Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Dawson, Ogden are nowhere close to trustworthy when it comes to United news they might occassionally get things right .

Simple rule of thumb is likes of Whitwell, Ducker, Stone are basically United's mouthpiece if United wants some info put out there , while you can trust likes of Ornstein , Mitten to only put out credible well sourced info .
When Ogden put out the Southgate info (he was first to it), mitten commented on it saying he knows that it would have been well sourced if it came from them.

They aren't tier one but they tend to get things more right than wrong, and there's a greater likelihood they aren't being used as mouth pieces for managers trying to angle for a job. Obviously, Tuchel will come from Germans and Xavi links will come from journalists who know la liga. Its obvious where their sources come from, which is why I find it quite unsubstantiated and tend to ignore them. INEOS wil certainly use journalists here to leak or spread their thoughts accordingly. Drucker perhaps, Henry winter, and then the ones we both named.
 
He was asked about why he was giving underperforming players starts over Amad and what message it was sending. He rightly pointed out that Amad was injured and consequently not match fit for a while, but also struggled to give a convincing answer beyond that (in my opinion). He said something about attacking players relying a lot on trust, which is funny because he's not displaying a lot of trust in Amad.
 
He's never going to admit Antony is not good enough is he when he started bring up defensive reasons why he continues to pick Antony Dispite it being clear to nearly everyone else he is useless, so basically all the time ten hag is at the club we going to put up with Antony being shoehorned into the side at every given opportunity.
 
He's never going to admit Antony is not good enough is he when he started bring up defensive reasons why he continues to pick Antony Dispite it being clear to nearly everyone else he is useless, so basically all the time ten hag is at the club we going to put up with Antony being shoehorned into the side at every given opportunity.
Whatever side you are on it would be very unusual for a manager to publicly admit and single out one of his players as not good enough.

If he did that he would get so much shit.

He already says this by benching him when everybody is fit and starting Garnacho over him. I'm not really sure what you are looking for here.
 
He was asked about why he was giving underperforming players starts over Amad and what message it was sending. He rightly pointed out that Amad was injured and consequently not match fit for a while, but also struggled to give a convincing answer beyond that (in my opinion). He said something about attacking players relying a lot on trust, which is funny because he's not displaying a lot of trust in Amad.

I have a big issue with this Amad stuff.

Hoijland and Ganrnacho are young , unproven EPL players this season. That’s just a fact. They represent 2 out of our 4 main forwards starting most of our games.

Regardless of Rashfords or Anthony’s form, you guys want our manager to play with 3 relatively unproven EPL players and have Bruno as the only Senior, proven attacker?

And even if it’s “why not more sub appearances?” , it’s the same logic. You are arguing that a man United manager should have 3 youngsters make up most our forward line.

When people rightly say Rashford should have been dropped , I still think the issue for ETH is he has no good senior alternative which is partially why he wasn’t.

And for all the “Well ETH wanted Anthony” complaints, a man United manager should not have to rely on so many youngsters (Mainoo aswell) with so few alternatives.
 
Whatever side you are on it would be very unusual for a manager to publicly admit and single out one of his players as not good enough.

If he did that he would get so much shit.

He already says this by benching him when everybody is fit and starting Garnacho over him. I'm not really sure what you are looking for here.

Yep and even as an asset, what benefit is it to United for our manager to do it? I’d add, How often do managers say they didn’t actually want to make certain signings ?

How can people think that what a manager says in a press conference, particularly when they are working for a club , entirely represents what they think ? A cute manager will say as little as possible and use pressers to deflect and feed media with as much benign Bullsh*t as possible.

I feel there’s a tail wagging the dog when it comes to the media and fan reactions to what managers say. Lots of people happy to jump on whatever narrative is being spun depending on how they feel about the manager.
 
I've never had anything against Ten Hag personally. But he's needs to stop spouting absolute bollocks like this. After 2 years we shouldn't be competing for top 4 we should be firmly in it and looking to progress to competing for the title. Not hoping to snag an undeserved 6th place finish. Yeah we're not in a position to compete for no1 or no2. We're not even in a position to compete for fecking no5.

The main key position we need to strengthen is the managers position.

This squad isn't winning the league with Pep as manager, so even if you dislike the manager the squad needs strengthening to compete for the top 2 positions
Where we should be after 2 years and where we actually are don't correlate and that's both with the managers performance this season and also the recruitment and squad building for the past 2 years
 
Wish he’d stop referring to the injuries as the reason why the season has been a shambles and take some responsibility for his decisions over the season
 
Is he wrong?

“I want the manager to tell the truth about how bad anyhony is”..

“why is the manager saying that player isn’t performing, he could of talked to Sancho privately”

“why is the man United manager telling the truth about how far we are from challenging for the EPL”?

