This is the guy that used Haller as a LW type role at Ajax - loves a good battering ram/target man. He belongs in the 90s PL really.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
- Thread starter sewey89
- Start date
- Status
This is the guy that used Haller as a LW type role at Ajax - loves a good battering ram/target man. He belongs in the 90s PL really.
Yeah midfield.
McTominay much like Mount was used in several midfield positions during that period. In the 3-0 loss to City he was playing behind Hojlund.
What do you suggest? Get a new manager and expect these players to start playing modern football?
Because we will be back having this discussion in 2 years time. I have seen multiple times that these are just not capable of playing that kind of football. Thats why I suggested earlier that its better to get Conte or a Simeone kind of manager if we intend to persist with these.
Well he certainly doesn't seem to be a proponent of freeflowing attacking football that's for sure.
Yes its better because you fail to accept the fact that Eth preferred his own signing at the start of the season but then had to fall back on a squad player when the said signing was coming back from a 5 week long injury.
I don't fail to accept that at all mate, because I never actually said that. The period I was referring to in my post which you originally replied to (and said I was incorrect about) was in October and November.
You misinterpreted my post and here we are 12 posts later.
Fair enough.
No but if you don't see why that's beside the point you either don't get why what the Glazers have done to this club directly effects everything on the football side, or you're ok with it. I'm sure the Glazers will be thrilled at least one person doesn't detest them.
Ah now it's "midfield" and we're down to one match. Your original claim you referred to as a fact for some reason was that McTominay was selected ahead of Mount for the same position, which is 100% garbage.
Somebody come get this kid he appears to be lost.
Did you not read what I said? Me and majority of “ETH out” people all agree that we also need a good amount of fresh players. I’m even on the extreme part of that scale with being fully onboard with a full clean out of the club (I literally have a thread on it on here )
I read that. I'm was just asking how you would deal with it as i might not have kept pace with your posts.
Yeah, since I think the managers deserved the sack, it means I'm pro Glazers, and think they never did anything wrong. The world is as black and white as this.
Why wouldn't you have kept any of these managers if it was impossible for them to succeed under Glazers ?
Size of the player doesn't matter. Both Pep and Klopp have got big, physical players up top. Nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make a manager antiquated.
All that matter is are they any good.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Maybe he would claim responsibility but the man who's responsibility it actually is, is Murtough.
Those quotes are mis used quite often on here. He never says he wants full control and he even says he doesn't want to be the sole ruler.
I think it is quite clear that Ten Hag is responsible for signing Martinez and Højlund, and Murthough is responsible for Antony, Amrabat and Mount. Casemiro and Onana I cannot yet decide.
I think it's quite obvious what I'm trying to say - I literally make my point after providing ten Hag's own quotes, but whatever.
Well maybe I'm a bit dense today but I don't see a point in what you typed. If your point is that ETH wanted total control over transfers then you're just wrong.
That was awesome, I just couldn't remember what it was like, happens all the time!
Yeah I want majority of the squad as well as the manager cleaned out honestly. Think there should be very few players that we mark as unavailable (Mainoo, Hojlund, Garnacho, Martinez, Dalot, and possibly Shaw are the only ones on my personal Do Not Sell list), and we should look to be building a younger, fitter, more athletic squad that offers the technicality combined with the running we need. Far too much of our squad is build up of players that either lack athleticism or technical ability when the two shouldn't be mutually exclusive. I'd cash in on Bruno while he still has big name value (60m+ is feasible) and freshen up the midfield without needing a true "do it all focal point" with him gone, and I'd seriously field offers for Rashford as well as it's quite clear at this point he will always be a liability out of possession and his output isn't consistent enough to warrant it. Main incoming targets should be two top CB prospects that provide elite physical ability as well as ball playing instincts that modern teams require, and two athletic midfielders with at least one being a DM. Past that you look into versatile attackers and LB's, but the spine of the team has to be completely revamped this summer so that we will never be physically incapable of implementing whatever defensive/pressing structure the new manager wants to implement.
