Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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You could be right, it does seem really odd behaviour from him right now.

You'd imagine Ajax are an open goal for him, but perhpas he's thinking he can land one of the better jobs this summer, Bayern or Chelsea maybe.
For me, his quotes in the last couple of weeks have gotten very distancing, and now we’re at the point where he’s basically saying we’ve got no chance of anything for years despite him coming in and spending £400m in two seasons and signing over 10 players.

It’s all the stuff previous managers have said when they knew they were going also. The blame game starts and the manager turns on the club, team and fans to save his own arse.

You’re probably right though, he’ll have his eye on another big European club this summer but none are going to touch him.
 


Hojlund deeper than our midfielders.

Ten Hag's tactics are nonsensical. Hojlund's biggest strength is running in behind so he has him playing as a target man. He has Eriksen as our deepest in possession. Wan Bissaka pushes up into the half spaces where he gets the least space. He says our stratgy is to get the ball to the wingers in dangerous positions as quickly as possible but then has them track two players in the press. Each decision is against each player's biggest strength.

I wouldn't mind if they were the anomaly. I wouldn't mind the results if his ideas made sense, but they clearly don't. I don't see that the players have given up on him either. All the factors point to him.

It’s pretty much diabolical. At times today it seemed as if it was a bunch of strangers, not a team that has played under the same manager for 2 seasons. Miscommunications, issues with patterns of play. AWB was never a natural attacker, but he has no idea which run to make to support the attack. At the very end, Casemiro bombing forward from his CB position :( Amad playing as a CF target man :wenger:

You spent 60m on Mason Mount, but bring in Scotty for Mainoo… and we lose an element of control. I get that you wanted to rest Mainoo, but sheesh. Maybe Mount was only just declared fit and he didn’t want to risk him.

It’s actually embarrassing. There isn’t one shred of talent in that Burnley side. Really just a squad of sub-average fellas on the pitch.

I was dejected at the end of the Ole/Ralf season, but feck me, I dunno… probably this is a low point for me and this club. Moyes was bad, and there have been results that have tested my patience, but we’re consistently awful. Was happy to see the win v Sheffield United, but to eke out a draw against Burnley at home was just sad.
 
100% on this. Ole is really the only chance we have for the final. Would be missing Pogba, but he knows how to beat City
Love the username, great band!

Though we need to stop talking about Ole and Jose. Neither would be good, especially as half the team played under them. Ole wouldn't be accepted after he was blaming them for his sacking on the overlap. Just get someone new with different ideas.
 
He’s saying exactly what you’d expect a manager to say who’s trying to blame the club and distance himself from failure. It’s the same type of comments we’ve seen from every manager who’s been in their final months here.

I know, been particularly disappointing seeing what a fragile ego and thin skin he has. Somehow ended up with a guy who's got an even stronger self preservation streak than Jose. Without any of the coaching ability.
 
I still feel that we need to give the manager the first three months at the minimum.
We always seem to score at least a goal and create plenty even with our young bunch of attackers. I love seeing young, up and coming players like Garnacho, Mainoo, Hojlund getting chances, heck they are starters even.

Our results vs Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, City, Tottenham are okay-ish this season. Bar the City game, they are close result-wise. Don't forget, in the Fergie era we had difficulties winning or even scoring against the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and City.

True, we have major defensive frailties and our non existent midfield is like Swiss cheese, we need to address them in the summer pronto. If possible, add a new striker and maybe another winger and we're going in the right direction, but the main focus should be and will be on the midfield and defence. We give our opponents to much space in midfield and they get too many chances. This upcoming transfer window will be an important one.
 
I’m 99% certain he’s getting sacked after the cup final and he must know it too. His short temper, bizarre excuses and general persona can only mean one thing- he’s a gonna
 
He’s right to be honest, we are entertaining. It’s for all the wrong reasons but our games are fun to watch, simply because we allow literally everyone to have a go at us.

Quite clearly he feels very confident though which just supports my view that he’s going to stay and will be untouchable for a while.
 
