Staying fit and using Varane and Shaw as examples is a bit of an oxymoron
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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Too much delusion in this post.
I know many people on here don't find xG relevant but this is interesting to me: https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023
Based on xPoints, we would have 12.52 points less so 37-38 instead of 50 points
and I think that's correct as well, just looking at our performances in most games we had no control and couldn't dominate almost any of teams while conceding crazy amounts of shots and chances.
Based on xPoints, we would have 12.52 points less so 37-38 instead of 50 points
and I think that's correct as well, just looking at our performances in most games we had no control and couldn't dominate almost any of teams while conceding crazy amounts of shots and chances.I am addressing your point about Weghorst. He was awful and you are pretending he was OK and helped the balance of the team, he didn't. It was like playing with 10 men, even a negative given he couldnt hold or retain the ball. I think you struggle to disentangle your unflinching support of ETH from objectivity around some of his signings. My point about Elanga is not flawed. Rangnick, well known for spotting talent, saw something in Elanga, ETH preferred Weghorst over him. The guy who delivered zero goals in 17 PL matches. Elanga could have done a job, certainly no worse than Weghorst, and offered pace and a goal threat. One journalist at the time summed up Weghorst well, a CF that offers zero goal threat is not a CF. The Weghorst period when ETH played him every match was when I really began to doubt him as a manager.
If you went through all our wins this season I think for the vast majority of them we were pretty lucky to get the win.
The amount of times we've played well and won this season is absolutely tiny, genuinely it's been about two or three times all season at most.
We're incredibly lucky to be as high as 7th.
The amount of times we've played well and won this season is absolutely tiny, genuinely it's been about two or three times all season at most.
We're incredibly lucky to be as high as 7th.
I know many people on here don't find xG relevant but this is interesting to me: https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023
Based on xPoints, we would have 12.52 points less so 37-38 instead of 50 points
xPts is an utterly useless stat for anything but the very best and very worst teams.
Unless you dominate a game, it'll trend towards a draw. Unless you're dominated in a game, it'll trend towards a draw.
Yeah. I can think of few games where I was satisfied with how we played or tried to play: Tottenham (mostly 1st half) and Arsenal away back in August/September and Chelsea at home in December (though that was largely to Chelsea being really poor). Even Bayern away. City away wasn't bad as we had the lead in 1st half and could've scored again if Rashford hadn't fecked up. That game was like Madrid last night, you defend at City and try to take your chances, clear plan against best team around. Luton away wasn't bad as we should've scored 2-3 more.
All the other games - either some narrow not so convincing wins like Sheffield, Burnley, Fulham away etc; or games where we got dominated like Brentford twice, Bournemouth, Wolves at home, Newcastle away... Couple of crazy ones like Wolves and Chelsea away and that's our season - mostly bad, sometimes interesting games that went our and opponents' way and rarely good.
And even with the injuries we've had (especially in defence), you can't blame our results and performances on it. It's not a valid excuse.
Perhaps you're right but I don't think many of our fans would disagree that based on our performances, we could've even been around 10-12th place.
I agree up to a point. Managers have ego's and won't immediatly claim it's their fault. Postegoclue threw his entire team under the bus after that 4 goal vs Newcastle. The Coventry manager did the same last saturday. Also while saying Garragher was wrong about criticising play, he did say sometimes critics do have a point he can learn from. I never heard a coach say that before. And he went for that 10 mile run with his players after that 4 nil Brighton loss.
And while he is starting to annoy me a bit post match explanations, he hasn't entered Rodgers levels of dellusion imo. Although he blamed Garancho for not being cooperative, he did give him an excuse (not being fit). And, take it from me, for being a Dutch native he isn't half as stubborn, arrrogant and self centered as many of us can be.
Then, with a new boss, would you immediatly put your own short comings in the window when your job might be on the line? But I can see where you and others are coming from. The champions league games definitly he made some big, big errors. There is enough to be fed up about him for sure. But many of the players have me even more against the fence. I'd keep him just to be sure this summer there is going to be a clear out. You hire someone new tomorrow, even with al the pro arguments, he will say 'oh, I need to asses the group first.'INEOS is making the right moves, noises. As one other poster said the Glazers havent been this active in 19 years as INEOS in 3 months time. For sure there will be a short list of top candidates like Alonso, wich take time to get, and a short list for interim guys. I hope that only gets activated later this summer. But ETH needs to deliver these last games, thats for sure.
