Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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I really do not know why I would enter into further discourse with you mate as you will defend ETH irrespective of anything, especially like people who selectively quote part of a post, tells you all you need to know, focus on one thing and you can ignore everything else, noice!

But glutton for punishment that I am, are you asserting that ETH could NOT have modified his team selection and/or tactics to better utilise the players he had at his disposal..... you completely ignore my point that a manager has to manage what he has, making excuses for failure to do this is blindly ignoring what has occurred.

And we may not like every player we have, sure there are faults, but by in large they are regular full international players, who if they were to leave Utd would still be playing 1st 11 football in Europe's top leagues, ETH has not had to cope with Championship players and kids, he has just had players that do not meet his tactical profile
I'm not defending ten hag, just stating any manager can't play a cohesive team if they have so many defensive injuries. Unsure why you are being overly sensitive.

Could ten hag set us out to be more compact? Yes. Would people still have complained? Yes.
 
The biggest problem with Moyes is that he dismantled the entire back office coaching staff, getting rid of many coaches that had been there under Ferguson, and brought his own Everton staff aboard. A renowned coach bringing his staff to work with is normal, but it was David Moyes coming from Everton, we can't try to operate at their level nor was it wise to make such significant moves in his first big job at the very beginning.
Think Moyes is finding WHU is his level, no matter what his mates in the media think, some WHU fans beg to differ about that as well.
 
A lot of talk of how Ten Hag is failing. Let‘s hear how we should play/line up instead?
 
The biggest problem with Moyes is that he dismantled the entire back office coaching staff, getting rid of many coaches that had been there under Ferguson, and brought his own Everton staff aboard. A renowned coach bringing his staff to work with is normal, but it was David Moyes coming from Everton, we can't try to operate at their level nor was it wise to make such significant moves in his first big job at the very beginning.

I am not going to defend Moyes, he did look certainly intimidated by the job.

But he took over a league winning squad. He was replacing our greatest manager of all time. And the club supported him by overspending on Fellaini. No matter how good a manager Moyes might of been, the club made a fool of him that summer and he never recovered. Even Mata wasnt a signing for Moyes, he was for Woodward , a vanity signing because he made a balls of the summer.

Forget the manager, imagine the league winning squad of 2013 see SAF retiring and are concerned that levels are gonna drop and are looking for the club to make a statement to them. Fellaini ? F**k off with that, whavever manager was in charge was gonna struggle to get the squad to believe Fellaini was the droid they were looking for to get over SAF retirement.

This is one of the many issues I have had with our club. Signings made that are not just not for the squad (Mata was bought because he could be bought, not for any particular system or positional need in the squad) but players who look good on paper and its difficult to really objectively assess if they were signed because we desperately needed them or they were available and it was easier to throw loads of money at them rather then have an actual squad management plan.
 
What? They finished top 3 twice under Ole, playing at a higher level than what we've seen this year and a pretty similar level to what we showed last year (yeah, I know, the mighty 1 point more and a cup we won't name because we all know it's the least important trophy we can win).

If anything, it's actually concerning that ETH has hardly improved any of the players we had prior to him joining (Dalot aside, but he was 19-21 in those seasons so it's hard to compare).

Again, look at Ole's last game. 1-4 loss vs Watford. Look at the players Ole had in the squad and the bench vs what EtH has now.

Ole is the one that had no excuse to have 4 goal losses vs clubs like Watford.

Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.
 
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All fans will have varying levels of patience though. If you watch your team play and you're shit then you brush it off as a bad day in the office after the initial moaning. A few weeks of bad performances and you start to get irritated. But it's been a full year. So how long do you give a Manager? How many PL Games do you give them before you want to see actual progress. 20? 30? 40? 50?

Our fanbase is patient, the moaning only really began to mount up in December when we got pushed out of the CL in the group stages and we've been rubbish in the League since March 23.

