Why do you defend Ten Hag so much? His coaching and tactics have been absolutely woeful this season so much so that the 7th position on the league table flatters us. Many of those victories and draws we've had were undeserved. All this is obvious.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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I have to disagree. Possibly the worst in my opinion was the last season of Ole at home to Liverpool, where they were up 5-0 in the first half without even trying. That might be our worst defeat in my 23 years of watching United. mainly cuz we didn't have a clue what to do and Liverpool didn't even do anything really. Was a like training exercise of attack vs defense who are a man less.
At least in the 7-0 loss we competed first half, and a lot of the goals were freak goals.
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I think people are missing this. He is not saying ETH isn't to blame for Brentford. He is saying against Brentford it wasn't the tactics that failed, it was basic lack of energy from the players, which still falls on the manager. And I agree with him. That tactics/coaching doesn't even come into it if the manager can't get the players to run and jump.
We have seen this before against Newcastle away. But after that they have played with energy and intensity generally. However this could be a warning sign again. If we see this again against Chelsea or Bournemouth in 2 weeks ....huge red flag and ETH would be done.
I'm almost certain that after the PSG game, we had a 42 game record of 14 wins, draws and losses.
“Ideally”… “loafers”… “we’re trying to defend higher up the pitch”… mate, the high press is so tepid, it’s embarrassing. That’s what happens when you decide to press high yet keep your CBs deep. Every opposing manager is looking at those tactics and laughing.
If Ten Hag is too fecking stupid to see that this isn’t working with the players at his disposal then he’s too dumb to manage here. Doesn’t matter if they won’t follow his tactics, can’t follow his tactics or the tactics are too impossible to execute. It’s all the same. We’re in 6th, 8 points from 5th, 11 points from 4th, 0 GD, only 40 goals, an xGD of -6.8, last in our CL group, we just gave up 31 shots to Brentford, we have a +3 goal difference in all matches and competitions for the entire season, which includes fixtures against Newport County, Wigan, FC Copenhagen…
I suppose when you have 107 posts supporting the guy, it’s hard to reverse course, but at what point do you agree he’s not a good manager? When we’re 8th? 10th? Or is it never? Because things don’t look good mate.
Is something being made of this that isn't there. Most teams don't train at this time of the season.
Well most teams aren't as clueless as we are at this time of the season.
Do most teams have a style of play they've been working on all year? Are they also pushing for the league?
I remember when we reached the stage with LVG where we knew what he brought and the blame solely lied on Woody and the management to continue with him. It was a dereliction of duty to not sack him and see us meander along to nowhere. We are at the same stage with ETH. We all know (well except a few delusionals, who I am not sure if they genuinely want him to continue or are simply killing time on the internet by arguing for him) that he is not the man for the job. The job is simply too big for him. He neither has the nous, the personality nor the charisma to take this club back to the promised land. So again, it's solely on the management now, who already dropped by the ball once by not sacking him in January and trying to get us into CL next season. ETH is just here to get paid. Don't be surprised when he blames everyone and their mother for his failures once he is sacked, even though he got control of transfers and filled our team with 400m+ worth of his handpicked shit.
The headline.
Erik ten Hag pleads for patience from Sir Jim Ratcliffe as he calls for Manchester United co-owner to resist temptation to 'interrupt the process' by sacking him... despite dismal season so far
What actually happened.
He was asked a question about Chelsea and all the changes they made and stability and if there was a warning there for Man Utd that making changes doesn't necessarily mean good changes.
He actually said more along the lines of this.
"You need to follow the process. We are in a good track line, good young players coming through, they are developing very well, so the progress is just telling, we are in a good way, we are in a good direction, now we need to take the next step, don't interrupt this process."
Jim wasn't even mentioned.
Don't see why people even bother with those twitter accounts or pointless articles by the likes of the DM, maybe just watch the fecking press conference video and see what actually happened.
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The headline is what Talksport is going with. Alan Brazil just said he would have to be careful with SJR when he didn't mention him.
Most people will only go as far as the headline or the few words on twitter, same as that video where he says, we don't train, we recover. It's a few seconds about a wider discussion over schedules and players being overloaded.
I think the football has been shite and too slow, we all saw against Liverpool the potential of having players actually bust a gut and play with intensity. But Brentford was the exact opposite of that, no fight, no physicality, nothing and there's been way too many games like that.
Think a lot gets lost in translation with him and the press just twist it to their own agenda. I think he has been dealt a bad hand with the situations he has had to deal with, but also think he has made some bad mistakes coaching wise. However I do not take too much from his press conferences. Was wondering does he do like LvG used to and translates in his head as he goes along or is his English actually pretty good.
