two max.

Despite the results i see the context of injuries, take over, disciplinary issues...ETH tenure has not been an easy ride so far.

So for me, keep him for now.

 

[Robin Your Persie]

It was a plan for sure. Spurs played City in the cup and went toe to toe, Ange and his team werent afraid. Sure we couldnt really do that with our defense. But as a plan goes it was the most basic and we had no way of getting a foothold in the game. His subs as ever are woeful, he keep Anand in the window only to let him rot on the bench. Amrabat, who he chased all summer, just awful. His interviews are embarrassing for the club at this point

Since when is having one shot on goal in 90 mins going toe to toe?

 

[Sarni]

I was there for 6-1 horrible game,

SAF third year, lost 5-1 to city and we had banners calling for his head. He at the time walked into a club that was a sh*t show at that time - I was very young.

The 7-0 was last season and the lowest champions league group was this season - but I get what you mean - it's not acceptable how this team is playing, but what would you do?

I view it as a process it takes time, sadly I don't think this is the low low point just yet.

The reality of football these days is that with the resources being given to modern managers no big club is going to wait several years for the plan to unfold and take effect, especially as there is very little in way of guarantees that the current manager's plan is really going to ever work - and if it doesn't, that sets you back immensely. We've already been set back several years by mismanagement across all levels.

Maybe with the very top managers with proven record like Klopp, Pep you would give them more time to settle and work it out but with your run of the mill manager who had not really achieved anything of note prior to coming here, nah, nobody's going to show that kind of patience if they don't see any progress whatsoever.

Arteta is pretty much as far as a big club will go, basically giving a manager 2-3 years before improvement is noticeable, and even then you probably need to show some signs during those couple of seasons.

 

[TrebleChamp99]

Sir Alex finished bottom of the champions league group twice post 2005 - should he have been sacked as well?

He also won how many premier leagues and a champions league before that.

ETH has us sat 11 points behind 4th scraping last min wins against Forest whilst playing terribly.

There is no "what aboutisms"

 

[Annihilate Now!]

It would not be acceptable to set up at OT in the way we did yesterday.

It would be if we were winning 1-0 at HT.

Our approach to the second half however wasn't even acceptable at the Etihad, nevermind Old Trafford.

 

[Sarni]

I always feel that if something is not a definitive yes then it's a definitive no. I have plenty of doubts regarding ETH and I'm not 100% sure he is the man to take us to glory.
However, I'm also pragmatic. If we sack him before summer we will be at best 4th best job to take: Barca, Liverpool, Bayern, Chelsea will also look for managers and i don't think we are a better project.
The lack of alternative leads to me to thinking we should stick with him until his contract ends and then maybe prolong it by a year or two max.

Despite the results i see the context of injuries, take over, disciplinary issues...ETH tenure has not been an easy ride so far.

So for me, keep him for now.

I think we'd be second preferred job behind Barcelona, and to some managers maybe even ahead of them. We have larger resources than Liverpool, play in a more competitive and a better league than Bayern and are a bigger club than Chelsea. PL factor + less pressure could put us over Barca for some as well.

 

[Drainy]

I do not feel comfortable with the amount of excusing that points to Ferguson apparently doing similar / worse job or whatever. We don't owe nearly enough to ETH to wipe the floor with Fergie to protect him.

You have to play the hand you have, is the point.

If you have the better players you have more options, if you lack quality compared to the opposition you have to dig in.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

The point being made about injuries, yes they are a massive hindrance, but why are they happening so much? This is not a new thing, infact it seems to be getting worse. Is it the training methods from ETH, is it the fitness coach, the medical side? Do we not look into players injury history before we sign them? Do we rush them back when they are not ready and make the injury even worse? We could have these players back, but I am not entirely convinced the football would be infinitely better as the tactical setup does not convince me. You cannot be conceding that amount of shots, even against the so called smaller teams. You might get away with it with some teams, but there is no way in hell you would get away with it against City. It must be exhausting for the defence to have to deal with it game after game.

 

[spiriticon]

Extending his contract would be a really stupid move.

If we don't want to sack him because too much money, fine, but please don't extend his contract.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

You honestly think Moyes couldn’t win that tin cup Dutch league with Ajax? fecking de Boer did that and he got sacked because Palace thought he was a downgrade from Sam Allardyce.

