36 is extreme but it is directionally correct. There have been more games in which our opposition could have felt hard done with a loss than games that we lost but should have won. We definitely would not be up there with top 3 if it only wasn’t for referees / bad luck in the games, we are far behind City, Arsenal and Liverpool because we have genuinely been far worse than them not because we have been cheated out of wins.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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We’d definitely be ahead of Villa/Spurs, but off the pace of the top three.
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Yep. Which sounds about right for how we have performed this season so far. I think it's very fortunate that we find ourselves 6th.
Even during the last 12 PL games (which some are lauding him for) the underlying xg doesn't look great:
Arsenal are really motoring now at the perfect time of the season. Impressive numbers there backing up the ‘eye test’ from the last few weeks.
The 2 most staunchly pro-ETH in this thread are saying completely different things.
@NLunited says ETH intentionally sets us up to play with a deep defence with gaps in midfield to play on the counter attack. He believes that we will be successful continuing to play this way with better players (or Martinez and Casemiro playing at the level they did last season), aggressive defenders and a physical dm, but without changing anything else about the style of play. Counter attacking football is very effective and sustainable as we create more quality chance than the opposition more often than not (I disagree and the stats show the opposite). We would have a 70% win rate if not for injuries (despite all x metrics showing we're actually very fortunate to even have as many points as we do this season). In general, NL has just been ignoring any other x stats when brought up as a concern, only referencing the win rate over and over again like this is the only thing that matters when assessing a manager (our win rate this season isn't good either, injuries or not).
@VP89 says it's obvious ETH doesn't want to play a deep line and it's only because he doesn't have Martinez and Varane starting who know how to push up and play a high line ("10 to 15 yards further out"). His belief is that ETH doesn't want us playing the way we are, and therefore things will improve once we have the players to do the things ETH is asking of them. Counter attacking football is apparently not effective or sustainable (even though this is how we are playing under ETH's instruction).
VP has called what NL says about ETH wanting to defend deep "nonsense", yet only confronted the people that think ETH should be replaced. Not once has he said anything to NL directly, presumably because he's ETH-in (for completely different reasons). Perhaps you should have a discussion with VP about his thought that "There's nothing to suggest sitting deep yields better points" NL. I think I agree more with VP.
The only thing I see in common with your arguments is that you're both trying to make as many excuses as possible for ETH's underperformance.
@NLunited says ETH intentionally sets us up to play with a deep defence with gaps in midfield to play on the counter attack. He believes that we will be successful continuing to play this way with better players (or Martinez and Casemiro playing at the level they did last season), aggressive defenders and a physical dm, but without changing anything else about the style of play. Counter attacking football is very effective and sustainable as we create more quality chance than the opposition more often than not (I disagree and the stats show the opposite). We would have a 70% win rate if not for injuries (despite all x metrics showing we're actually very fortunate to even have as many points as we do this season). In general, NL has just been ignoring any other x stats when brought up as a concern, only referencing the win rate over and over again like this is the only thing that matters when assessing a manager (our win rate this season isn't good either, injuries or not).
@VP89 says it's obvious ETH doesn't want to play a deep line and it's only because he doesn't have Martinez and Varane starting who know how to push up and play a high line ("10 to 15 yards further out"). His belief is that ETH doesn't want us playing the way we are, and therefore things will improve once we have the players to do the things ETH is asking of them. Counter attacking football is apparently not effective or sustainable (even though this is how we are playing under ETH's instruction).
VP has called what NL says about ETH wanting to defend deep "nonsense", yet only confronted the people that think ETH should be replaced. Not once has he said anything to NL directly, presumably because he's ETH-in (for completely different reasons). Perhaps you should have a discussion with VP about his thought that "There's nothing to suggest sitting deep yields better points" NL. I think I agree more with VP.
The only thing I see in common with your arguments is that you're both trying to make as many excuses as possible for ETH's underperformance.
They tie themselves in knots.
I‘ll address the first part of your post which concerns me.
We are playing deeper than ETH would like due to personnel issues. We eventually want to defend pushing up more with aggression on the ball, which does not mean we will push up as high as Villa or Spurs. Erik does not want to give up that space to the opposition (unless we have to).
I mention winrate because we are currently at Klopps winrate thereabouts. Basically we have been nowhere as bad as people make out.
We are actually creating a lot of good chances in general. To take the Pool game as an example: they did not have open chances like the Rashford, McTominay and Amad ones. The stats show this and more importantly the eye test as well.
