Didn't happen anywhere near as much last year though. We had a relatively settled back 4 (Including Varane and Shaw who were pivotal to our success) most of the season.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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You say we can make the same argument and then say directly afterwards how we are unable to make that argument.
Regarding Moyes comparison, you are missing the point. My argument is that he's about the same level. I'm not arguing that it's good enough, it obviously isn't. I was responding to a post that said he is the worst performing manager, which based on points he might not be and the underlying stuff like GD and other metrics could be explainable with the injuries and constant swapping of personnel.
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.
I don't think that fans would be so critical if there was any clear structure on the pitch, yes there have been injuries, there are many issues around this, but clearly there are other problems which have nothing to do with injuries, injuries are not a get out of jail free card for everything we have had to witness this season as many would have it, as you say there is a middleground
Also what this clickbait nonsense doesn't clarify, how many of these changes been enforced, if you are pro ETH you probably read "injury ridden squad, ETH has done brilliantly" if you and anti ETH you read "ETH is a headless chicken without a plan" truth is probably a mix of both
The constant dismissal of the injuries is weird. Injuries affect any team to varying degrees. Us more than most this season.
People are blatantly refusing to accept this as it doesn't fit in their narrative and accusing anyone who doesn't agree of being a 'cultist'.
People are blatantly refusing to accept this as it doesn't fit in their narrative and accusing anyone who doesn't agree of being a 'cultist'.
The same logic you're applying here could be applied to everyone right on up to the Glazers as owners. Murtough shouldn't have been made a titular DOF, but we still hold him responsible for his mistakes. It would be one thing if Ten Hag was producing masterclass upon masterclass of tactical ingenuity, then you could make the case that his deficiencies as DOF are what is holding him back, but he isn't. Instead the excuse for him not doing the job as head coach well is that "the structure" above him was incompetent. Yet Ten Hag was hired to do a very specific thing, which was not to only be a head coach, but to lead the club in a transformative process. He was given a lot of power to do so and a lot of authority on how to structure the club. He essentially had the power to do what he wanted - within financial reason. It was a stupid decision by the higher ups, and they were clearly overly-impressed with his pitch and granted him far too much power and leway, but that's the job he was hired to do.
Yes, that is the fault of the employer. Not the employee.
They hired him to do an impossible job but he gets the blame for it. The Glazers know that the fans will lap it up and for most will shift the blame away from them because they "backed him"
The fact that we've been in a similar scenario for many years under different managers should tell you that it's not a coincidence and that a lot of people in powerful positions at this club have been or are incompetent (on the sporting side)
You are using the term "we" regarding Murtough but I don't share that view. The guy was also wrongly put into that position because he was friendly with Woodward and did okay in other areas of the club.
No, in fact everyone agrees that we’ve been hit hard and held back by injuries. What we disagree on is whether this means we can’t reasonably expect anything from ETH, or whether there should still be minimum expectations even with these mitigating factors.
Can you not then argue that we shouldn’t sell a single player because they haven’t played under a functioning tactical structure and therefore haven’t been able do the job they were hired to do? Why is only ETH excused?
I don't think you've read this thread then.
People are very divided on this subject and not many are willing to have a proper discussion about how we got here and how this keeps happening.
You could yes. That's why under a different manager many of them (wrongfully IMO) will get another chance.
Don't know if this has been posted on here but there's a video from 2019 of Ruud Gullit and Erik ten Hag on Dutch TV arguing about how open Ajax's midfield is and how teams can just run through their midfield unopposed if they beat the press.
Interesting viewing as most of the clips used to make Gullit's point are from the Real Madrid Champions League games and the 4-4 draw with Bayern Munich in the group stages that season. Ten Hag defends some of the clips quite fairly IMO - one of the clips is them losing the ball during build-up, if you play out from the back in as aggressive a way as Ajax, you always risk getting countered if the opposition wins the ball back. Interesting to me that Ten Hag seems to concede that the midfield is being too aggressive (though there is an instance of him saying something along the lines of 'all the midfielders abandoning their position cannot happen and is unacceptable'), but that this is the risk of playing the type of entertaining football he wants the team to play.
But generally, I also think Gullit has a fair point about being a bit more conservative and having at least a few players back in midfield to protect the defence.
