Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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One big factor here is the impact of sacking yet another manager on our dressing room culture, which is broken.

Regardless of how good or bad he has done, sacking him says to the players

1. you can be as shit as you want and get away with it, again
2. the manager will always take the fall
3. you get yet another chance under a new manager, who by the way you can also get sacked if you don't like

Even if Ten Hag is not the right man for the job, and even if it means another mediocre season - keeping him in place and telling the players you need to play for this manager - or any manager for this matter, holds power and can be part of the solution for our broken dressing room.

If I was in charge I'd say we recognise he has been operating under extremely challenging circumstances so will support him going him into next season, and we expect you to do the same. That doesn't guarantee his safety for the season and we are keeping our options open, but nor does it guarantee any of your futures at this club either.

Great post and to add to this, I dont think there is an obvious upgrade available
 
Do we really have that many oppo fans around now?
 
Extremely shortsighted. Winning domestic cup here and there will do nothing to increase your chances of challenging for the league or CL any time soon. You'd keep a manager who has failed by every metric because he won a one off match of football.

I don't think you understand the concept of a tournament. Or winning.
 
Sacking him doesn’t say any of that because for one - I don’t think anyone’s arguing the manager is the only change that should be made - plenty of underperforming players will/should go with the underperforming manager.

This squad is a relatively fresh/new squad - mostly comprised of players bought under Ole and Ten Hag, and academy additions. I’m still confused with the position/implications people make that it’s largely a squad that’s used to failing multiple managers.

United fans should stop trying to re-invent football. More often than not the buck starts and stops with the manager. Keeping a diabolically bad manager in place just to send a message to the players is an hilariously bad decision/justification. Nevermind the fact that club hierarchy and fanbase have seen and supported decisions regarding big profile/expensive players being banished quite recently. That sends a much clearer signal that the club and fans will support managers (hell, it was even reported the manager retained the support of the squad after said decisions).

Lastly, I don’t know how anyone could/would suggest these players haven’t tried/been trying for Ten Hag. They are clearly playing for him.

It’s over.
This idea of "sending a message" by keeping a severely underperforming manager is one of the most ridiculous things I've read on here, almost to the point it's childish. Not only it's not true that with each manager players get a "fresh start" but most people have realized by now that one of our mistakes has been giving managers a big say on who should be sold and who should be signed. That's why we still have people terrified of changing the manager "because new guy will not want these players and will sign his own".

Keeping an underperforming manager for the sake of it will do way more damage than sending any "message" could ever possibly help. Of course the manager has to take the fall eventually. That's literally his job and his responsibility. Do we really have to talk about what is easier to replace, a manager or 25 players?
 
One big factor here is the impact of sacking yet another manager on our dressing room culture, which is broken.

Regardless of how good or bad he has done, sacking him says to the players

1. you can be as shit as you want and get away with it, again
2. the manager will always take the fall
3. you get yet another chance under a new manager, who by the way you can also get sacked if you don't like

Even if Ten Hag is not the right man for the job, and even if it means another mediocre season - keeping him in place and telling the players you need to play for this manager - or any manager for this matter, holds power and can be part of the solution for our broken dressing room.

If I was in charge I'd say we recognise he has been operating under extremely challenging circumstances so will support him going him into next season, and we expect you to do the same. That doesn't guarantee his safety for the season and we are keeping our options open, but nor does it guarantee any of your futures at this club either.

Keeping him for the sake of it is the stupidest idea anyone at the club could have. It will prove nothing to anybody, players who are shit will be kept irrespective of whether he is in charge or not, all players at any club know it’s the manage who takes the fall.

You are also undermining the whole thing by saying he could be sacked during next season, which is the most likely outcome and then the whole argument is null and void and it’s just another season.

He can’t be given just 1 more year, you have to be prepared to give him at least another 2, if not then it’s time to sack him. This is not a quick fix and it’s pretty much back to the drawing board so the club have to either fully believe in him or get rid.
 