It's almost as though people can have different views.
Your generalisation to another view in a debate to bucket as "pro ten hag" and thus singing from the same hymnsheet is ultimately laughable.
We are two different people and haven't debated this with each other. What on earth are you on about.
But we could have quite easily have far fewer points than we do have, we have allowed so many chances in some games that other teams have missed. Calling injuries bad luck also ignores the impact the manager and medical have had on them
If we're generalising, the "anti-ETH" lot have been simultaneously been criticising Ten for "having no identifiable style" while also criticising him for "stubbornly refusing to change his style".
Which is it?
A @Leftback99 would say, "they've tied themselves in knots"
Mine is that the current style we're using with a deep defence and major gaps in midfield is a bad one which makes us very vulnerable defensively. I don't see it being a tactic which will work. Based on past comments ETH has made about not wanting Utd to play similar to the way his Ajax team played, the article NL linked, as well as it simply being unlikely that the players wouldn't have made some progress towards a new style after this much time, I suspect it's more likely that the way we have set up consistently under ETH is the style he wants us to continue with in the long-term.
I don't want him to continue as manager because of this. That's my view, so I would fall into the 2nd category you proposed (although at this stage I really just want to change manager full stop, instead of waiting for ETH to change to some different style that he clearly doesn't want to use). Others might see it differently. Generally any manager, no matter how good or bad they are, will have some general style, even if it just as simple as "kick it long to the wings".
I don't even have a problem with them disagreeing with each other, but they've been so quick to shout down anybody who dares to suggest that they don't think ETH is the right person (tbf, VP moreso than NL)
Yeah you can't bad-faith "gotcha" those two but respond to me in all seriousness with that.
I agree with the sentiment that that style of play will make us vulnerable at the back. Just like City's style makes them vulnerable at the back, Villa and Spurs's more obvious high line also makes them more vulnerable at the back. This idea that Ten Hag is playing defence deep as some long term plan needs to be binned though - he doesn't have us sat as deep when he has full backs to field and center backs who aren't 3rd and 4th choice.
I agree with the notion that we did look open with a fit team early on in the season, however it was a new style of play and needed time to bed in. At Ajax he also had players openly questioning him in the dressing room, and those same players disclosed in the interview that they later understood the instructions and it clicked. Where we would have gone had we kept key players fit this year, who knows.
I'm assuming you don't want most progressive managers in this case. I cant think of too many progressive young managers who don't show massively open play even with a full side.
Im generally OK with the sentiment questioning Ten Hag as the right person, I just find some of the logic behind it weird. Like "he wasted £400m" or "his defence is set out to be too deep, and this is how he wants us to play in his long term vision". My recent favourite is "he's not building for success" when he's arguably on track for back - to - back champions league football and 3 cup finals in 2 seasons.
The reason people are making out that we've been bad is because our win-rate for the season, which is now 28 games in, is 54%.
Klopp's career PL rate, which I'm assuming is what you're talking about with this comparison, is 63%. We've been much closer to Moyes (who managed 50% as United manager) and Van Gaal (51%) for three-fourths of a season now.
I entered this particular debate late so I'm not sure who got started with win-rates in the first place, but points per game is a much better metric to compare league performance. And Klopp, even after you include his disastrous 15/16, 20/21 and 22/23 seasons, is (obviously) miles ahead of any of our post-Fergie managers.
How would you have liked me to respond to you?
Not at all?
I don't think City's style makes them vulnerable at the back. They play a high line, but when you look at the xg and actual number of goals they concede, it's really low. Similar to Arsenal and Leverkusen, who all have very strong defensive numbers. Spurs and Villa do have weaker defences despite a high line, I agree with you on that (though I think for Villa in particular you do need to factor in that they are playing with weaker individual players).
Personally, I don't think there's any issue with the players downing tools or not trying for him. It's not a situation like we had with Jose. I do think they're trying hard and running. I couldn't find the running stats unfortunately, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the running stats for the season around 3-4 weeks ago and Utd had run more than nearly every other team (Bruno in particular had run an insane distance, Dalot and Garnacho too I think).
I don't know what you mean by this. What does "massively open play" mean? If you mean all progressive managers leave huge gaps to be exploited, I don't agree. Many that play with a high line leave big spaces between the defence and the goalkeeper, but since that can't be used due to the offside rule, I wouldn't count that. I think many of the top modern managers are good at compressing space and using triangles to win the ball back quickly and prevent conceding loads of goals. The space that we leave is between our defence and midfield, which is why those big gaps are being exploited so frequently.