“we need higher standards , how can ETH be happy with how We are playing?”

Doesn’t actually matter what the manager says, some fans will get angry cause they presume whatever he says is the wrong thing by default.

Damned if they do and damned if they dony
 
He's not wrong, but the next question should be: Why do we look more far away from challenging now than we did at the end of his first season? Remember, he can't do a LvG and claim that it's a process, since he's already admitted that he's not here to implement any particular philosophy of his own.

Our new part owner has answered this already. The clubs been in a state of flux for pretty much ETHs time at United.

Does this mean ETH gets a free pass entirely ? No, he might be sacked in a few weeks. But it’s clear that United are simply not in the same boat as other clubs the last 18 months.

Not only have we had a mess of a structure but we’ve had no clarification on what direction the club is gonna take or who will be making big decisions.

Spending 400 million means nothing. Chelsea have spent 3 times that and are getting worse.

You guys need to wise up. The priority is to fix the club top down. Managerial sackings will become normal when there are actual competent people and structures in important roles.

Sacking a manager isn’t setting a standard when there’s no existing standards throughout the club.

If ETH is sacked , it has to be because it makes sense in the longer term strategy of the club, not because “we didn’t get top 4, 400 million spent , this is Manchester United”.
 
It just sounds like the ramblings of a man who’s desperately trying to cling to a job that he’s massively out of his depth for.
 
Just be gone with him at the end of the season. Even if he wins all the remaining games.

His tactics (especially this season since Match 1 v Wolves with an Open Midfield) and in game management and substitutions have always been weak since he joined.
 
Our new part owner has answered this already. The clubs been in a state of flux for pretty much ETHs time at United.

Does this mean ETH gets a free pass entirely ? No, he might be sacked in a few weeks. But it’s clear that United are simply not in the same boat as other clubs the last 18 months.

Not only have we had a mess of a structure but we’ve had no clarification on what direction the club is gonna take or who will be making big decisions.

Spending 400 million means nothing. Chelsea have spent 3 times that and are getting worse.

You guys need to wise up. The priority is to fix the club top down. Managerial sackings will become normal when there are actual competent people and structures in important roles.

Sacking a manager isn’t setting a standard when there’s no existing standards throughout the club.

If ETH is sacked , it has to be because it makes sense in the longer term strategy of the club, not because “we didn’t get top 4, 400 million spent , this is Manchester United”.

I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but it still doesn't answer the question. ETH, or any manager in a similar predicament, hasn't been working pro bono during the last two seasons. He's being paid handsomely to show some sort of progress on the pitch. We weren't having such discussions at this stage of the season last year, were we? And we heard from the horse's mouth that his goal is not to change the style of the team. It's just a politician's generalisation to just say the whole club's a mess.
 
Not necessarily. He’s said he’s going to compete for top 4 if all players can stay healthy then let’s trust him. He might deliver this against all odds which would be a huge, huge achievement. Maybe he can take us where Villa and Spurs are, which very few managers are capable of.

I couldn't believe it when he said we could challenge for top 4 if the perfect conditions arise throughout the season. He really trusts in his ability, hopefully Ineos by into it and share the same level of optimism about our future.
 
I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but it still doesn't answer the question. ETH, or any manager in a similar predicament, hasn't been working pro bono during the last two seasons. He's being paid handsomely to show some sort of progress on the pitch. We weren't having such discussions at this stage of the season last year, were we? And we heard from the horse's mouth that his goal is not to change the style of the team. It's just a politician's generalisation to just say the whole club's a mess.

Let’s look at this the other way then, what part of the club hasn’t been a mess since ETH joined ? He inherited a mess, the clubs ownership future has been in question most of the time, the new owner is changing everything about how we do things.

Whether ETH is the failure some of you think or not, whoever was gonna be our manager the last 2 years was gonna be working in very dysfunctional environment.
 
I couldn't believe it when he said we could challenge for top 4 if the perfect conditions arise throughout the season. He really trusts in his ability, hopefully Ineos by into it and share the same level of optimism about our future.

So you want a manager who doesn’t trust in their ability ?

And you clearly wouldn’t like Klopp as manager , he’s always whinging about injuries and they’ve not had it worse then us.
 


He is not wrong but you don't come out and say this publicly. It sends the wrong the wrong message.

I really hope he's gone this summer or we will end up writing next season off too. He should not get one more penny to spend with his awful signings.

It's reaching Jose levels, everyone's fault but his. Clown
 
Wish he’d stop referring to the injuries as the reason why the season has been a shambles and take some responsibility for his decisions over the season

It's ridiculous, because it cannot be denied his suicidal football is at least partially to blame for that. Though I personally think it's one of the main reasons.
 