He is the cause of our players looking run ragged. You don't see City midfielders or Arsenal midfielders looking exhausted 60 minutes into a home match against a relegation team because they probably have 70% posession and only need to make short sprints to press and win it back every few minutes. We ask our mids to get into the box to attack and cover countless counter attacks requiring 70 yard sprints. No wonder we have so many injuries when you look at the amount of high stakes defending our players have to do.

The in-game management by the players/manager is bonkers.

But I’m not of the opinion the manager has a godlike grip over every movement the players make. So I hold the players equally as responsible tbh.

What we see is a sum of all the parts. How it is solved can be argued all day long. But whatever happens the summer will be busy on the Cafe.
 
I've been on the "give him one more year " train recently, but i'm not so sure anymore.

So many dropped points in the last few weeks and this is after 2 years of coaching this team and 100s of millions spent. You can't even blame injuries at this point, we have quality all over the pitch. A lot more than Burnly did.

It think it's better for a fresh start this summer - a new manager, a squad overhaul and a complete new set-up at the club (which we've started already).
 


He has point it's not fair. How does he compare to LVG's rebuilding team? Best case scenario we match the league total points which requires 4 wins out of 4 games and we win the FA Cup but we did worse in Europe.
 
Option 4 is he knows he's off and it's damage limitation. The most likely option.

In all seriousness, why do you think INEOs haven’t sacked him ?

I feel it could be a mish mash of a few things

1.They are more focused on summer then this season and replacing him is not a priority (ie - this seasons been written off since SJR took over)
2. Money - cost of sacking ?
3. No decent interim/alternative
4. They are still collaborating data and actually seeing this sh*tshow plays out may provide good info
 
There’s a few reasons why he’s might be pushing this “rebuild” stuff.

Option 1 is to basically troll the fans base that rabidly wants him out, in which case I applaud him as it’s amusing watching lads lose their sh*t over it.

Option 2 is he’s already been told (whether INEOs mean it or not) that he’s got next season regardless. That the crazy football since start of April is actually him showing the entertainment side of his game and INEOs think it’s not the worst for next season that will be about a rebuild.

Option 3 he hasn’t a clue of his future and isn’t completely wrong , as United games have been entertaining (for wrong reasons for us) and he’s a bit tone deaf on this

Option 4 is it suits INEOs for him to keep talking about rebuilds regardless of whether he’s here or not
Option 5: He’s truly an idiot
 
In all seriousness, why do you think INEOs haven’t sacked him ?

I feel it could be a mish mash of a few things

1.They are more focused on summer then this season and replacing him is not a priority (ie - this seasons been written off since SJR took over)
2. Money - cost of sacking ?
3. No decent interim/alternative
4. They are still collaborating data and actually seeing this sh*tshow plays out may provide good info

100% money. Sounds like we're pretty skint and running close on FFP. His payout goes down to £6m when we can no longer get CL.

EDIT I also think they wanted some form of structure in place before making a decision like that. It's better for optics.
 
We are on course to finish with less than 60 points, embarrassing doesn’t even begin to describe the season we have had. To have the manager come out and talk utter garbage is basically disrespectful to the club & supporters at this point
 
I know, been particularly disappointing seeing what a fragile ego and thin skin he has. Somehow ended up with a guy who's got an even stronger self preservation streak than Jose. Without any of the coaching ability.
Something I think we take for granted in the PL specifically is that you need to be charismatic and unflappable to succeed here, being a good coach just isn’t enough. We still talk about and want to see feelings, emotion, and general vibes, we’re not here for just the stats or a on paper based game of football. Ange might not be a brilliant coach but he’ll get more time than Ten Hag because he’s better with people, and leading.

Pep breaks the mould as a prickly dickhead but he’s the exception. If you’re not Pep you can’t get away with being a wet wipe in the PL, especially at United.
 
I think the airing of the 1998/1999 docu on Amazon prime in May will be my high point of this season. Great memories from long ago. The games we play right now are just shit, I keep watching hoping it will get better some time but you have to be disappointed every time. Awful team, awful manager.
 
Who on god’s green earth could get a tune out of these players?

Until key players are moved on (Shaw, Rashford to name two) NO manager will be a success at this club.

It would simply be more years wasted.
Well, both Shaw and Rashford got new big long-term contracts under EtH - and it has been reported that EtH wanted a say/veto in contract extensions. Besides, he started them both in the vast majority of games they were available. There has been zero indication that he has ever wanted either of the two to leave.

