Good post. Even Ole mentioned in his Overlap appearance that sometimes just a change lifts everyone up and the team starts to perform better. It's not surprising that our season has just drifted along with ETH continuing. Bit baffling that we didn't even try to chase a champions league squad by replacing the manager in January. A CL spot for next season would have made the new structures and the next manager's jobs just a tad easier. Not saying that we would have definitely achieved top 4, but not even trying is strange.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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Good post. Even Ole mentioned in his Overlap appearance that sometimes just a change lifts everyone up and the team starts to perform better. It's not surprising that our season has just drifted along with ETH continuing. Bit baffling that we didn't even try to chase a champions league squad by replacing the manager in January. A CL spot for next season would have made the new structures and the next manager's jobs just a tad easier. Not saying that we would have definitely achieved top 4, but not even trying is strange.
Problem is who would they have got either in short term or long term, in the short term a manager on an interim basis is hard to come in and work like Rangnick suffered from being an interim in so much as that its hard to get the staff you want when its only for 6 months because if EtH goes i'd imagine all the coaches go then you have to replace the coaches, Ole worked out ok because Carrick and Mckenna stayed after Jose left and Ole didn't have to find interim coaches and then if you have long term target who is in a good place in the league like say Alonso they would likely want to see through the season because they could win the league so likely would not come in at that time.
If he does the sensible thing and asks the defense to push up and squeeze the pitch, we can live with it. The number of times a striker playing on the shoulder can get on the ball and beat the defensive line is much lesser than the times the opposing midfield can outnumber and run at the acres of space left for our midfielders to cover. If the press is as effective as he is evangelizing, then he’s trust our players to not give the opposition the time and space to even pick those passes. He used this tactic before against Liverpool and did well. It’s simply maddening to witness the same harebrained scheme week after week.
The core of the squad still comprises of players from Ole’s reign. And its pretty much the loser culture set within the club that players are being rewarded for playing well in 2 games since SAF' retirement and has that is the one thing that has been a constant throughout the period of last 10 years."These players"? Ten Hag has signed enough players to field a new team completely to the one Rangnick had pretty much.
It's like Trigger's broom this squad. People talk about these players letting managers down that we had about 10 years ago
But yes lets just ignore everything, get a new manager, enjoy 1 year of players upping their game only to scrape for 4th and then throw everything in the gutter the following year. Rinse, repeat.
I would get rid of the players not good enough to take us to the next level first - Maguire, Rashford, Bruno, Shaw, Lindelof, AwB and hope we replace them with quality success hungry players with the help of new structure that is being put into place. Getting a new manager will just give these turds another chance and we all know these players arent good enough.
It would take a special manager to get these players challenging for the league.
The core of this squad have proven over many years they are just not up to the level required to make such a challenge.
ETH may not be that special manager but there is only so much he can do with this squad.
Maybe we need another reset, change the manager but more importantly, change the core of this squad.
The core of this squad have proven over many years they are just not up to the level required to make such a challenge.
ETH may not be that special manager but there is only so much he can do with this squad.
Maybe we need another reset, change the manager but more importantly, change the core of this squad.
You are right there is definitely a lot of fans who lost their naivety but logically there is still a lot of fans clinging to the SAF era and thinks that it's the norm or should be the norm when this type of context is extremely rare in all professional sport without exception.
And even if my words may sound harsh I understand why it's difficult to accept, SAF was the perfect manager but people need to understand one simple thing, SAF is an exceptional manager and likely an exceptional human being, most of us wouldn't be able to adapt and recaliber our ways to do things to perfectly suit our current context, the man managed to do it for 30 years and was still arguably the best when he retired. To some extent his greatness is being downplayed when we expect every other manager to match even 20% of his abilities.
I have no issue with the idea to sell players and bring new ones. But you still have to question the manager and why you are defending him that staunchly or giving him the benefit of doubt, people defending ETH seem to make two suggestions at the same time, the players are responsible for the tactical issues and they are also responsible for the mentality issues which implies that ETH isn't a technical or mental leader, so why exactly should he stay and be given a new batch of most likely expensive players when he is showing that he can't lead people tactically or mentally? And if things improves after changing the entire core why should he be considered responsible for the improvement, logically the new players should get 100% of the praises?
It might take a special manager to get these players to challenge for the title. However, it would only take a halfway competent manager to take the squad Ten Hag inherited and the money he spent to have them ahead of Villa and Spurs with positive goal differential and not playing the most dire football in the league, getting outclassed by the likes of Fulham and Luton every game.
Echo . . . . .
Wonderful post.