And I don't think that your feeling is based on reality but is firmly about feelings. We both have reservations about the quality of the squad and my opinion is that we have almost had a team that is around the 3rd to 6th best in the league which means that we are between CL and EL level. The first reason is that we haven't had a single manager that was among the very best when we hired him or in the years that followed his departure, the second thing is that we have generally lacked important skillsets for elite Football, among them I would state elite passing and dribbling, there is nearly no chance to be an elite team without your key players excelling in that area while also not having an elite manager.
Your feelings would make sense if you were talking about a group of players and managers that is supposed to guarantee CL Football based on their Football quality. In that case I would also look at other intangibles but we both know that it's not the case. We are also not talking about the same set of players.
The press deliberately misquote and post a little bit on twitter to generate clicks, the aggregator account post even less to generate more nonsense and that gets posted here and people get all bent out of shape over nothing.
Whether the manager stays or not should absolutely not depend on a cup result. For me he should go either way but I'd be worried if new people in charge make that decision based on a result of one game.
I mentioned it before but that statement is somewhat wrong and the reason behind it exposes coaching. In the case of a high press at the beginning of a defensive transition you have two main ideas one is to press aggressively in order to regain possession high which is generally combined with a compact setup with a relatively high line. And there is a second
one which is less aggressive and has a shorter duration because the goal is to allow the backbone of your defense to regroup and not necessarily to regain possession high. Both follow rules and triggers, the main one being a timer such as the famous 3 to 6 seconds rules which can be combined with a distance rule(Bielsa and Sampaoli are known for that one), other rules are based on where the ball is or where the backline is which requires instructions from a defensive player to the pressers.
The point being that people need to stop with the idea that the issue is the depth of the backline(in the middle and end of our transition) and the height of the press. That idea is fundamentally wrong and , the issue is with the rules that seem to be applied and the nature of the coverage, as far as I can see there is no systemic zonal, man marking or hybrid that is applied, we roughly keep our base formation regardless of game situation. Initially I thought that it was the players that were messing things up until I noticed that the substitutes would do the same thing, one example earlier this season was Hojlund after replacing Martial. I can't explain why Hojlund would follow the same rules than Martial with both of them not following the manager's instructions.
Fundamentally I can understand the concept of an initial high press while setting up a deep backline, that's what lots of defensive teams do. The issue is that our transition patterns are boneheaded, they make no practical or theoratical sense. And because they are consistent I highly doubt that it's just the players making it up.
They don't if they have to play two matches a week, but in a full training week they usually can and do. And as United exited Europe quite early there should be time enough to do at least some training.
Exactly. McTominay is another example of what the manager wants. Since the beginning of the season, the player alongside Bruno has been playing box crusher/second striker role with little to none midfielder responsibilities. Scott playing the exact same role week in week out, and a role he has NOT been playing for United in previous seasons, confirms this is that the manager wants to see.
Scott McT has also been a favorite among all his managers precisely because he always does what he is told and to the best of his ability. His role is probably intentional.
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James Ducker is an idiot.
You seem to have an almost personal issue with people who point out Ten Hag's flaws. Have you considered the chance you're possibly more invested in the man who manages Manchester United than the club itself?
Absolutely true. I would add that I like him in that second striker role, he is very effective in that position, probably even more effective than Mount would ever be (I rate Mount as a player much more than McT, but that's not the point).
The problem is that position should not exist in our team in the first place.
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Ducker, who clearly isn’t happy with Ten Hag after his naive comment, reported yesterday we have no fitness coach.
He’s since had to retract that part of his article. He is an idiot, a naive one.
Again I’m only interested in making sure we have a balanced discussion on the club in general and Ten Hag happens to be a part of that.
I have no issue people pointing out Ten Hag’s flaws. Of course he has flaws, absolutely has made mistakes, absolutely hasn’t made good decisions at times and is deserving of some criticism too.
It can also be true that too much criticism is sent his way, and that conditions at the club haven’t been conducive to sporting excellence. My issue is solely usually when people levy criticism without context or downplay context to suit their narrative.
I don’t think we’re playing good football, Ten Hag is absolutely responsible for part of that, think we’re having a ridiculous level of injury this season, it’s also very possible Ten Hag is part of that. I don’t think Antony is good enough for the club, Ten Hag is part of that.
Again, what are you even on about?
