Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Skills said:
Manchester United are a rich club who've somehow inherited the fanbase of a lower midtable. It's one of footballs strange phenomenons.



That's underplaying the role of the fanbase i
- they don't just accept it, but they are one of the drivers for the clubs constant erosion of standards.
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I think we have the most lenient fanbase of any sports team(with a history of success).

It's mind-boggling to me honestly.
 
RedRover said:
As it stands, moving him on is a free hit for INEOS. If he goes then it's unlikely that they'll be criticised. Some fans will be pleased that they've been decisive. There's a risk that if they're seen to back him, he is, to some degree, their man and they wear the criticism if he performs poorly again.

Also, with a year left on his contract, where does that leave the club in terms of recruitment? Unless he improves things significantly, they won't renew. This summer is then a potential false start. Even if ETH has a reduced role in transfers, the recruitment will be with his ideas and plans in mind. Are they going to tear it all up again next summer for a new manager?

Seems to me that with a squad rebuild planned, and I suspect with numerous big names off in the summer, they either back ETH long term or move him on.
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I fear this is what's going to happen. All the PR over the summer will be how we want to get things right above the manager, and get the "perfect" recruitment team on board before buying any players. Fans will lap it up as a change in approach and we will go into the season with 1-2 signings and sack ETH by Christmas and do a whole restart again.

The way I see it, if he isn't gone at the end of season, next season is definitely a write off.
 
Lentwood said:
Yeah but that's too simplistic a view in my opinion.

Moyes failed because SAF had left an ageing, injury-plagued side - and let's face it, SAF was going to be impossible to replace.

LvG was too old / not in it for the long term. I felt had he been ten years younger, he'd have gotten us to a good level eventually. He's probably the only manager who has improved us tactically.

Jose was never a good fit. Some fans never accepted him and his style was just never likely to suit United. Nevertheless, we talk about him 'failing' but he won trophies and finished 2nd behind a team who have systematically cheated for over a decade.

Similar story with OGS. Some fans never accepted him and were waiting to jump all over him and label him a 'failure' at the first sign of trouble. Again, he only really 'failed' in that he could beat a team of cheats to the title. If we're judging on the criteria of finishing 2nd to City and the odd underwhelming season being a failure, then Klopp also fits that bill (I think Klopp is the best manager in the World).

Crucially ALL of these managers also worked with Ed Woodward, who was an incompetent buffoon. I'm not saying Murtough or Arnold are 'good' and they have still made plenty of mistakes, but compared to Woodward they're a dream to work with.

EtH has come in and had everything he's wanted, with reason. The fans were almost unanimously behind him. He's signed about 15 players, all hand selected. He's had 18-months of relatively little pressure from the fans, who have stuck with him. Yet he's probably given us the least reason to be optimistic of ANY manager. We won a League Cup with a very, very soft run but we've barely strung two good performances together in his entire tenure.

Not only that, some of the statistics / results are absolutely damning. Look at our G/D. Look at our shots against. Losing 0-7 to Liverpool. 0-4 to Brentford etc...need I go on....

I like the bloke...he's just not the coach we thought he was unfortunately
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Moyes failed because he took a Ferrari and treated it like a VW. Moyes came in way over his head, signed Fellani out of need to say he did something, then changed the entire game plan that SAF had success with. Aging perhaps, but the team did win the EPL 1 yr earlier. Coupled with Glazers bringing in Woodward to replace Gill, who had no clue on what expectations were, how to improve a team or how even to get transfers completed was a horror show. There should have been a succession plan developed at the least in around 2010 to make the retirements seamless to operations. Not how you run a high functioning organization.
 
Journalists ask questions that they know they won't get an honest answer to so why ask them?

Asking ten Hag if he is going to be sacked is pointless because he wouldn't confirm it anyway.
 
