Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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You've named four players in your post. Does a manager need to have a perfect squad to achieve a goal difference that isn't negative and a top 4 finish on the table. After spending £400m no less. Why are we still talking about the "players" as if we're still looking at Ole's and Jose squads also. There were seven players on the pitch on Saturday that have nothing to do with those eras.
3/4 of those players are key members of the first 11 with 2 of them in the spine.
Again I am not absolving the Pep Guardiola is my idol, he has been awful and needs to go

Anyone who thinks we have a play style have their head buried in the sand, the only time we had a style was under LVG and Ole, we were a possession and counter attacking team
 
We started the rebuild 2 years ago, we were told then it would take 2-3 years, yet here we are. And I don't want to imagine it could get much worse than the shit we've been served up this season.

A better coach would have us playing better in a matter of weeks, never mind 2-3 years. The current squad isnt good enough to challenge for the title either, but it does not help that ETH has been allowed to piss away over 200 million on dross
 
A better coach would have us playing better in a matter of weeks, never mind 2-3 years. The current squad isnt good enough to challenge for the title either, but it does not help that ETH has been allowed to piss away over 200 million on dross
Another coach would just tighten up the midfield but do we really want to just do enough to get 4th? The truth is we still need a lot more to challenge.
 
Honestly an awful start from INEOS. From the time it took to get the deal sorted for buying the club, to not doing anything in January, to dithering in Hag, to the amount of time to recruit head positions. It’s actually been a disaster which can get a lot worse if nothing has happened come August.

Blaming INEOS for the time it took to sort out the minority purchase of the club is so absolutely ridiculous and misinformed.
 
Yeah I mean from the availability this season, we don't have players that can break top 4. It points to poor squad building more than anything else.

Fair enough, and yes our squad building has been atrocious and while Ten Hag is the man who has built the current squad he can't take all the blame as it's an ongoing issue that in my opinion stems from giving the manager too much power over transfers.
 
I'm not a fan of sacking ETH. One thing I don't understand though is after many many games it is clear that we need more help in the midfield and teams routinely waltz through us. If that is clear, why do we persist with the 3 up front? Why not drop one of the 2 wingers and add an extra man in the midfield. Lets be honest, we're a counter-attacking team, that is our strength. Why not play to it?
 
A playing style of leaving so much space in midfield you can drive a truck through it whilst routinely giving up 20+ shots a game (even against relegation fodder) in the hope that you're not 3-0 down by half time. Make that make sense.
  1. 27 different back 4 lineups - how can you possibly have patterns or consistency?
  2. We’re playing without a LB, when we all know last season at our best our outlet was Martinez and Shaw - down the left.
  3. A new goalkeeper, who our ever changing defence are unsure of. Sometimes I swear they are playing deeper than they should to protect Onana, Whilst our forwards and mids push up, leaving the huge gaps in the middle we are seeing.
  4. Casemiro isn’t the same player he was last season for whatever reason. He isn’t in the right spaces to break up attacks, and can get back fast enough to help out.
  5. We have no Fred tearing about fighting fires. He was very good at this and we have missed it this year. Bruno is trying, but he doesn’t have Fred’s tenacity and this is also pulling him out of position.
  6. McT is playing further forward. Kobbie likes to/is instructed to push up. We are effectively playing without a 6/DM.
  7. The spine of our team is kids. On Saturday right up the middle you had Kambwala, Mainoo, Hojlund. They are going to make mistakes, it’s just part of their learning curve.
  8. The players who aren’t injured are clearly knackered. We are petering out like we did last season.

    I think that makes sense of the situation, but I’m not sure how you combat those issues in the situation we find ourselves currently. This squad is what it is - we are a developing team and key pieces need replacing. There is no easy fix or quick tactical change that could make a drastic improvement.
 
I'm always looking at what's needed to be winning trophies, top 4 should be the fall back option, not the main aim.

Over the next few years.

Getting to the point where you're in a position to win the league should be the number 1 priority.

And once you're in a position where winning the league is your top priority, then you can focus on looking beyond that and look at competing for the CL.

FA Cup is always nice to win, it should be next on the list. But that and League cup should be considered as markers for success to give players the experience of winning, so they know how to win under pressure.

I agree mate, my only point was this squad is capable of finishing in a higher position than it's shown this season. It's not on the same level as City's squad or even Arsenals right now.
 
You’ve had an absolute ‘mare here with these posts. I understand emotions are running high, but a bit of common sense wouldn’t go amiss.

Firstly, we’ve heard more from SJR in the last three months, than we’ve heard from the Glazers in 19 years of ownership. Secondly, we’ve appointed Berrada already, who starts at the end of the season, and we are going to have Wilcox and Ashworth once compensation is sorted. Newcastle playing silly buggers only makes them look daft, not us. All the appointments are “best in class” and have been widely lauded in the media and across the fan base. Your exception noted.

