I wouldn’t throw my toys out of the pram either way. He’s made it easier for INEOs to replace him. Even if we win FA cup it’s been an awful season.
Good luck to any manager we have next year.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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I wouldn’t throw my toys out of the pram either way. He’s made it easier for INEOs to replace him. Even if we win FA cup it’s been an awful season.
Good luck to any manager we have next year.
That’s Nagelsmann out then.
A manager is not responsible for the spending and they don’t negtiate for players and give out big contracts. If we had a competent Person even on transfers , we’d not be worried about FFP.
A managers primary job is to coach. A clubs primary job is to create an environment (that includes squad building) for the manager/players to succeed.
Well, ETH has been at least partially responsible for identifying targets and squad building, and has directly requested such responsibility, and therefore deserves to face criticism for that part of his job, which has been less than impressive.
I couldnt vote. I need to give him until the last match to decide. I feel like passing judgement now is like when Woodward prematurely gave Ole that contract before the season was over.
Im looking beyond that, why are United consistently a mess at transfers, overpaying and still ending up with disjointed squads since 2013? And why hasn’t anybody at the club changed how we had been squad building ? A manager can’t empower themselves to pick signings etc, only the club can give them that power.
Asides from that, I don’t believe every signings made were necessarily planned or top priorities. I also think we’ve overpaid quite often because of timing and poor negotiating.
ETH was definitely involved in transfers but I’d love to see all the other options we didn’t get or were missed out on. I don’t think every signing made is necessarily one the managers wanted, quite often they were just ones he club could get.
It’s not even that Klopp, for example, always got who he wanted , but there was always a logic to the structure and some cheques and balances. Klopp wants Brandt, club intervenes and they both agree Salah is a better option.
Klopp collaborated with Pool who have had a consistently successful record in the transfer market. United have a consistently awful record in the market under every manager since SAF. That, to me, is a club thing that needs to be fixed regardless of manager.
Absolutely. Who’s disputing that, though? Have you seen any poster suggest that all of our problems will vanish if ETH is sacked?
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I see posters not making a reasonable connection in how this dysfunctional setup could undermine our manager and our squad on a compounded basis over a decade.
I see posters not making a reasonable connection in how this dysfunctional setup could undermine our manager and our squad on a compounded basis over a decade.
I remember you for the wrong reasons, so I wouldn't take too much joy from it. I know what a strawman is, but I'm thinking maybe you don't or are just lacking in any self awareness. Or simply just value your opinion more than I do. You have made a few, such as saying that I claimed LVG being sacked by Bayern was a sign he would be successful here. For one, I never said anything of the sort. But I also never said I thought LVG would be successful, even if I do believe Bruno would have been a good influence on the football he had us playing, as it was that boring.
Re point 1: I pointed out that he did outpossess some teams for Netherlands. But this was all a futile argument as, as I mentioned, there are no time limits in football on what you can coach. As I said, Pep has successfully coached his role for over 10 years, Fergie for 27 years. I could go on. But the biggest issue with your argument is that you were talking about success in terms of trophies, whilst I said he had showed he can make it work at the top level. You are trying to claim that a) he was a strict, safe possession coach in one breath, then using an example from weeks earlier where he didn't always adopt those principles. A bit of a contradiction there. I pointed out the games he did dominate possession with Netherlands, against decent sides too.
Re point 2: again, you're just talking horse shit again. I never refused to acknowledge that other managers, with success 5 years ago, weren't good enough for United. I said Poch is managing a top team and Valverde is still a good manager. Somebody else mentioned to you that he actually won a trophy just 2 weeks ago. I mentioned that there were posters just last week saying he's a good option for us. You then tried to create a fast argument by asking if I wanted Southgate, which is ridiculously irrelevant, and I obviously said no. But I pointed out other national team coaches that I do like. You need to try harder than to just try and make shit up, Alex.
Re point 3: not sure actually what your point is. He did want some risk takers? He didn't want others? This all ignores the slightly big elephant in the room of the point that most of these players he got rid of were past their best (apart from Evra I'd say, but i vaguely remember there were other family reasons for him leaving), but that's another conversation that I would rather stick needles in my eyes than have with you.
Re point 4: I simply believe that, like other coaches, he was obviously let down by recruitment and I've outlined why. I think the players we've signed ETH have seemingly been high up his list and he's said himself he has more control than previous managers, something he requested to even take the job. Probably after seeing what happened under LVG, Ole, Jose etc. Whilst he didn't get these 3 players, I do believe the others were high on the list, and he was in the middle of our whole transfer strategy, along with his agent. Thankfully he wasn't allowed the likes of Brobbey or fecking Arnautovic.
