Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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I would worry if we get rid of him now, then we might still under perform next season even with a new manager anyway and some will not be happy. Doubt they can get rid of all the players in one go and get all the needed players in, so it will still be a bit sketchy. The only thing would be if we can actually see what a manager is trying to do.
It could go either way, we don't know. We've seen managers join top clubs and make immediate impact and we have seen managers come to big clubs and struggle from the get go. Villa finished 14th in 21-22, fired Gerrard in late October 2022 when they were flirting with relegation and even within last season were able to pull themselves up to 7th, they are going for Champions League spot and are likely to finish with more than 70 points.

They could have very well kept Gerrard, allowed him to get more players, work under different structure or whatever excuse they could have come up with at the time but instead they just fired him and went for the best manager available. Meanwhile we are telling ourselves it's fine to be horrible, it can't get any better and we can just write off another year.
 
Isn't this one of them strawman fallacies?

And actually undermine your own pov: how come Ten Hag doesn't get praise for despite all the trouble, mixed performances, he still manages us to look good, view on CL and much, much better than Chelsea and second coming Howe and his magic Newcastle band? Indeed, we should have beend P12 orso, but we ain't.

How many times didn't we (me included) write ETH's eulogy when he managed to get a good if not spectacular good performance out of the hat? Why can't he get some slack for that? Just look at what a bad run Arteta had with Arsenal had, with much more bad games and results in a row. As it is, Ten Hag's worst run is 2 losses in a row.

Because he doesn't. You seem to live in a different reality to pretty much everyone on here (including even most vocal ETH supporters as even they admit this season has been largely horrible and focus on different issues rather than trying to prove it has been good). We have barely looked really good in maybe 4-5 league games this season. There are literally these many games we should genuinely be fully content with this season, out of 29 we have played.

Otherwise we've fluked many, many wins but we have definitely not been 'good' or 'spectacular' in virtually any of them.
 
This season when Licha’s been in the team, we’ve conceded 22 goals and scored 18.

oh look, here’s your chance to make up another excuse…
I‘m a big fan of Licha and I am not afraid to show it. We need more players like him.
 
Isn't this one of them strawman fallacies?

And actually undermine your own pov: how come Ten Hag doesn't get praise for despite all the trouble, mixed performances, he still manages us to look good, view on CL and much, much better than Chelsea and second coming Howe and his magic Newcastle band? Indeed, we should have beend P12 orso, but we ain't.

How many times didn't we (me included) write ETH's eulogy when he managed to get a good if not spectacular good performance out of the hat? Why can't he get some slack for that? Just look at what a bad run Arteta had with Arsenal had, with much more bad games and results in a row. As it is, Ten Hag's worst run is 2 losses in a row.

Really, take down ETH when he indeed gets us a P10 endresult but at the moment, by your metric, wash his car. Kiss the ring. And tonight if you are at the game, praise and back him and the team.
Variance being in our favour is not really a good reason to be confident. All it really means is current way of doing it is not sustainable, as if things already aren't bad as they are if we are being just result oriented.
 
Not really sure what this argument is? Rashford is our most senior and well paid player, we can't create a squad you're talking about with him on 350k a week. What are we saying will bring out the best in Rashford? If we have a Henderson style CM player who does all the running covers for him? A full back that covers the whole flank as well so he doesn't have to track back? Rashford has just lost his opportunity to have the team built around him to be honest.

We could move the manager on as well for all I care, but betting on us becoming a top team with Rashford just seems just as dumb as blindly backing Ten Hag.

He’s not our best paid player - that’s Casemiro. So you don’t think we can recruit the squad we want with Rashford on £300k a week? He will presumably drop to £225k next season if the usual 25% cut for missing UCL applies. Does that still seem a bar to recruitment? It didn’t stop us spending £250k a week on a squad player like Mount last summer so I’m doubtful it will prove any sort of bar currently, especially with Martial and Varane leaving releasing £600k per week off the wages.

I don’t think he should be the main man at the club or have the team built around him. He’s never given any suggestion that’s how to get the best out of him and very much comes across as the type of personality who will best thrive if he’s one of several players collectively leading the club forwards.

We will have to disagree on the amount he should track back. My own view is that he is doing too much this season (as is our other winger), as the structure seems entirely scattergun. There was a match earlier in the season (I think it was Bayern away) when I watched his defensive work closely and he seemed to have been tasked with pressing the right CB, man marking the RWB and also trying to cover the RCM. All credit to Rashford for trying to do it but it was absolute madness in terms of a defensive set up.

Of course, the amount of work our wingers are being asked to do would naturally improve if we developed a midfield/defence capable of controlling a match.
 