This last press conference is a good assessment of this season’s underperformance, next season’s expectations and insight in individual performances of certain players (Rashy).

I’m not sure what the fuss is about: he didn’t say anything that is incorrect and didn’t try to cover up anything. I appreciate he doesn’t throw players under the bus.

What are we all so upset about?
 
I disagree.

Maybe one or two like Pogba who had a toxic relationship with Mourinho by the end. But even Martial (Mourinho didn't favour him) was still professional and performing despite their issues. He scored 7 PL goals during Mourinho's final 10 PL games.

The players responded to losing 5-0 at Old Trafford vs Liverpool by beating Spurs 3-0 away in the next PL game. The players were even trying like crazy during the 4-1 loss vs Watford. VdB came on and had an impact. He scored and then set up a great chance for Ronaldo to get United back into the game. He missed. Maguire's red card was the final nail in the coffin, which Solskjaer mentioned on The Overlap. Went from 2-1 and battling back to a 4-1 loss with 10 men.

But let's say that you are right and the players have downed tools for other managers. That makes ten Hag look even worse. If the squad is fully behind him and the past 14 months are what they've produced, that simply shows that he's not good enough and that some of them need to be moved on also.

17 defeats in less than a season with a team behind you should get you sacked. We've been fortunate that it's not more. Brentford, Liverpool and Bournemouth should have been 3 defeats. We should have taken a single point from that 4 game winless run. 3 defeats and a draw vs Chelsea instead of 3 draws and a defeat. It's been really bad, yet could have been even worse.

some very fair points. I haven’t said though that he shouldn’t be sacked, just that I’m not going to be raging if he gets another year under the new structure.
 
Imagine saying that

Maybe if you didn’t blow the 400m+ on shite we could be in a better position

The only reason you say that is because you know you're gone. So long Erik. It was fun briefly but your stubbornness in the face of irrefutable evidence ultimately was the end of you.
 
If i read it correctly if Villa match our result today we mathematically cannot get 4th...
 
Let’s look at this the other way then, what part of the club hasn’t been a mess since ETH joined ? He inherited a mess, the clubs ownership future has been in question most of the time, the new owner is changing everything about how we do things.

Whether ETH is the failure some of you think or not, whoever was gonna be our manager the last 2 years was gonna be working in very dysfunctional environment.

None. But you still can't tell the press that it's a collective problem after two full seasons. It wasn't nice when Solskajer did it - more so after completely toeing the line in the beginning of his tenure - and it's not nice now. I'm not against a manager standing up for himself, but this shows lack of accountability. Potter, just before he got the sack, at least admitted that 40 thousand people at SB have every right to feel disappointed.
 
None. But you still can't tell the press that it's a collective problem after two full seasons. It wasn't nice when Solskajer did it - more so after completely toeing the line in the beginning of his tenure - and it's not nice now. I'm not against a manager standing up for himself, but this shows lack of accountability. Potter, just before he got the sack, at least admitted that 40 thousand people at SB have every right to feel disappointed.

You can say it when it’s a club that consistently ends up in the same spot over and over again , needed “open heart surgery” when he joined and he’s just had somebody pay a billion to take over football operations confirming United managers just haven’t been properly supported. (People think money spent is all that matters when Chelsea and United have proven otherwise).

Again, I feel like some of you are stuck on “this United manager is under performing and under performing managers get sacked at other clubs” as if it’s that simple. It really isn’t. I think that this sort of thinking will be the case when we are run better and have standards throughout the club.

If INEOs, with far more information/data and context behind the scenes, believe ETH has done a poor job , he’s gone. I’ve no issue with that. But if they feel the clubs and teams issues are mostly not his fault and he may work well with whatever they have planned, then it makes sense to work with him.
 
Is he wrong?

If the club did some decent business in the summer and we had some luck with injuries who knows what could happen but to write off next season when we’ve been piss poor this season is ridiculous

Liverpool was worse than us last season and 3 players later they’re in a title race again.

Saying that I don’t think I’d trust ETH if he was handed Bellingham, Haaland and Saliba there’s no excusing the football he’s playing it’s shite so yeah whilst he’s at the club there’s fecking no chance he’s changed my mind.
 
No progress in two years.

Yeah his statement about us not competing for the title next season it just underlines his failure. I’m a bit sick of hearing managers say this shite, as true as it is. It’s a fecking weird thing to say and sounds like an excuse to buy more time. I can’t imagine it going down too well with players either.
 
Does anyone here believe with this squad we could win the league? That's the question ETH was asked.

Why is his answer controversial? Our squad is threadbare. That's just a fact. We have 1 CF. No LBs. 1 actual CMF. Of course we'd struggle to win the league next year with the squad as it is.

Now, if we finally start adding a good number of players to make up for the huge number that have left, great.
 
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