In this day and age I don't think any manager would have a case to complain if he was sacked after two years when there has been no progress from the time he took over. We can point to the structure above him being incompetent and recruitment being poor (both are true), but he's doesn't exist on an island completely isolated from that. He still has to take responsibility for what happening on the pitch to some extent.

And that's without pointing out the Elephant in the room, if the club structure is so poor on virtually every level and most of us agree that it is. Then surely that same awful club structure full of incompetent non football men, that appointed the 4 previous failed managers shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt that it's selected a top manager this time around. Every other major position within the club will have a new man in place from next season and I don't see why that shouldn't also be the case for the position first team coach. Certainly not based on this seasons performances anyway.
 
Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.

Sorry, by what metric is he doing a lot better? Or even just better?

actually, just explain how he isn’t doing much worse given the CL embarrassment, number of defeats and goal difference
 
Again, look at Ole's last game. 1-4 vs Watford. Look at the players Ole had in the squad and the bench vs what EtH has now. Ole is the one that had no excuse to have 4 goal losses vs clubs like Watford. Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.

What kind of nonsense is this? You cannot just look at Ole's last game as a benchmark. :lol: ETH has had his share of horrible losses as well.
 
Again, look at Ole's last game. 1-4 vs Watford. Look at the players Ole had in the squad and the bench vs what EtH has now. Ole is the one that had no excuse to have 4 goal losses vs clubs like Watford. Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.
Yeah that loss to Watford was way worse than the 7-0 spanking to Liverpool
 
What kind of nonsense is this? You cannot just look at Ole's last game as a benchmark. :lol: ETH has had his share of horrible losses as well.

Examples… in the last calendar year the defeats to Liverpool 7-0, City 3-1, Bournemouth 3-0, Newcastle 3-0, West Ham 2-0, City 3-0 were all worse defeats than Watford from any perspective

Also the defeats to Galatasary and Copenhagen, CL games were we led multiple times and pissed it away. Even more unforgivable against such poor opponents at the highest level of club football.
 
Examples… in the last calendar year the defeats to Liverpool 7-0, City 3-1, Bournemouth 3-0, Newcastle 3-0, West Ham 2-0, City 3-0 were all worse defeats than Watford from any perspective

Also the defeats to Galatasary and Copenhagen, CL games were we led multiple times and pissed it away. Even more unforgivable against such poor opponents at the highest level of club football.

They are both culpable of some absolutely shocking defeats.
 
Again, look at Ole's last game. 1-4 loss vs Watford. Look at the players Ole had in the squad and the bench vs what EtH has now.

Ole is the one that had no excuse to have 4 goal losses vs clubs like Watford.

Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.
Maguire was way way better under Ole. To the point people were really worried and disappointed when he was injured for the Europa final and thought we'd lose because of it.
 
I want a new manager next season, so it's not really a defense of him from me.

Also, that analogy is terrible. The CEO of a company is literally there to make decisions that affect the whole business (or delegate accordingly). They live and die by that, and Manchester United quite literally have a CEO above Ten Hag who should have stepped in and stopped his hiring if this control was one of the terms. In a business context, it'd be like hiring a manager for your IT department on the basis of them having significant control of your marketing department. It's simply silly to agree to such terms.

I agree that there are concerns regardless of who is to blame for recruitment failings. Antony was his player, he'd worked with him extensively, and he's got feck all out of him. That's a fair criticism, but it's also one we don't actually see much of, because instead it's just "£400 million spent", "16 signings". Similarly, prioritising Mount is a confusing move, as was the sustained pursuit of Amrabat given his clear unsuitability to Ten Hag's tactical preferences.



Yes, I understood your point last time. The the third bullet point isn't true though. At least not the extent (people believe) Ten Hag has control. Literally the only control we know Ten Hag has is a veto over suggested targets. By default, this suggests that others have (some) responsibility to identify and suggest potential transfer targets, and then he reviews these and gives his input. It's possible that he also suggests his own targets, but if they've not been scouted extensively or the scout reports don't show them to be suitable, we shouldn't be pursuing them just because he said he likes them.

