Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Wilcox will be watching closely to see if ten Hag is capable of implementing the style of football they want at the club. Southampton played the same style of football from the youth teams to first team right after Wilcox arrived there last summer.




 
Sounds good but requires patience from the fan base… get all these fundamentals in place and we should be good to go.
 


The comparisons to Fergie should really stop.
A completely different time under completely different circumstances.

However, I'm confused... is 2 years not enough time to judge him? With £400m spent on players he wanted? With the worst season we've had in 30 years?
 
Patience will be given, we're to our detriment sometimes, a very patient fanbase. If ideas are clear and people can see a direction and improvement, most will get on board easily.

This is exactly why there's so few left on the Ten Hag lifeboat, it's simply just lost at sea now with a few stranglers hoping against logic that it'll all be ok.
 
I’ll believe it when I see it. We’ve become great at “defining new chapters” at this club each time we hit a new low.
 
Sounds good but requires patience from the fan base… get all these fundamentals in place and we should be good to go.

November 2024 “United fans online start a petition to get SJR to leave the club as they believe he doesn’t know what he’s doing”:..

I don’t think it will take long to be honest. Fans can say “if we just play this sort of football” or something like that but at the end of the day they will lose patience because there is no patience from a lot of fans.

Fans forget what it was like when things were bad under older managers. They imagine it’s worse now because the pain is here now. When in truth the clubs been a mess the whole time with large transfer kittys used to paper over cracks.

I don’t expect patience at all to be honest because there’s alot of United fans, a lot of them have a simplistic view on how football works and how throwing money at new players and hiring/firing managers quickly should just make it all work.

We are 2-3 years behind the clubs we want to overtake. It’s not that it will defo take that long to overtake them, but we are coming from a distance that has been created over a decade of ineptitude. A few shiny signings doesn’t fix that.
 
Don't think I've seen this posted yet. Even hipster youtube is seeing the light.



It really is amateurish, embarrassing shite. The players have to accept some of the blame but the way they are being asked to play and the complete lack of in game tactical changes is a nonsensical setup, that's 100% on Ten Hag. He's not implementing a system that's running into teething problems, he's overseeing a farsical shit show playing out week after week and doing nothing about it. This will yield no long term benefits, if anything it will probably have a negative impact going forward to these players confidence and mindset.

Why he has persisted with this all season is anyone's guess, because he will obviously recognise whats happening. Is it ego/stubborness or self sabotage, who knows or cares at this stage, it's almost certainly getting him sacked once this clusterfuc of a season finally ends.
 
Fergie was a different era, one where only the Champions played for the European cup. We had kept big Ron for 5 years before him and we never challenged at the end of a season for top spot. Don’t Maurice Watkins admit that if he didn’t win the FA cup in 1990 he would have been sacked as well?
 
November 2024 “United fans online start a petition to get SJR to leave the club as they believe he doesn’t know what he’s doing”:..

I don’t think it will take long to be honest. Fans can say “if we just play this sort of football” or something like that but at the end of the day they will lose patience because there is no patience from a lot of fans.

Fans forget what it was like when things were bad under older managers. They imagine it’s worse now because the pain is here now. When in truth the clubs been a mess the whole time with large transfer kittys used to paper over cracks.

I don’t expect patience at all to be honest because there’s alot of United fans, a lot of them have a simplistic view on how football works and how throwing money at new players and hiring/firing managers quickly should just make it all work.

We are 2-3 years behind the clubs we want to overtake. It’s not that it will defo take that long to overtake them, but we are coming from a distance that has been created over a decade of ineptitude. A few shiny signings doesn’t fix that.

That was also the case 2 years ago, which means the process we started in 2022 to catch those teams has failed. Spectacularly so.
 
It really is amateurish, embarrassing shite. The players have to accept some of the blame but the way they are being asked to play and the complete lack of in game tactical changes is a nonsensical setup, that's 100% on Ten Hag. He's not implementing a system that's running into teething problems, he's overseeing a farsical shit show playing out week after week and doing nothing about it. This will yield no long term benefits, if anything it will probably have a negative impact going forward to these players confidence and mindset.

Why he has persisted with this all season is anyone's guess, because he will obviously recognise whats happening. Is it ego/stubborness or self sabotage, who knows or cares at this stage, it's almost certainly getting him sacked once this clusterfuc of a season finally ends.
Unless he's purposely been told to play this way its indefensible really. You can't just keep throwing the players under the bus every week because you have a 'philosophy'. It's shite management at it's finest.
 