Re point 5: OK, so you mentioned dribbling, and I followed up on that point. Well done. He's had other creative outlets in his teams in the past, and played Sneijder for Netherlands just weeks before coming here, he gave a chance to a young Xavi and Iniesta at Barca. You started out by saying "he would have hated Bruno" to finally admitting he would have played him. At least we're getting there now.
Re point 6: as I keep saying, I'm not trying to claim him to be anything more than he was. He was boring, I recognise every single point you make. But, as I keep mentioning, my original point was simply that he may have benefitted from having Bruno. That's all my point was. You're vigor in trying to pull me into different debates keeps me going because I'm not going to just give in to your bullshit. I have zero skin in this game. If anybody ever mentions LVG to me, I always respond accordingly as to how shit it all was. But your incessant need to debate such a basic point is keeping me going.
Re point 7: I think you're missing the nuance of the risk taking argument. He fell out with Di Maria over mistakes and carelessness, but he signed him for his dribbling ability. Are you trying to now claim that dribbling is a risk free approach in football? Neymar, another player he apparently wanted to sign, according to the man himself, plays risky passes as well as dribbling in dangerous situations. Yes he's a different player to Bruno, but it's a relevant example of risk he wanted as this is a player he wanted to add to his United team. And he didn't sell all his risk takers, because he kept Martial and allowed him freedom to run at players. The one highlight of his time here, for me.
Re the final paragraph, I've covered most of this already. It would be a guessing game as to where he'd have played Bruno, but he played various systems here so I don't think it would have been as clear cut as out wide or nothing. It would depend on the system he went with. I think he'd have played though, as he played Rooney in midfield, who functioned a lot like Bruno but, in all honesty, probably not as good at that point in his career or in that position. But he liked to look for long balls to stretch play, or to set counters.
An easy 'no' for me.
Indeed.
Apart from the awful past 14 months , ten Hag's questionable morals make him unlikeable anyway.
Nice to see "only" 1 in 4 are happy with pissing away another season for no reason.
Conversely, I see posters who seemingly think said dysfunctional structure means you can’t reasonably expect anything from Ten Hag, and that he should be absolved of any blame. But in order to absolve him of blame for our transfer dealings, you have to assume he’s like my four-year old daughter feeding us birthday wishes with zero notion of what anything costs, or how much money my wife and I have, or if a trampoline can even fit in her tiny room. And that’s not to mention our tactics and what’s going on in training, the fact that he’s getting less out of the squad than the admittedly modest sum of its parts, showing no progress, only regression.
You monster.I have to admit that my "yes" is based on morbid curiosity.
Really changed a lot compared to the last poll.
Yes, but all the evidence points to the fact that this dysfunctional setup has also been consistently choosing managers that are past it or not good enough. None of them have shown anything to suggest that they were good enough after leaving United.
INEOS (correctly) started at the top, and Murtough is already gone and EtH is next in line to be replaced. He does not have enough of a track record at the top to treat this season as an abomination, and for all the difficulties he encountered we should have done much better, both in terms of results and performances. Had he made it out of CL groups and was lingering 4-5th in the league with good performances mixed with meh and bad ones, hardly anybody would be calling for his head. But we are 7th, out of easy CL group and have overwhelmingly bad performances. It is not good enough regardless of the structure and squad he inherited.
He has been given considerable say over transfers, basically 100% of fans were behind him and only now we are getting some hints that players are losing faith, whilst until recently they were behind him. He had leeway to get rid of the likes of Ronaldo and Sancho with both club and fans also overwhelmingly behind him. In his first season he had the benefit of Rashford having the best season of his career, relatively few injuries, easy Carabao cup draw etc etc. And we had quite good results but performances were not really impressive for the most part (he was correctly given the benefit of the doubt then).
So whereas many things did get bad for him, he also had things that were good for him/conducive to him doing well. I feel that those who advocate giving him another chance also tend to cherry-pick things that went wrong.
We also have evidence that EtH was not first choice for any of the other top clubs with a better structure, and he did not even impress Spurs. So whereas he was not a bad appointment at the time and deserved to have a chance at higher level, it seems that other clubs judged that he is too much of a risk and maybe also benefitted a lot from one of the strongest generations of players in years and good transfers whilst his coaching may be good but not necessarily highest level in top leagues.
