Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Berbaclass]

ten Hag said in an interview that one of his stipulations prior to joining was control over transfers. I'm sure he'd agree to some rearrangement of that now given he's got feck all leverage but quite possibly he wouldn't have been here if we had turned down his demands re. structure and approach to signings.

I don’t think so, the club were totally unprepared in his first window. They said in the Athletic article they crammed a year’s work into 3 months that summer. Explains the decision to pivot from FDJ to Casemiro a bit too because they couldn’t be more different.

Agree about him having no leverage now. He’s probably going to rely on the goodwill of INEOS this summer if he stays which you can debate whether that’s good or bad. Probably bad they should be ruthless.

 

[stevoc]

I've seen some people suggest that the current suicidal way of playing that Ten Hag insists upon, while detrimental in the short term to results will reap beenefits long term once we have the right players for this system. Some of the folk claiming this also seem to think we need to change the vast majority of the squad to play this way effectively.

So how are these two things reconciled?

Is the thinking we have persevered with a suicidal brand of football and pretty much wrote off an entire season to give Garnacho, Mainoo and Hojlund slightly more experience playing this way. Surely that couldn't be Ten Hag's thinking.

 

[pocco]

It's funny because a couple of months ago, people were saying that the high number of shots against was just teams taking low quality pot shots because they couldn't break us down, now they're claiming it's all by design as part of ETHs choas football philosophy

 

[Desert Eagle]

I've seen some people suggest that the current suicidal way of playing that Ten Hag insists upon, while detrimental in the short term to results will reap beenefits long term once we have the right players for this system. Some of the folk claiming this also seem to think we need to change the vast majority of the squad to play this way effectively.

So how are these two things reconciled?

Is the thinking we have persevered with a suicidal brand of football and pretty much wrote off an entire season to give Garnacho, Mainoo and Hojlund slightly more experience playing this way. Surely that couldn't be Ten Hag's thinking.

It also goes against what ETH has said in public. Remember he famously said we won't be playing like Ajax and he has repeatedly stressed that winning and being pragmatic are the most important things to him. The idea that he is sacrificing short term success to build something long term is delusional. The much more probable situation is he has settled on a style of play he thinks suits his team and players and is too stubborn to tinker or change it.

 

[Rista]

ETH is the first manager under which finishing top 4 is considered "overachieving" now. Another example of standards slipping.

 

[Berbaclass]

ETH is the first manager under which finishing top 4 is considered "overachieving" now. Another example of standards slipping.

Blame the Glazers

 

[Lewnited]

I think realisitically, INEOS will want to make sure all appointments made above and around Ten Hag are in place before pulling the trigger on a new manager. Though I expect this is quietly happening in the background as we speak.

Logically, there'll be a vested interest in giving the next manager the best chance to succeed, as Ten Hag's failings can be attributed to the last regime. I actually think nothing he does between now and May gets him sacked as INEOS are rightly taking their time to ensure everything is set for their new man. But I also suspect there is no way he's still in the job come June save for a miraculous run of form and an FA Cup win.

I don't think you get to have United's worst season in over 30 years, get embarassed in the Champions League, give teams free reign on your goal all season and get rewarded with another year.

 

[redNATION]

It's funny because a couple of months ago, people were saying that the high number of shots against was just teams taking low quality pot shots because they couldn't break us down, now they're claiming it's all by design as part of ETHs choas football philosophy

It’s like Ali’s rope a dope, allow teams to tire themselves out attacking and taking shots and then hit them. ETH is way ahead of the rest of us tactically

 

[Ace of Spades]

It also goes against what ETH has said in public. Remember he famously said we won't be playing like Ajax and he has repeatedly stressed that winning and being pragmatic are the most important things to him. The idea that he is sacrificing short term success to build something long term is delusional. The much more probable situation is he has settled on a style of play he thinks suits his team and players and is too stubborn to tinker or change it.

People are just moving goalposts and making excuses for him, thinking that we will get magically better under this mythical system, with the perfect players, and then and only then will ETH be right. If we suck it is because we don't have the right players for his genius, if we are great it is because he is a genius getting the best of average players because of his great system and coaching. We have tried playing a lot of different players, and the same issues have repeated and the logical answer is that the problem is the coach and his shitness at coaching, but there will still be some who make excuses for him till the end.

He talks about high standards but has none for himself.