What have they won domestically in England in all their decades here? In 9 months he comfortably out stripped ANYTHING Moyes did in the same job with vastly superior personnel. Yet here you are glibly tryna convince us ETH is much worse than the likes of him. How does that logic/maths work exactly?

 

[RoyH1]

As will Munich, Liverpool, Barcelona.

Maybe Real Madrid and Chelsea

I don't see Madrid moving on from Ancelotti barring a spectacular collapse. Chelsea is moving into FFP hell and Barcelona is skint. I understand the romance and emotional pull of managing Barcelona, but there's really little upside there now.

So that leaves Liverpool and Bayern as the most difficult rivals. I admit that Bayern is by far the choice job but I do think that with Sir Jim and his people in the building we're becoming a more compelling destination than we used to be.

 

[M16Red]

You honestly think Moyes couldn’t win that tin cup Dutch league with Ajax? fecking de Boer did that and he got sacked because Palace thought he was a downgrade from Sam Allardyce.

I don't care about Moyes or trying to compare an orange with an apple;

I really don't get this correlating that posters do.

Moyes is not a bad manager, but if your was about when he managed us it made some very very poor decisions, remember that team had just won the league. This tool came in and removed most of our coaches and back room staff completely changing the dynamic of the group. (This is about man utd, Moyes)

 

[Melville Red]

Jon Snow does support United!

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

I honestly do not understand why so many people pretend last season never happened. Not only did United with a small squad contend with a grueling 70 odd game Europa league campaign. They added to that getting to two domestic cup finals, in a season with a world cup slap bang in the middle,very little rest plus a summer of Euro Nations League football. Its why in general injuries gave been rife up and down the league.

United in particular have suffered the worst because key players who helped the manager paper of the cracks in the entire squad last season, hiding how bad it truly is, have all broken down, which has aldo has a resultant negative avalanche on our performances and results this year.



But instead ETH detractors on here prefer to pretend our manager and coaching staff just went rancid over night. Forgot how to coach, do physio work nor manager player workload. That these players 'carried them" last seaaon....

 

[M16Red]

I don't see Madrid moving on from Ancelotti barring a spectacular collapse. Chelsea is moving into FFP hell and Barcelona is skint. I understand the romance and emotional pull of managing Barcelona, but there's really little upside there now.

So that leaves Liverpool and Bayern as the most difficult rivals. I admit that Bayern is by far the choice job but I do think that with Sir Jim and his people in the building we're becoming a more compelling destination than we used to be.

A+ mental gymnastics.

Do you think a manager would choose Man utd over Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern

Chelsea have a billion pound squad, also very young.
Liverpool is a machine
Bayern is top two in there league most years
Barca might be skint, are we skint?

 

[KiD MoYeS]

I honestly do not understand why so many people pretend last season never happened. Not only did United with a small squad contend with a grueling 70 odd game Europa league campaign. They added to that getting to two domestic cup finals, in a season with a world cup slap bang in the middle,very little rest plus a summer of Euro Nations League football. Its why in general injuries gave been rife up and down the league.

United in particular have suffered the worst because key players who helped the manager paper of the cracks in the entire squad last season, hiding how bad it truly is, have all broken down, which has aldo has a resultant negative avalanche on our performances and results this year.



But instead ETH detractors on here prefer to pretend our manager and coaching staff just went rancid over night. Forgot how to coach, do physio work nor manager player workload. That these players 'carried them" last seaaon....

This would be true if we haven't been absolutely dreadful for 75% of Ten Hag's time here. Started last season hopelessly, found form and started to look good. Won the League Cup, and then have been absolutely dreadful again since then. There isn't some agenda against Ten Hag, he simply isn't up to it and will not return Man Utd to challenging again.

 

[mctrials23]

I'm at the point now where its simply impossible to back the manager. Yes we are much better when we have all our player fit but even then we aren't exactly firing on all cylinders. We're just a mess on the pitch. We've never really looked like anything else under EtH and at some point thats not acceptable. When all the positives you can take away from performances are individual moments you aren't moving in the right direction.