If you want to assign blame for them still being at the club - EtH is one of the main, if not the main culprit.
 
Well he is not wrong - we are creating a lot of chances. But that is not the problem - the problem is every single team is creating as many chances against us
 
Yeah it's a weird place. I could be completely wrong but I airways got the impression there were a lot of overseas fans that were just trying too hard. It's not just with Ten Hag but any negativity seems to be down voted. Which is odd when you consider the last 10 years.

I got banned from that subreddit because I was unhappy with Ole towards the end of his tenure. The place was an Ole cult and I had the audacity to say that he was actually terrible in the job and we'd never be successful with him as manager.

Believe it or not, perma banned!!
 
It was actually 10 shots for Sheffield Utd.

Sheffield Utd average the lowest possession in The PL. 35.3%.

Very few teams don't have 60% or more possession against them. We had 72%. Chelsea had 68% away. Liverpool had 83%. Even Fulham had 74% away. Bournemouth are more of transition team, yet also had 70% possession vs them. Arsenal had 81% away.

Only Burnley and Brentford recently were in the 50's range.

As expected, United had more of the ball vs Sheffield Utd because they are poor and comfortably the worst team in the league.

Burnley had 53% possession at Old Trafford today and attempted 41 more passes than United.

Even vs teams placed 20th and 19th, respectively United conceded 26 shots combined. Burnley had 10 shots inside the box today.

ten Hag's chaotic approach to games is finally catching up with him. You can't keep getting away with playing badly. Draws are becoming more common.
 
In all seriousness, why do you think INEOs haven’t sacked him ?

I feel it could be a mish mash of a few things

1.They are more focused on summer then this season and replacing him is not a priority (ie - this seasons been written off since SJR took over)
2. Money - cost of sacking ?
3. No decent interim/alternative
4. They are still collaborating data and actually seeing this sh*tshow plays out may provide good info
You can be certain the main reason is cost. Already seeing reports that our net spend limit is £100m next summer, which really isn't enough considering the number of positions we need to improve and replace.
 
Well, both Shaw and Rashford got new big long-term contracts under EtH - and it has been reported that EtH wanted a say/veto in contract extensions. Besides, he started them both in the vast majority of games they were available. There has been zero indication that he has ever wanted either of the two to leave.

If you want to assign blame for them still being at the club - EtH is one of the main, if not the main culprit.
Don’t ruin the illusion that Ten Hag will definitely sell Rashford next season if he’s allowed to stay on. Some people are clinging to that for dear life.
 
Well he is not wrong - we are creating a lot of chances. But that is not the problem - the problem is every single team is creating as many chances against us

Opponents create more chances but your point stands.
 
I think the airing of the 1998/1999 docu on Amazon prime in May will be my high point of this season. Great memories from long ago. The games we play right now are just shit, I keep watching hoping it will get better some time but you have to be disappointed every time. Awful team, awful manager.

Oddly enough , our entire CL campaign in 99 sesson has games closer to our crazy games this season than any other. Living by the seat of our pants in every game but the Brondby ones. I’d say in all 9 games against Bayern, Barca , Inter and Juventus we could have lost on another night.

Not saying this teams anywhere near as good, it’s just that CL run was glorious cowboy football from United. quality chaos
 
I've been on the "give him one more year " train recently, but i'm not so sure anymore.

So many dropped points in the last few weeks and this is after 2 years of coaching this team and 100s of millions spent. You can't even blame injuries at this point, we have quality all over the pitch. A lot more than Burnly did.

It think it's better for a fresh start this summer - a new manager, a squad overhaul and a complete new set-up at the club (which we've started already).

We are very unlucky with the injuries to key players. Don't forget, we have Hojlund, Garnacho and Mainoo, three very young players, in our starting line. Also, Amad, Kambwala feature regularly. Wheatley as well as Forson getting their chances.

Despite this, I always feel confident in us scoring at least a goal, we create chances, but don't convert them. Is it due the inexperienced frontline? Possibly. I think so. The defence and midfield are the problem and need to be addressed.
 
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