To flog a dead horse, we had scouted Antony. We reportedly valued him at around £25-30 million, which would have placed him firmly in the "squad player/rotation option" part of the squad. We reportedly asked Ajax about him and walked away when they asked for £50 million. We then failed to sign an alternative, panicked after losing our first two games and ended up paying three times what we'd valued him at. The majority of the blame for that has to be on the club and the recruitment team, regardless of how much Ten Hag liked him.

To flog another dead horse, Klopp wanted Brandt (and apparently two or three other players) ahead of Salah. He was overruled because Liverpool had done their homework and Salah was the stand out candidate for the position. Managers, in modern football, do not dictate transfer policy to the degree that it is made out that Ten Hag does. Some will take more of a backseat than others, but it's simply not true that Pep, Klopp, Arteta or anyone else is coming into a club, and going "scrap your scout reports, I want these players," which is what is repeated about Ten Hag again and again.

Emery had no control. There's a large middle ground between the club signing players you don't want, for huge fees, and being able to ignore all of the work the recruitment team has done in favour of "at all costs" pursuit of your own targets.

This is why this debate rages on endlessly, because one side (not you, specifically) inevitably ends up making out that signing two back-up goalkeepers and Wout Weghorst on loan was somehow part of Ten Hag's master plan for the squad. It's also how we end up with straw man comments like "Ten Hag signed Martinez and Hojlund, but Murtough signed Antony and Amrabat".

You can criticise Ten Hag's ability to lead recruitment strategy, but it's not really a concern when we should primarily be concerned with his ability to manage the team. As I said above to RedRover, Antony's lack of output is a massive concern, and on a related note, prioritising a left-footed right-winger as a key element of his tactical system, only to end up playing a right-footer there, who has been far more effective, is another actual criticism to be made. Ten Hag should be able to brief the scouting department on what he needs for his system to work, and Antony and the Varane at left centre-back thing are two large examples of him seemingly not knowing what he needs, which is a massive indictment on his managerial capabilities.

To use yesterday's favourite word, this endless harping on about how much control he has of transfers (and how much leeway he can be given because of the injuries) obfuscates any real discussion of the more pertinent issues. It's tiring, and when it's (supposed) United fans endlessly bringing up the same, weak points over and over, it makes me think that we're just going to be here again with the next manager as soon as we have a couple of disappointing results.
This is a crock of shit.

Ten Hag had to say yes to every transfer. He could have said no to Antony and Mount. And Onana. And Amrabaat. He’s agreed to 400m in players.

You’re being incredibly simple, black or white. What we are saying is that in addition to the tumescent football, the lame tactics, the lack of scoring and the poor defending, he has SOME responsibility for the transfer record. He was Antony and Onana’s manager. He agreed to the transfer and the amount that was paid — knowing that he had a budget. Most of our additions he had some connection to, either playing for him, in the Dutch league or the agent connection.

Look, if Hojlund and Licha turn out to be good additions, then we should give him some credit for agreeing to those transfers as well.
 
Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.
That's certainly not true. Maguire's best form came in the second half of 20/21. An argument could be made that this season has been his second best period of form, but it's still quite a long way behind how he performed in 20/21 where he was genuinely one of the best defenders in the league (admittedly a couple of other top defenders had long-term injuries that season).

Other than Dalot, I can't think of a single player who the bolded is true for. Some might say Rashford last season, but I think most would agree that he was better in 19/20 even though he didn't score quite so many goals.

I'd certainly agree we're doing better this season under ETH than what we did for Ole in his last season though. Just in points per game, ETH is 1.6 vs Ole's 1.4.
 
Not just Maguire. Fred, McTominay and Martial also all had their best periods at the club under Ole, not even close.

Honestly what a train wreck of a post.
 
They are both culpable of some absolutely shocking defeats.

Ten Hag certainly culpable for more though, over a longer time span.