He’s not our best paid player - that’s Casemiro. So you don’t think we can recruit the squad we want with Rashford on £300k a week? He will presumably drop to £225k next season if the usual 25% cut for missing UCL applies. Does that still seem a bar to recruitment? It didn’t stop us spending £250k a week on a squad player like Mount last summer so I’m doubtful it will prove any sort of bar currently, especially with Martial and Varane leaving releasing £600k per week off the wages.

I don’t think he should be the main man at the club or have the team built around him. He’s never given any suggestion that’s how to get the best out of him and very much comes across as the type of personality who will best thrive if he’s one of several players collectively leading the club forwards.

We will have to disagree on the amount he should track back. My own view is that he is doing too much this season (as is our other winger), as the structure seems entirely scattergun. There was a match earlier in the season (I think it was Bayern away) when I watched his defensive work closely and he seemed to have been tasked with pressing the right CB, man marking the RWB and also trying to cover the RCM. All credit to Rashford for trying to do it but it was absolute madness in terms of a defensive set up.

Of course, the amount of work our wingers are being asked to do would naturally improve if we developed a midfield/defence capable of controlling a match.
OK apologies, I forgot about Casemiro. It's a bar because you essentially need to buy the players to accomodate him and the world class goal contributing players. They're not going to be on peanuts or cost little, so yeah I do think he is prohibitive. I don't think anyone would call Mount a good use of money currently, but I'm not sure he was bought as a squad player.

But he can't be commanding a 300k a week wage then, that's just ridiculous in terms of squad building.

Doing too much is not really something you can level at Rashford this season. He may think he's being asked to do too much, but that has subsequently led to him doing the absolute bare minimum or less at points. I personally think he presses like a dope and doesn't shape his run at all to force the play into the direction he's meant to be or understand how to cover passing lanes. He's not the only one, but I think if we ever want to be a team that presses from the front, it's folly to think Rashford would work, when he's never shown he can.

I'm hung up about his defensive output, but the only reason we're focused on it is because his attacking output is shocking. His hold up play is poor and he is one dimensional when taking people on, so I can only talk about the obvious things he can control when it's not going his way.

Anyway, back to Ten hag, I do agree he's probably picked the wrong players to try and implement his style and he continues to play them expecting different results. He'll ultimately pay the price with his job when it doesn't work, but the idea we should gloss over a player like Rashford contributing feck all to this season, seems remarkable when looking forward with this squad.
 
it's not the results that have been the main issue....it's the style or lack of style of play that has gotten EtH on the hot seat

yes, we have had to head scratching results that has put us in sixth spot but it's more about the sheer lack of defensive shape allowing too many shots and lack of identity moving forward to score goals
 
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.
Potentially even more damning if true. That said, I can’t think of another side that implements a high press with the CBs so deep. Can you give an example? Maybe West Ham?
 
I‘m a big fan of Licha and I am not afraid to show it. We need more players like him.
I like him too, but to pin the entire side’s fortune on whether he plays or not is patently untrue, which is what several on this thread are saying. Our problems are not down to him being injured.
 
He can't seem to get a break. Guess he would be gone by mutual consent this summer. We won't get CL with all these injuries and that would be it.

Shame as I thought he really has a plan and he has been trying what we have been crying for years.
 
Read somewhere we were able to field our best 11 only once this season, for 60 minutes. That's outright crazy.


11 being:
Onana
Dalot Varane Martinez Shaw
Casemiro Mainoo
Rashford Bruno Garnacho
Hojlund​
 
Potentially even more damning if true. That said, I can’t think of another side that implements a high press with the CBs so deep. Can you give an example? Maybe West Ham?

Atletico Madrid but in reality most teams, it's rare for teams to retreat immediately when they lose possession what they do is press high for various length of time and goals. If you take Atletico as example, they press the ball carriers high at the loss of the ball until the backbone of their defense is in place then they drop quickly. Now they also happen to be very good at regaining shape when their pressing is immediately beaten.

An other team that would do that is United in the late 2000s, we used a low block and also pressed high and from inside to the outside at the loss of the ball and then would drop deep and shut shop.

Now to be fair, I get that nowadays when people talk about high press they think about the most extremes version which is gegenpress and in that case a low block is not an idea but that's due to the longer duration of the pressing. In our case the transition should look a lot more like Atletico and some of the prime United teams which is to shortly press high and intensely and then drop deep. What we shouldn't do is to press high with little intensity and then have the attackers stay high doing nothing, we are basically applying ideas that do not fit with the same systems and the issue isn't the high press or the low block but the lack of intensity and then not regaining a compact shape. We need to fix the timing and final defensive shape.
 