The style of play I'd ideally want is a possession-based approach, with a high-line to make it easier to compress space and press to regain the ball quickly, while keeping it pretty compact. One of the reasons I prefer possession to counter attacking is that the team needs to run less, which would help with our injury problems imo. They still need to press of course, but doing so efficiently like a Man City or Leverkusen would be my preference. That's ideally though, I understand that might not be possible with the players we have, so I'm ok with a different approach if it looks like it could actually work in the long-term or if we're making progress towards changing that style and personnel. I personally haven't seen enough to convince me this current setup is going to work in the long-term.
I personally think ETH does want us to play this way for the long-term, which is my concern. You seem to think he wants to evolve us into this more advanced team with a higher defence. I would prefer that to be true, but I haven't seen any evidence that this is the end goal.
If we're talking purely about achievements, I actually agree that on paper ETH has done well to reach 3 cup finals and finish 2nd last season. Had he done this, while our general play had been really good, and we were just getting repeatedly unlucky to drop these points we've dropped, I'd be happy for him to stay. My concerns aren't just his results, it's that our attacking numbers are average in the league and our defensive numbers are below average. We were overperforming massively last season by all xg metrics and Rashford was scoring at an unsustainable rate.
Being so reliant on individuals like Rashford, Casemiro and Martinez just isn't a healthy or sustainable plan imo. The team should still be able to function relatively well when they have an off day. The likes of Hojlund, Garnacho, Dalot and Mainoo are big pluses this season also.
Then maybe don't end your post with a question
It is difficult to tell if our high press and low block is due to foolish tactics or a defined tactical approach. Neither is good
Really good post this mate, I’m with you in pretty much everything you say here. Well put.
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A lower win rate is understandable if there are good reasons for it. There are. One big reason is Højlund bedding in and not scoring for five months. There are multiple other valid reasons.
Win rate of Ten Hag in PL in 2024 is 62.5%, which coincides with Højlund finding his feet and some players coming back from injury.
If you think another manager might have done better dealing with all the stuff we are going through this season, you may be disappointed. Proven PL managers struggle too like Klopp did last year.
I think Ten Hag will be more than fine when the squad settles, we plug holes in summer and improve the club structures. I don‘t see any evidence to the contrary. Until then I‘m firmly Ten Hag in.
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Why Sarni?
There are some ridiculous statements in your post. Last season we did not have ‚a perfect injury record‘. We played eight different cb pairings, which hardly helps consistency.
Cheaty should not be considered at all in my book because they cheat. Their wins mean nothing to me it is a plastic club.
I don‘t think a 70-75% win rate is out of the question for one season. We will need a complete squad for that in which all positions are well covered.
Yeah made me laugh when someone said on Talksport (says it all) he has that standing to be Utd manager. Don't make me laugh this guy has got zero personality whatsoever.
Im confused which one are you saying doesn’t have the personality
Oh sorry Southgate
He’s got the waistcoat though
, the man is nowhere near being a United manager, he has a quality England team and has done nothing with it.We did have a great injury record last year. You will always have injuries, it’s inevitable but we had all our best players available for majority of it. It’s unreasonable to expect all players to be available for 100% of games, if we are counting on that then it’s just not going to happen. The only real significant long term absence was Martinez but it was at the end of season and he missed like 9-10 games only (and our defense actually got better), other than that we only had these typical short term injuries that happen to everybody.
If you truly reckon we are able to get to 75% win record with this team then just as I said, you are basically rating ETH on a very high tier, possibly above Pep/Klopp because they struggle to get to that with vastly superior teams.
People say ETH “hasn’t got a style of play” because the likes of Brighton, Luton and Burnley keep the ball better and progress the ball with more fluidity than us.
What they are trying to say is that the style of play is crap and unidentifiable and has no meaningful structure to a modern view of football like a Vincent Kompany has, for example.
Every manager has a style of play. From Gareth Ainsworth, to George Elokobi, to Gareth Southgate. You’re being pedantic.
After a game raising 35 mins they took a hold of midfield and we didn’t see it until the game turned into madness towards late embers of the second half.
It looks likely he won't get CL football this season AND the football style doesn't look good at all. For me, if we played good football, sustainable long term, I'd be OK with missing on CL.