Ole had the wheels come off from Leicester 2-4, with the bolts already loosened by the Europa league failure. Then it was the manner of the defeats to Liverpool and City, and Watford the final nail.

With Ten Hag the wheels started coming off at the 7-0. And he's gone on to have car crashes across 3 different competitions ever since.
 
Ten Hag certainly culpable for more though, over a longer time span.

Ole had the wheels come off from Leicester 2-4, with the bolts already loosened by the Europa league failure. Then it was the manner of the defeats to Liverpool and City, and Watford the final nail.

With Ten Hag the wheels started coming off at the 7-0. And he's gone on to have car crashes across 3 different competitions ever since.

They're both a wee bit rubbish.
 
12 in xG, 14th in xG conceded, 12th in expected points, 15th in goals scored, somehow only 4th in goals conceded (more luck than skill that one given the other stats), 9th in goal differential... 6th in the table of course is what's recorded. But I guess a goal difference of 0 and being 6th is seen as fine these days.

But, but but injuries, bad luck, referees, the board. Anything but the manager!
 
Just to play devils advocate abit as someone that isn’t convinced we should get rid of Ten Hag. For all those people asking for Ten Hag to be more pragmatic, do you remember that analysis from Neville a couple of years ago on Arteta (I think?)?. Carra was arguing that they needed to be more pragmatic and temporarily abandon the style of football they were attempting to play because frankly it just wasn’t working. The argument to this was that to build a proper system you have to be dogmatic in the way you implement it. Klopp and Pep both faced issues early on with getting results which a squad that was not tailored to their preferred way of playing. The issues have been compounded at Utd where injures and form have made it very difficult to build the system that Ten Hag is aiming for. This doesn’t excuse him of all his misgivings, but it does provide some context.

Some of you are probably correct, we could have got better results by being more pragmatic, more defensive and playing purely for results, but would we ever take the next step doing that. It would be the definition of short term gain for long term pain (looking at you Mourinho!). I for one would back trying this system but with better suited players. Let the new recruitment team ship the likes of Rashford, Sancho (hell maybe even Bruno) and let’s see if this system can build. Maybe it’s blind faith but I think Ten Hag can clearly coach, I think he sees our issues, but isn’t willing to compromise on his ultimate vision, even when we have to field half an 11 of dross.
 
Just to play devils advocate abit as someone that isn’t convinced we should get rid of Ten Hag. For all those people asking for Ten Hag to be more pragmatic, do you remember that analysis from Neville a couple of years ago on Arteta (I think?)?. Carra was arguing that they needed to be more pragmatic and temporarily abandon the style of football they were attempting to play because frankly it just wasn’t working. The argument to this was that to build a proper system you have to be dogmatic in the way you implement it. Klopp and Pep both faced issues early on with getting results which a squad that was not tailored to their preferred way of playing. The issues have been compounded at Utd where injures and form have made it very difficult to build the system that Ten Hag is aiming for. This doesn’t excuse him of all his misgivings, but it does provide some context.

Some of you are probably correct, we could have got better results by being more pragmatic, more defensive and playing purely for results, but would we ever take the next step doing that. It would be the definition of short term gain for long term pain (looking at you Mourinho!). I for one would back trying this system but with better suited players. Let the new recruitment team ship the likes of Rashford, Sancho (hell maybe even Bruno) and let’s see if this system can build. Maybe it’s blind faith but I think Ten Hag can clearly coach, I think he sees our issues, but isn’t willing to compromise on his ultimate vision, even when we have to field half an 11 of dross.

It's not about ETH being more pragmatic. It's the fact hes being dogmatic using a system that doesnt work, and a style that makes for shit games of football. We score feck all goals and rely even more on moments of brilliance than Oleball.

Arteta, Pep, Klopp.. none of them went from a reasonable season (actually just two thirds of a season) to a stinking shithole of a season. The progress was constant, as it always is with successful managers.
 
A lot of talk of how Ten Hag is failing. Let‘s hear how we should play/line up instead?