So true. You can blame Rangnick, because he was the first to weaponise fans against the players."These players"? Ten Hag has signed enough players to field a new team completely to the one Rangnick had pretty much.
It's like Trigger's broom this squad. People talk about these players letting managers down that we had about 10 years ago
I mean this excuse is just getting tiresome… you believe that Fulham and Luton Copenhagen etc, have a better squad do you? Because they tactically beat us at home.
It’s the manager.
Just because Goldbridge keeps saying its the players not the manager, doesn’t mean it’s true.
I dont think that every player can be motivated enough to raise their levels. ETH is doing well to get the best out of our youngsters, Dalot is improving and even Evans is putting up great performances because the guy knows how to win.
You are left with the other players that I have mentioned earlier. Have won nothing of note in their entire careers, flopped at biggest stages but were handsomely rewarded by the lunatics running the club. Its pretty evident that these dont have the mentality or the hunger to succeed. How many chances do you want to give them?
I am not defending ETH at all, just to be clear. But I want to give him a chance under the new setup where tragic transfers like Antony dont happen. A setup where you dont end up chasing a player for the entire window only to end up signing a totally different player on huge wages with only a couple of years worth of performances left.
Getting rid of ETH will only give these incompetent players more time at the club and delay our success. Thats a certainty because we have seen that enough number of times already. I want to back the manager this time and if he still persists with these trash players after the getting the backing, he should be shown the door.
fecking Southgate; ten Hag would have the job for life if those were the choices.
Would want to see how ETH performs with an actual proper set up. Sacking the manager now its pointless and only sets up the other one for failure.
Last season under ETH was very good and we cannot be this short termist to sack another manager when we are just seeing the first signs of a new team emerging with mainoo, Rasmus, garnacho and Martinez at the core.
One more season after this is a chance we should take.
Last season under ETH was very good and we cannot be this short termist to sack another manager when we are just seeing the first signs of a new team emerging with mainoo, Rasmus, garnacho and Martinez at the core.
One more season after this is a chance we should take.
But my question is what makes you think that when things go well it's because ETH is doing well to get the best out of certain players and when things don't go well it's because the players are at fault. Would you accept the idea that ETH has nothing to do with the good things if he has nothing to do with the bad ones or to be totally fair and honest that it's actually a mixture of both?
Maybe some players aren't good enough, maybe some leaders shouldn't be leaders but in both cases the manager should shoulder most of the attention because as others have mentioned he brought a large number of players and he is the main leader in this Football club, a good manager is supposed to inspire good leadership or take most of the leadership responsiblities, and the latter point is extremely important because unless you only bring veteran key players that totally fit your culture and happen to be leaders, you will have to help young players to develop and apply their leadership, if your manager isn't good at it then you are sabotaging your young players' development and your team as a whole.
In the last months I have largely made critical comments about ETH, I have also the tendency to responsd to (overly)positive comments and it's not because I hate ETH, it's not because I want him out or any particularly negative reason. I have been critical of him because his failures are fundamental, you can't actually brush them under the carpet, there are two things that any club should require from their manager, the ability to lead people (staff and players) and the ability to develop technically/tactically/mentally people (staff and players). And ETH is failing at both, we all agree on the tactical/technical side of things but his supporters(for lack of better words) systemtically expose the leadership failures, the supposed poor culture, they use it to target players when they are actually exposing the manager, the leader, the head honcho.
He wanted him. He worked with him before, he wanted control in transfers. How can this transfer possibly be used in his defense?
He didnt want Ralf but do you think he would have performed better working alongside Ralf? including signing better players?
Where did I use this as a defense? And if you blame him entirely for that then that's your problem. A lot of blame lies with the incompetent board as well who sanctioned this deal, who had no alternatives lined up. Its their job to do so.
Because I have seen ETH not make these fundamental issues while he reached the UCL semi and was seconds away from the final with Ajax. I give him the benefit of doubt there. That was one of football's biggest stages.
I have repeatedly stated that I'm not in favor of either the players or the manager. Dig up my posts on this thread and you can see how fed up I was with his management. But with the changing structure I want to see if ETH can replicate that level of performances he showed at Ajax because I definitely know that we are going to have this conversation again in 2 years when these players down tools for yet another manager.
I don't think one person would've made a huge difference, the whole thing was rotten.
In the end we should be doing much better with the players we have and that's on the manager, but a large majority of the players we have still aren't good enough for where we want to be. No-one should have a clean slate with the new manager, particularly the ones that have been disgraceful on the pitch for 3+ managers now.
Thats what I ideally want but thats never going to happen. The club isn't swimming in cash is it? The club will try to save the money and these players will up their game for a year and buy more time until its time to find a new manager again.