Im comfortable in my position of if he goes I’m fine with it and trust INEOS to make the right appointment.

If they judge him unable to implement what they want in the short/medium/long term then we have to put faith into that.

Hopefully we can move away from the culture of relying on a manager to change everything so that we can clearly identify what their role is. That is is manageable, and that delegation is being done correctly and appropriately.
 
Fergie was a different era, one where only the Champions played for the European cup. We had kept big Ron for 5 years before him and we never challenged at the end of a season for top spot. Don’t Maurice Watkins admit that if he didn’t win the FA cup in 1990 he would have been sacked as well?

On that topic it wasn't even a different era. Managers were sacked at a similar rate when they were deemed not good enough. And the comparison to SAF is silly, ETH is 7 years older than SAF was after year 2. He has also been less successful outside of United than SAF was and SAF first two seasons were better.

People are trying to liken two managers that have different pedigree and different level of success at the same point in time.
 
Unless he's purposely been told to play this way its indefensible really. You can't just keep throwing the players under the bus every week because you have a 'philosophy'. It's shite management at it's finest.

No one in the United hierarchy would have told him to play this way. I doubt Arnold, Murtagh or one of the parasites sat him down and went into great detail on how they expect him to play.

This isn't a philosophy or the beginnings of implementing one, those suggestions are nonsense. It's blind stubbornness, incompetence or sabotage to persevere with such an amatuerish setup. I don't think Ten Hag or his coaches can't see what the problem is so it likely isn't incompetence. Sabotage sort of but it's probably more dogma. My guess is he thought he could make this work and invested a lot into saying this will work but is too proud/stubborn to admit he's wrong and change things.

It was obvious by December/January things weren't being changed, but there was no one in place who could pull the trigger on him. And the whole season got flushed down the shitter as a result, going forward under Ineos I hope they get everything in place so that managerial changes can be made mid-season when things aren't working.
 
That was also the case 2 years ago, which means the process we started in 2022 to catch those teams has failed. Spectacularly so.

It’s because nothing changed. Glazers , for whatever reason, didn’t bother doing what INEOs are doing. There was nothing stopping these changes being made so I can only think apathy or ego maybe (not wanting to give power to other people to make football decisions?) from Glazers prevented any meaningful change taking place.

I see it as the same as “we need to change managers faster” thinking. It’s not really changing anything relating to the fundamental issues at the club , it’s just doing something else cause look at that club there doing it.
 
You don’t need to be working in the club in any capacity to see the issues at United.

Wilcox, Ashworth , Jim , Berrada aren’t banned from watching sky sports or anything or even going to games.

It’s not like Wilcox rocked up at Carrington blurry eyed like a baby deer learning where the toilets are.

Him and anyone else watching football with even a basic knowledge of the game even under 5 coaches who do it part time on a Saturday can see the manager is hopelessly useless and it would be gross negligence to allow him to continue.

Are you still confident he is being sacked? Last night's info about this review sounded almost too much like a clean slate/last chance to impress...
 
It’s because nothing changed. Glazers , for whatever reason, didn’t bother doing what INEOs are doing. There was nothing stopping these changes being made so I can only think apathy or ego maybe (not wanting to give power to other people to make football decisions?) from Glazers prevented any meaningful change taking place.

I see it as the same as “we need to change managers faster” thinking. It’s not really changing anything relating to the fundamental issues at the club , it’s just doing something else cause look at that club there doing it.

Well exactly the Glazers are hands off, Woodward/Arnold/Murtagh let the managers run the football side of the club and have control over transfers. Which could work with the right manager but isn't an ideal way to run a football club. To compound that we've hired a series of managers who were either past it or not good enough for this level, that's still the case. Under this system giving a manager more time isn't going to help as there's no structure above them, it's all on them and their signings. So if things are failing on the pitch the best thing to do is roll the dice with another manager before too much damage is done. With Moyes, Van Gaal, Jose, Ole and now Ten Hag. There's a srong case to be made that we waited to long to pull the trigger on all of them.

Ten Hag is highly likely to be sacked next month, had we done that in December and brought in an interim manager theres a decent chance we could have at least came 5th and possibly had CL football to bring in money and offer potential signings next season. As it is we dithered and now it's looking likely we probably won't have European football of any description next season.
 