Thirdly, SJR has already paid off 120m of our revolving credit facility, which while not touching the acquisition debt, just highlights that your claim about no movement on debt is patently false.

Fourthly, the idea that any off the field restructuring during the season will have any effect on fortunes on the pitch in the near term, is about as naive an expectation as I can imagine. The fact that the new minority owners have already let go the DoF, and CEO, as well as appointed a new - highly coveted - CEO and are closing on deals for a much heralded DoF and Technical Director - not to mention the new stadium task force in conjunction with the government and City of Manchester - is no shortage of proactive achievement in a very short space of time. In fact, one can say that this is the most focused and decisive United have been off the field in a very, very long time.

When talking about the debt, and the cost of a new stadium, it’s best just to admit that you know nothing about what the finance plans are. Because that’s what you know….nothing. None of us know what SJR plans to do about it or how a new stadium will be financed; but suffice to say it won’t be a case of finding a couple of billion down the back of the couch and paying off the debt as soon as he arrives. Least of all, to meet your preposterous expectations. What we do know is that we’ve had more information, more actual movement, and more communication from Ineos about revamping or replacing the stadium, then we’ve ever gotten from the Glazers. Again, in 3 months versus 19 years.

For a long time at United football decisions have not been made by football people. It’s been made very clear that this is going to change moving forwards, hence us going after the best football operations people we can identify. With that in mind, the decision on sacking the coach and who to replace him with, will most likely be made in concert with those key people. Not by the owner alone, and not without considerable forethought going in to what the long term vision is. I can only surmise from the limited intelligible content in your outrage, that you expect SJR to be vocal in the media about how bad results are and how low standards and performance are. Is that something you really want in a new owner? Lambasting the coach and players in public? He’s already made it clear that current standards and performance are well below what is acceptable at United and that his goal is to put us back on top; now is the time to let his actions do the speaking; not throwing a public fit. And in those terms, with his removal of Arnold and Murtough, and impending appointments of Berrada, Wilcox and Ashworth, he is doing exactly that. Exactly what I would want to see from a serious owner, not talk or limb thrashing in the media.

SJR, I feel, has communicated very clearly that there is a strong strategic vision for United. A vision that is going to be driven by the results of the ongoing structural review, and the inputs of key football people. There won’t be any short term, knee jerk thinking; because that’s the last thing the club needs at this point, and no way to actually put the club back at the top. We’ve been told that the strategy is to identify the playing style, and appoint the best coach we can get to implement it; with an overarching structure controlling and evaluating recruitment, performance management, youth development etc., that remains constant despite coaching changes. That doesn’t happen overnight, but nevertheless appears to be happening very quickly.

It’s honestly hard to know whether to take your posts seriously or not. Or if you are just trolling. If those are your real thoughts, then I can only conclude that you are not a serious person, and/or don’t understand even basic organisational principles like strategic intent, let alone more complex facets like financial and managerial accounting, change management, strategic and structural analysis, operational excellence, resource allocation etc etc.

To save yourself a lot of heartache and headache, please internalise the reality that the success of an owner driven organisational change project should be measured in years, not weeks or months. Even by appointing a new coach, whether or not that can be deemed a success or failure, is likely to take at least 6-12 months.

I’m honestly completely baffled by your take on this, and have given you a longer response than your abomination of a post merited. I am not sold on whether Ineos will be god owners or not, it’s far too early to tell, but I do like what I see so far; especially in the context of what preceded them. In time they will be judged, but only when there is enough time and data to do so. Short of an oil rich state buying us and writing a blank cheque for the debt and a new stadium, I am not sure what more you could have wanted in the first three months of their ownership.

This post deserves another bump. Brilliant analysis and bang on.
 
We do it until we've replaced the mediocre players with better players.

Which players are medicore is very subjective. You can't have 24 World Class players, every squad even title winning squads need squad players who are good enough to come in and do a job while not actually being good enough to be first choice. Selling 20-25+ players and bringing the same in over a 2-3 year period is something this club has tried twice now. The first time under LVG it was a spectacular failure and hobbled his predecessors for years with Solskjaer only clearing out the last of the shit he bought in 2020-2021. We've embarked on a similar gutting of the squad over the last 2 years and all indications are it isn't going any better this time around.

Personally I'd like to see a manager get more out of the players we currently have, while upgrading on them in a more organic way.


10-11 players is quite a lot, especially when the list of retained includes players of the level of Victor Lindelof, Harry Maguire, Anthony Martial, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Scott McTominay (and Jadon Sancho, Donny van de Beek and Facundo Pellistri).

That's before you start looking at Varane and even Shaw, who have massive availability issues.

