I think this is the first time in my life I didn't celebrate when United take the lead in the 96th minute. I just couldn't - that's how bad it was. It could have been the biggest robbery I have ever seen on a football-pitch.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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True and had we played Forest in the semi finals instead of Man City in 2020 and 2021 Ole would have most likely won a League Cup as well.
Would or should that have saved him from the sack in 2021?
That's how Brentford play. Intense.
Credit to the centre backs and Dalot for keeping them to the chances they did because they didn't get much help elsewhere in the team.
The problem with the side is mentality and motivation. Too many players wanting to do flicks and skills, losing the ball and not tracking back.
Challenging for what though?
The bare minimum for the resources at the managers disposal should surely be challenging for top 4 never mind challenging for the title.
It's April and we're currently miles off fecking 5th.
What has Poch done that people think he will do well here? Bloke is a managerial myth. Another of Chelsea’s cast offs!
How Brentford play isn't rocket science. It's a full press from there forwards/CM's and strikers, with the ball they are either going to use the wing backs to go round your press, or go direct to there big strikers and use there hard working tenacious midfielders to win the second balls.
What you don't do is play into there press with a single pivot or bomb long balls which there massive CB's and tenacious midfield eat for breakfast/ or play a narrow press yourself. Which is of course exactly what we did. It's not as if it was a mis guided tactic that we changed or Brentford did something surprising. We played that way the whole game directly into there hands.
I feel for the players, yes they didn't play well individually but they were collectively set up to fail by ETH.
What you don't do is play into there press with a single pivot or bomb long balls which there massive CB's and tenacious midfield eat for breakfast/ or play a narrow press yourself. Which is of course exactly what we did. It's not as if it was a mis guided tactic that we changed or Brentford did something surprising. We played that way the whole game directly into there hands.
I feel for the players, yes they didn't play well individually but they were collectively set up to fail by ETH.
I'm firmly in the "he gotta go" camp. I've never been this befuddled by a coach in my entire life.
PREACH!!!
If he is here next year then we’ll get exactly what we deserve.
Just as with the playing staff you should always be looking to improve your coach if it is fundamentally clear that coach is not the guy to take you to the top.
It is conceivable that if Liverpool take a step back due to Klopp leaving & Spurs/Villa do a Liverpool that this guy could somehow zombie walk us back to a 4th place finish next year but in what world is that something United should be happy with after 3 years?
There is 0 evidence that he can improve this teams performance to a point that we could truly challenge for a league but let’s compare the guy to Fergie, the greatest manager ever, because. . . United.
The guy should be nowhere near the club next year & if Ineos set the precedent that it’s ok to fail we’re right where we were under the Glazers.
While I don't endorse wild appointments such as Pochettino, at this moment I just want to see the back of this guy more than anything else. Can't take more of this diabolical football.
Chelsea is a circus under Boehly, it's tough to actually gauge managerial pedigree from it
Anyone still defending him or wanting him to continue, can you give some logical reasons on why you are still backing him?
I tried to find any positives but couldn't find any. We are looking as bad as we did under Ralf and even worse.
I tried to find any positives but couldn't find any. We are looking as bad as we did under Ralf and even worse.
Top post, the idea we can't sack ETH because we couldn't possibly find a good manager to replace him is absolute nonsense.
I think any manager who comes in will have one hand tied behind their back with the fact that there is something fecking weird going on when the likes of Rashford and McTominay for the past 3 managers (and an interim) start and indeed complete most games despite being disgustingly average.
LvG had a plan that had at least once worked elsewhere though whereas EtH came out yesterday saying he has no problem with an opponent taking 30 plus shots on our goal.
As much as it is the done thing to slate LvG I firmly believe that the football we have witnessed this year is far & away the worst we have seen post Fergie. It is fundamentally insane to tell opponents to take pot shots at you for 90 minutes, you had his apologists stating it’s okay because some of those shots are from distance but this tactic isn’t just not working out, it’s something no other team is doing. Luton don’t invite shots, they just don’t have good players for example.
LvG is light years ahead of this guy all whilst being a dinosaur nearly a decade ago.