 

[Isotope]

People are just moving goalposts and making excuses for him, thinking that we will get magically better under this mythical system, with the perfect players, and then and only then will ETH be right. If we suck it is because we don't have the right players for his genius, if we are great it is because he is a genius getting the best of average players because of his great system and coaching. We have tried playing a lot of different players, and the same issues have repeated and the logical answer is that the problem is the coach and his shitness at coaching, but there will still be some who make excuses for him till the end.

He talks about high standards but has none for himself.

I'm wondering if EtH managed Barcelona 2008, people would still be claiming he didn't have players to play "his system". Messi and Henry wouldn't press.

 

[Berbaclass]

This thread has become so weird and tribal. You have to be either ultra ETH out and be physically sick at the sight of him or you are a 'cultist' that makes excuse after excuse for him.

There is just far more nuance to it than that.

If you say anything that could be remotely construed as 'defending' ETH then a bunch of people jump down your throat and tell you you're a moron

You wouldn't know that we all support the same team...

 

[Gordon's Hill]

It also goes against what ETH has said in public. Remember he famously said we won't be playing like Ajax and he has repeatedly stressed that winning and being pragmatic are the most important things to him. The idea that he is sacrificing short term success to build something long term is delusional. The much more probable situation is he has settled on a style of play he thinks suits his team and players and is too stubborn to tinker or change it.

Agree 100%. The delusions have hit new highs post the Liverpool match, which aside from Mainoo wonder goal and a fluky Fernandes goal (well hit as it was) was a disgraceful performance. One of the videos posted on here analysing our performances noted that the spread of XGs against in the league is very low, so the figure for us is not really that low compared to other teams. I have been posting for a while the problem is our chaos and total lack of control, laid bare by our recent late collapses. You cannot continuously surrender possession and be wide open when you have just lost the ball, let so many shots and attacks, and not suffer. Someone posted the pens were bad mistakes by players and not on ETH, but its the lack of control and panic at the end of matches (when ETH normally goes peak Moyes, subs off our attackers in favour of more defenders) that invites constant pressure and hence mistakes. No other top team plays like this and we will never challenge playing this way, regardless of the players we have. It in turn leads to the injury situation, where the lack of control means no rest and players constantly breaking forward then making recovery runs when we lose the ball. its shambolic and should be called out as such.

 

[VP89]

This thread has become so weird and tribal. You have to be either ultra ETH out and be physically sick at the sight of him or you are a 'cultist' that makes excuse after excuse for him.

There is just far more nuance to it than that.

If you say anything that could be remotely construed as 'defending' ETH then a bunch of people jump down your throat and tell you you're a moron

You wouldn't know that we all support the same team...

I actually used his first season as an example of how you can't fully gauge pedigree in debut years, given how he nosedived just now.

And I got shit talk for it by posters with pitch forks thinking it's an endorsement of Ten Hag

 

[soapythecat]

I'm wondering if EtH managed Barcelona 2008, people would still be claiming he didn't have players to play "his system". Messi and Henry wouldn't press.

But I doubt Barcelona would of hired a manager who needs a certain type of players and therefore would have been a bad fit.
He wasn’t the right fit for the players we had and it’s quite obvious now. He’s neither adjusted and tried to make a system work that’s not feasible.
If he was brought in for the long term then the club need to stick with him and back him heavily.

 

[Berbaclass]

But I doubt Barcelona would of hired a manager who needs a certain type of players and therefore would have been a bad fit.
He wasn’t the right fit for the players we had and it’s quite obvious now. He’s neither adjusted and tried to make a system work that’s not feasible.
If he was brought in for the long term then the club need to stick with him and back him heavily.

That's a pretty fair assessment.

 

[Laurencio]

But I doubt Barcelona would of hired a manager who needs a certain type of players and therefore would have been a bad fit.
He wasn’t the right fit for the players we had and it’s quite obvious now. He’s neither adjusted and tried to make a system work that’s not feasible.
If he was brought in for the long term then the club need to stick with him and back him heavily.

We all knew that. Everyone who followed him for more than a few matches could tell you that we didn't have the personnel. A lot of us also repeatedly said that he shouldn't under any circumstances be given free reign with transfers, because he's shit at them, and he's just going to buy players who aren't quite up to it. No one could have imagined just how bad it would get (like Antony), but many of us assumed that when we hired him we had a very clear plan on which players to target - and that we had already sounded out a lot of players months in advance given that we had an interim in place to "prepare" for a major summer window. The entire Ten Hag hiring process, recruitment of players and authority given to the manager has been an utter clown-fest, amateur hour.