Then when you consider the players we've brought in, Martinez and Malacia have injury issues (Mount possibly on this list too), Casemiro, Eriksen and Evans were only ever going to be short-term options, Amrabat isn't even a permanent signing, Antony seems wholly unsuited to the Premier League, and even Hojlund represents something of a gamble.

If you expect the next manager to utilise more than a handful of this squad and bring about success, then you're deluding yourself.

How much is a handful?
 
A better coach would have us playing better in a matter of weeks, never mind 2-3 years. The current squad isnt good enough to challenge for the title either, but it does not help that ETH has been allowed to piss away over 200 million on dross

Absolutely or at least a coach that isn't a stubborn idealogue as Ten Hag seems to be. I could understand persevering with this madness up until Xmas but once we got embarrassed in the CL. Surely at that point he must realized this football just isn't working and should changed things up to salvage something from the season and save his job.

But alas despite all logic he kept playing the same way and here we are.
 
So across two summer transfer windows under ETH we've spent over 450m pounds (net spend around -350m pounds) and now some fans claim our squad is worse than Villa or Spurs, and that on paper we have no business in the top5. Quite incredible if you think about it
It’s even more ridiculous when the current Head Coaches at Villa and Spurs have shown it doesn’t take 5 years to get players to compete on a football pitch.
 
Another coach would just tighten up the midfield but do we really want to just do enough to get 4th? The truth is we still need a lot more to challenge.

Indeed but is finishing 8th-9th and losing a lot of CL/Sponsorship money and not being able to offer CL football to potential targets conducive to challenging?
 
This is what I was saying yesterday and got shouted at for it, I never thought this INEOS deal was right for the club from the start and so far they have proved me right by failing to diver and costing us any chance we had of Champions League football by not being able to do something as simple as sacking a failing manager.

Shiekh Jassim would have had his team in place buy now, the would have been cleared or at least be in the process of being paid off, and overall the club would be in a better position.
:lol:
 
I dont think we are that good. I don't rate Rashford, Maguire, Wan Bissaka. Casemiro is over the hill and garnacho shouldn't be playing as much as he has.

Tottenham and Villa both have a better XI I feel.
How many people thought this at the start of the season though? I feel not many. Good managers make their team perform better than sum of its parts. There is no doubt for me plenty of Spurs and Villa players look very good due to the system and roles they play in.

If we really have a worse XI than the likes of Spurs and Villa, then anybody who has had any say in the massive spending spree of the last two years should be sacked no questions asked.
 
This is what I was saying yesterday and got shouted at for it, I never thought this INEOS deal was right for the club from the start and so far they have proved me right by failing to diver and costing us any chance we had of Champions League football by not being able to do something as simple as sacking a failing manager.

Shiekh Jassim would have had his team in place buy now, the would have been cleared or at least be in the process of being paid off, and overall the club would be in a better position.
Yup I'm getting shouted at now.

I also got shouted at when I had concerns about Hag in May 2023. I said it would be bad if the form from the League Cup final continues until the end of the year. It has done plus a further 4 months.

I know it's online so it's hard to judge my emotion, I'm only showing a little concern rather an all out hate agenda vs INEOS. My true concern will be August if things have continues to dither and plod along with the same excuses in play. Excuse FC is what United have been the past 10 years. INEOS was supposed to come in and take ownership. fecking do that then instead of just dither along. Make your mark on United. Or are you just another Glazer front man. Sir Jim Glazer.
 
We have a squad that should be able to go out and compete with the likes of Sheff Utd, Bournemouth, Fulham, Everton, Burnley, West Ham, Villa, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, and Forest but arnt able to because of the manager and the fact that we are allowing these types of teams to have 20-30 shots against us is frankly embarrasing.

On Saturday we are playing Coventry in the FA Cup Semi final and most of us arnt even confident we'll win that, i mean when was the last time a side in the 2nd tier were on 5/1 to beat us?

Probably under the previous manager.
 
We have a squad that should be able to go out and compete with the likes of Sheff Utd, Bournemouth, Fulham, Everton, Burnley, West Ham, Villa, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, and Forest
No we don’t. They are all injured, or playing through injury. This isn’t a perfect scenario.

Also not sure why you include Liverpool in this list when they are clearly a much better team on paper, yet we beat them in the cup and drew both games in the league this season. Is that not competing?
 
Pros and cons for him staying:

Pros: we've had many injuries this season, Martinez and Shaw unavailable basically whole season, he won us a trophy last year, players not given up on him (?), still could win a trophy this season though it's unlikely atm.

Cons: tactics and team performances, 7th in league with 12 losses and -1 GD, finished 4th in CL group behind Copenhagen and Galatasaray.