In my head I'd like to see us next year somewhat be similar to last year's Newcastle under Howe in how we refuse to ever be outran or lose our 50/50 duels. The more intricate stuff will come with coaching and drilling in patterns/structure, but we first need to be able to compete physically throughout the pitch with Liverpool/City/Arsenal etc. because right now we just tend to be bullied as well as embarrassed technically.
Yay.Oh great, another clueless drive-by post. What are you even trying to argue here? Do you even understand yourself? Most of ETH's drone army are dying on the hill that he had no influence on transfers, but there's at least the acceptance we've made mostly terrible signings. But you seem to want to die on the hill that his signings were good...?
If you still dont understand why Mount and Amrabat were abysmal signings regardless of injuries, regardless of loans, I have no time for you.
If I might interject, Scott had to play due to injuries, he acquitted himself very well (becoming our top scorer) and has been given chances because of that. Erik has found a way to make Scott work for the team (I.e stop trying to play him as a 6 like he predecessors did ) and has integrated that into the tactics. If anything I’d say that is pragmatic - working with what he has to make the best of the situation.
You have summed up the last year perfectly
Is there a stat like speed of passing? One thing that sticks out when watching Arsenal is how fast their passing is, one-two touches the most, and the only player that seems to massage the ball is Odegaard or Saka, and they usually create something out of it.
Compared to United, we always seem to do things slow. Simplistically said, no urgency in play, waiting for players to get into position and then they play the pass. Just seems so, so slow, usually teams that have 4-0 lead, and are just kicking about for time to pass.
Compared to United, we always seem to do things slow. Simplistically said, no urgency in play, waiting for players to get into position and then they play the pass. Just seems so, so slow, usually teams that have 4-0 lead, and are just kicking about for time to pass.
Yeah I have a sinking feeling the cost of sacking will end up keeping Erik in the job for another season. There should be consequences for wasting £400m of clubs money and finishing bottom of highly favourable Champions League group too.
Some on here think he doesn‘t have a clue, which is a baffling take.
I think it can work (Ten Hag‘s strategy), whether it will is another matter.
Defense: Giving up chances isn‘t an issue if they are mostly poor chances, our defensive record is not terrible. We have some aging midfielders that need to go.
Attack: We are very threatening now due to Høylund coming good in his debut season and a breakout season for Garnacho.
What is going wrong? Our performances are all over the place due to injuries, out of form players (Antony/Rashford) and apparently two of our midfielders‘ legs are gone. We have one striker without a backup.
We mostly look out of form, culminating in players messing up simple passes etc. In my opinion we need to focus on doing the simple things right, work hard and we will do better.
I think Ten Hag‘s future rests on how many points he scrapes together in the remaining games, and whether the team as a whole finds some form without some of our key players.
I'd lose hope in INEOS immediately if ETH is still our manager next season.
Either way, I hope I'm proven wrong.
Problem is that we've been very lucky so far in xGA. We're 6th or 7th in highest xGA.
If you concede the 2nd most shots in the league, do you really think the majority of them are poor chances? The statistics don't bear that out.
We concede a lot of shots, we concede a good amount of chances, we also cede the field way too much to opposition. Our entire defensive structure all season has been awful.
Now our xG is also showing an underperformance in goal-scoring. But the problem is we're 11th in that too.
I know xG, xGA and xPTs isn't the finite stat for how well a side is playing, but over a 28 game sample size, it's a pretty good indicator for how average we are. We've been very lucky we've accumulated the amount of points we have so far.
Almost every single attacking/defensive metric has us near mid-table or the bottom half. There is simply no defense for this. Injuries can hamper a side, but it can't hamper a side to this extent unless the manager is also failing at his job: Getting the team to be more than the sum of their parts and he's failed massively this season in this regard.
And the funny part is that those metrics were poor in the league after last season's cup final too. This isn't just this season of insipid performances. We've been poor for more than a year now.
We can all see the squad is physically and mentally weak and needs major surgery. The club has been a mess for far too long. I wouldn’t mind giving him next season under INEOS just to see. We need more athletic players to dominate games and we need to clear the malaise in the playing squad before we can start a new chapter. No manager on Earth is challenging with this combination of players.
Last edited:
McFred. And he couldn’t have Frenkie.
This is where I am at.