Whilst he is not wrong about our back four being constantly injured and its impact it has, I do wonder what the hell they're doing to be constantly injured
 
Red Royal said:
Yes flipping Coufal falling on a newly recovered Martinez was the worst of the luck.
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Yeah, would be different if he was rushed back all strapped up from an injury and it went again. Even his foot injury last year was an innocuous incident.

If you look at the rest.

Shaw - shouldn't be a surprise

Malacia - that's a weird one, no real info on it

Lindelof - aside from his back, he's usually been ok injury wise, this season he's had a groin/hamstring problem.

Varane - is always an injury waiting to happen, we also now know about his other issues.

Evans - 36, played too much, inevitable that it would catch up.

AWB - hamstring/unkown injury, always been relatively injury free. Seems to be going ok now.

Maguire - has only had a groin strain that kept him out for a bit. Looks in good shape now.

Martinez - foot, knee, calf. Knee was obviously an accident, could happen anyone, calf is probably a result of lack of activity or muscular imbalance from a previous injury.

You can't really legislate for such a prevalence of overlapping injuries like that, unless you have 3 or 4 players for every position. To only have 1 fit senior CB out of 5, doesn't happen often at any club.

I remember SAF playing Richardson at left back for a bit, Fletcher/Keane/Carrick all stepped in at CB at times. Think Fletcher/Park might even have played right back in a couple of games as well. Injuries happen, it just about how you're able to adjust the team to accommodate for them, Utd don't have a squad with enough quality to be able to compensate for weaknesses in different areas like that now.
 
The conditions were perfect because he got exactly what he wanted. Some yes-man idiot to buy all the Eredivisie players he demanded.
 
Ten Hag: "It's very difficult [to keep changing back four]. So everyone who has a little bit of knowledge about football - a little - they know it will affect your results and performances." ....

"So I think it best to expose the defence, I think to play with one midfielder and everyone else pushed as far forward as possible is the way to go, I think Andre [Onana] has a bad start to the season, so to build his confidence I think he should face more shots, anyone who knows a little bit about football will know this is a good plan"
 
Gordon's Hill said:
I disagree. I am a long term fan, I watched many dreadful games at OT but some good ones too. I caught the Docherty era, Sexton, Atkinson etc. Its not being spoilt to expect a bare minumum of exciting, attacking football, which the Doc and big Ron generally delivered. Given our financial power and status as one of top 3 clubs in world, we should be competing for the big trophies. A lot of that sits with the owners, but it doesnt excuse managers who cant at least deliver some decent football. Its this sort of attitude and blaming 'entitled' fans that has allowed Glazers to get away with it for so long.
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Sorry I was on about trophy success not individual games. I did and still do think if the Doc could have stayed away from Mary Brown we may have won the title under him. That season when we came up and finished 3rd to QPR? and Liverpool was as exciting as any. Some Atkinson matches were memorable as well. The 3-3 with Liverpool and 5-0 against Newcastle come to mind.
 
Fans thinking a change of manager will enable us to challenge for the title next season are deluded.
The Glazers have dug a huge hole for us.
Even SJR has said it is not like turning on a switch.

But the indications are we are making the right decisions in football organization structure.
Add to that Stadium and Facilities upgrades INEOS has a full plate.

I am buzzing about the emphasis on the Youth set up.
We have excellent players coming through.

We need to have patience.
 
pocco said:
The conditions were perfect? Tell that to some of the posters on here :lol:
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What is he going to say? "Thank god he was shite at his job and didn't sign the players I wanted. Murtough more like Murtwat".
 
Red Dreams said:
Fans thinking a change of manager will enable us to challenge for the title next season are deluded.
The Glazers have dug a huge hole for us.
Even SJR has said it is not like turning on a switch.

But the indications are we are making the right decisions in football organization structure.
Add to that Stadium and Facilities upgrades INEOS has a full plate.

I am buzzing about the emphasis on the Youth set up.
We have excellent players coming through.