I'm reminded of this every time we play anyone half decent. It slaps you in the face when you watch the likes of Arsenal, City, Liverpool etc. How they move the ball around the pitch. The movement on and off the ball. How they always have options and movement at all times. Yes we can play alright sometimes but its not usually our own will be imposed on the opposition, its just a good day and more often than not its the opposition who adapt to us rather than us adapting to them.

I imagine he will be gone at the end of the season barring a miracle.

 

[Tony247]

Is he completely demoralised because of his stupid recruitments? This is not the way we played last year. What's going on? Looks like he has come crashing down to earth and few meters below.

Trying to stay positive because this is not the first manager who gave hope and then disappointed. Tells us something fundamentally wrong within the club than just blaming the manager.

I still want to see how it looks like with ETH and right management behind him. Not giving up on him.

 

[RedIan]

Eriks post match interviews are driving me mad. The guy is deluded. We have just been completely dominated by city from minute 1 to minute 96. We had 3 shots all game 1 on target…

Yet Erik says we played well and could have won.

what is he on, dutch spice maybe? Parking the bus and getting 2 or 3 moments of break outs, that all apart from 1 were screwed up by shocking ball control, is that playing well.
You can say we defended pretty well in the first half, with the bus parked and kept a compact shape, so is that playing well? Second half we just crumbled as the defenders lost concentration and or tired.
Apart from a 2 minute period we didnt string two passes together.

Our manager is deluded. Just be honest and say we were totally dominated and the better team won And deserved to win. It was an embarrassing performance and ETH comments are compounding the embarrassment.
On another day thats a 7-1 drubbing.

 

[Sarni]

This would be true if we haven't been absolutely dreadful for 75% of Ten Hag's time here. Started last season hopelessly, found form and started to look good. Won the League Cup, and then have been absolutely dreadful again since then. There isn't some agenda against Ten Hag, he simply isn't up to it and will not return Man Utd to challenging again.

It was pointed out in another thread that we are yet to have a period of five consecutive good games under him (and since League Cup I don't think we've had 3 good games in a row). Even last season, wins largely papered over the cracks as we were genuinely good for only 2-3 months in the middle. We were poor after League Cup final and also poor at the start of season. We showed glimpses of quality which is why everyone had high hopes for this year, however we've gone the opposite direction.

 

[TMDaines]

Ole had players who scored upwards of 20 to 30 goals each year. Our leading scorer has 7, so yes it is a completely valid point that being terrible can be linked to not having players who can score goals. This has forced ETH (particularly in the absence of Hojlund) to double down on defensive football. Not having several potential goal scorers available to him for a variety of reasons is also a factor.

We play defensive football? I’d argue that half the time we are far too aggressive so we readily get countered on by weaker teams who we expected to dominate. Our midfield has far too many gaps.

The other half of time when we face better sides, we only end up stuck in our own third because we are so poor and rushed on the ball under pressure, that we constantly turn it over and can’t push the defensive line forward. I don’t think yesterday, for example, was a product of being defensive. We are just too poor to develop any consistent offence against good teams.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

What have they won domestically in England in all their decades here? In 9 months he comfortably out stripped ANYTHING Moyes did in the same job with vastly superior personnel. Yet here you are glibly tryna convinceus ETH is much worse than the likes of him. How does that logic/maths work exactly?

Moyes for one, managed to get the team through to the champions league knockout stages in a much trickier group and had a goal difference of +21, something Ten Hag has failed to match in either season so far.
Sure, he won a league cup, the next level from a community shield.

 

[pocco]

I always feel that if something is not a definitive yes then it's a definitive no. I have plenty of doubts regarding ETH and I'm not 100% sure he is the man to take us to glory.
However, I'm also pragmatic. If we sack him before summer we will be at best 4th best job to take: Barca, Liverpool, Bayern, Chelsea will also look for managers and i don't think we are a better project.
The lack of alternative leads to me to thinking we should stick with him until his contract ends and then maybe prolong it by a year or two max.

Despite the results i see the context of injuries, take over, disciplinary issues...ETH tenure has not been an easy ride so far.

So for me, keep him for now.

3 more years of ETH? It's what we deserve.

