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Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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If you conceded territory and possession so much eventually defenders make mistakes. It's inevitable.
It's Man City's entire gameplan.
And what if he's just another De Boer? Most of the time the simplest explanation is the correct one.
Yes that is the answer that I expect, a setting of higher targets for the players and managers. And if you can’t hack it, get out
Exactly. For far too long players have been able to coast or put an unacceptable amount of effort it. It's just become a retirement home/easy paycheck and that needs to change very quickly.
I hope they are extremely ruthless in their approach because examples need to be made.
Bruno would be a good place to start IMO.
Not becasue he's not a good player, he is and maybe he's not quite cut out for where we want to go stylistically but just to show everyone else in that sqaud you better buck your fecking ideas up to stay at this club. Rashford could be a good example too.
Is this an occurrence at other supposed big clubs, like a manager buying goodwill for a draw?
I didn’t reject anything. I told you salah was free on the wing. Which he was. Nice try at trying to show your superior knowledge with your conclusion (again) though.
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I wanted to see the context of where he was positioned you can see I’ve since adjusted my view on this.
We are still set up perfectly though in that passage of play to do what we did.
I'm sick and tired of the small time culture that apparently has infested United.
The times under SAF HAVE to be the standard and we haven't been anywhere near that over the past decade.
It just pains me to watch that stealing draws against the top teams (of which we should be one tbh) gets celebrated as a win or 'bad luck, we should have won the game' by the manager, when we got absolutely handled in the second half and were lucky not to lose by 5 or 6.
The last time we dominated a match against a top team was probably under Ole during COVID, when stadiums were empty.
This is not Manchester United. This defeatist culture is sickening, especially as it seems to have crept in into some of the fanbase over the last couple of years.
Bayern Munich fans go absolutely bananas against the players and the manager, for not winning the league one year! And they're in the knockout stages of the CL too.
We seem to be ok with winning a plastic cup every 3 or 4 years and 'setting up to hit them on the break' against the better teams, like we were fecking Brentford.
We're spending the money too, it's not like we got relegated and poor all of a sudden, so expecting wins and trophies and title challenges is only natural imo.
I'm at the point where I can't hear all those excuses anymore.
The times under SAF HAVE to be the standard and we haven't been anywhere near that over the past decade.
It just pains me to watch that stealing draws against the top teams (of which we should be one tbh) gets celebrated as a win or 'bad luck, we should have won the game' by the manager, when we got absolutely handled in the second half and were lucky not to lose by 5 or 6.
The last time we dominated a match against a top team was probably under Ole during COVID, when stadiums were empty.
This is not Manchester United. This defeatist culture is sickening, especially as it seems to have crept in into some of the fanbase over the last couple of years.
Bayern Munich fans go absolutely bananas against the players and the manager, for not winning the league one year! And they're in the knockout stages of the CL too.
We seem to be ok with winning a plastic cup every 3 or 4 years and 'setting up to hit them on the break' against the better teams, like we were fecking Brentford.
We're spending the money too, it's not like we got relegated and poor all of a sudden, so expecting wins and trophies and title challenges is only natural imo.
I'm at the point where I can't hear all those excuses anymore.
Ok mate, I don't understand a simple set of photos. It was an easy pass, under the same pressure as they had been previously but were still rolling it around with ease. He simply misplaced it. Have you ever played football? I guarantee you that Quansah is kicking himself for such a shit pass. A pass to Van Dijk or Kelleher were both safe and easy to make. He played it blind and got his direction wrong. that is all. We didn't force a mistake, per se. They simply made a mistake and we were there to capitalise.
Arsenal is a club I think we can look at in terms of seeing how a restructuring above the manager and at the board level combined with a change in attitude towards competing can easily transform a club in a relatively short space of time.
I'm not drawing any parallels between Arteta and ETH because I think Arteta has always shown his style or 'philosophy' in ways that ETH hasn't done on the pitch but it does show that patience can be rewarded. If you were paying attention to Arteta and his football over the years you could see what he was trying to do and it made the growing pains more palatable.
We also need to be ruthless as they were in clearing underperforming/overpaid players off the books like Auba or Lacazette and focus more on youth, which to be fair we are doing to an extent now.
I'm not drawing any parallels between Arteta and ETH because I think Arteta has always shown his style or 'philosophy' in ways that ETH hasn't done on the pitch but it does show that patience can be rewarded. If you were paying attention to Arteta and his football over the years you could see what he was trying to do and it made the growing pains more palatable.
We also need to be ruthless as they were in clearing underperforming/overpaid players off the books like Auba or Lacazette and focus more on youth, which to be fair we are doing to an extent now.
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Bold bit. What do you think the defensive structure is there for?
Yes it was an error on the youngsters part, we were lucky, we were also lucky it went straight to Bruno because I doubt that some of the others could have taken that first time shot on and hit the target.