 

[Berbaclass]

We all knew that. Everyone who followed him for more than a few matches could tell you that we didn't have the personnel. A lot of us also repeatedly said that he shouldn't under any circumstances be given free reign with transfers, because he's shit at them, and he's just going to buy players who aren't quite up to it. No one could have imagined just how bad it would get (like Antony), but many of us assumed that when we hired him we had a very clear plan on which players to target - and that we had already sounded out a lot of players months in advance given that we had an interim in place to "prepare" for a major summer window. The entire Ten Hag hiring process, recruitment of players and authority given to the manager has been an utter clown-fest, amateur hour.

Yeah and that turned out to be completely false and the club was shockingly underprepared at the time of him joining. He deserves a bit of leniency for that.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

This thread has become so weird and tribal. You have to be either ultra ETH out and be physically sick at the sight of him or you are a 'cultist' that makes excuse after excuse for him.

There is just far more nuance to it than that.

If you say anything that could be remotely construed as 'defending' ETH then a bunch of people jump down your throat and tell you you're a moron

You wouldn't know that we all support the same team...

I mean some of the words being used are distasteful, but we're having the worst season in our modern history by far and it's being almost arrogantly brushed aside by a few posters.

I don't see much to clamor for Ten Hag.

No one asked for a title challenge this season. Most of us would have been fine with some sort of progression. Instead we're seeing horrific regression.

 

[Berbaclass]

I mean some of the words being used are distasteful, but we're having the worst season in our modern history by far and it's being almost arrogantly brushed aside by a few posters.

I don't see much to clamor for Ten Hag.

No one asked for a title challenge this season. Most of us would have been fine with some sort of progression. Instead we're seeing horrific regression.

That's a result of the decade of standards erosion overseen by the Glazer regime. Outside of them, it's not the fault of any one man. We don't have the insight into the club, how it's run and the processes to be able to confidently say he's definitely the issue without any doubt. He also doesn't help himself at times with seemingly basic errors on the field.

People aren't blameless, Ten Hag included, but he gets a lot of the heat that's accumulated and been cultivated over the last decade and I don't think it's fair personally. He's just the current guy so he's getting the brunt of it. I don't think he's doing a poorer job than Moyes, LVG etc but just being similarly uninspiring and ineffective.

I don't think he's done a good job overall but I'm completely unsure how much of it is down to him and how much is influenced by external factors like the precession of coaches before him have also felt the effect of.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

That's a result of the decade of standards erosion overseen by the Glazer regime. Outside of them, it's not the fault of any one man. We don't have the insight into the club, how it's run and the processes to be able to confidently say he's definitely the issue without any doubt. He also doesn't help himself at times with seemingly basic errors on the field.

People aren't blameless, Ten Hag included, but he gets a lot of the heat that's accumulated and been cultivated over the last decade and I don't think it's fair personally. He's just the current guy so he's getting the brunt of it. I don't think he's doing a poorer job than Moyes, LVG etc but just being similarly uninspiring and ineffective.

I don't think he's done a good job overall but I'm completely unsure how much of it is down to him and how much is influenced by external factors like the precession of coaches before him have also felt the effect of.

This season. He is. It's not even arguable. I don't know how anyone can argue this season isn't worse than the Moyes season or Van Gaal in his 2nd season.

 

[Berbaclass]

This season. He is. It's not even arguable. I don't know how anyone can argue this season isn't worse than the Moyes season or Van Gaal in his 2nd season.

The points total will probably be similar. Be surprised if we don't get more than 58 but not my much.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

The points total will probably be similar. Be surprised if we don't get more than 58 but not my much.

A significantly worse GD, significantly worse underlying metrics, worse performances in Europe.

It's not close at all. We're pretty fortunate to be 6th at the moment.

 

[RedRover]

People are just moving goalposts and making excuses for him, thinking that we will get magically better under this mythical system, with the perfect players, and then and only then will ETH be right. If we suck it is because we don't have the right players for his genius, if we are great it is because he is a genius getting the best of average players because of his great system and coaching. We have tried playing a lot of different players, and the same issues have repeated and the logical answer is that the problem is the coach and his shitness at coaching, but there will still be some who make excuses for him till the end.

He talks about high standards but has none for himself.