We need to have patience.
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Nobody thinks that. Most of us would like a manager who doesn't constantly produce humiliating results though.
 
Rista said:
I bet you won't find one person on here saying that.
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Still less paraphrasing than some dimwits against the current coach, assuming views of the other side to be something false.
 
Red Dreams said:
Fans thinking a change of manager will enable us to challenge for the title next season are deluded.
The Glazers have dug a huge hole for us.
Even SJR has said it is not like turning on a switch.

But the indications are we are making the right decisions in football organization structure.
Add to that Stadium and Facilities upgrades INEOS has a full plate.

I am buzzing about the emphasis on the Youth set up.
We have excellent players coming through.

We need to have patience.
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It's not out of the realms of possibility but many just want to see people punished as they think it will be cathartic.

A new manager might get a honeymoon period in which they overachieve though.
 
wolvored said:
Sorry I was on about trophy success not individual games. I did and still do think if the Doc could have stayed away from Mary Brown we may have won the title under him. That season when we came up and finished 3rd to QPR? and Liverpool was as exciting as any. Some Atkinson matches were memorable as well. The 3-3 with Liverpool and 5-0 against Newcastle come to mind.
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I remember my dad saying it was a personal matter.
But we had a conservative board then.
The Doc also had to deal with the Best situation.
He did a very good job and certainly would have won us the title.
 
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Red Dreams said:
Fans thinking a change of manager will enable us to challenge for the title next season are deluded.
The Glazers have dug a huge hole for us.
Even SJR has said it is not like turning on a switch.

But the indications are we are making the right decisions in football organization structure.
Add to that Stadium and Facilities upgrades INEOS has a full plate.

I am buzzing about the emphasis on the Youth set up.
We have excellent players coming through.

We need to have patience.
Click to expand...

Who the flying feck thinks a new manager will enable us to challenge for the league? I think majority of us just want to see consistent performances and tactics that make an inkling of sense.

Agree on early signs of INEOS being positive though. It's the first time we've looked truly proactive as a club since the Fergie days. I'm really interested to see how it affects transfer business this summer
 
Excluding Abu Dhabi I expect Arsenal and Liverpool to be the main title contenders next season.
Villa and Spurs will work on their issues and be close.
I do not know what Newcastle will be allowed to do.

We are still some ways away from them though.
 
Red Dreams said:
Excluding Abu Dhabi I expect Arsenal and Liverpool to be the main title contenders next season.
Villa and Spurs will work on their issues and be close.
I do not know what Newcastle will be allowed to do.

We are still some ways away from them though.
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And we'll be even further away from all of them if Ten Hag is still here in August.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Time + patience = SAF
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If time and patience = SAF, we should have just saved some angst and stuck with Moyes and given him time and patience, or LVG and given him time and patience, or Jose, he would have been fine with time and patience, or Ole, all he needed was more time and a little patience.

Fact is to =SAF you also need to be a bloody good manager as well as getting time and patience.
 
NLunited said:
To your last point, I‘m not saying that all. I am saying Xavi did not do better than Koeman, considering the squad strength (or lack thereof in Koeman‘s case).

You mention Busquets: his legs were gone: he was getting overrun frequently. In the back they had Pique who was done at the highest level as well, Eric and Arauxo. Arauxo was the best of them although he just came into the squad.

Messi was carrying the team for sure.
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Still never answered the question.

For Xavi “didn’t do better than Koeman,”well, he did. He won La Liga. And came in 2nd in his first season. Koeman has crashed out of several jobs. He won 3 Eredivise titles… 15-20 years ago… but that’s a much easier league than the PL.

Busquets was 31 the season Koeman had him. De Jong, Lenglet and Messi all made team of the season.

I suppose it’s an opinion that Koeman is a good manager or an equal manager to Xavi, but it’s not based in fact and purely subjective. This makes your “Ten Hag in” position even more suspect as you clearly are swayed by factors that have nothing to do with football.
 