You was coming to the conclusion that someone didn’t know what they were taking about without even knowing the position of all the players.
we May be set in a good shape but it was a simple error from that defender that caused that goal
L O L. Very smart guy. Hire up southgate or ginger sean so. You clearly know what options mean,if southgate is an option then erik should be kept. Why even reply.
Well done, we had 11 players on the pitch playing a vague press at that time. If he'd have got his pass right then Bruno wouldn't have been a factor and Van Dijk would have dealt with it, so was the 'structure' really that great? He got fortunate that the pass was yards wide of where it should go and Bruno was still ambling around in that space. And if Quansah finds VVD, he then has an easy pass to break our press in to Endo (or VVD - Kelleher - Endo). So again, was it really a great defensive structure? I'd say no. And if he did what he would do 99 times out of 100, they play through us with ease as they had done the previous 50 minutes and continued to do afterwards.
The defence of ETH has really reached new level of desperation if a "press that possibly resulted in opposition error" is something we're going to cling onto.
What is the logic of being wide open in midfield and inviting 20-30 shots per game?
Someone please explain this to me.
Someone please explain this to me.
The sooner people accept they were wrong about ETH (we've all been there), the sooner we can all move on from this shit. It's time to stop clinging on to false hope when there's a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Let's have some standards (and we will all hold the next manager to the same standards) and just move the feck on. He's gone in the summer, so let's move on and discuss something that makes sense.
Let's have some standards (and we will all hold the next manager to the same standards) and just move the feck on. He's gone in the summer, so let's move on and discuss something that makes sense.
It hasn't bought him anything, though. The ones backing him are still backing him and the ones that want him out, still want him out.
In the grand scheme of things it'll have zero bearing on whether he's kept on or not. I imagine a decision of some sort has already been made regarding his future. Yesterday's performance, if anything, further indicates that he isn't the right man. The result in isolation was ok, but the performance was absolutely atrocious.
I think he has had a horrible season.
I also think he did well last season.
I don't believe he should be sacked yet, but I also won't cry if he does get sacked.
I'm interested to see what he can do if we can fix some of the squad issues and be healthier next season
I also think he has shown over the course of his career he is a good tactician, hopefully he would have learnt a lot from this season about the PL and also the limits of certain members of the squad
I also think he did well last season.
I don't believe he should be sacked yet, but I also won't cry if he does get sacked.
I'm interested to see what he can do if we can fix some of the squad issues and be healthier next season
I also think he has shown over the course of his career he is a good tactician, hopefully he would have learnt a lot from this season about the PL and also the limits of certain members of the squad
Shits n giggles
I believe if we were being linked to better managers more fans probably would've turned on him. Most people I speak to are shit scared that we are going to hire Southgate and they would obviously rather have ten Hag.
How anyone can still be defending ETH after his approach this season blows my mind. He has been the biggest issue this season. Not the injuries. Not underperforming players. Him, and specifically his suicidal setup. It's as simple as that.
Even with Pep or Klopp, it would take a miracle for this squad to be genuinely challenging. But the collective quality in the squad is far better than what we are seeing demonstrated on the pitch. We demonstrated this for large parts of last season.
It all comes down the the stubbornness of the manager. Last season, he came in and tried to implement a similar style of play for a couple of games, and we got spanked by two small clubs. He quickly realised the squad wasn't up to it, and reverted to a style we had been used to playing... a deep lying, compact 4231, which relied on counter attacks, where the main attacking threat came from wide areas where the "wingers" (especially Rashford) were able to play more narrow on the last line of defence, and the width was provided by the the FBs. I mean, Rashford has been awful this year, but the manager has to take a huge chunk of the blame for that. Playing to none of his strengths, and to all of his weaknesses.
Last years shape played to the strength of our midfielders too, as there was significantly less ground to cover defensively in the middle of the park. So the lack of legs was not exposed. Only City and Newcastle conceded less goals than us, and that is with a midfield 2 typically consisting of Casemiro and Eriksen. It also mitigated the lack of pace in our defence, as they clearly aren't suited to playing a high line.
But for whatever reason, without anywhere close to sufficient enough change in personnel, ETH has decided that the squad is now suited to play a completely different style. He wants to play a high press with his 5 attacking players, but with a solo DM, and a back 4 who simply aren't athletic or fast enough to play high enough up the pitch retain a compact shape.
So we get what we see every week. An absolute chasm between the front 5 and the back 6. So when opposition beat the initial press, a single opposing player can typically carry the ball unchallenged from one box to the other. It is just suicidal tactics.
And out of pure stubbornness, the manager will just not hold his hands up to the fact that he has got it all wrong, and go back to the way we were playing last year.