I am utterly baffled by what he's done in his career for anyone to think he's some kind of "ahead of his time" footballing genius.

It's amazing that he's able to completely escape any liability for the fact that he has a squad of players who apparently can't put his preferred system into practice. Although since he only seems to have reinvented the whole narrative of football in the last month or so, that's not really a surprise.

 

[RedRover]

But I doubt Barcelona would of hired a manager who needs a certain type of players and therefore would have been a bad fit.
He wasn’t the right fit for the players we had and it’s quite obvious now. He’s neither adjusted and tried to make a system work that’s not feasible.
If he was brought in for the long term then the club need to stick with him and back him heavily.

The major problem is that he doesn't seem to know what type of players he wants. He's identified his own players at United and it hasn't worked.

 

[Berbaclass]

A significantly worse GD, significantly worse underlying metrics, worse performances in Europe.

It's not close at all. We're pretty fortunate to be 6th at the moment.

You're misunderstanding my point, I'm not arguing that it's good. I'm arguing that the data (points total) will be pretty similar. You may interpret other things like GD that's fine but I think there are clear correlations between our defensive/offensive injuries and our poor attacking/defending.

Last year we were pretty good defensively. We had a relatively settled back four and Casemiro still had a bit in the tank. Rashford was on fire too up front. There's been a significant drop-off in both those things. We've probably played a different defence in probably every game and Rashford and Casemiro's form has fallen off a cliff.

You can argue of course that the style of play and intensity of training etc (we cant know this though) has been a contributing factor but I think there are multiple factors.

The World Cup is one of them. All the extra time added into games now is another one of them. At the moment it seems like most teams have about 5-10 players out injured. So I'm in no rush to blame ETH for all our injuries but at the same time he's probably not helping with the high-press and lower defensive line.

 

[evil_geko]

Stop with injury excuses lads, they are only excuses, stop!

And then people wonder why we don't have any consistency? But it's all cultist excuses etc etc

He has made many mistakes this season, I am not saying injuries are the only reason for horrible season, but people ignoring how big the injury impact was for us this season, is just holding his head in the sand because they only want to blame Erik and only him. The usual Caf extremes without any middleground.

 

[Berbaclass]

Stop with injury excuses lads, they are only excuses, stop!

And then people wonder why we don't have any consistency? But it's all excuses! Cultists etc etc

I'd like to see the direct comparison to last season when we had what the 3/4rd best defence in the league?

 

[Laurencio]

Yeah and that turned out to be completely false and the club was shockingly underprepared at the time of him joining. He deserves a bit of leniency for that.

Leniency, yes. A blank cheque and no responsibility for what he has chosen to do with that authority and power - no. We didn't set him up to succeed, but he didn't really do his part of the deal either. He's built a team that still needs to be dismantled, and where the majority of his signings don't have a long-term future at the club. We are no closer to playing the style of football that we surely hired him to implement now than we were before he joined. The problems he was hired to fix are still present. If anything we are further away from challenging now than we have ever been over the past decade. At the same time we are not only performing badly in comparison to the top six teams, our supposed competition, but also the bottom and even lower division sides. At our best we produce football that is chaotically entertaining, but nothing consistent or convincing.

Financially he has been a disaster, humiliated in the CL, record low (for us) competition money, assets valued at hundreds of millions of pounds depreciated in value, paying large contracts for players out on loan at other clubs, and hundreds of millions wasted in recruitment. Regardless of how his reign ends, he will likely be the most expensive manager we have ever had, even accounting for inflation, and all we have to show for it is a league cup trophy and the promise of maybe getting somewhere if we spend a lot more money. Then there's the injury issues, which at this point are so ridiculous it can't just be bad luck. As the manager, and with the amount of power we've given the manager which is practically that of a DOF and head coach, it is actually his job to sort this out and figure out why. We can only judge him on the job he was hired to do and is doing, not the job he should have been hired to do, but wasn't.

 

[Berbaclass]

Leniency, yes. A blank check and no responsibility for what he has chosen to do with that authority and power - no. We didn't set him up to succeed, but he didn't really do his part of the deal either. He's built a team that still needs to be dismantled, and where the majority of his signings don't have a long-term future at the club. We are no closer to playing the style of football that we surely hired him to implement now than we were before he joined. The problems he was hired to fix are still present. If anything we are further away from challenging now than we have ever been over the past decade. At the same time we are not only performing badly in comparison to the top six teams, our supposed competition, but also the bottom and even lower division sides. At our best we produce football that is chaotically entertaining, but nothing consistent or convincing.