Read somewhere we were able to field our best 11 only once this season, for 60 minutes. That's outright crazy.


11 being:
Onana
Dalot Varane Martinez Shaw
Casemiro Mainoo
Rashford Bruno Garnacho
Hojlund​
BuT aLl TeAmS hAvE iNjUrIeS?!
 
It's best to avoid that kind of nonsense.
I agree it’s best to avoid injuries if we can.

You get the point though the incessant ignorance of reality of injury to our squad is frustrating.

If/when we get rid of Ten Hag irrespective of that we need to improve the fitness and conditioning of our squad.
 
I agree it’s best to avoid injuries if we can.

You get the point though the incessant ignorance of reality of injury to our squad is frustrating.

If/when we get rid of Ten Hag irrespective of that we need to improve the fitness and conditioning of our squad.

The fitness and conditioning of the squad is the responsibility of the manager, it's literally parts of his remit. Whether he does it directly or delegate it to a member of his staff.
 
Atletico Madrid but in reality most teams, it's rare for teams to retreat immediately when they lose possession what they do is press high for various length of time and goals. If you take Atletico as example, they press the ball carriers high at the loss of the ball until the backbone of their defense is in place then they drop quickly. Now they also happen to be very good at regaining shape when their pressing is immediately beaten.

An other team that would do that is United in the late 2000s, we used a low block and also pressed high and from inside to the outside at the loss of the ball and then would drop deep and shut shop.

Now to be fair, I get that nowadays when people talk about high press they think about the most extremes version which is gegenpress and in that case a low block is not an idea but that's due to the longer duration of the pressing. In our case the transition should look a lot more like Atletico and some of the prime United teams which is to shortly press high and intensely and then drop deep. What we shouldn't do is to press high with little intensity and then have the attackers stay high doing nothing, we are basically applying ideas that do not fit with the same systems and the issue isn't the high press or the low block but the lack of intensity and then not regaining a compact shape. We need to fix the timing and final defensive shape.
I point back to the Arsenal game, as even though we lost, I felt like I saw what style we were trying to implement. That felt like a lower block, with quick transitions and pressing traps from defence with Martinez and Onana key in that.

I feel like Ten Hag has tried to do a halfway house with the players available and ended up in an absolute Frankenstein style that suits no one and pisses everyone off - fans and players. I think there are some circumstances that have forced him into the decisions, but I also feel like he's made a pigs ear of the circumstances as well. I think if he can coherently put forward his style and plan for next season with the new footballing structure, he should be given the last year of his contract. They'll have to buy into it as well, but because we're never privy to those types of conversations, I think it's really hard to discern his tactical ability this season (in my opinion, of course).
 
I point back to the Arsenal game, as even though we lost, I felt like I saw what style we were trying to implement. That felt like a lower block, with quick transitions and pressing traps from defence with Martinez and Onana key in that.

I feel like Ten Hag has tried to do a halfway house with the players available and ended up in an absolute Frankenstein style that suits no one and pisses everyone off - fans and players. I think there are some circumstances that have forced him into the decisions, but I also feel like he's made a pigs ear of the circumstances as well. I think if he can coherently put forward his style and plan for next season with the new footballing structure, he should be given the last year of his contract. They'll have to buy into it as well, but because we're never privy to those types of conversations, I think it's really hard to discern his tactical ability this season (in my opinion, of course).

Nothing forced him to do that. There isn't a single professional player that hasn't been used in all the not extreme defensive or transition settings and that includes all our players. none of them come from a gegenpress or old school catenaccio system. There is zero excuse or rational explanation for that system.
 
Nothing forced him to do that. There isn't a single professional player that hasn't been used in all the not extreme defensive or transition settings and that includes all our players. none of them come from a gegenpress or old school catenaccio system. There is zero excuse or rational explanation for that system.
No, I don't think there is an excuse from Ten Hag's perspective as to why it's happened, it's his job to coach the team. I also don't believe he's instructing them to sit deep and also press high and leave loads of space in between the lines.

There's a clear breakdown, be it instructions being confusing/contradictory, personnel not understanding, personnel just not doing what they're instructed to do, or just everyone doing their jobs poorly. Maybe a new manager can instruct these players better or have a more coherent message they understand, or a better style in general, but I think pointing just at Ten Hag for all of this seems simplistic.
 
No, I don't think there is an excuse from Ten Hag's perspective as to why it's happened, it's his job to coach the team. I also don't believe he's instructing them to sit deep and also press high and leave loads of space in between the lines.