I can see board keeping him but it's not like he's deserved it. Maybe they're yet to decide over next few weeks, though not much can change. Possibly losing to Coventry would definitely be too much.
 
finished 4th in CL group behind Copenhagen and Galatasaray.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have qualified from that group, because clearly we were in great positions in the group games and threw it away with stupid errors and individual mistakes but I think many fans underestimated these teams.
edit - I made a mistake for which I plea for forgiveness. It doesn’t need to pointed out time and again, let’s move on.
 
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I’m not saying we shouldn’t have qualified from that group, because clearly we were in great positions in the group games and threw it away with stupid errors and individual mistakes but I think many fans underestimated these teams.
Copenhagen went deep in the knockouts, really did well for a comparatively small club, and we all know about Galatasaray. They are 1 pt off the top of the league and 30pts ahead of 3rd place. They will be CL again next season.

Copenhagen went deep in the knockouts?

They were beaten, handily, by City across both legs of the first round.

Galatasaray got battered 4-1 in the Europa League play-off second leg by the same Sparta Prague team that shipped 11 against Liverpool.
 
Copenhagen went deep in the knockouts?

They were beaten, handily, by City across both legs of the first round.

Galatasaray got battered 4-1 in the Europa League play-off second leg by the same Sparta Prague team that shipped 11 against Liverpool.
Exactly.
 
The blame INEOS crowd:

Sir Jim needs to act and sack the manager!!….

New manager appointed same shite results…

Why would Sir Jim be involved in the footballing decisions!!…
 
Mentalists in here pure mentalists - no Jassim wouldn’t have had his team in place now, he’d have faced the same issues such as gardening leave etc - the only thing upto now SJR could have done within his control his sack EtH but maybe the incoming ceo has asked for it to be held off until he arrives so they can all assess the situation together.

blaming him for the January window when we knew from the get go we had no funds and no ability to move due to FFP.

absolute nut jobs.
 
The blame INEOS crowd:

Sir Jim needs to act and sack the manager!!….

New manager appointed same shite results…

Why would Sir Jim be involved in the footballing decisions!!…
Also, they are no doubt the same fans that have been complaining about United not making ambitious hires and not hiring the best in class.
 
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have qualified from that group, because clearly we were in great positions in the group games and threw it away with stupid errors and individual mistakes but I think many fans underestimated these teams.
Copenhagen went deep in the knockouts, really did well for a comparatively small club, and we all know about Galatasaray. They are a huge club. They are 1 pt off the top of the league and 30pts ahead of 3rd place. They will be CL again next season.

:lol:

Copenhagen barely eliminated Rakow Czestochowa in qualifiers and were easily disposed of by City, and Galatasaray were destroyed by Sparta Prague in EL. They are both crap, no matter how much you try to spin it. The above sounds like a joke.

In fact losing twice to Bayern without putting up much of a fight is already a disappointment this season given their form, going 1-1-2 against Galatasaray and Copenhagen would have been disappointing for ANY team entering CL, including some small league sides, it is just pure travesty for a club of Man Utd caliber and basically unprecedented.
 
The blame INEOS crowd:

Sir Jim needs to act and sack the manager!!….

New manager appointed same shite results…

Why would Sir Jim be involved in the footballing decisions!!…
:lol:
It's like that Eric Andre meme where he shoots Hannibal Buress

"why would Jim Ratcliffe do this?"
 
Wow, hang on. Weghorst and 'won over' in one sentence. Technically worst player since Bebe, played ahead of Elanga. Absolute farce of a seining, no goal threat, played at one point as a target midfielder but couldn't even win headers. Agree with much of the rest of the post.
I was no fan of Weghorst but he got the best out of Rashford by basically doing his defensive work and made the team more balanced with him in it, he was and is never a United player but unlike the current pampered pussies he always gave 110% so for that I respect him.
 
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have qualified from that group, because clearly we were in great positions in the group games and threw it away with stupid errors and individual mistakes but I think many fans underestimated these teams.
Copenhagen went deep in the knockouts, really did well for a comparatively small club, and we all know about Galatasaray. They are a huge club. They are 1 pt off the top of the league and 30pts ahead of 3rd place. They will be CL again next season.

People already said it but it needs to be said again. Both clubs are absolutely bad in the context of top level Football. It's shocking that you even tried to suggest otherwise, also the Turkish league is terrible and has been terrible for way more than a decade.
 
People already said it but it needs to be said again. Both clubs are absolutely bad in the context of top level Football. It's shocking that you even tried to suggest otherwise, also the Turkish league is terrible and has been terrible for way more than a decade.
It's like how Spurs and Villa are suddenly considered to have an obviously better squad than us, so ETH getting 6th would be meeting expectations.
 
Think it’s pretty evident that when our own players can identify the issues in our team it’s the manager that is becoming the problem.
 
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