I don't think you understand the concept of a tournament. Or winning.
Winning a domestic cup is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and will do nothing to help us go back to challenging for actual big trophies. No other big club would keep a horribly underperforming manager because he won a cup. Even we didn't do that with LVG.
 
Winning a domestic cup is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and will do nothing to help us go back to challenging for actual big trophies. No other big club would keep a horribly underperforming manager because he won a cup. Even we didn't do that with LVG.

I'm not sure our manager is underperforming though. Villa and Spurs have better players than us, as do Arsenal and City.
 
I'm not sure our manager is underperforming though. Villa and Spurs have better players than us, as do Arsenal and City.
I'm sure going into this season you thought we had 6th or 7th best squad, behind Villa and Spurs and you predicted we would lose so many games, get embarrased in an easy CL group and have a negative GD with 6 games to go. Sure, totally not underperforming.
 
I'm sure going into this season you thought we had 6th or 7th best squad, behind Villa and Spurs and you predicted we would lose so many games, get embarrased in an easy CL group and have a negative GD with 6 games to go. Sure, totally not underperforming.

No but I didn't realise Casemiro and Shaw were basically done, nor that Martinez would get injured for more or less the whole season. Without those guys, who were 3 of our top performers last year, we're pretty fecking average as a squad. I think we've finally started to shape the squad in the right way but there's a long way to go still and that's the most important thing for me.
 
I'm not sure our manager is underperforming though. Villa and Spurs have better players than us, as do Arsenal and City.

They don't, both have better manager and our manager is underperforming massively. He was just lucky with some of the results, our expected points don't even have us in the top 10, and every week our performances are shit.
 
They don't, both have better manager and our manager is underperforming massively. He was just lucky with some of the results, our expected points don't even have us in the top 10, and every week our performances are shit.

Go and post your combined Man Utd - Spurs XI in my thread, I'm interested to see it. Or you can do Villa if you like.
 
No but I didn't realise Casemiro and Shaw were basically done, nor that Martinez would get injured for more or less the whole season. Without those guys, who were 3 of our top performers last year, we're pretty fecking average as a squad. I think we've finally started to shape the squad in the right way but there's a long way to go still and that's the most important thing for me.

Didn't Spurs lose the best striker in the league and had a lot of injuries this season?
 
If he's here next season at least I can focus on learning a new foreign language or following another sport, as I sure as hell won't follow United as closely as usual with the shite he's serving week in, week out.

If it happens, it'll be like OGS's third season where the non-deluded from us knew his time was up but the club refused to acknowledge it, even after being humiliated by Liverpool and City at home.
 
No but I didn't realise Casemiro and Shaw were basically done, nor that Martinez would get injured for more or less the whole season. Without those guys, who were 3 of our top performers last year, we're pretty fecking average as a squad. I think we've finally started to shape the squad in the right way but there's a long way to go still and that's the most important thing for me.
And yet we've lost to the likes of Brighton, Palace, Bournemouth, West Ham, Forest, Fulham, Copenhagen, Galatasaray. There is no argument to be made that we have a worse squad than any of those and yet we're constantly playing bad against such teams. Only pure luck has us at 7th right now.

Are we seriously trying to suggest 2 years and 450 million later after the bad Ole/Rangnick season and 6th place finish our real level is still... 6th? I wonder whose fault would that be if that's the case.
 
And yet we've lost to the likes of Brighton, Palace, Bournemouth, West Ham, Forest, Fulham, Copenhagen, Galatasaray. There is no argument to be made that we have a worse squad than any of those and yet we're constantly playing bad against such teams. Only pure luck has us at 7th right now.

Are we seriously trying to suggest 2 years and 450 million later after the bad Ole/Rangnick season and 6th place finish our real level is still... 6th? I wonder whose fault would that be if that's the case.
Fault is on him, He should be sacked once the season is over accompanied by Rashford, Sancho, Greenwood,
Maguire, McTominay, Antony Casemiro, Varane, Lindelöf, Bissaka should all be let go, then season after that Bruno and whosoever isn't doing they job can get feck off as well.
 