There's a clear breakdown, be it instructions being confusing/contradictory, personnel not understanding, personnel just not doing what they're instructed to do, or just everyone doing their jobs poorly. Maybe a new manager can instruct these players better or have a more coherent message they understand, or a better style in general, but I think pointing just at Ten Hag for all of this seems simplistic.

So you think that the players aren't instructed to do something that they do consistently since preseason? It's clearly something planned, so do you think that the players decided as a team to follow the same set of instructions that they made up themselves?

In that case it's a mutiny since preseason?
 
I like him too, but to pin the entire side’s fortune on whether he plays or not is patently untrue, which is what several on this thread are saying. Our problems are not down to him being injured.
Agree. It is one factor out of many. Yet, Liverpool was poor for a while without Virgil Van Dijk. Licha is about that important for us.
 
So you think that the players aren't instructed to do something that they do consistently since preseason? It's clearly something planned, so do you think that the players decided as a team to follow the same set of instructions that they made up themselves?

In that case it's a mutiny since preseason?
It comes across that you are seeing this as all very black and white. There are a lot of shades of grey in between that are possible.
 
Read somewhere we were able to field our best 11 only once this season, for 60 minutes. That's outright crazy.


11 being:
Onana
Dalot Varane Martinez Shaw
Casemiro Mainoo
Rashford Bruno Garnacho
Hojlund​

BuT aLl TeAmS hAvE iNjUrIeS?!

It's not crazy at all, it is actually pretty normal and would be same for all Premier League teams.

City were missing De Bruyne until early January, when he returned they had Haaland out, and right now they have Ake and Ederson missing. I don't think they've been able to play their best XI even once this year.

Liverpool have basically had one of Robertson and TAA out at all times, have missed Thiago nearly all season and have been missing Gakpo/Jota at various points (plus most their midfielders have had some spells on sidelines, and one of Konate/Matip almost always out, also Alisson out for a chunk of time plus Salah missing more than a month). I am pretty sure they haven't been able to play their full best XI even once either.

Villa have been missing Mings and Buendia all season so they have not been able to play their best XI at all, and I don't think Spurs will have had too many opportunities to play their full best XI either.

Arsenal have been super lucky in that regard, they are missing Timber who would probably start at full back but have otherwise had great injury record with only Partey missing significant amount of time from what I recall.

Before ETH fanatics suffocate me, I am merely pointing out that it is quite rare to have all your best 11 players healthy, not arguing anything else here.
 
The fitness and conditioning of the squad is the responsibility of the manager, it's literally parts of his remit. Whether he does it directly or delegate it to a member of his staff.
And I refer you to Klopp circa 2016.

In adapting to his demands there was a spate of hamstring injuries. The solution was exactly what Ten Hag said. “We don’t train, we recover”.

I think it’s actually scary how similar these two processes may end up being.
 
So you think that the players aren't instructed to do something that they do consistently since preseason? It's clearly something planned, so do you think that the players decided as a team to follow the same set of instructions that they made up themselves?

In that case it's a mutiny since preseason?
I personally don't think there's any consistency within this team at all and they tend to always be turning around looking for others to join a press, indecisive in joining any sort of press or just pressing in the wrong way. A good example for me is that Newcastle away game where Schar dribbles out. Martial doesn't press correctly, the rest of them aren't set up properly even if he did effectively press and then no one had any sort of thought to engage the play with the ball until he was up to the halfway line. That's not just the managers instruction, that's a whole raft of things, in my opinion.

I wouldn't call it a mutiny, but I would say they collectively don't know what they're doing - which does ultimately fall on the manager, but I think we also have to look wider than him too.
 
And I refer you to Klopp circa 2016.

In adapting to his demands there was a spate of hamstring injuries. The solution was exactly what Ten Hag said. “We don’t train, we recover”.

I think it’s actually scary how similar these two processes may end up being.
You reckon ETH is having a similar trajectory as Klopp?
 
And I refer you to Klopp circa 2016.

In adapting to his demands there was a spate of hamstring injuries. The solution was exactly what Ten Hag said. “We don’t train, we recover”.

I think it’s actually scary how similar these two processes may end up being.

You keep quoting this as if it was some sort of smoking gun. Teams in all sports do not train much during the season and especially not at the end of the season. The conditioning and fitness work is done during preseason and during the first months of the season. After that focus is on rest and fatigue management. And all of that is the responsibility of the manager and his staff.

It's the same for Liverpool in 2024, City, United, the Los Angeles Lakers or the Saracens.
 