If I had to guess, I think the problem with Ten Hag is that he is a coach who has slightly negligent defensive principles and attacking principles that he adapts to his team/players/club. So at Ajax, he adapts the in possession style to the Ajax style. When he comes to United, he changes the in possession style to what he perceives to be the United way i.e., fast, direct, lots of play directed through the wings etc. But the problem is that at Ajax, since the build up was more methodical/patient, it masked the issues with his defensive principles because the defence could move up-field as the team moved the ball into the attacking third. This is still a risky proposition as you see in the clips above, but the defenders playing a high line at least allows them to step up and win the ball in midfield easier. Plus, in the Eredivisie, Ajax were so dominant that being so aggressive was not an issue as they could just pin teams back with their quality. At United, by being so direct (and Bruno and Casemiro are particularly guilty of this IMO, they try to put our attackers through basically every time they touch the ball), it has opened up a Pandora's box of defensive issues. And even smaller teams in the Premier League are too fast, too strong and have too many good players to not take advantage of the space in midfield.
But because these are his defensive principles in his ideal system, he's not really trying to alter it even though the same issues have persisted since the Wolves game on the opening day. He just reckons that with the right players, or with the current squad minus the injury issues, this system will work.
The people expecting a radically different approach defensively next season if we recruit well (get Amadou Onana and Todibo, say) or overcome our injury issues are probably going to be disappointed, I reckon. The question Ineos need to be asking is do they buy that argument that this system can work with different personnel or a fit squad that he can build 'automatisms' with (that has been his complaint with regards to the injuries, no? That we can't build automatisms because we have to keep chopping and changing). If not, then it probably is a better idea to just part ways this summer and get someone who's in possession and out of possession principles are more in line with what we think is likely to succeed in the Premier League. Even if we aren't sure whether the replacement is quite of the quality where we think he might be able to win the league for us (De Zerbi, Motta etc.), better to imprint the 'right' principles now, build the squad for them and wait for the next elite manager than keep going with a defensive system which we think cannot succeed in this league. If we think they cannot succeed, that is.
Interesting viewing as most of the clips used to make Gullit's point are from the Real Madrid Champions League games and the 4-4 draw with Bayern Munich in the group stages that season. Ten Hag defends some of the clips quite fairly IMO - one of the clips is them losing the ball during build-up, if you play out from the back in as aggressive a way as Ajax, you always risk getting countered if the opposition wins the ball back. Interesting to me that Ten Hag seems to concede that the midfield is being too aggressive (though there is an instance of him saying something along the lines of 'all the midfielders abandoning their position cannot happen and is unacceptable'), but that this is the risk of playing the type of entertaining football he wants the team to play.
But generally, I also think Gullit has a fair point about being a bit more conservative and having at least a few players back in midfield to protect the defence.
If I had to guess, I think the problem with Ten Hag is that he is a coach who has slightly negligent defensive principles and attacking principles that he adapts to his team/players/club. So at Ajax, he adapts the in possession style to the Ajax style. When he comes to United, he changes the in possession style to what he perceives to be the United way i.e., fast, direct, lots of play directed through the wings etc. But the problem is that at Ajax, since the build up was more methodical/patient, it masked the issues with his defensive principles because the defence could move up-field as the team moved the ball into the attacking third. This is still a risky proposition as you see in the clips above, but the defenders playing a high line at least allows them to step up and win the ball in midfield easier. Plus, in the Eredivisie, Ajax were so dominant that being so aggressive was not an issue as they could just pin teams back with their quality. At United, by being so direct (and Bruno and Casemiro are particularly guilty of this IMO, they try to put our attackers through basically every time they touch the ball), it has opened up a Pandora's box of defensive issues. And even smaller teams in the Premier League are too fast, too strong and have too many good players to not take advantage of the space in midfield.
But because these are his defensive principles in his ideal system, he's not really trying to alter it even though the same issues have persisted since the Wolves game on the opening day. He just reckons that with the right players, or with the current squad minus the injury issues, this system will work.
The people expecting a radically different approach defensively next season if we recruit well (get Amadou Onana and Todibo, say) or overcome our injury issues are probably going to be disappointed, I reckon. The question Ineos need to be asking is do they buy that argument that this system can work with different personnel or a fit squad that he can build 'automatisms' with (that has been his complaint with regards to the injuries, no? That we can't build automatisms because we have to keep chopping and changing). If not, then it probably is a better idea to just part ways this summer and get someone who's in possession and out of possession principles are more in line with what we think is likely to succeed in the Premier League. Even if we aren't sure whether the replacement is quite of the quality where we think he might be able to win the league for us (De Zerbi, Motta etc.), better to imprint the 'right' principles now, build the squad for them and wait for the next elite manager than keep going with a defensive system which we think cannot succeed in this league. If we think they cannot succeed, that is.
That’s a pointless discussion to have. You just need to list our injuries and there can be no debate that we’ve been extraordinarily unlucky this season in that regard. As for what the reasons are, that’s pure speculation and therefore not that interesting (personally I think it’s mostly just rotten luck rather than anything to do with fixture congestion or ETH’s tactics/training). The more relevant discussion is how much the injuries should detract from the criticism levelled towards ETH.