And yet we've lost to the likes of Brighton, Palace, Bournemouth, West Ham, Forest, Fulham, Copenhagen, Galatasaray. There is no argument to be made that we have a worse squad than any of those and yet we're constantly playing bad against such teams. Only pure luck has us at 7th right now.

Are we seriously trying to suggest 2 years and 450 million later after the bad Ole/Rangnick season and 6th place finish our real level is still... 6th? I wonder whose fault would that be if that's the case.

Again, you don't really seem to understand much about how football works. All teams lose to bad teams sometimes. Our European campaign was very disappointing but mainly because Onana repeatedly shat the bed. He's finally starting to look comfortable here, and is now looking a (mostly) very good keeper.
 
Again, you don't really seem to understand much about how football works. All teams lose to bad teams sometimes. Our European campaign was very disappointing but mainly because Onana repeatedly shat the bed. He's finally starting to look comfortable here, and is now looking a (mostly) very good keeper.
You're trying to have your cake and eat it too. You can't blame our shortcomings on individual moments but handwave away our wins which were also almost all due to individual moments.

The chaos is the style of play. We live and die by it.
 
Again, you don't really seem to understand much about how football works. All teams lose to bad teams sometimes. Our European campaign was very disappointing but mainly because Onana repeatedly shat the bed. He's finally starting to look comfortable here, and is now looking a (mostly) very good keeper.
Except we've lost a lot more than "sometimes" and consistently play bad even when we don't lose, see Brentford. You think a manager who's currently having the worst season in club's modern history "isn't underperforming" despite outspending everyone, but I don't understand football. Alright.
 
You just aren’t getting it Stevo. It doesn’t mater how involved ETH was in the Weghorst deal, the issue was that this was what a United manager was left with to have as our MAIN striker. Whether he bought nobody and threw in a youth player , our managers have been stuck with awful alternative players.

If United were good at negotiating for players , we’d of had more money to back ETH that January. Maybe we’d of won Europa and done better in league. Maybe we wouldn’t have been stuck getting Amrabat/reguillon level back ups…..

We can throw Ighalo into the mix. That’s what United get its managers , sub standard options because we are a disaster at transfers.



My post wasn’t about ETH, it was about the ckub. This is what you and others are struggling to understand.





Like Ferguson bringing in Alan smith and making him into a central midfielder or Rafa using Dirk Kuyt as a winger when he was brought in as a striker? Henry was a winger when arsenal
bought him. I’ve no issue with a manager using a 6 month loan signing whatever way they think they should.



Maybe that’s the case but how can you fairly judge a manager who is working in a dysfunctional setup? And we go round and round.

Is Pochetinno so sh*t that Chelsea spending over a billion and he can only barely get above mid table ? Is that how bad Poch is ? What about Tuchel , had a savage squad , transfer kitty of £300 mill, above anything anybody else spent to improve it and he’s sacked after a very poor start to the season.. What’s more likely , that Tuchel failed because he’s bad or because a new owner came in and changed how they run things that actually affected performances?

Clubs that spend poorly and don’t have a modern structure and a modern football plan undermine managers by default.

SJR said United have let all its managers down. That’s probably why ETH hasn’t been replaced since they came in. They are focusing on fixing the structure instead of throwing another manager at the problem.,

The manager can and may be a huge part of the problem aswell, no doubt , but if they are working in toxic conditions with incompetent people and no real overall club plan, we will never know what they might of been able to achieve had things been different.

If you think “god he’s defending ETH” then don’t bother replying to this, I’m sick of some of the hysterical “sack the manager” crowd who are incapable of discussing the manager and club issues with an level of impartiality.
Mate, the footballing structure is a mess at United, no one is disagreeing with you.

Is it fair to hold Ten Hag accountable for his results given this fact? YES.