In short, I believe that “wait until we are completely sure the manager is not good enough” approach is flawed (and has been unsuccessfully applied by the old structure). The preponderance of evidence in my view points to EtH being a good coach at lower level/more familiar surroundings but is not good enough at PL level, and even with better structure and improved squad we won’t be close to competing for big trophies under him, so it makes total sense to part ways.
And even if he is a genius and everything could click - if players lose faith there can be only one outcome anyway. We are not replacing the entire squad under any structure.
I hate this site on my mobile , wrote a response and it crashed and disappeared!!!
I didn’t say you can’t expect anything reasonable from ETH. Nobody is “absolving ETH of any blame”, it’s about trying to figure out what is a fair way to factor in the issues and drama that’s been there since he joined (and indeed before).You need to be able to look at how one interacts with another which it seems a lot of you can’t do because you think it’s “absolving the manager of responsibility”.
This is true, however, it's a huge worry that he's gotten the players he wanted and THIS is how we play football (unless we still believe you can't play football without De Jong).
Also, he doesn't seem to be very flexible with his approach, so IMO he's definitely not a manager we should have under DoF/any structure dictating transfer policy.
I think it's shocking and quite indicative of how we've come to accept not only mediocrity, but out-and-out rubbish at this club, that so many of our fans are content to see a manager who has failed to make us even look like a football team much of the time, continue at the helm for another season.
I imagine if this was a club with high standards like Madrid, would they consider keeping a manager who routinely gets humiliated or scrapes by poor teams giving away dozens of shots per game? I think such low standards are why we are where we are, and why we'll probably stay there.
I imagine if this was a club with high standards like Madrid, would they consider keeping a manager who routinely gets humiliated or scrapes by poor teams giving away dozens of shots per game? I think such low standards are why we are where we are, and why we'll probably stay there.
Madrid buy extremely well which is why they are where they are.
If Ten Hag can manage to win the FA Cup I'm not sacking him, if we're knocked out by Coventry he can feck off, if we put in a credible performance in the final and lose then meh, probably sack him but not bothered.
That poll got autocorrected to me to 'Are you willing to watch United for another full season of horror'. This is the worst we have ever been, I hope we do not continue this madness.
I genuinely think that Rangnick's United was quite better.
I genuinely think that Rangnick's United was quite better.
Because we've been run horribly. We knew what our financials were like when summers of 2022 and 2023 started, we knew we would either be able to get a select few high-profile signings while not addressing overall squad depth/lack of quality issues, or we could have gone about things in a more structured way and try to get more players in. We opted for a small amount of high profile signings, some of which were the type of signing you make if you are 1-2 players away from contending (e.g. Casemiro) that are going to make themselves pretty irrelevant very soon.
Whether there's any ETH participation here I don't know. Some will say he was unaware about our financials or would not have known how much we were going to pay for Antony, Mount, Onana etc., some will say he got blindsided by Casemiro signings, we don't actually know any of that. The fact is our transfer policy is what led to us having to take hits on those cheap punts.
They are also swift at getting rid of coaches and players who do not meet their standards. That swiftness stops malaise setting in and standards across the board dropping. They are far from perfect, but they aggressively pursue success, whereas we have fans and a board (previously) that live by hope and faith that time will turn things around. More is lost through indecision than the wrong decision and our indecision in getting rid of coaches through their horrendous periods has cost us a lot. An FA Cup win in an awful season should not be enough, the day to day is where we need to be seeing quality and progression, not winning a knockout cup competition. The FA Cup should be a cherry on top of a decent cake, not a cherry placed on a smashed cake.
The issue for me is that you are trying to force a correlation that isn't there. Our main issues this season are on the field and about tactical decisions. We had these issues during preseason and they have not been fixed by the head coach. Most clubs do not change their squad during the season, most clubs have imperfect squads and also deal with injuries but most decent head coaches find ways to fix glaring issues or mitigate them. That's by far the main issue this season, our head coach isn't performing the way you would expect any decent(not great) head coach would.
Now when it comes to reaching an elite level, the club absolutely need to also improve its structure and that improvement would include expecting significantly more from the head coach/manager when it comes to on-field performances of the team and individual players.
Edit: Also on paper who has the better team? Manchester United, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Copenhage or Galatasaray? Who was seen as the better squad in August?