Even with Pep or Klopp, it would take a miracle for this squad to be genuinely challenging. But the collective quality in the squad is far better than what we are seeing demonstrated on the pitch. We demonstrated this for large parts of last season.
It all comes down the the stubbornness of the manager. Last season, he came in and tried to implement a similar style of play for a couple of games, and we got spanked by two small clubs. He quickly realised the squad wasn't up to it, and reverted to a style we had been used to playing... a deep lying, compact 4231, which relied on counter attacks, where the main attacking threat came from wide areas where the "wingers" (especially Rashford) were able to play more narrow on the last line of defence, and the width was provided by the the FBs. I mean, Rashford has been awful this year, but the manager has to take a huge chunk of the blame for that. Playing to none of his strengths, and to all of his weaknesses.
Last years shape played to the strength of our midfielders too, as there was significantly less ground to cover defensively in the middle of the park. So the lack of legs was not exposed. Only City and Newcastle conceded less goals than us, and that is with a midfield 2 typically consisting of Casemiro and Eriksen. It also mitigated the lack of pace in our defence, as they clearly aren't suited to playing a high line.
But for whatever reason, without anywhere close to sufficient enough change in personnel, ETH has decided that the squad is now suited to play a completely different style. He wants to play a high press with his 5 attacking players, but with a solo DM, and a back 4 who simply aren't athletic or fast enough to play high enough up the pitch retain a compact shape.
So we get what we see every week. An absolute chasm between the front 5 and the back 6. So when opposition beat the initial press, a single opposing player can typically carry the ball unchallenged from one box to the other. It is just suicidal tactics.
And out of pure stubbornness, the manager will just not hold his hands up to the fact that he has got it all wrong, and go back to the way we were playing last year.
I don't want Southgate at all, it's nightmare fuel. But, having said that, I know Southgate would set us up in a more balanced structure with a proper midfield unit. It'd be extremely vanilla, but probably less infuriating to watch. I absolutely don't want Southgate though, and I don't think we will go for him anyway.
Big Sam was with Brailsford and Ratcliffe yesterday, though
I am not sure I would ever call a shape perfect that leaves Salah of all people available. Sure it worked out well in this case, but in general that's a risky approach, although one that has its merits when you trust the player on the ball to not have the balls to make that long pass. I just wonder, wasn't there someone else who could have been left available who is less dangerous than Salah? But anyway that's nitpicking, any pressing structure is there to force and use mistakes. If no player makes a mistake, no ball will ever change possession, so those who complain that it was a mistake of Liverpools player instead of good pressing don't really seem to understand the purpose of pressing.
Ten Hag has invented inverted pressing - I have no idea what it means.
But it sounds cool and gets the people going
Are we actually trying to convince ourselves that we 'forced' Quansah's error and it was all by design?The article was a laugh because it's been inexplicably true. We leave the opposition with so much space that they mess up their opportunities due to possibly overthinking the situation rather than acting instinctively.
Please don't use "we". We do not want to be associated with that.
It's such a tedious argument, but we are having these daft arguments on a weekly basis at this point. I'm convinced some of these posters are related or employed in some form by ETH. Or just oppo's on the wind up.
Such as..? I can't imagine he'd rather stay with the German national team over joining United. Going to back Bayern would also be an odd choice.
I don't want Southgate at all, it's nightmare fuel. But, having said that, I know Southgate would set us up in a more balanced structure with a proper midfield unit. It'd be extremely vanilla, but probably less infuriating to watch. I absolutely don't want Southgate though, and I don't think we will go for him anyway.
Big Sam was with Brailsford and Ratcliffe yesterday, though
I would definitely rather keep ETH if bizarrely it was a choice between the two. With Southgate, it would be 3 or so years of more pain and misery. At least if ETH stays on, he'll be sacked pretty quickly next season if things remain as they are. The hope is that by that point, Southgate is no longer an option/available.
You can't really compare United to Bayern. I agree we should absolutely be near the top of the table - but Bayern are so much bigger than everyone else in Germany, it is a failure if they dont win the league. 1 club in the Bundesliga has ONCE signed a player for over €35 million (Draxler to Wolfsburg). 9 of the 10 biggest signings in the Bundesliga have been made by Bayern.
We are competing with 7-8 clubs who can afford to buy really expensive players - and we are not even the richest club in the Premier League.
So as much as I agree with the standards-part - you bringing Bayern Munchen into this is just completely wrong.
No
It looks like one solitary person is, though.
The alternative options are shite. I find it hard to believe he'd turn down the chance to manage United to stay with the German national team. Going back to Bayern over United also seems like a bad idea. Liverpool would make sense tbf but they seemingly want Amorim.
It's actually bonkers now. Not sure how people can still defend this
It's been the same story with pretty much every single post-Fergie manager.
I was there to defend Ole, and I'm unrelated. I wanted all the others to go. I mean, I also wanted Ole to go in the end.
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