Why? So we're then scrambling around looking for an interim again in October and then starting the process of identifying a new permanent manager. Why not just skip the interim and start that process now?
There's an argument to be made we would have fared better over the last 6 years if we'd have been proactive and replaced Jose and Ole during the summer instead of waiting until mid season to sack them.
You’re on a roll lad, another good post.
I’ve been saying it for months. You don’t keep a failing team member in a job because their replacement may not work out.
When you consider we aren’t getting Pep or Jurgen, any manager is ‘a risk’ but there’s very few managerial hires that just align. Liverpool started shit under Rodger’s which lined up with Klopp’s unemployment, it wasn’t some master plan.
If Ineos don’t deem this performance unacceptable this Summer then we’ll get what we deserve next year.
There's also an argument to say we'd have been more successful keeping Mourinho and weeding out problem players in the squad.
I get what you're saying by the way, for me champions league football is non negotiable. However if we did sack Ten Hag I can't think of any other managers who wouldn't be a potentially big risk. Maybe Enrique as he favours a structured possession style, but generally speaking all De Zerbi, Nagelsmann etc. look very open and can be potentially disastrous in the United hot seat too.
It's almost as if you're a Liverpool or city fan. Can't think of any other reason you'd be so desperate to see a poor manager taken into a new season, only to have to write it off when it inevitably goes pear shaped. It's beyond daft
The fact is that it’s not just us the fans anymore that have picked up on how piss poor we are and how we rely on moments to get by as the pundits and reporters are all doing the same, we literally pray we’ll find a way to score whilst praying we’re lucky enough not to concede.
There was that stat a few weeks ago showing that only Sheffield United had conceded more shots against them than us whilst were horrible in midfield outside of Mainoo then there’s the fact we’re toothless up top and have a 0 goal difference in the league over 30 games, I’m sorry but it simply isn’t good enough and that’s on ETH and the coaching.
Yes we don’t have a footballing structure in place yet other than Berrada but that’s no excuse for why we let every team we play look like 1970 Brazil, let’s have it right we basically played our cup final against Liverpool and a loss was pretty much ETH gone so he threw the kitchen sink at it but then just reverted to type last night.
Piss poor in game management to turn the tide, piss poor substitution timings, piss poor balance and piss poor control at any point and we seem to say the same thing every single week about ETH.
I’d start talking to Nagelsmaan, De Zerbi and Amorim if I was Berrada and Ashworth as allowing ETH another year will just set us back further and wasting a year of some players prime years. I was one of those that really wanted ETH before he came but he’s out of his depth and whilst it worked at Ajax it’s simply never going to work here.
There was that stat a few weeks ago showing that only Sheffield United had conceded more shots against them than us whilst were horrible in midfield outside of Mainoo then there’s the fact we’re toothless up top and have a 0 goal difference in the league over 30 games, I’m sorry but it simply isn’t good enough and that’s on ETH and the coaching.
Yes we don’t have a footballing structure in place yet other than Berrada but that’s no excuse for why we let every team we play look like 1970 Brazil, let’s have it right we basically played our cup final against Liverpool and a loss was pretty much ETH gone so he threw the kitchen sink at it but then just reverted to type last night.
Piss poor in game management to turn the tide, piss poor substitution timings, piss poor balance and piss poor control at any point and we seem to say the same thing every single week about ETH.
I’d start talking to Nagelsmaan, De Zerbi and Amorim if I was Berrada and Ashworth as allowing ETH another year will just set us back further and wasting a year of some players prime years. I was one of those that really wanted ETH before he came but he’s out of his depth and whilst it worked at Ajax it’s simply never going to work here.
We’ve been a Circus for 12 seasons
Yep. I hated LVGs football but the main problem was that he ruined the squad with his transfers to the point he was throwing any random youth on to pitch because he got praised for it.
You could see that with better players LVGs system could work. With Ten Hag performances in this terrible system are the same regardless of personnel. And that's why the injury excuse doesn't wash with me.