EDIT: when I do put on my Larry David inspecting face and rerun some of Ten Hag talk, he gives vibes of being a guy that went to one of those NLP courses. You know, the kind that breeds complete arseholes that never, ever will admit anything they ever do is anything less than magical, divine. Vibes. I can't prove it. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for now. He also comes from a part in The Netherlands where theyr just are a bit, a bit...a bit ehm, authentic in how they talk. Weird, is what my mother would say. But not far from Hiddinks birthground. They are not bad people per se. An ocean of difference in Van Gaal, Amsterdam ego. I love the man but my god if one guy could be stuck up his own bum...
Evenso, the Manchester United manager has to be able to win people with charm, some self reflection. There, too, Erik must improve without becoming insufferable like Southgate.
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But that's because our fans focus far more on our performances than those of other teams.
It's not like all of the teams below us have been as unfortunate as we've been fortunate.
Like I’ve already said, he scored 8 goals in 1330 minutes, 0.54 goals per 90, as striker last season. A much better return than Weghorst. This season he’s been awful there but last season he played well in that position.
I worked in NL for a bit, believe me I know how stubborn your lot can be!I agree up to a point. Managers have ego's and won't immediatly claim it's their fault. Postegoclue threw his entire team under the bus after that 4 goal vs Newcastle. The Coventry manager did the same last saturday. Also while saying Garragher was wrong about criticising play, he did say sometimes critics do have a point he can learn from. I never heard a coach say that before. And he went for that 10 mile run with his players after that 4 nil Brighton loss.
And while he is starting to annoy me a bit post match explanations, he hasn't entered Rodgers levels of dellusion imo. Although he blamed Garancho for not being cooperative, he did give him an excuse (not being fit). And, take it from me, for being a Dutch native he isn't half as stubborn, arrrogant and self centered as many of us can be.
INEOS is making the right moves, noises. As one other poster said the Glazers havent been this active in 19 years as INEOS in 3 months time. For sure there will be a short list of top candidates like Alonso, wich take time to get, and a short list for interim guys. I hope that only gets activated later this summer. But ETH needs to deliver these last games, thats for sure.
I believe in the process that INEOS are doing. Unfortunately for ETH I think the decision to get rid has already been taken, they are just waiting till the end of the season
where they go from there, coach and style, no idea
A tree could get better stats than weghorst
Hence my original point
I’m criticising Ten Hag for taking way too long before dropping him, over 20 starts before doing so. We had Garnacho on the bench over him for all that time. He was patchy too last season, but still a far better option.I know many people on here don't find xG relevant but this is interesting to me: https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023
Based on xPoints, we would have 12.52 points less so 37-38 instead of 50 points
I am a firm believer of stats. Unfortunately the regression to mean will striker sooner or later and we will drop furhter down the table.
I dont get what you mean. Can you please explain?
You are joking about Moyes, right?
You forget he inherited a squad which were the current league champions, he then promptly started the unenvious trend (which subsequent UTD managers followed) of creating records we did not want like losing to some team for the first time in 40 years & then losing to another team for the first time in 50 years or whatever they were & took us from being champions to being I think 7th.
Also if I recall correctly lost a LC SF in which we were clear faves to win.
Then there's saying things like we hope to become better than Liverpool & City despite the fact he was managing the current champions of England.
All them players he mentioned needs replacing are players ETH has bought
He’s going on about getting a new GK. that won’t happen aslong as ETH is here. That’s his keeper that he signed. Casemiro and Eriksen were players he signed. We knew we’d only get maybe a year out of them. It’s just poor planning."another parts of me goals all far left backs have been injured"
Wtf are these subs?
It's essentially derived from xG.
If you dominate a team and subsequently have a much higher xG than them, your xPts for that game will be closer to 3. If you are dominated in a game and have a much lower xG than your opponent, your xPts will be closer to 0.
A lot of matches, even if you say one team deserved a win, trend towards draws with xPts because the xG difference isn't actually that great.
Bananas
I'm not doing any of that. I'm saying he wasn't shite for every game and he ended up sitting out games himself too.
My point is Ten Hag can, and has dropped players. I couldn't give a feck about the Weghorst sub debate, I agree he was poor but the extent of his minimal impact is overcooked. Hojlund is adored here and has shown nothing else outside of speed in his time here.