If the new manager who comes in is promised that players will be sold(including big names) then it can work. But so far we have seen that the new manager always gives player a clean slate. He wouldn't last long after that.
I see what you did there.
Nah they're not going to spend all this cash bringing in Berrada, Ashworth etc just to baulk at paying Erik 10m it doesn't make sense.
Yeah surely there is someone out there who will take Potter off the market. Then there's Southgate who could return to club management for first time in 15 years. We need to be keeping as far away as possible from both.
Big, physical and mobile. Haaland and Nunez are not lumps, they are just about as fast and athletic as anyone on those teams. And that's why they are in the system of those elite managers. Those managers do not need a battering ram. Having a lump like Haller up top shows which category of manager you belong to.
He was literally quoted as saying he wanted control over transfers or else he wouldn't have taken the job. I don't think any manager in football has TOTAL control, obviously. But he has clearly been the driving force behind what goes on. I don't know you're pushing back against that so hard, it's quite odd.
Shaw wasn't chronically injured last season and our only actual left back.
These points are repeated every other page, but are never engaged with. I doubt you’ll get a direct response, just more straw man arguments.
They've been engaged with plenty of times. I'm fairly sure I spoke about them with you in this thread.
If the level of control people believe he has is what the club granted, then he should never have been hired, which effectively pins it back on the club. After that, you can criticise him for demanding the control and his record with that control, but it still has to be caveated with "why the feck did the club give it to him?".
It's a short quote, that literally begins with "I don't want to be sole-ruler, I stand for cooperation" but people focus on the "control of transfers bit". It can just as easily be read as him not wanting surprise signings, or players he categorically doesn't want forced on him. You literally described this situation to me with Emery and Pepe at Arsenal, prompting a change in approach for Arteta.
He has a veto, as does Murtough (Solskjaer also alluded to a scout having one, and I imagine the person authorising the financial aspect also has one). Any level of control he has outside of that is basically conjecture from both sides. Using Antony as the example (as everyone does), there's basically a sliding scale of "the club had no alternatives, so we went with a player Ten Hag knew" to "Ten Hag really pushed for his own player". Ultimately, we don't know who was the driving force behind this, or any transfer we've made since Ten Hag joined, but there have been (worrying) reports from inside the club, particularly from when Ten Hag arrived, about how ill-prepared the recruitment side of things were. Even the "500 right-backs" comment made about Wan-Bissaka paints a picture of a recruitment team not really knowing what to do with the data at their disposal, and this was publicised by the club as a good thing.
The point a lot of people are making is that it's reasonable to expect a manager to be doing better than this.
Nobody sane is saying that because we're not in the title race he should be sacked. They're questioning why the football is so poor this far into the job, and whether the tactics he's persisting week after week are ever going to work. We give away huge amounts of possession to average sides, concede chances galore (which decent sides, when it comes down it are more likely to put away) and mostly don't create a lot of chances, relying on individuals to dig us out. Results since Christmas have improved but performances have not and we're arguably worse as a footballing side that we were when he took over.
I fail to see how anyone can suggest that right now, he's doing a good job, and it seems even those who support him staying don't argue that he is, but hold out hope that it will get better when he's not allowed to but any players. That to me, seems like blind faith.
There are other reasons contributing to why this isn't working, but the fact is it isn't working. If your argument is that nobody could be doing a better job, I disagree.
Last edited:
Whilst this is true, I find it a bizarre defence to use to justify keeping him in a job. Imagine the CEO of a business making terrible decisions and running it into the ground and then declaring that it's the board fault for letting him make those decisions and giving him too much power.
Whether he's at fault for spending he money which has been spent is moot for me. I'd assume he had an idea of what he wanted us to do and how he wanted us to play. It's a massive red flag if players he's picked and/or approved can't employ that system or aren't good enough for the Premier League.
The club can be at fault, and the manager not to the required standard. They're not mutually exclusive.
I actually think this is all irrelevant anyway. I think there's a decent chance that the stuff in the press the last few days is true, that he's gearing up to walk on the basis that he won't have control over transfers anymore under INEOS and he'll get a job elsewhere. Face saving all round.
- Status