His midfield set up, no matter the personnel involved, is directly responsible for the absurd shape that Utd games fall into, annihilating the DM with an impossible amount of space to cover and turning the 2 AM's into ball chasers off breaking balls and knockdowns. Make whatever excuse around injuries and player availability but there is none for the choices he has made around how he uses his midfield players, inexplicable stuff that only really works when the opposition plays a high line and misses a ton of chances to punish Utd.
Complain about players and their lack of certain abilities but again, his choices, the insanity of that midfield and that he keeps going back to it, stubbornly refuses to play an orthodox midfield set up, deserves to sacked for that alone. Been incredibly lucky results wise this season, if Utd were bottom half who could complain.
Complain about players and their lack of certain abilities but again, his choices, the insanity of that midfield and that he keeps going back to it, stubbornly refuses to play an orthodox midfield set up, deserves to sacked for that alone. Been incredibly lucky results wise this season, if Utd were bottom half who could complain.
Woke up and I still can’t believe what I watched last night. The manager should be coming out and apologising for what we saw on the pitch. At no other decent level club this would be acceptable. I understand that we are not big anymore but even at the second tier of English, Spanish and Italian clubs a season like this would end with the sack for the manager but we are somehow still debating.
Every manager is a risk, but my stance is that the big flaws with ten hag is actually already seen with some alternatives. There's actually a big risk with the other coaches, and right now I'm indifferent between them and what we have. Nagelsmann is probably the one that for me would be closest to being a hit, but it wouldnt be smart to restart the process for a manager who is a bigger risk than what you ideally want to take.
But we have a new structure from next season, I don't get how the last 12 seasons is relevant in any way.
But we didn’t & here we are nearly 2 years under EtH with you using the Mourinho sacking as some weird form of fence for the guy.
You’re proven incapable of grasping the fact that worldwide if someone is underperforming in their role they don’t get to keep underperforming in said role because the next person may not work out.
It’s a lazy defence because there’s no reason to back this manager on his own merits. If the next managers fails Ineos would need to replace him to but you deal with what you have & right now we have a manager that believes being peppered with 30+ shots is “ok”.
If Ineos can’t find a manager to improve on this shower then we may aswell have just let the Glazers stay.
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I don’t think we need a new manager.
I think we need to shift out several players and bring more physically able players.
I don’t think INEOS will sack him and I think I’ll be proven right next season.
It is very clear you cant read posts.
If you think my qualm is that JUST that next manager is not a certainty to succeed then there's serious issues with your comprehension.
I dont think conceding lots of shots in so many games is "ok" either. Make better posts than to create pretend narratives.
Exactly. Every manager is a risk & in turn some of those risks work out whilst others do not.
Hiring EtH was ‘a risk’ in itself no? Would you say that risk is bearing reasonable results?
That's not one many Man Utd fans would subscribe to, I like Jose and in hindsight he was right about a few players but he had to go. And the writing was on the wall the season before that he was past it, we waited too long and ended up with Solskjaer for 3 years (I love Ole and thought he did well for a time but he would have never been hired in the summer).
Every managerial hire is a risk though, even if we hired Pep tomorrow there's no guarantee he wold win the league here. But surely you don't keep a failing manager in place out of fear the next guy might fail also?
Think you find the successful manager have a personality of some sort and inspire loyalty.
Jesus christ you're not getting it are you.
Its not that the other tipped options are just risks. It's that they are also big risks with open styles of play that don't fill me with confidence. If Ancelotti or Enrique were available with established contained structure then I'd be more favourable to it.
A left field name maybe when talking about potential ETH replacements, but I would take a punt on McKenna.
For me the biggest attribute a manager needs to have is the ability to overperform with the players at his disposal, and this is something McKenna has done for 1.5 years now at Ipswich.
He has been at Utd before so would likely command the respect of most of the dressing room, and wouldn't be a totally unknown quantity. I would add a caveat though that if we go for someone like him, it's best to move on big name players like Casemiro, Varane, Bruno etc and give him a young squad to work with, more for dressing room harmony than tactical reasons.
Of course it will be a massive risk, and maybe he himself wouldn't want to come as it would be a massive jump for him too, but given what's available out there, I wouldn't mind giving him a go.