The headline is what the journalist reporting on it went with, as evidenced here:
An aggregator pointed to a report. Your reply was unhinged - questioning said aggregator's "reporting" - and about some rusty trombones or whatever the hell you were talking about. It was not about the discrepancy between headline and what supposedly transpired - you just pivoted when it was pointed out to you:
And people bother with aggregators because - in many aspects like this forum - they're a quick way to access reports/consolidated place for United news - it doesn't mean they're reporting it themselves.
6-1 against Spurs at OT was right up there.
There are many people arguing in here obsessed with the managers position. Regardless of whether they are more positive or negative towards any specific manager , it can be an obsession.
People chronically posting about the manager (good/bad) could be considered obsessed. Anybody thinking that you can only be obsessed with a manager if you are defending them is objectively wrong.
I’m more similar to Benito, in that I generally try to be more positive (not all the time). Not necessarily because I believe everything’s grand, but because there is a huge amount of things we really can’t be sure about but a lot of people take an absolute approach that they quite frankly aren’t in a position to rule on:
- injuries are ETH fault
- transfer issues are ETH fault
- all performances are ETH failt
- player issues/dramas are ETH fault
- form all season has been ET
etc
It’s not that there maybe truthful elements to these statements or that they maybe be fully true , it’s that it’s not objectively possible to be fully sure what role ETH has played in them.
Then people throw up bollox tweets from chancers who are just parroting stuff they want to believe.
So when Benito or some others try to challange things, it’s hard to get meaningful discussion when some posters can only see it as ETH in or ETH out. The obsession with relentlessly only painting all on the negative makes decent discussion near impossible. Some of you can’t even discuss things without accusing folk of being some sort of ETH fanboys, it’s so childish.
A lot of posters just stay away from the hysteria that goes on in here and leave an echo chamber that convinces some they must he in the majority. My guess is that most reasonable people accept a lot has gone on at United during ETH 18 months and they just aren’t sure if he’s actually good enough or if all these things are mitigating factors to give him maybe one more season with a clearer structure.
My honest summary of ETH is I really want him to work out. I have a soft spot for him. I think he would have been a perfect appointment this summer , working with competent adults instead of the muppet show a lot of you don’t really seem to be able to factor in how bad it’s been. I don’t know if the issues of the club and even player fatigue/fitness is some sort of excuse this season but it had to play a role.
That said, I don’t think he could have any arguments if he was replaced. This has been a truly sh*t season. And in football that’s how you are judged.
In some ways if we finish the season poor, makes it easier for INEOs to move him on. So my objetive position on ETH is neutral, I’m happy to leave INEOs to make that call.
United fans: Ten Hag is training the players into the ground, no wonder they have no energy and keep getting injured!
Also United fans: Ten Hag isn't training the players, no wonder they don't have a clue what they're doing!
He's making plenty of mistakes but there are other explanations for how shit we are this season.
Lazy entitled players who are paid too much, a mismash of a squad due to years of directionless transfer strategy and letting (completely different styles of) managers make all the decisions, injury prone players (this is really key - it's the same players dropping like flies, Bruno isn't suddenly pulling up with a muscle injury every few months), a constant circus of chaos whether it's the ownership saga, Sancho/Ronaldo going rogue, rape & assault accusations. It's a nightmare.
Someone shared a Guardian article from 2016 about Klopp's Liverpool team dropping like flies and training & tactics being blamed - what's worth noting is that many of these players were sold shortly after, we need to do the same:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jan/06/liverpool-running-injuries-jurgen-klopp
Everyone is trying to attribute the issues to a silver bullet, when that's never the case in football. Just as when you're successful there's not one thing you do that makes you successful.
I don't know if Ten Hag is the right man long term, because I don't think we know what the DOF and INEOS' plan is yet. If they align on the path to get to the style and structure they envision, I'm sure he'll be here next season.
Think a lot is that he wants to play a certain way but does not have the players to do it. If your ball playing CB's are out then don't expect them to play out from the back. If we are better with these players playing it longer and on the break then do it. As though we are wanting the midfield to play the ball about and keep possession when we have a midfield of players who are not able to. You surely adapt your tactics to the strengths of the players available. I agree that he has had stuff to deal with that no manager should need to deal with, also there are players who appear to be sulking or just plain underperforming. Bruno is a strange one to me, he plays and plays him, not to me because he is captain, but that in the past he has been the one to deliver. I actually think the captaincy has taken a lot away from his game. Not everybody is suited to be captain.
Absolutely my views are what they are due to feelings, none of us are on the training ground every day and seeing the interactions that go on to lead to the outcomes. Those feelings have been informed by what I have seen going around the club for the last number of years, but all we have on the matter are feelings over facts really.