Financially he has been a disaster, humiliated in the CL, record low (for us) competition money, assets valued at hundreds of millions of pounds depreciated in value, paying large contracts for players out on loan at other clubs, and hundreds of millions wasted in recruitment. Regardless of how his reign ends, he will likely be the most expensive manager we have ever had, even accounting for inflation, and all we have to show for it is a league cup trophy and the promise of maybe getting somewhere if we spend a lot more money. Then there's the injury issues, which at this point are so ridiculous it can't just be bad luck. As the manager, and with the amount of power we've given the manager which is practically that of a DOF and head coach, it is actually his job to sort this out and figure out why. We can only judge him on the job he was hired to do and is doing, not the job he should have been hired to do, but wasn't.

You say built a team but he's been allowed 3 signings per summer window and scraps in January both times.

The club is at fault for giving him the power in the first place IMO as there was no precedent of him actually being good at transfers. Smacks of incompetence on their side.

 

[LawCharltonBest]

Stop with injury excuses lads, they are only excuses, stop!

And then people wonder why we don't have any consistency? But it's all cultist excuses etc etc

I don’t personally underplay how serious the injuries have been. But I do also think there’s more to it

The coaching and training preparation needs to be looked at. I knew we’d get injuries after last pre season for example. And already they’re overloading this coming pre season too

Also every time a manager is sacked somewhere after underperforming, loads of players are suddenly miraculously ready to train again

Then the players with strong mentalities who are desperate to play every week are always available. Yet the weak minded ones like Luke Shaw are always unavailable. I think good management makes more players available personally

 

[Marwood]

You're misunderstanding my point, I'm not arguing that it's good. I'm arguing that the data (points total) will be pretty similar. You may interpret other things like GD that's fine but I think there are clear correlations between our defensive/offensive injuries and our poor attacking/defending.

Last year we were pretty good defensively. We had a relatively settled back four and Casemiro still had a bit in the tank. Rashford was on fire too up front. There's been a significant drop-off in both those things. We've probably played a different defence in probably every game and Rashford and Casemiro's form has fallen off a cliff.

You can argue of course that the style of play and intensity of training etc (we cant know this though) has been a contributing factor but I think there are multiple factors.

The World Cup is one of them. All the extra time added into games now is another one of them. At the moment it seems like most teams have about 5-10 players out injured. So I'm in no rush to blame ETH for all our injuries but at the same time he's probably not helping with the high-press and lower defensive line.

For a lot of our players the world cup was a bit of a break.

Martinez barely played in it. He'd have played more games for his club in that period if the world cup didn't happen.

If we look at all our injuries, how many can we really link the the world cup? Shaw maybe? But he's always been injury prone.

 

[evil_geko]

I don’t personally underplay how serious the injuries have been. But I do also think there’s more to it

The coaching and training preparation needs to be looked at. I knew we’d get injuries after last pre season for example. And already they’re overloading this coming pre season too

Also every time a manager is sacked somewhere after underperforming, loads of players are suddenly miraculously ready to train again

Then the players with strong mentalities who are desperate to play every week are always available. Yet the weak minded ones like Luke Shaw are always unavailable. I think good management makes more players available personally

I agree, I am not trying to say injuries are the only reason, but tons of people try to underplay them just because they want to blame the manager for everything.

 

[Berbaclass]

For a lot of our players the world cup was a bit of a break.

Martinez barely played in it. He'd have played more games for his club in that period if the world cup didn't happen.

If we look at all our injuries, how many can we really link the the world cup? Shaw maybe? But he's always been injury prone.

That's fair. I think the massive amounts of added time have made a big difference though. There seems to be so many late goals now.

 

[Laurencio]

You say built a team but he's been allowed 3 signings per summer window and scraps in January both times.

The club is at fault for giving him the power in the first place IMO as there was no precedent of him actually being good at transfers. Smacks of incompetence on their side.

Yes, but that's the job he was hired to do. When it comes down to it, we can't judge him on the job he should have been given. We have to look at what he was hired to do, what he is responsible for, and judge him on that. He's ultimately responsible for a lot of the things that "the structure" is being blamed for. That he's incompetent at one part of his job, and as a consequence of that can't do the other part of his job either, doesn't really excuse him not doing his job well.