That has sweet feck all to do with his time at United. A total fallacy to argue he's not at fault because look at the fluke UCL semi he got to once. He is making the fundamental mistakes that @JPRouve is talking about here at United right now, and it's cost us the season hundreds of millions of pounds.
I'm the same!
Ten Hag has shown too many basic flaws errors and misjudgements to the point where I just don't see him really deserving much trust or faith to get another season, even if it is under this new structure.
Of course, and the same is the case if ten Hag stays, but the point is there shouldn't be a single player that's been here since Ole or longer that is safe from replacement (and that also goes for several that ten Hag bought). A new manager coming in shouldn't alter that.
You have seen none of that. What you saw is a team having a single good CL campaign, I have seen Jardim do the same thing and I can tell you that he latter failed miserably in terms of leadership but also in his transfer requests.
Keep in mind that this season is followed by 2 exit in group stages and one last of 16 exit.
Been saying this for years. Our fans are clueless when it comes to this sport. The bigger problem is that they're clueless, loud and opinionated. So any kind of direction the club gets from this fanbase is almost always egging it in the wrong direction.
Edit: our older fans are just as clueless as well. They're the type of fools that pull out a calculator to do a sum, before entering that number into a fecking excel sheet - and they think that's the way things work, because that's what they did 40 years ago.
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Second time I see this being pushed in this thread so matter factly, when it doesn’t really make sense
Especially when we know the name of the alternative. Gakpo.
Yep, they are making shit up.
I saw a great comment on The Athletic recently about how if Ten Hag was still at Ajax he’d be a top contender for the United job.
I can’t disagree with that at all, and although I’ve grown incredibly frustrated with him this season I’d still be interested to see what he can do with better signings and stable club leadership.
There aren’t any candidates out there right now bar Alonso (who is highly unlikely to come to United given the other prospective options) who are that exciting or who compare favourably vs. Ten Hag at Ajax.
I’d rather we wait 12 months and see who else emerges as a contender.
Put it this way - would you be arsed if De Zerbi or Potter ended up at one of our rivals? I certainly wouldn’t be.
I can’t disagree with that at all, and although I’ve grown incredibly frustrated with him this season I’d still be interested to see what he can do with better signings and stable club leadership.
There aren’t any candidates out there right now bar Alonso (who is highly unlikely to come to United given the other prospective options) who are that exciting or who compare favourably vs. Ten Hag at Ajax.
I’d rather we wait 12 months and see who else emerges as a contender.
Put it this way - would you be arsed if De Zerbi or Potter ended up at one of our rivals? I certainly wouldn’t be.
Made up
He reached the semi once, yeah. What about the other 4 times?
Which one is the blip and which one is his normal level?
I get what you are saying, but having to use Ten Hag's time at Ajax, after he has already been at United for 2 years and after a decent chunk of money spent, to justify his continued presence at the club doesn't exactly convince. I'd only keep him if the alternatives are the likes of Potter or, Heaven forbid, Southgate. De Zerbi is so-so. But I think we should most definitely try for Nagelsmann, Izaghi, Enrique, Flick, and perhaps even Tuchel, before deciding to stick by this manager for another season. Though, I personally believe Thiago Motta and Michel are also worth a look.
It's mad! If we didn't sign Antony then we'd hear how we didn't "back" the manager and get him the player he wanted.
TBF, you could ask the reverse question, too. Is anybody really arsed about United nowadays with ETH at the helm?
You could apply this logic to many other managers and players. For example, Sancho - if he was still at Dortmund playing the way he was before we signed him then he'd be a top contender for us to sign. Everyone signs a player or manager based on being impressed by their performance or aspects of their performance elsewhere and sometimes they don't live up to expectations. Sometimes they go elsewhere and perform better and you just accept it. David Moyes was sacked by West Ham and re-hired at a later date where he has performed better under the same structure. These things happen in football, the most important thing is evaluating their current performance for your team.
As for people mentioning Ten Hag getting Ajax to a CL final years ago - I don't see how that is relevant today, especially when he actually threw away a big lead which should be a red flag considering how we've seen it happen here now numerous times! Or I guess we should have given Weghorst another 12 months because he had 25 in 41 just two seasons prior, so hopefully he can regain that here if we just give him time!
People forget when Ten Hag walked into the Ajax team they had just lost to United in the Europa League final and were on the up.
Onana, DeJong, Van Der Beek, De Ligt were already there.
Ten Hag didn't lift them from the bottom the way some people like us to think
Hojlund, Harry and AWB back for Liverpool is massive!
Fingers crossed we do a double over them this month, will be a massive boost.
Fingers crossed we do a double over them this month, will be a massive boost.
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