Are you still confident he is being sacked? Last night's info about this review sounded almost too much like a clean slate/last chance to impress...

He isn't being sacked, he is leaving by mutual agreement.

100% no question he is going.

When I get told things its very quick and not much detail as its usually in passing or in response to me just moaning about united.

I was having a moan about our style of play and how bad ETH has been, in response to that I was told "you wont have to wait too long, he off end of season its been agreed for some time between them".

No matter what happens, he could win every game till the end of the season and win the cup. Hes gone according to this guy who was the guy who told me about INEOS happening months before it happened and it was being discussed and loose agreement before even announced to the press.
 
23% here would still give him 1 more season.

Some of those are oppo fans and WUMS, but that's still amazing.

I can't wait until we get rid of him.
 
We are in the grass is always greener over there period whereby people look at players and managers doing well at clubs not really comparable with the conditions at United and imagine that the qualities of these people will transfer to Old Trafford , just cause stuff.

Some think if fans waved a scarf at ETH, the glazers would act, even though they’ve never listened to United fans on a level about anything.

Some think replacing managers faster would yield greater success because it’s worked for better run clubs. Again, presuming that changing one variable (sacking managers sooner) will somehow compensate for all the other dysfunctional issues of the club that includes players in/out and contract extensions.

At this stage I’m apathetic to whether ETH stays or goes. It really is the smaller picture focusing on him. If INEOs does a competent , proper restructuring of the club and has a good long term plan (that may mean a year or two of erratic stuff) then that’s all that matters.

If that means keeping ETH or even hiring Potter or even Southgate (neither of which I want) , with some long term goal (even using them as interims of sorts), then I’d prefer that then some stop gap Tuchel appointment.

We want to get to the point that we can make Tuchel 2 year’s appointments, but I’d be thinking he’s the guy we get after a year or two of purging players and the last remnants of the glazers mess.

Do we have to write off two seasons ? No, we don’t and it may be possible to cobble together something ok, but if we look at Liverpool and arsenal (among others), they didn’t just hire Arteta and Klopp and it all went great. Fans need to accept that there is gonna be mistakes made and maybe even the wrong appointment (whether keeping ETH or replacing him with a bad alternative).

We are here because of the glazers, not SJR. A lot of money needs to be spent and a lot of work needs to be done to undo the damage. So fans shouldn’t judge things over next year or so as “200 million spent and this is what he get”. We aren’t a top club that has a top club record , we have been muck. It’s gonna take time to get us back to the levels where we can fairly he compared with clubs at the top table.

Agree with all of that, with the caveat that I cannot imagine Southgate or Potter being willing to act as a conduit between our being a mid table club and a top team, in order to get the club ready for a top manager. If we are to make an appointment this summer I would hope it is something they have faith in long-term and is therefor given the adequate authority so the players are under no illusions.
 
23% here would still give him 1 more season.

Some of those are oppo fans and WUMS, but that's still amazing.

I can't wait until we get rid of him.
Can you maybe respect an alternative opinion without trying to belittle support?
 
He isn't being sacked, he is leaving by mutual agreement.

100% no question he is going.

When I get told things its very quick and not much detail as its usually in passing or in response to me just moaning about united.

I was having a moan about our style of play and how bad ETH has been, in response to that I was told "you wont have to wait too long, he off end of season its been agreed for some time between them".

No matter what happens, he could win every game till the end of the season and win the cup. Hes gone according to this guy who was the guy who told me about INEOS happening months before it happened and it was being discussed and loose agreement before even announced to the press.

Fair enough, we'll see how it shakes out. I do notice there's been a bit of a shift in his attitude over the last couple of months. He seems to be on the defensive a lot and it feels to me that he's now in self preservation mode - which would kind of stack up with what you are claiming, as he would know he will need a new job come summer.

Are you able to say whether your 'contact' is on the INEOS side or club side?
 
Can you maybe respect an alternative opinion without trying to belittle support?

The alternative opinion of giving ETH 1 more season is insanity. A top level manager doesn't get demolished by Brentford nor give up a 3-0 lead by Coventry and get outplayed in the process. There is no reason for any of you to still have hope in him turning it around. His 1st season isn't even our apex post-SAF and people still offer it as a rebuttal. Why the standards in here have declined season after season is beyond me. We have a negative GD in the league. Our GD for the entire season is just +2.