ETH was never going to take us to challenge for EPL this season - so, it all comes down to whether you believe in the manager or not. I have not seen ANYTHING from eth this season that makes me thing he's the one for the future. He is stubborn, his football style is too direct and based on flip of the coin, and rarely reacts in a good way to what's happening on the pitch. You might bring the "injuries" argument - but the point still stands.
Last season I thought he manages players and difficult situation really well. But this season he's fallen out with Sancho, he doesn't seem to fancy Amad and will play a youngster out of position instead of him - we don't know what's happening behind the scenes, so like I said eth is the ultimate "benefit of the doubt" manager, but I a not convinced with him at all.
Regarding Klopp and Pep, there's only one point - those teams play great and effective football when they have most key players available. I have not seen that from United since the amazing spell we had until the Carabao Cup. So what changed? Was it just a fluke that Martinez, Casemiro and Rashford were having all golden spells at the time? Is this something we want to build the team on, and can be used as an excuse - we're playing shite because the key players are not in top form? Martinez aside, it's the manager job to make those guys play on top level. That isn't happening. I'm not sure what makes people have so much faith in ETH apart from assumption that if all players are fit we will be good again. But we were not good enough since the carabao Cup, so I don't have that faith anymore.
Thinking back to the Liverpool game, when you hear some people go on about Klopps injuries (which aren’t as bad as ours have been) and how he makes things work.
United have had to rely on Mainoo, Garnacho and Hoijland all season. 3 young, unproven EPL players starting most of the games they have been fit. If that was Klopp he would be lauded for blooding youth and trying to make things work in such a difficult situation.
3 of the 6 senior outfield players on the bench were just coming back from injuries. 2 of those missing most of the season and will probably not get to full fitness before the season is over.
2 of the 9 subs were unproven youngsters.
In the game we ended up with Bruno and McT injured but couldn’t sub them.
But all the headlines and discussion is about Liverpool injuries and little credit to ETH or United.
Last season Liverpool struggled badly after playing 63 games the season before. We played 62 games last season and struggled this season, that’s possibly worth exploring but nobody seems to care. Klopp gets to use it as an excuse but it’s irrelevant for us.
The media is like daily planet to superman with Klopp to Liverpool, puff pieces giving him passes and building him up. If Fergie walked out of an interview like Klopp did, he’d he hammered , but Klopps just tired or stressed.
United have had to rely on Mainoo, Garnacho and Hoijland all season. 3 young, unproven EPL players starting most of the games they have been fit. If that was Klopp he would be lauded for blooding youth and trying to make things work in such a difficult situation.
3 of the 6 senior outfield players on the bench were just coming back from injuries. 2 of those missing most of the season and will probably not get to full fitness before the season is over.
2 of the 9 subs were unproven youngsters.
In the game we ended up with Bruno and McT injured but couldn’t sub them.
But all the headlines and discussion is about Liverpool injuries and little credit to ETH or United.
Last season Liverpool struggled badly after playing 63 games the season before. We played 62 games last season and struggled this season, that’s possibly worth exploring but nobody seems to care. Klopp gets to use it as an excuse but it’s irrelevant for us.
The media is like daily planet to superman with Klopp to Liverpool, puff pieces giving him passes and building him up. If Fergie walked out of an interview like Klopp did, he’d he hammered , but Klopps just tired or stressed.
This is actually a good point. There were so many games last season and we could possibly be seeing the repercussions of that this season. Although part of the issue is also because ETH did not use his squad well last season - he kept playing the same players game in game out without rest.
Opta has us with 38 midfield ball recoveries Vs their 24 across the match. We bullied them in there. 2nd half 13-8 by the way in case you're wondering.
This is the definition of a nothing article. "If he does enough to warrant another season", what exactly is enough? If Dawson knows it why not put it in the article? And if he doesn't know what's enough, then the rest of the article makes no sense.
Fair enough, good stats. I remember thinking while watching that we couldn’t even keep the ball from minute 40 to 75.
As you say our injuries were more normal last season, which is part of why it went ok. There were big squad issues though that should be mentioned like the absence of a good striker.
Getting 3rd place was most definitely a huge overachievement.
I did not say 75% but mentioned a range. A 70%+ win rate for a season is definitely possible if the squad is complete and the amount of injuries is average or better.
It is possible Ten Hag might have squeezed out more points out of the first half of this season with more conservative tactics, but to present this as fact or truth is wrong. It seems hard to accept for some that injuries can derail consistent performance, especially when it concerns key players.
I'd hardly say we had a 'great' injury record last season. It was a more normal season, hardly great.
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