All of this because I posted Weghorst wasn't the worst United player I've seen in my lifetime
All of this because I posted Weghorst wasn't the worst United player I've seen in my lifetime
He is for me
I try to avoid this thread these days because the people that defend him will just always seemingly defend him, but I do wonder what he's done to inspire such loyalty and belief. Is it just the Ajax success still? It's not like we are talking about sacking a manager that has won us the league a few years ago but is now struggling.
Alex Telles runs it close. The wonder goal he scored saves him but overall he was atrocious.
Yeah we got warned by Ajax supporters that he could be very stubborn and we have seen plenty of it this season unfortunately. Maybe if he tried something else earlier in season we could have qualified for Champions League.
All them players he mentioned needs replacing are players ETH has bought
Onana doesnt need replacing. He had a difficult start but keeps getting better. Put a stable defense in front of him and Onana wont be a problem at all.
Also there is nothing poor about signing Eriksen on a free. I think Eriksen was supposed to be Bruno and Frenkie his back up but Frenkie never came so Eriksen started a full season. He did quite well.
All of this because I posted Weghorst wasn't the worst United player I've seen in my lifetime
It’s actually ridiculous the hate some have for him. If I remember right, we won most of our games he started. Some people can only see the negative. Can only focus on the downside of things.
Weghorst loan was a terrible indictment of how the clubs been run, not ETH. Still find it funny that some people think that United managers decide that out of all the top class strikers they might want Weghorst, Ighalo and a crocked Martial were prime choices they definitely made.
Yeah the goalkeeper thing was a bit weird, but do we know that Casemiro was an EtH signing? I've seen this a lot over the years and my impression is that some people at the club basically tell a manager it's 'either this player or no one else' and for a club that always seems to need more players I guess you're going to take what's offered. I'm pretty sure the likes of Fred and Donny VdB were not manager signings for Jose or Ole for instance.All them players he mentioned needs replacing are players ETH has bought
Definite poor planning and I suspect EtH shares some blame but not all of it.
For me the fight. The ability to attack in numbers. I have suffered the Moyes years. 200 crosses that never found anyone. I suffered LvG. We high fived eachother if one of our attackers found the opposition box after 75 minutes just once. I suffered Jose. I cried seeing Rashford demoted to play CB. Maybe he is still traumatised because of that.
Never
Again
We have lot of probems but when we are on it, we fight and kill anyone. And we do it collectively not because of just one brilliant player with one brilliant action. The first half vs Chelsea last december was man stirring. I shouted and screamed and had the same tears in my eyes as that kid, one minute after Amad killed LFC.
We fight. ETH has many things to prove, solve, improve. But I can wait a few more weeks. He doesn't need to go now.
Every game under Moyes you never know how it would start. Every game under LvG you knew it was going to be a waste of time. WIth ETH despite the mess, errors, every game today I know there is going to be a fight.
If he needs to go, fine. But I do expect some AAA top, top superb well experienced and well visioned working manager, and a structure that supports him and our club transfers.
Its wat I also like about Hojlund. He just keeps going. At that Bournemouth game last weekend Rashford sunk time and again, overthinking and overjudging his abilities. Then after 20 minutes Hojlund ended up on the left with 3 Bournemouth players surrounding him at the byline. He fought, fought, fought some more and then 3 Bournemouth players were left behind him. He killed all 3 of them.That was some show.
I''m old, i've seen the horror. ETH isn't that. yet. Imo. I feel sunday is going to be fantastic.
Yeah just look at Wigan beating City in 2013
This is exactly how I see it. Managers changed but the incompetence of squad management didn’t.
Ah another one of these 'our manager is great he just needs 3 new defenders 3 new midfielders and 3 new forwards and a new keeper for us to break into positive goal difference over a season' types
One who Marx the attackersWhat is a far leftback?
Surely if we had a choice between replacing ten Hag with either Southgate, Potter or Mourinho (the only three choices apparently available to us) and only upgrading 2 or 3 players OR keeping ten Hag and upgrading 8 or 9 players, surely it would have to be the latter.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the greatest manager in the history of the game and Pep Guardiola the best manager currently have never and will never make a poor player good. They get a replacement player. Ten Hag is no different.
If you are waiting for a manager who makes champions out of our current squad we’re in for a scouse style 30 year barren period.
I don't know all the games off hand but I do remember a game away at West Ham that was bad. Hojllund isn't great in the air either but he's so far looked better in just about every other department. I wouldn't judge him too harshly based on this season, given his age, the shit show that is our tactics and the fact most of our attacking wide players are completely averse to passing to him half the time.
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