Much more subtle than how to line up. Regardless of how we line up, the build up is not working, the counter pressing is not working, the goal scoring is not working. That much is clear to see.

Ten Hag defenders claim this is due to injuries. I disagree because we haven't been particularly good outside a purple patch last year either.
 
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It's not about ETH being more pragmatic. It's the fact hes being dogmatic using a system that doesnt work, and a style that makes for shit games of football. We score feck all goals and rely even more on moments of brilliance than Oleball.

Arteta, Pep, Klopp.. none of them went from a reasonable season (actually just two thirds of a season) to a stinking shithole of a season. The progress was constant, as it always is with successful managers.

Yeah no one is complaining that we are too gung ho, it’s that the fecking plan didn’t ever make sense and you have an overflow of performances and results to back that up.
 
A lot of talk of how Ten Hag is failing. Let‘s hear how we should play/line up instead?

Stop trying to press with 5 and man mark the midfield while dropping the backline deep. Ship one of Bruno or Casemiro to the bench, have Mainoo drop deeper to dictate play more often instead of him being isolated as this pressing 8 where he only touches the ball 20-30 times a game. Have Amad as first off the bench for attackers. Lower the amount of transition attempts and look to control possession slightly more especially if the game gets stretched.

It’s not rocket science, our pressing structure with only Casemiro holding is a failure and just contributes to the endless chances we concede. And in possession we have to be willing to play football a bit more instead of playing so hyper vertical that we treat the ball like its a bomb with a 5 second fuse
 
This is a crock of shit.

Ten Hag had to say yes to every transfer. He could have said no to Antony and Mount. And Onana. And Amrabaat. He’s agreed to 400m in players.

You’re being incredibly simple, black or white. What we are saying is that in addition to the tumescent football, the lame tactics, the lack of scoring and the poor defending, he has SOME responsibility for the transfer record. He was Antony and Onana’s manager. He agreed to the transfer and the amount that was paid — knowing that he had a budget. Most of our additions he had some connection to, either playing for him, in the Dutch league or the agent connection.

Look, if Hojlund and Licha turn out to be good additions, then we should give him some credit for agreeing to those transfers as well.

The irony of accusing me of "being incredibly simple, black or white" while ignoring that it's quite clearly not as simple as him saying "no" to a signing to save budget.

We pretty much did that with Antony, by all accounts, having been quoted £50 million for him at the beginning of the summer. We then made the wrong call to say "yes" when we had no one else and they wanted £85 million on deadline day.

Say "no" to Hojlund (who I think was over priced) and we risk having to resort to another Weghorst-type loan deal.

Say "no" to Mount (or Onana, or anyone, really) with a view to saving budget to afford Kim Min-Jae, and there's still the chance he chooses Bayern and we end up with just Jonny Evans anyway, except now we're short somewhere else.

We've clearly got the strategy wrong on more than one occasion, but it's simply not an issue I can place too much blame on Ten Hag for.
 
Again, look at Ole's last game. 1-4 loss vs Watford. Look at the players Ole had in the squad and the bench vs what EtH has now.

Ole is the one that had no excuse to have 4 goal losses vs clubs like Watford.

Currently, this season, with no striker and no bench, EtH is doing a lot better and had some players like Maguire perform better than at any time under Ole.
How is it different to lose 4-1 to Watford away, than to lose 3-0 to Bournemouth at home, we can’t use the squad argument, there is no excuse for a result like that at Old Trafford.
 
Say "no" to Mount (or Onana, or anyone, really) with a view to saving budget to afford Kim Min-Jae, and there's still the chance he chooses Bayern and we end up with just Jonny Evans anyway, except now we're short somewhere else.

We've clearly got the strategy wrong on more than one occasion, but it's simply not an issue I can place too much blame on Ten Hag for.

There's no way that making Mount the first signing of the summer isn't reflective of the fact he was ETH's number 1 priority.

So much could have been done differently had we not blown so much money so early on such a dud.