For me the biggest attribute a manager needs to have is the ability to overperform with the players at his disposal, and this is something McKenna has done for 1.5 years now at Ipswich.
He has been at Utd before so would likely command the respect of most of the dressing room, and wouldn't be a totally unknown quantity. I would add a caveat though that if we go for someone like him, it's best to move on big name players like Casemiro, Varane, Bruno etc and give him a young squad to work with, more for dressing room harmony than tactical reasons.
Of course it will be a massive risk, and maybe he himself wouldn't want to come as it would be a massive jump for him too, but given what's available out there, I wouldn't mind giving him a go.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
What has ETH shown you in his 2 years here to suggest he's the man for this job?
Just not good enough in any way.
I don’t think we need a new manager.
I think we need to shift out several players and bring more physically able players.
I don’t think INEOS will sack him and I think I’ll be proven right next season.
What is keeping the faith for you?
I have never seen a team press high and sit deep in the same move, you do one not both. It's like he is scared of the high line but still insists on pressing but it becomes ineffective because you are just pressing the back line and not suffocating the who team. If you just beat the United first line you have the freedom of the pitch until you reach the box. Not sustainable at all.
The first game of the season against Wolves we saw the problem with the midfield overrun and the gap between the front 5 and back. In fact we had the same problem last season with not being able to control the midfield. Especially our away form. It hasn't been fixed.
We have been conceding a sht load of shots game after game. Brentford had something like 31 shots and 47 percent possession. If a games actual in play time is around 58 minutes then Brentford were shooting every minute they had the ball. But again its not new. In the last 7 games we have had more shots against us then City have all season. Luton and Forest had 20 plus shots against us. It's not being fixed.
We can't score for sht. Last season we were 35 odd shots off the top. We were one of the worst in the top 10 and that was with Rashford having the goalscoring season of his life. This season Luton are scoring more than us. It's not being fixed.
Point I'm making is that this is not new. It's not even just this season. Last season we had the same issues but papered over the cracks with some players having blinding seasons mainly Case and Rashford. This manager is intentionally setting us up like this. He can see the gaps between the attackers and defence because that's how he has set us up. He can see we are conceedinng a shit load of shots but game after game nothing changes. He can see we dont create or score much but cant change it. He can see we can't keep possession or manage a game. It's planned. This is how ETH wants us to play.
Now we have to accept this is what ETH Man Utd looks like. Transitional. Moments football. Low scoring. Low possession. Direct. Counter. Concede shots. Easily bypass our midfield. Yes now it looks worse because of injuries and players out of form. Next season it probably will look better. But it will be the same football. Is that what we want?
We have been conceding a sht load of shots game after game. Brentford had something like 31 shots and 47 percent possession. If a games actual in play time is around 58 minutes then Brentford were shooting every minute they had the ball. But again its not new. In the last 7 games we have had more shots against us then City have all season. Luton and Forest had 20 plus shots against us. It's not being fixed.
We can't score for sht. Last season we were 35 odd shots off the top. We were one of the worst in the top 10 and that was with Rashford having the goalscoring season of his life. This season Luton are scoring more than us. It's not being fixed.
Point I'm making is that this is not new. It's not even just this season. Last season we had the same issues but papered over the cracks with some players having blinding seasons mainly Case and Rashford. This manager is intentionally setting us up like this. He can see the gaps between the attackers and defence because that's how he has set us up. He can see we are conceedinng a shit load of shots but game after game nothing changes. He can see we dont create or score much but cant change it. He can see we can't keep possession or manage a game. It's planned. This is how ETH wants us to play.
Now we have to accept this is what ETH Man Utd looks like. Transitional. Moments football. Low scoring. Low possession. Direct. Counter. Concede shots. Easily bypass our midfield. Yes now it looks worse because of injuries and players out of form. Next season it probably will look better. But it will be the same football. Is that what we want?
Can't last past the summer. Had enough a while ago and seen the same old shite. One half decent performance followed by several crap ones.
Do you not think it’s an enormous risk to stick with a manager who has spent 400 million pounds without improving the squad while having us play football that, without the frankly ridiculous amounts of luck we’ve had this season, would barely have us in the top 10?
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