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I don't agree, our squad is pretty shite, and some of our players are still bottlers or knobheads or both (a lot fewer though thankfully). A cup win would be a good achievement. Getting rid of players / coaches ruthlessly is only your best strategy if you're capable of getting better ones in to replace them.
Right now, our purchasing power is feck all thanks to Ed and Murtough and co so we have to buy and sell well, and we would need a coach who can get more out of who we have / develop the youngsters better. If such a coach exists that is available go for it. I just wouldn't have confidence that there are any miracle workers available personally in terms of getting more out of our shittier players. For me, the key for us is buying well, coach can potentially be improved upon but it's secondary.
Just doesn’t know how to set up a functioning midfield. Doesn’t value ball retention. Massively misprofiled the premier league and there’s little suggestion he knows how to remedy that. Doesn’t matter who the owner or the DOF is if the manager can’t do bare necessities on-pitch tasks like this.
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That's the thing for me. We are talking about a fatal weakness that can't be fixed by any structure unless people think that someone else than the head coach should implement the team's tactical organization or the team technical/phyiscal trainings.
No we never were consistent: that‘s the point.
I can't say yes or no. If he has a bad run of 3-4 losses I would want him out in october. If evidently he failed a dressing room with some more new blood, then he needs to go.
I could get behind "would you be prepared to let him start the new season" I would definitly say yes.
Thank you and well said. Posters like you make this thread more enjoyable.
I’m getting very close to saying we should keep seeing the alternatives
100% correct. Its so obvious yet still people defend him. Some say give him another 5-6 players, but it would be a slightly better version of the current chaos. His system wont work in PL and wont bring us sustained success.
The alternatives are all better managers than he is. Even the worst ones.
What a strange post.
Firstly, why would they be the only three choices available? And where have you pulled Mourinho from?
Secondly, why would replacing ETH be the difference between 2-3 players and 8-9? Replacing ETH will cost us £9m at the absolute most if we replace him after the season, and almost certainly less since he likely has a clause in his contract where he's cheaper to sack if we don't make CL. So it's not a financial decision. And if it's a 'the new manager will give all the players a chance while ETH will get rid of them', we will be signing more than 2-3 players and probably less than 8-9 no matter who is the manager. And considering that some of the players that fans want to get rid of seem to be some of ETH's favourites, an argument could easily be made that a new manager is more likely to get rid of them.
Mourinho was in the rumor mill a few weeks ago. Pure rubbish of course, but the point is that promising alternatives to ten Hag are not abundant.
As for player upgrades, in any given summer transfer window we can count on 2 or 3 new players in, 2 or 3 out.
Many of us here, however, are concerned that we need a rebuild of the squad, probably around a turnover of 8 or 9 players this summer alone.
No I am getting your point, mine was and is he was heavily involved in the Weghorst deal. It was his idea.
Negotiating is part of it, but giving a manager almost complete control over transfers and allowing them to dictate targets and how long we chase those targets. Then have them dick about all summer waiting on a midfielder who obvisouly wasn't arsed about coming. Show little or no interest in wanting to sign a striker, choosing to rely on a crock and a 37 year old as his option. Only to have them hit the panic button after two opening defeats and want two expensive deadline day signings in Antony and Casemiro for a combined £150m is the bigger issue.
And this problem preceeds Ten Hag to be fair though it's just one of the most glaring examples of why that structure leads to paying way over the odds for average or past it players.
Voted yes because it depends on circumstances for me. If Enrique and Zidane are willing to talk, then No. But if it really is a choice of Potter, De Zerbi and co, then I will strip for Ten Hag to get him to stay, and kiss his beautiful bald head.
There’s always one.
Take your meaning from it and vote.
for others they thought it was important for him to get a season under the new structure
yet for others who feel he’s just been unlucky with injuries it’s important for them to assess under a hopefully less injuries season
Me personally? It’s all excuses
He knew how to set up a midfield at Ajax.
It‘s not about the midfield, but about the whole team. How we press, how we defend and how we play when we have the ball.
All three of those things have been poor lately. That‘s on the coach mostly I think. Even with the shiit we‘ve had to deal with, it should not be this bad.
Sounds like a terrible thing to base such important decision on. Hopefully the new people in charge have more sense than that.
Only voted yes as my top two options are staying, Amorim will most likely replace Klopp and see Bayern now going all in for De Zerbi. So it's becoming a straight choice between Potter and keeping Erik.
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