It didn't but that's the lottery with injury prone players.
Put it this way, if we went into next season with the same defenders, they get injuries again, could we really complain? Could we say it was unforeseeable.
But why wrongfully? If ETH deserves the benefit of the doubt due to being in the wrong ‘structure’ then why doesn’t the same apply to the players in your view? None of them have been part of a well-functioning structure. Why is it reasonable to expect them to perform to certain standards anyway, but not ETH?
How is it pointless? It's the crux of the matter.
People are blaming the wrong people for the wrong things and are utterly entrenched in their viewpoints. How is that not relevant?
That discussion is just as relevant and as you say it's impossible for us to tell.
Varying reasons. Some are not good enough regardless of manager, some are at the end of their careers etc.
What I mean is it’s pointless to discuss facts. It’s a fact we’ve been unusually hard done by injuries this season.
Looking at the possible replacement options, and assuming the new structure does a good job on recruitment - I'd lean towards giving ten hag an opportunity to see how he does under them. The most blatant concern is the lack of clear style this season, but its revisionism to think we didn't show signs of developing a more dominant style last season.
The other things in ten hag's favour are:
There does still seem to be a strong spirit in the team, that didn't exist near the end for previous managers.
The basis of any team that might be succesful in the next few years are all players ten hag deserves some credit for.
Lastly, when casemiro was better, we looked better. I dont think anybody anticipated that he would disimprove so much this season - we all expected a decline but he's been very poor (i'm a huge fan)
If we give a good replacement and sign a couple of modern, fit, defenders, and he doesn't have them ticking pretty quickly, then yeah, have a replacement lined up - but at the moment Im not convinced by the names mentioned.
The other things in ten hag's favour are:
There does still seem to be a strong spirit in the team, that didn't exist near the end for previous managers.
The basis of any team that might be succesful in the next few years are all players ten hag deserves some credit for.
Lastly, when casemiro was better, we looked better. I dont think anybody anticipated that he would disimprove so much this season - we all expected a decline but he's been very poor (i'm a huge fan)
If we give a good replacement and sign a couple of modern, fit, defenders, and he doesn't have them ticking pretty quickly, then yeah, have a replacement lined up - but at the moment Im not convinced by the names mentioned.
And others are using the injuries we have had as giving ETH a 100% free ride this season, as if they are the be all and end all of everything which has gone on
Some people are constantly dismissing the bizarre tactics and formations that ETH is employing
Some people want to blame the players for not implementing what ETH wants irrespective of the same things happening match after match
Some people want to blame everyone at the club except for ETH
Some people willing to completely ignore all of the negative records that we have broken this season
Take your pick, personally I could accept a situation where we have struggled this season due to injuries but have still played the best formations and tactics we could given the fit players available, but that is not what has happened
What bothers me is that we seem to have a manager who has little capacity to cope and adapt, to correct errors in match or week to week, to coach and manage what he actually has available to the best result
What bothers me is that in all my years I have never seen any team play (not just utd) the ridiculous way we are playing match after match, it is staggeringly bad
Did you mean to type this or is it a mistake?
We've played 4231 for many years. Indeed it was something that Ole was getting quite a lot of criticism for from the fans, and when we replaced him a lot of people hoped we'd move to 433 to give ourselves more midfield control.
ETH continued with 4231 last season, but this season he's changed to a 4141 (which has given us even less midfield control than we had with 4231).
How can you know when they haven’t had a chance to show it under a proper structure?
Since when? Everyone thinks they are a scourge and the reason why we've been crap for a decade. Not one fan, well not many at least, think that the Glazers are "fine".
And Ten Hag is one of those people. The current argument for believing he can do better is that:
1. He will be saved from his own incompetence when it comes to recruitment, staff management and club management.
2. He is currently unable to be a good head coach because he is bad at the other part of his job - which he shouldn't have had in the first place, and once he doesn't have to do that anymore, he will be better.
3. The manager's judgement on players' ability is so poor that it is necessary to remove his voice in the process of identifying talents and building the team.
It's a rather poor argument to be honest. If Ashworth & co decide to keep him, which I doubt they will, there has to be better reasons than that involved.
I know what you are doing but there is not just a general answer for that in the same way you can try and apply that logic to the manager.
I'm not advocating for keeping him. I'm more than happy to back whatever decision INEOS makes.
I think one perfect way of understanding the way he set up at Ajax, which can be seen now here, is if you go back and watch highlight videos of Frenkie de Jong at Ajax. When playing out from the back they generally passed to FDJ, who in turn had to beat the press and dribble through the opposition midfield to instigate the build up. It was completely suicidal and only worked because they had one of the few midfielders capable of doing such a thing.
