Anthony, Martinez, Onana, Amrabat, Mount, Malacia, Hojlund....
If everything he was supposed to do with us depended on getting DeJong, then that in itself shows he wasn't the right man for the job.
He had a choice of taking Rangnick's input on our squad and using his vast scouting knowledge to help him coming in. Instead he chose to ignore him completely and went to recruit the players he had worked with before. That's on him, not on any structure. The structure's fault was catering to him and paying exorbitant fees and wages for some utterly mediocre players he picked.
Anthony, I addressed. Martinez, again not available for most of the season. Onana, horrendous start but has got better. Amrabat, was this or nothing because we couldn't sell anyone and won't be here next season anyway, Mount, freakishly not available until a couple of weeks ago Malacia, hasn't played a single minute this season, Hojlund only true successful signing of his that will stay well beyond him. It's not like all of these players have been utter shite and sell them all. Amrabat will be gone, Malacia likely too and the rest will stay as part of a good squad if he's here or not.
It didn't depend on getting De Jong, but it certainly depended on getting someone of a similar profile. Klopp wanted Brandt but got Salah, that's how good football clubs work, we seemed to do the reverse.
Why is Rangnick seen as some sort of oracle with hindsight? His vision for this team was that shite 4-2-2-2 that we had to endure and says he suggested some players that turned out good - cool. Ole wanted to sign Haaland and Bellingham, it's all on the footballing structure to make those decisions with a coach's input of fitting the vision. Ten Hag should be able to express what he needs in terms of a player like Antony and the footballing hierarchy set a value for him and if that's not possible, they have the ability to confident suggest alternatives with similar attributes - we needed a RW at the time, but our inexperienced footballing operations couldn't suggest a better alternative so they just went with it. That won't happen again.
So, he'll have to abandon his vision to buy into the United way, no?
My point here was I think it will just be more of a nuanced discussion I imagine, because these are better footballing people than what we had previously.
Again I don't get the point in keeping him. As I mentioned in my earlier post, he has come up short on many criteria. How is that going to change with the new structure? Why don't get a manager who aligns with the vision of this club instead of forcing ETH to buy into that vision?
We don't know the vision yet, but I very much doubt it's going to be far off a high pressing, quick transition team that wants to dominate the ball high up the pitch. ETH does align with that and whoever we get to replace him will likely need similar profile players unless we do actually get Southgate and we'll be boring as feck.
So did, DeBoer or other Ajax managers before him. We have to remember that he excelled in a league where Ajax are utterly dominant both financially and in terms of their structure. They are expected to win the league most seasons. And outside the Eredivise, all he has to show for on his resume is one Champions league run to the semi-finals where they lost to Pochettino managed Spurs.
We have managed cup runs with all our managers. Even Ole took us to a couple of finals. I don't think that's a big deal when you have one of the most expensively assembled squad in world football with the highest wage bill.
The problem is that even when we did reasonably well last season result wise, there wasn't a discernible style of play that ETH implemented. We were scraping through games after the league cup final (Even the league cup final wasn't the most pleasing on the eye). And have continued in the same vein since then. We can't score goals and we can't defend very well. We give up a high number of shots every game. That isn't just because of injuries to a couple of our players. Someone showed the stats in another thread of the quarter finals and the semi-finals of Ajax's CL run under ETH and in those games two his team gave up a very high number of shots to both their opponents.
Some of our highest defeats under ETH have come with Martinez, Varane, Casemiro and Shaw in the team.
IMO, after two seasons it's pretty clear what he brings to the table. Is that good enough? I don't think it is.
De Boer did not do what he did in the CL, that's just a false equivalency. He also was a success with Utrecht, in a league as you say Ajax are utterly dominant. It's still a semi-final for fecks sake with Ajax, where are they now?
OK fine, I do, we just disagree on that point. They were also positives for Ole as well.
I don't claim it's rosy, we obviously need improving, but I think with a more stable backline injury wise and some midfield recruitment, it would have a big impact. The bolded part - yeah, because they were fecking Ajax (a side that had Tadic, Ziyech, VDB and Blind who were all deemed not good enough in the prem) and still managed to knock out Real Madrid, Juventus and not for heroics from Moura would have knocked out Spurs.
I think there are obvious question marks about him, I just don't see anyone out there now that would not have similar problems with this group trying to implement their style. So now the responsibility is on the new structure to agree the vision, Ten Hag will have to align with it (he might not anyway), they will sign players for that vision regardless of if Ten Hag stays or goes. We have a season to then integrate that vision, if Ten Hag can't do it, we get a manager who can with a base of players who've come in based on the idea espoused by the new hierarchy.
I don't really see an alternative where the pay off is big enough when you consider Naglesmann is contracted to 2026, so you have to pay Ten Hag and Nagelsmann with the same problem set with the squad make up. Amorim would cost 10M, far more inexperienced and the squad make up is an issue again, same can be said for De Zerbi. Potter and Southgate are shite options. Zidane is the only one I would be interested in sacking him for, but I don't think there's been any indication he's interested and we'd again be back to investing in the squad anyway.