‘He’s paid £9m a year first of all. He has targets to hit, and both the club and Ten Hag were are of the footballing structure and its various issues when he took the job. In fact, he was so aware of the issues, that he demanded veto power in transfers. You’re assuming that the scouts served up dog shit for transfer targets and Ten Hag had nothing to work with… fair enough. But there is a possibility that Ten Hag vetoed good, young players that scouting raised in favor of Antony, Mount, ONana, Weghorst, Amrabaat, Malacia etc.

There is no line of logic that absolves Ten Hag for at least some of the responsibility of the transfer mess. He’s had 11 players join the squad and spent 400m. When you add that to poor results, poor xG and xGD and GD, place in the table, last in our CL group, and the completely farcical tactics where we routinely give up 20+ shots and multiple goals against mid/lower table sides, you can only come to the conclusion that he’s not good enough for a club of Manchester United’s stature.
 
He will be gone at the end of the season. Just bear with it for another month. And hope the replacement is actually good this time.
 
I like Ten Hag, and I held on as long as I could but voted no.

He's lost the dressing room, players have downed tools. Yes, again players have gotten another manager close to being fired and I don't like it but there is no turning this around.
 
Except we've lost a lot more than "sometimes" and consistently play bad even when we don't lose, see Brentford. You think a manager who's currently having the worst season in club's modern history "isn't underperforming" despite outspending everyone, but I don't understand football. Alright.

Spending money doesn't mean you have good players. Udogie cost £20m, Antony £80m, who would you rather have bought?
 
You're trying to have your cake and eat it too. You can't blame our shortcomings on individual moments but handwave away our wins which were also almost all due to individual moments.

The chaos is the style of play. We live and die by it.

Do you not think a goalkeeper giving up 3 goals in a game is a bit unusual? Particularly when he won the CL the year before? Onana's shiteness in the CL was an outlier this year, even compared to his shiteness in the league in the first half of the year.
 
Well, I know who our manager would have bought...

Not his job though in a functioning club. He can ask for who he wants but the director of football, scouts, CEO etc. should decide.
 
I like Ten Hag, and I held on as long as I could but voted no.

He's lost the dressing room, players have downed tools. Yes, again players have gotten another manager close to being fired and I don't like it but there is no turning this around.
The players aren’t downing tools. This has been debunked time and again. Most of our squad gets a 20-25% wage increase if we make the CL. Why on earth would they do that? It doesn’t benefit the players in any way, shape or form.
 
One more season? you lot into absolute masochism, absolute joke.
Keep him all summer, sign HIS players AGAIN which turn out to be useless AGAIN and we would have wasted another season.

Pathetic.
 
Spending money doesn't mean you have good players. Udogie cost £20m, Antony £80m, who would you rather have bought?

Well the better question is who would Ten Hag have preferred?

We know the answer.
 
Winning a domestic cup is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and will do nothing to help us go back to challenging for actual big trophies. No other big club would keep a horribly underperforming manager because he won a cup. Even we didn't do that with LVG.

I’ll never understand people that just wilfully write off winning stuff. The only reason for our club to exist is to win trophies. That’s the purpose of a football team.

Sure, you can make an argument that winning a league cup or FA cup is not an indicator towards eventually winning the League or CL but it’s still a worthwhile endeavour, should be celebrated and should also garnish the manager some credit.

It always has to be taken in the wider context of our other expectations of course but I’d rather win stuff and finish 5th-7th than finish 3rd and trophyless. In Spurs’ glorious decade they’ve won nothing while we’ve won 4 trophies. It matters.
 
Doubt it.

I know that in your heart of hearts you know Ten Hag is a bust. I know that every morning when you wake up and look in the mirror and prepare for an arduous day of typing up stuff in this thread that you don’t really believe in, you take a deep sigh. I know that when you watch us play you often think to yourself “fecking hell”. But I get it, you in too deep and got to commit to it til the end, it’s almost admirable. But just know that I know you know it’s over.
 
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Only one of them plays RW and he wanted a RW.

I'm aware which is why it wasn't a logical comparison. Even if you make that comparison between Antony and any other RW, we still know the answer.
 
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