But another thing I feel is that the PL and football in general, is much better in the press now than was generally the case back then. If he did get FDJ and tried to play this way, I think it would have been a disaster. But this necessity comes from the way he positions so many players so high up the pitch. I think that, if FDJ hadn't have been so successful in doing what he did, then the same issues would have been even more prevalent at Ajax (even more than they clearly were also there, as evidenced by the video with Gullit).
Mainoo wouldn't have started the season ahead of Mount, but he most likely was going to be our 4th choice midfielder who came in whenever any of the starting three were subbed or not playing. And if his performances had warranted, he would have moved ahead eventually. How long they would have taken is something we'll never know, but Mount's first small injury led to McTominay moving ahead of him in the pecking order when he came back, so it's not like ETH was blindly picking Mount.
Some would argue that United are quite consistent this season.
Agreed, we can all see the injuries. But other teams have had lots of injuries, even if not quite as bad. There is also two fundamental points. When he had pretty much a full squad at start of season, exactly the same problems were in evident. Wide open when possession lost, no control, lots of chances surrendered. Fast forward to Sunday and we see exactly the same thing. The second point is many serious questions are raised about ETH himself and our injuries, including from inside sources. No rotation last season, including league cup, so many players massively overworked, then complaints about pre season and training. Our chaotic approach and work it necessitates is itself likely a factor, we are always chasing. We cannot ignore this.
Bottom line is this chaotic lack of control approach will never succeed at top level. We might win the odd cup but that is it. Changing another 6 players wont alter that.
Was interesting to watch one of the recent Athletic podcasts.... Insinuating that the injuries, poor form of certain players, and players appearing gassed in match is due to the manager and his requirements in training and tactically.
Fair enough we want our players to be energetic and to put in a shift etc but at what point does it become counter productive?
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.
We have been consistent, consistently terrible.
The middleground on this is that managers who are failing and flailing tend to pick lots of different elevens. Ole was exactly the same in his last few months.
ETH took McTominay and Maguire from deadwood to key players. He dropped fit Varane for Evans because Varane 'cant play LCB', before playing Evans-Varane pairings later in the season. He cant decide which wings Dalot and AWB should play on. He experimented with 'his guy' Amrabat for period of about 6 weeks before realising he was fecking useless. Tries to integrate Mount when fit and ends up preferring McTominay.
Apart from possibly Martinez & Shaw, who have we missed due to injury that would greatly improve the team?
Varane seems past it, Mount has been mostly awful on the rare occasions he has played apart from that goal the other day, Malacia has done ok but would he make that much of a difference if fit & Martial hasn't played well for about 3 years now.
Varane seems past it, Mount has been mostly awful on the rare occasions he has played apart from that goal the other day, Malacia has done ok but would he make that much of a difference if fit & Martial hasn't played well for about 3 years now.
Since Ten Hag insists the team build up from the left of defence, that's pretty significant. Shaw is by far the most important player.
What I think is more interesting is how he changed that team after losing De Ligt, De Jong, Donny, Schone etc
He recognised the limitations of the players he had and adapted to suit them and won 6/6 games in the CL groups beating Rose's Dortmund and Amorim's Sporting, smashing them too.
I don't really understand why he's not choosing to do that to an extent here. He's shown that he clearly can do it with that example.
I'm wondering if he's been assured that he will be kept on and he feels it's just necessary to keep playing the current way (short term pain etc.) and make progress with it once we get better profile players in the summer for what he wants, like someone who can run in place of Casemiro and defenders that don't get injured every game.
Having consistency in team selection is almost as important as the individuals missing. Even if those players haven't done anything special for us so far, being able to pick the same players every week, especially in defence, makes a big difference.
Agree, I think it makes all the sense as to why we look all over the place defensively.
It’s mostly the midfield that’s all over the place, isn’t it? And we’ve had more consistency in selection there. Our defence has generally done a decent job in isolation despite the changes and strange tactical setup.
"Work smart, not hard" is how it should be, but for a lot of United fans it too often becomes "work hard, no matter how" and EtH actually uses a system that results in this being the case.
That's a fair point but the constant changing behind the midfielders is probably not helping anybody. Like for example Casemiro can probably play a little differently if he knows Varane is behind him rather than Evans or Maguire etc
So, that analysis would seem to indicate a destroyer to sit in front of our four should be a priority?
ETH pushed back on that idea didn't he?
He said the rest defence should be better rather than have a sitter. His philosophy is to push numbers forward for numerical overloads.
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