 

[pocco]

Eriks post match interviews are driving me mad. The guy is deluded. We have just been completely dominated by city from minute 1 to minute 96. We had 3 shots all game 1 on target…

Yet Erik says we played well and could have won.

what is he on, dutch spice maybe? Parking the bus and getting 2 or 3 moments of break outs, that all apart from 1 were screwed up by shocking ball control, is that playing well.
You can say we defended pretty well in the first half, with the bus parked and kept a compact shape, so is that playing well? Second half we just crumbled as the defenders lost concentration and or tired.
Apart from a 2 minute period we didnt string two passes together.

Our manager is deluded. Just be honest and say we were totally dominated and the better team won And deserved to win. It was an embarrassing performance and ETH comments are compounding the embarrassment.
On another day thats a 7-1 drubbing.

At this point I'm thinking it's a Dutch thing, the pig-headed, arrogant delusion. LVG also so no errors in our ways.

 

[Fallon d'Floor]

It's honestly baffling how some fans would still give him time.

• We're on a -2 GD in The Premier League and it's March
• We're out of Europe completely
• We went out of The League Cup vs a Newcastle team that had Dummett and Krafth playing at CB
• We've lost a joint record amount of games in a season (16 defeats) since Ferguson retired
• He's been given a huge say in transfers and blown over £400 million on signings/loans
• His training methods and scheduling are contributing to injuries
• His record vs the top 10 away is awful
• His personality and morals are questionable also

There's literally nothin good to to say about him other than he's quite good at avoiding draws. We should be on a lot less wins than we are this season. We're almost 11 points better off than expected.

INEOS should have serious questions asked of them if they continue with him beyond this season. Barcelona, Bayern, Chelsea and Liverpool could all be looking for new managers this season. We can't let them snap up the likes of Amorim, Alonso, Nagelsmann, Motta, etc.

 

[mctrials23]

A+ mental gymnastics.

Do you think a manager would choose Man utd over Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern

Chelsea have a billion pound squad, also very young.
Liverpool is machine
Bayern is top two in there league most years
Barca might be skint, are we skint?

Of course some would. Chelsea are a shit show with a billion pound squad that looks like its a £100m squad. Clearly structural issues at the club to spend that much and be where they are. This is their long term position as well. They have a new owner who is running this his way and this is what hes doing.

Liverpool is following one of the best managers ever and basically like following Ferguson. I imagine that a large number of the people around Klopp are leaving as well. The cornerstones of that squad are getting old as well. Salah and VVD will be gone soon.

Bayern job is a bit of a thankless task. Win the league. Well done, thats literally the barest of minimums expected. They have blown through managers recently and I might be wrong but I get the impression there are a lot of politics at Bayern and a lot of egos in that team. Unless you are winning everything domestically and challenging for the CL then you will be at risk. The challenge in the Bayern job is to meet ridiculous expectations. Its not to do anything particularly exciting.

Barca is another political mess, a financial mess and they look like they could be on the cusp of a big fall from grace, they just haven't accepted it yet. While RM have been buying quality young talent for a few years and rebuilding their fantastic but ageing squad, Barca have just been lurching about from one mess to another.

The United job is what it has been for years now. A carrot on the end of a stick. Probably out of reach but the allure of taking United back to the top will always be there and with Ineos at the helm and our recent moves towards running like a modern club this is probably the most interesting time in years to come here. Theres a good chance it will be a hiding to nothing but its always a big lure. There are obviously massive caveats to this like all the clubs above but I still think that the United job is easily one of the most coveted still.

I think people forget that clubs have to generally pick a manager from whos available at the time unless they have really planned for it. City had chased Guardiola for a while but most top clubs either have one of the top managers pinned down ie. that manager isn't on the market or they have to find a new one in 6 months or so from whoever is out of a job.

 

[pocco]

What have they won domestically in England in all their decades here? In 9 months he comfortably out stripped ANYTHING Moyes did in the same job with vastly superior personnel. Yet here you are glibly tryna convince us ETH is much worse than the likes of him. How does that logic/maths work exactly?

Vastly superior personnel is debateable for a number of reasons. On paper, yes, bigger and better names. But the context is that these players were all at the end of their top level days and we knew it, many went off to play at a lower level after the Moyes season and were not the same level they were a few years earlier under Fergie. Then there is the slight issue of the club, fans, staff and players overcoming the fact that Fergie (and Gill to an extent) had both left. Fergie was everything at United, as the last 10 years have shown. Mentally that was a huge obstacle to overcome, evidently. And on top of it we had a novice Ed Woodward trying his hand at DoF. Nobody was succeeding in that first season after Fergie.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Sir Alex finished bottom of the champions league group twice post 2005 - should he have been sacked as well?