Like with the Thiago saga we could have had Kim signed and sealed long before Bayern even had a sniff of him.
 
Just to play devils advocate abit as someone that isn’t convinced we should get rid of Ten Hag. For all those people asking for Ten Hag to be more pragmatic, do you remember that analysis from Neville a couple of years ago on Arteta (I think?)?. Carra was arguing that they needed to be more pragmatic and temporarily abandon the style of football they were attempting to play because frankly it just wasn’t working. The argument to this was that to build a proper system you have to be dogmatic in the way you implement it. Klopp and Pep both faced issues early on with getting results which a squad that was not tailored to their preferred way of playing. The issues have been compounded at Utd where injures and form have made it very difficult to build the system that Ten Hag is aiming for. This doesn’t excuse him of all his misgivings, but it does provide some context.

Some of you are probably correct, we could have got better results by being more pragmatic, more defensive and playing purely for results, but would we ever take the next step doing that. It would be the definition of short term gain for long term pain (looking at you Mourinho!). I for one would back trying this system but with better suited players. Let the new recruitment team ship the likes of Rashford, Sancho (hell maybe even Bruno) and let’s see if this system can build. Maybe it’s blind faith but I think Ten Hag can clearly coach, I think he sees our issues, but isn’t willing to compromise on his ultimate vision, even when we have to field half an 11 of dross.
The problem is that EtH builds to nothing currently. His "ignore the midfield" system can actually work if you play it with a high line. That fixes a lot of issues about how "broken" the team looks - easy to play through United's midfield, hard to do proper buildup. Obviously most of the defenders available (especially the CBs) don't suit a high line. The Pep/Klopp/Arteta way as you mention would be to still play a high line even with those players.

If EtH was doing that we would see a much more cohesive United team, that however would be beaten by fast runners whenever the opposition breaks through the then overall much improved defence. So we would see less chances, but of higher quality against United than we currently do.

Because currently EtH accepts that his defenders play in an area they feel comfortable in and the fact that United concedes a terrible lot of shots but not as many goals is the direct result of that. The defenders do their job at stopping/disturbing attackers, it's just to easy to play through to them because of the open midfield.

So EtH currently is neither "fully pragmatic" which would mean playing deeper as the whole team nor "fully dogmatic" by forcing his players to actually play towards the strength of his system. Instead he is doing a weird mix that often increases many of the issues but not many of the strengths of this current squad.
 
There's no way that making Mount the first signing of the summer isn't reflective of the fact he was ETH's number 1 priority.

So much could have been done differently had we not blown so much money so early on such a dud.

Like with the Thiago saga we could have had Kim signed and sealed long before Bayern even had a sniff of him.

I agree the Mount signing shouldn't have been a priority (or even on the radar at all). From what little we've seen, he seems ill-suited to whatever it is Ten Hag wants us to do.

That money might have allowed us to sign Kim, but an early bid from us might have just prompted his agent to get on the phone to other clubs and see if they're interested at the price. We can't say with any certainty that no Mount = Kim (or any other suitable centre-back), and even if it did, we'd still be here bemoaning the lack of midfield reinforcement (not that Mount has actually managed to be that).

Ultimately, I'm far more concerned that Ten Hag specified a left-footed right-winger, only for a teenage right-footer to be flourishing in the role, spent weeks benching Varane with the excuse of "he can't play on the left side" only to start playing him there, and brought in a midfielder that seems ill-suited to his tactical plans than his general involvement in transfers. The transfers thing we can fix with a proper recruitment structure, but if he can't brief that recruitment structure with profiles of players that will work in his team, then he's failing at a fundamental aspect of his job.
 
How is it different to lose 4-1 to Watford away, than to lose 3-0 to Bournemouth at home, we can’t use the squad argument, there is no excuse for a result like that at Old Trafford.

It's different because we had a man sent off at 2-1 just when it looked like we were getting back into the game at Watford. Even then in Oles last game there was always a feeling his team could turn games around from almost any position.