My feeling is that the culture in the dressing room has been rotten for years and years now, and we won't get anywhere until that is turned around. Hopefully the next manager we get is elite, but even if he is I don't think that we will then be on a linear path to titles again, I think there will be ups and downs for a few years before we get that culture in the dressing room right.
Said much more succinctly than how I was going about it. Agreed.
Think ETH needed to be here with the right structure already in place. That is not his fault. Trouble is we could keep him and see what happens, but how long with it take to get everything up and running. I know we keep harping on about City, but they got the structure sorted ready for Pep coming in, so he could more or less hit the ground running.
I'd liken all the changes going on at the moment to an A/B test in my line of work - you don't change multiple variables at once and draw a conclusion, change one (ie. the sporting hierarchy) and leave the manager in place. If
I think Bruno is fairly unhappy at the club these days and it gets overlooked due to how awful Rashford's performance & body language is. He definitely doesn't look like the same personality and I think that's down to more than taking the captaincy.
He looks to me like he's going through the motions a bit, still putting in visible effort but without the same focus and drive. It's understandable considering he's passing his peak as a player and still hasn't really achieved anything of note, just another like Pogba and Mata where they would have been better off elsewhere. I also get the impression he isn't thrilled about working under Ten Hag, and would just generally rather be elsewhere.
It's just football journalism and those aggregator accunts in a nutshell.
People like yourself who really know how to use the Internet don't look beyond those few words that the twats tweet and will will repeat it and believe that he was pleading to keep his job, which isn’t what happened, just like that clip where he says, we don't train we recover. It was one small part of a wider discussion about schedules, overloading and protecting players from injuries.
Neither the reporter or the aggregator accunt accurately state what happened. Jim Ratcliffe was not mentioned and there was no pleading for his job. So the headline as usual is bollocks, and it's that headline or only a small part of it that gets retweeted and it's all most of the fans online will ever read. Which is deliberately done to generate clicks and retweets.
Just watch the press conference videos and see what was really said.
I appreciate your post and what you're saying. We all want the same thing: United to be successful.
Football is ultimately a results based game, a meritocracy even. People can say all kinds of shit about the manager, most will take it with a pinch of salt. It's easy to see when its personal or if there's a basis for criticism, and I don't think anyone in here is swayed by LUHG2022x on Twitter or even in this forum. Absolutely no one has to defend Ten Hag because no one would be calling for his head if we were at the very least playing well or something resembling organised football. The noise around the manager only appears when you get performances and results like Brentford, Bournemouth, Fulham etc. They're completely unacceptable and the manager doesn't help things with his comments after the games.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that people form their opinions based on what they're seeing, not what someone says here or on Monday Night Football. People jump on Tweets or certain comments because they say something that person is feeling but perhaps can't explain succinctly.
I agree with your entire post but this one comment means I can't take anything you've said seriously. All the excuses, which could be deemed valid, are completely void because of the context they're viewed in, from a 'soft spot'. All viewpoints should be from the position of objectivity, and that's regardless of the fact I'm not even sure what he's done to earn a 'soft spot' for anyone to be honest.
I keep seeing stuff about the same players not putting the effort in, they caused the sacking of ole, that we shouldn’t sack ETH until they are gone.
but, aside from Dalot, AWB, Maguire, Lindelof, Bruno and Rashford it’s a new bunch of his players. I’m discounting martial because he’s never bloody fit.
Maguire has actually stood up to be counted this season, Dalot has improved, my personal opinion is that AWB has too but also lots of injuries. Lindelof the usual season on season efforts from him. So realistically we are looking at Rashford and possibly Bruno with the latter being inconsistent rather than lazy.
I don’t think it’s right to always go back to it’s the players fault. 1 player seems to be a massive lazy git but then again we don’t know what individual instructions are being given.
but, aside from Dalot, AWB, Maguire, Lindelof, Bruno and Rashford it’s a new bunch of his players. I’m discounting martial because he’s never bloody fit.
Maguire has actually stood up to be counted this season, Dalot has improved, my personal opinion is that AWB has too but also lots of injuries. Lindelof the usual season on season efforts from him. So realistically we are looking at Rashford and possibly Bruno with the latter being inconsistent rather than lazy.
I don’t think it’s right to always go back to it’s the players fault. 1 player seems to be a massive lazy git but then again we don’t know what individual instructions are being given.
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Klopp out?
I think they are putting the effort in, but lack of confidence can sap the energy. The last thing Hojlund needed was another injury just as he was hitting form. The last thing United needed was an international break just after the Liverpool result. Thing with international breaks as well is you then go into other training regimes which may cause issues for some as well.
Haha nice spot, completely missed that!
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