Good lord!

 

[adexkola]

There were some good signs from yesterday's game:

1. We defended really well for a large period of the game
2. Our transitions seemed more crisp, with one or two passes we were out and running at City

If EtH isn't sacked (no complaints from me at this moment if he is), I wonder what a good pre-season and start with a healthy rejuvenated squad would look like under him.

Most likely we will never find out and it's his fault

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I was just thinking that, fans seem to forget that SAF used this tactic even after years building a squad.

Find a game under SAF where the opposition had 26 shots to our 2 and we had 26% of the ball.

Hint: It does not exist.

You guys bringing up SAF to try and absolve ETH must be wumming at this point.

 

[Lee565]

Yesterday summed up ten hag at united, heavily reliant on individual brilliance but left wanting as a team both in attack and defensively

 

[pocco]

Extending his contract would be a really stupid move.

If we don't want to sack him because too much money, fine, but please don't extend his contract.

Half the fanbase would pop the champagne over the fact the guy they hung their hat on gets more years and £100m's to try to prove them right. The other half crack open the Vodka to make the pain go away.

 

[The Substitute]

I will always look at progress as the key metric to evaluate the manager. I can't understand why people would defend ETH now. We went toe-to-toe vs city last year, with Eriksen, Malacia, AWB, Martial Fred and Shaw as CB.

Where is the progress with this team? His signings, his favoritism based team selection, his in-game management, what is it that tells you he is the man?

I agree we should'nt sack him now and the reason is the lack of alternatives, but theres no excuses for this season.

 

[pocco]

Yesterday summed up ten hag at united, heavily reliant on individual brilliance but left wanting as a team both in attack and defensively

It's a simple problem really. When you play every game like a chaotic game of basketball and rely on counter attacking football or long balls in behind, with little focus on control and possession, then when you are under the cosh and barely have the ball, you have no instinct to help keep the ball well as a team. That's why even lower half teams do better against the likes of City as they mostly all try to keep the ball well. Even fecking Burnley are better in possession than us for the most part.

 

[Oranges038]

Find a game under SAF where the opposition had 26 shots to our 2 and we had 26% of the ball.

Hint: It does not exist.

You guys bringing up SAF to try and absolve ETH must be wumming at this point.

Without looking I'd say the 2011 CL final would be close to this game stats wise.

 

[glazed]

What you're saying has no foundation nor does it make any sense, as again - we've already seen managers that aren't close to being the world's best, do better.

Not at Old Trafford. At smaller but better run cubs. Do you think it's just a random coincidence that all our post SAF managers have failed? They were all randomly rubbish?

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Without looking I'd say the 2011 CL final would be close to this game stats wise.

UEFA.com has our possession at 37% with 4 shots against 19 in that game.

And that's versus the greatest club side of all-time.

It's a silly comparison too, because A) it's still us in a CL final and B) there was no club team ever beating Barcelona on that night

 

[NicolaSacco]

Without looking I'd say the 2011 CL final would be close to this game stats wise.

22 shots to 4
67.9% to 32.1% possession.

so not a huge amount off but yesterday was statistically worse on all those counts I think. That is actually pretty damning, I remember watching that CL final and thinking I had never seen Utd dominated that completely before.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Not at Old Trafford. At smaller but better run cubs. Do you think it's just a random coincidence that all our post SAF managers have failed? They were all randomly rubbish?

Considering that none of them have amounted to better jobs post-United, why is that hard to believe?

You know managers can fail at their job, because they're not good enough? This seems foreign to portions of the fanbase for some reason. It always has to be other reasons why they're failing.

The board throughout the time post-SAF have been awful. But the managers hired have also not been good enough.

-Moyes never managed a top club again.
-Van Gaal went back to managing the Netherlands
-Jose got sacked at Tottenham and Roma
-Ole is still without a job

ETH will also never get a job at a top club after this season too.

 

[Tiber]

I'd be less hostile towards him if he just put his hands and said they beat the shit out of us. He is consistently oddly arrogant in failure, always needs an excuse