 

[Berbaclass]

I don’t personally underplay how serious the injuries have been. But I do also think there’s more to it

The coaching and training preparation needs to be looked at. I knew we’d get injuries after last pre season for example. And already they’re overloading this coming pre season too

Also every time a manager is sacked somewhere after underperforming, loads of players are suddenly miraculously ready to train again

Then the players with strong mentalities who are desperate to play every week are always available. Yet the weak minded ones like Luke Shaw are always unavailable. I think good management makes more players available personally

We also need to consider that the club don't employ a fitness coach I believe, it's all left to ETH.

I don't know if that's common practice but that just seems a bit odd to me.

He's not qualified to oversee all of that and shouldn't be allowed to be in that position.

 

[Jev]

You can argue of course that the style of play and intensity of training etc (we cant know this though) has been a contributing factor but I think there are multiple factors.

The World Cup is one of them. All the extra time added into games now is another one of them. At the moment it seems like most teams have about 5-10 players out injured. So I'm in no rush to blame ETH for all our injuries but at the same time he's probably not helping with the high-press and lower defensive line.

This would make sense if other clubs had as many injuries as us but they don’t. And if they did, it would dismantle the only excuse ETH has because apparently they’re all able to perform pretty well regardless.

 

[Berbaclass]

Yes, but that's the job he was hired to do. When it comes down to it, we can't judge him on the job he should have been given. We have to look at what he was hired to do, what he is responsible for, and judge him on that.

He's ultimately responsible for a lot of the things that "the structure" is being blamed for. That he's incompetent at one part of his job, and as a consequence of that can't do the other part of his job either, doesn't really excuse him not doing his job well.

No, you also have to look at the people hiring him who didn't know what they were doing. The club was a mess when he walked in the door.

 

[Rista]

That's a result of the decade of standards erosion overseen by the Glazer regime. Outside of them, it's not the fault of any one man. We don't have the insight into the club, how it's run and the processes to be able to confidently say he's definitely the issue without any doubt. He also doesn't help himself at times with seemingly basic errors on the field.

People aren't blameless, Ten Hag included, but he gets a lot of the heat that's accumulated and been cultivated over the last decade and I don't think it's fair personally. He's just the current guy so he's getting the brunt of it. I don't think he's doing a poorer job than Moyes, LVG etc but just being similarly uninspiring and ineffective.

I don't think he's done a good job overall but I'm completely unsure how much of it is down to him and how much is influenced by external factors like the precession of coaches before him have also felt the effect of.

But why are we only concerned if manager is being hard done by other circumstances? We could literally make the same argument for any member of the structure. If anything, it's easier to gauge how good of a job a player or a manager is doing compared to some higher position where we basically have no idea what's going on and can only judge on results. Not doing a poorer job than Moyes could still be not good enough. Ultimately with his position comes responsibility, that's how it works everywhere.

Stop with injury excuses lads, they are only excuses, stop!

And then people wonder why we don't have any consistency? But it's all cultist excuses etc etc

He has made many mistakes this season, I am not saying injuries are the only reason for horrible season, but people ignoring how big the injury impact was for us this season, is just holding his head in the sand because they only want to blame Erik and only him. The usual Caf extremes without any middleground.

This is meaningless without comparing it to clubs around us. Most clubs can't pick their first XI most of the time.

 

[Berbaclass]

This would make sense if other clubs had as many injuries as us but they don’t. And if they did, it would dismantle the only excuse ETH has because apparently they’re all able to perform pretty well regardless.

I mean they do. We don't have as many current injuries as Newcastle, Luton or Chelsea for example. As many people pointed out the other day most of our starting XI was first choice. It's the constant changing and inconsistency that we have really suffered from this season, barely being able to name the same team twice if at all.

 

[Marwood]

Stop with injury excuses lads, they are only excuses, stop!

And then people wonder why we don't have any consistency? But it's all cultist excuses etc etc

He has made many mistakes this season, I am not saying injuries are the only reason for horrible season, but people ignoring how big the injury impact was for us this season, is just holding his head in the sand because they only want to blame Erik and only him. The usual Caf extremes without any middleground.

But on the flip side if you go into a season with Varane, Shaw and Evans amongst your defenders it's absolutely no surprise you'll have an injury crisis. Think you can put Lindelof in that bracket as well now.

It's not exactly a shock.