I personally don't think there's any consistency within this team at all and they tend to always be turning around looking for others to join a press, indecisive in joining any sort of press or just pressing in the wrong way. A good example for me is that Newcastle away game where Schar dribbles out. Martial doesn't press correctly, the rest of them aren't set up properly even if he did effectively press and then no one had any sort of thought to engage the play with the ball until he was up to the halfway line. That's not just the managers instruction, that's a whole raft of things, in my opinion.

I wouldn't call it a mutiny, but I would say they collectively don't know what they're doing - which does ultimately fall on the manager, but I think we also have to look wider than him too.

What you described is consistent. We do not press correctly, the support players do not engage the ball carrier, we consistently have a massive gap between the four most attacking players who are for some reason on a single line and rarely more than one of them press the ball carrier. That's consistent and has been the case since at least preseason.
 
What you described is consistent. We do not press correctly, the support players do not engage the ball carrier, we consistently have a massive gap between the four most attacking players who are for some reason on a single line and rarely more than one of them press the ball carrier. That's consistent and has been the case since at least preseason.
:lol: touché.
 
You reckon ETH is having a similar trajectory as Klopp?
In terms of squad dealing with demands of the more physical game. Yes. The rest is impossible to say without more time.

The point being made is from a physical perspective there are similarities.
You keep quoting this as if it was some sort of smoking gun. Teams in all sports do not train much during the season and especially not at the end of the season. The conditioning and fitness work is done during preseason and during the first months of the season. After that focus is on rest and fatigue management. And all of that is the responsibility of the manager and his staff.

It's the same for Liverpool in 2024, City, United, the Los Angeles Lakers or the Saracens.
I’ll be honest my heart isn’t in this discussion much.

But I’m glad at least someone else is aware of how normal seasons operate.

The point here is we’re not doing anything remarkably different to what we should be. So I’m not sure it’s fair to crucify Ten Hag over it.
 
You reckon ETH is having a similar trajectory as Klopp?
It's legitimately the kind of fan fiction stuff that we used to be able to read on RAWK years ago. "It's actually scary" :lol:
 
I clearly remember that time. We were playing with Lingard and Perreira as no.10s and clearly they were not good enough. And I said at that time, I won't waste my time watching United if they don't buy an AM. Why should I care about their season if they don't? And then of course Bruno came and the rest is history.
I feel so many people forget just how dire Ole's first season was at times. If he had been sacked at multiple points then no could have argued. The run of games after Bruno signed was remarkable though and we just squeezed into top 4 in the last few games with a pretty unimpressive 66 points, which is probably what we'll end up with this season (around 66 points but not top 4 :( )
 
For those Harping on about Injuries we didn’t strengthen in either CH or LB in the summer yet Shaw & Varane are eggshells at best. Superb players when fully fit but both have a terrible injury history. Thus when any other member of the back 4 is injured the problem is magnified. Its criminal from ETH that he didn’t address this in the summer and it’s crippled us all season as a result.
 
Martinez is a bit over rated as a player and so is his absence as another excuse for ETH me thinks. Wasn't he playing when we lost 1-3 to Brighton at home?
It is a bit of an excuse but something was seriously up with Martinez earlier in the season, anyone could have seen it, and it proved to be the case that he wasn't right and needed surgery. We did see a glimpse of last season's Martinez when he returned against West Ham and i think it is undeniable to say he does affect our play from the back enormously.

One player (two with Shaw) should not result in an entire team's structure collapsing though so i can understand people saying it's an excuse.
 
In terms of squad dealing with demands of the more physical game. Yes. The rest is impossible to say without more time.
It isn’t really, Klopp’s time at Liverpool was constant progress in performance year over year since the very beginning.
 
For those Harping on about Injuries we didn’t strengthen in either CH or LB in the summer yet Shaw & Varane are eggshells at best. Superb players when fully fit but both have a terrible injury history. Thus when any other member of the back 4 is injured the problem is magnified. Its criminal from ETH that he didn’t address this in the summer and it’s crippled us all season as a result.
Only so much you can change given a budget but I agree.

However I think nobody was expecting Malacia and Shaw to be out an entire season. That isn’t something anyone plans for nor should we.

I don’t think it’s fair again to blame him entirely. We absolutely needed a striker so that was where most of our funds went.

We’ve also got 29 year old Fernandes who until Mount was signed had no one close to being able to play as our advanced midfielder and we were lacking midfielders who can take the ball on the half turn and press higher effectively (two things Mount excels in) but he got injured too. So we needed to sign a Mount but I’d accept an argument that our negotiation teams should have done better in both deals to allow us funds to find other solutions.

We did try to sell Maguire and McTominay to raise these funds and replace with better suited players. That’s on our negotiation side.
 
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