We conceded early against Bournemouth and never looked like scoring and getting back into the game. Not at any point. And there is plenty of similar games from this season alone.
 
The problem is that EtH builds to nothing currently. His "ignore the midfield" system can actually work if you play it with a high line. That fixes a lot of issues about how "broken" the team looks - easy to play through United's midfield, hard to do proper buildup. Obviously most of the defenders available (especially the CBs) don't suit a high line. The Pep/Klopp/Arteta way as you mention would be to still play a high line even with those players.

If EtH was doing that we would see a much more cohesive United team, that however would be beaten by fast runners whenever the opposition breaks through the then overall much improved defence. So we would see less chances, but of higher quality against United than we currently do.

Because currently EtH accepts that his defenders play in an area they feel comfortable in and the fact that United concedes a terrible lot of shots but not as many goals is the direct result of that. The defenders do their job at stopping/disturbing attackers, it's just to easy to play through to them because of the open midfield.

So EtH currently is neither "fully pragmatic" which would mean playing deeper as the whole team nor "fully dogmatic" by forcing his players to actually play towards the strength of his system. Instead he is doing a weird mix that often increases many of the issues but not many of the strengths of this current squad.

Could not agree more. I'm kinda willing to give him a pass on this part.

The thing I don't understand is why do we not value the ball more? That part i don't get. No one else in the world plays like that.
 
Ultimately, I'm far more concerned that Ten Hag specified a left-footed right-winger, only for a teenage right-footer to be flourishing in the role, spent weeks benching Varane with the excuse of "he can't play on the left side" only to start playing him there, and brought in a midfielder that seems ill-suited to his tactical plans than his general involvement in transfers. The transfers thing we can fix with a proper recruitment structure, but if he can't brief that recruitment structure with profiles of players that will work in his team, then he's failing at a fundamental aspect of his job.

The thing with Evans and Varane, and who plays on which side, is a real big black mark against him.

To drop Varane for ages and say it's because Evans plays better as a left sided centreback was bad enough. But then a few months later we're regularly playing Evans and Varane with Evans at RCB.

That along with the treatment of Maguire and McTominay from transfer listed to first names on the team sheet at times (very detrimental to our play in McTominays case) just shows such a big element of him winging it and not actually having a plan at all.
 
It's not about ETH being more pragmatic. It's the fact hes being dogmatic using a system that doesnt work, and a style that makes for shit games of football. We score feck all goals and rely even more on moments of brilliance than Oleball.

Arteta, Pep, Klopp.. none of them went from a reasonable season (actually just two thirds of a season) to a stinking shithole of a season. The progress was constant, as it always is with successful managers.
That wasn’t true at all for Arteta, who seemed to take arsenal backwards before taking them forwards. Even leaving him aside, Pep and Klopp both inherited teams that were much better than the one Ten Hag inherited. More importantly still, they took over at clubs with a clear structure in place, something we can all agree has been severely lacking at Utd. Do you really believe that if Pep and Klopp had been dealt this hand in their second season they would fared much better?

As for the bolded, we just don’t have sufficient evidence to say this. Yes the system has been poor this season, yes we have been a frankly terrible watch and scored nowhere near enough goals. But pep couldn’t play his football with this squad, nor could pep. The stark reality is no top manager would get this team consistently competing. Fleeting moments here and there sure, but consistently, I just don’t believe it possible with the cards on the table this season.
 
The thing with Evans and Varane, and who plays on which side, is a real big black mark against him.

To drop Varane for ages and say it's because Evans plays better as a left sided centreback was bad enough. But then a few months later we're regularly playing Evans and Varane with Evans at RCB.

That along with the treatment of Maguire and McTominay from transfer listed to first names on the team sheet (to great detriment to our play in McTominays case) just shows such a big element of him winging it and not actually having a plan at all.

I can understand the logic in wanting rid of Maguire and McTominay, but he shot himself in the foot with that by not attempting it last season and then barely playing either of them. It's no wonder their value was on the floor.
 