Nas-JR said:
I get the same feeling immediately after a game especially after a bad performance where I carry on watching just to see what he has to say and almost always come out of it underwhelmed. But thinking about it a few days later, it's clear what is said to the media is as much about politics and keeping up morale as it is about anything else.

I think he realises there isn't much room for manoeuvre with regards to his position and needs his players on side. He will also surely be aware of how vicious and toxic the media are so maybe he's trying to starve them of content and soundbites.

Also, realistically, I'm not too sure there's much upside in him slating our performances in the media right now. There's a small chance they will react positively but I don't think the players are not trying, I just think some are tactically inept, others can't handle the physical demands, some have been run into the ground and a last group is barely match fit/playing through injury. They're also more likely to turn on him as has been the case many times before. I still think he can communicate a lot better but he's not english and in grand scheme of things probably insignificant. I can't be completely sure but I would imagine he is well aware when our performances aren't great.
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Ah… the old “it’s the player’s fault”. Nevermind it’s a team full of internationals, World Cup, Euro and CL winners… absolutely they must be tactically inept.

This is a fecking insulting post. Anyone who has managed to play at a reasonably high level of football knows this is an absolute crock of shit.
 
Red Dreams said:
Fans thinking a change of manager will enable us to challenge for the title next season are deluded.
The Glazers have dug a huge hole for us.
Even SJR has said it is not like turning on a switch.

But the indications are we are making the right decisions in football organization structure.
Add to that Stadium and Facilities upgrades INEOS has a full plate.

I am buzzing about the emphasis on the Youth set up.
We have excellent players coming through.

We need to have patience.
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If anyone genuinely thinks that perhaps. But after this season challenging for 5th would be an improvement.
 
Have to laugh at strawmanning that hard when everyone here would be satisfied with a new manager just getting fewer than 15 defeats in all competitions, and maybe a +10 goal difference would be nice.

Reminder - by the end of this season we're very likely to have 20+ defeats and negative goal difference.
 
Skills said:
Manchester United are a rich club who've somehow inherited the fanbase of a lower midtable. It's one of footballs strange phenomenons.



That's underplaying the role of the fanbase i
- they don't just accept it, but they are one of the drivers for the clubs constant erosion of standards.
Click to expand...
i knew it was my fault.
feck! :(
 
bleedred said:
I fear this is what's going to happen. All the PR over the summer will be how we want to get things right above the manager, and get the "perfect" recruitment team on board before buying any players. Fans will lap it up as a change in approach and we will go into the season with 1-2 signings and sack ETH by Christmas and do a whole restart again.

The way I see it, if he isn't gone at the end of season, next season is definitely a write off.
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I think that if they have any doubt he's the right man, he's gone. I think that's likely to be the case and I personally think he'll go. They seem decisive and Ratcliffe in particular is clearly a man who wants to get things done.

They'll only get one chance to have a decent first season. If they don't see ETH as the long term answer, and I'd personally struggle to see how they could given how he's performed (even taking into account the factors outside of his control) then there's no point in including him in the rebuild.
 
SAF is the GOAT said:




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Well that's put the cat amongst the pigeons. :lol:


pocco said:
The conditions were perfect? Tell that to some of the posters on here :lol:
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Surely that's a massive blow for all the "Structure" posts;)


Zed 101 said:
Ten Hag: "It's very difficult [to keep changing back four]. So everyone who has a little bit of knowledge about football - a little - they know it will affect your results and performances." ....

"So I think it best to expose the defence, I think to play with one midfielder and everyone else pushed as far forward as possible is the way to go, I think Andre [Onana] has a bad start to the season, so to build his confidence I think he should face more shots, anyone who knows a little bit about football will know this is a good plan"
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Seems like the perfect plan.


VP89 said:
Stop taking press conference answers literally.
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Yeah, only believe the things that support Eth and his fan boys!
 
That’s what we like to hear.

so long as it isn’t southgate
 
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