There is no good argument whatsoever to give him another season. At Real/Barcelona/Bayern, he would have been sacked at least 3 times by now.
 
We have now reached 100 more votes to stay since the end of normal time against Coventry.
 
What's the argument for giving him 1 more season?
A better managerial market to tap into, and a fair shake under a better structure. My view is if this supposed audit is real, then we should trust the outcome of it. WIlcox is well thought of by credible people, and he will uncover a lot more than what we know by just watching matches. If they think there are a ton of other factors at play that handicap our manager, and choose to keep him, then he has my support. If they find he's part of a problem at the club, they'll get rid of him. I'm fine with both outcomes as long as it's a well conducted audit.

What I disagree with is this notion that any other school of thought is insane. We don't know 90% of whats going on behind the scenes. We just see the games and think "blargh thats trash, again, for the ntht ime in 20 years under the 100th coach. Sack and go again".
 
The alternative opinion of giving ETH 1 more season is insanity. A top level manager doesn't get demolished by Brentford nor give up a 3-0 lead by Coventry and get outplayed in the process. There is no reason for any of you to still have hope in him turning it around. His 1st season isn't even our apex post-SAF and people still offer it as a rebuttal. Why the standards in here have declined season after season is beyond me. We have a negative GD in the league. Our GD for the entire season is just +2.

There is no good argument whatsoever to give him another season. At Real/Barcelona/Bayern, he would have been sacked at least 3 times by now.

Indeed. A serious club gets rid of him months ago
 


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ed-game-model-jason-wilcox-identity-transfer/

Ducker's article is interesting, identifying the "Frankenstein squad" as the key problem. ETH simply cannot impose a coherent style of play on such a disparate group, any more that Frankenstein's Monster can ballroom dance. So he's left trying to high press with defenders who can't push up, as one example.

Which is not to say he hasn't made a litany of errors while trying to fix the unfixable. But it does not mean he would be a bad manager in a well run club.
 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ed-game-model-jason-wilcox-identity-transfer/

Ducker's article is interesting, identifying the "Frankenstein squad" as the key problem. ETH simply cannot impose a coherent style of play on such a disparate group, any more that Frankenstein's Monster can ballroom dance. So he's left trying to high press with defenders who can't push up, as one example.

Which is not to say he hasn't made a litany of errors while trying to fix the unfixable. But it does not mean he would be a bad manager in a well run club.
Well put
 
A better managerial market to tap into, and a fair shake under a better structure. My view is if this supposed audit is real, then we should trust the outcome of it. WIlcox is well thought of by credible people, and he will uncover a lot more than what we know by just watching matches. If they think there are a ton of other factors at play that handicap our manager, and choose to keep him, then he has my support. If they find he's part of a problem at the club, they'll get rid of him. I'm fine with both outcomes as long as it's a well conducted audit.

What exactly has been unfair with the current structure towards ETH? He's been backed more than any other manager we've had. What factors are handicapping his ability to coach the squad better?
 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ed-game-model-jason-wilcox-identity-transfer/

Ducker's article is interesting, identifying the "Frankenstein squad" as the key problem. ETH simply cannot impose a coherent style of play on such a disparate group, any more that Frankenstein's Monster can ballroom dance. So he's left trying to high press with defenders who can't push up, as one example.

Which is not to say he hasn't made a litany of errors while trying to fix the unfixable. But it does not mean he would be a bad manager in a well run club.

Some of the 'Frankenstein squad' culprits are his signings.

As for the bold: Managers have imposed coherent styles of player with worse squads. Why is ETH incapable of doing so?
 
What exactly has been unfair with the current structure towards ETH? He's been backed more than any other manager we've had. What factors are handicapping his ability to coach the squad better?
Theres a ton that neither you nor I know.

For example you are assuming he wanted full control because of his own ego, and not because he didnt trust a club that sacks their global head scouts. You are assuming the medical staff operate well, and that the politics among players is manageable for the coach. You're assuming the way our transfer targets were set in the summer is consistent with Ten Hag's methods and preferences.

We actually dont know anything - we watch games and hope journalists punt on the right stuff. The people who will know are the guys making an audit and deep diving into the situation. I trust their judgement more than any other.
 
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