The problem is that EtH builds to nothing currently. His "ignore the midfield" system can actually work if you play it with a high line. That fixes a lot of issues about how "broken" the team looks - easy to play through United's midfield, hard to do proper buildup. Obviously most of the defenders available (especially the CBs) don't suit a high line. The Pep/Klopp/Arteta way as you mention would be to still play a high line even with those players.

If EtH was doing that we would see a much more cohesive United team, that however would be beaten by fast runners whenever the opposition breaks through the then overall much improved defence. So we would see less chances, but of higher quality against United than we currently do.

Because currently EtH accepts that his defenders play in an area they feel comfortable in and the fact that United concedes a terrible lot of shots but not as many goals is the direct result of that. The defenders do their job at stopping/disturbing attackers, it's just to easy to play through to them because of the open midfield.

So EtH currently is neither "fully pragmatic" which would mean playing deeper as the whole team nor "fully dogmatic" by forcing his players to actually play towards the strength of his system. Instead he is doing a weird mix that often increases many of the issues but not many of the strengths of this current squad.
Sure don’t disagree. But do with throw it all out of the window before completion, or do we bring in players that are actually capable of playing this system. We saw at Ajax the football he was capable of manufacturing with a properly suited team. Now I don’t think he wants us to play the exact same way as them and that’s fine, but the way he does want to play is impossible with these players. What do we have to lose by throwing it all into one more season? Worst case it never clicks, we continue churning out poor performances and he is sacked mid season. Best case, new players come in (under the new hierarchy), they bed into this system and we improve significantly. What are th pros of rolling the dice with another manager. These same players get a stay of execution and we do it all over again.
 
That wasn’t true at all for Arteta, who seemed to take arsenal backwards before taking them forwards. Even leaving him aside, Pep and Klopp both inherited teams that were much better than the one Ten Hag inherited. More importantly still, they took over at clubs with a clear structure in place, something we can all agree has been severely lacking at Utd. Do you really believe that if Pep and Klopp had been dealt this hand in their second season they would fared much better?

As for the bolded, we just don’t have sufficient evidence to say this. Yes the system has been poor this season, yes we have been a frankly terrible watch and scored nowhere near enough goals. But pep couldn’t play his football with this squad, nor could pep. The stark reality is no top manager would get this team consistently competing. Fleeting moments here and there sure, but consistently, I just don’t believe it possible with the cards on the table this season.

Nah some of this doesnt wash. It's been said a billion times already that Arteta finished 8th twicr. They didnt lurch drastically backwards like Hag has. And Klopp and Arteta inherited fecking dump teams. Far worse than our current level.

As for whether Pep could play his football with our squad, no he couldnt play it to the same level. But you only have to look at what Ange is doing with a squad that looked bleak and worse than ours on paper. Because his system works.
 
Nah some of this doesnt wash. It's been said a billion times already that Arteta finished 8th twicr. They didnt lurch drastically backwards like Hag has. And Klopp and Arteta inherited fecking dump teams. Far worse than our current level.

As for whether Pep could play his football with our squad, no he couldnt play it to the same level. But you only have to look at what Ange is doing with a squad that looked bleak and worse than ours on paper. Because his system works.

Yes, amazing how history is rewritten to make EtH look good.

Before Klopp took over Liverpool finished in top-4 only once in previous five years, otherwise they were 6 to 8th. Before EtH took over United finished in top four in 3 of 5 previous seasons.

What also gets overlooked is that even adjusted for transfer Inflation Klopp spent a lot less than EtH on gross basis in the first 2 seasons. And he spent close to 0 on net basis. Had it been similar with EtH there would have been non-stop outcry here that he "has not been backed" and even midtable finishes would have been excused by many, I am sure.

Not to mention the fact that Liverpool lost their two best players at the time - Sterling just before Klopp joined and Coutinho shortly after.

But no, apparently Klopp had it relatively easy according to some...
 
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