Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Sarni]

West Ham fans want Moyes out. Imagine that, they're pretty much on our level and it's not considered good enough.

This one is a true eye opener. They’ve basically had the same season as us - similar league points, similar issue, also decent in one cup competition (though they did not have that abomination of a CL campaign so arguably a plus). Also many injuries to key players.

They will let Moyes go despite him having a lot more credit in the bank with their first ever European trophy and turning the club around because they can clearly see this isn’t good enough. Meanwhile we are pondering letting ETH, who has done similar work with much larger resources and without European trophy to boot, go with many wanting to give him a couple more years before re-assessing. Our standards are in the basement.

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

Curious to know if the more vocal Ten Hag supporters watched the CL semifinal PSG v Dortmund. @VP89 @BenitoSTARR @NLunited @glazed

There is a narrative that continues to be voiced by the Ten Hag supporters that this squad has too many injuries, the right players weren’t bought because Ten Hag doesn’t have control over transfers, and there are no problems with the tactics themselves, it’s the players lack of execution. Varane, Eriksen and Casemiro are too old, etc. Frankenstein squad and so forth.

Watching Dortmund go toe-to-toe with PSG was fascinating. Dortmund has retreads all over the pitch, including two who played for Ten Hag here last season, Sancho and Sabitzer. Mats Hummels at 35, and possibly the slowest human ever, playing a relatively high line, is dancing around the pitch, directing traffic, cleaning up messes. Fullkrug, the retread of retreads, scoring a goal and being a nuisance. Sancho roasting Mendes and constantly putting the defense under pressure with key passes and beating his man. Sabitzer covering huge areas. This squad at Dortmund is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Look at how they defend, compact. The way they break forward on the counterattack. When in possession, there is constant movement, options everywhere, crisp patterns of play.

They go dumpster diving for players every season, looking for value in youths or castoffs. They haven’t spent more than €30m on a player since 2016, and that year they spent 35m for Dembele!

And somehow, Edin Terzic has figured a way to play with structure, organization, control. That’s coaching. That is top notch pre game preparation.

It’s easy to see how our squad, with superior players, could play like Dortmund. Bruno plays the role of Brandt, Hojlund as FullKrug, Mainoo as Sabitzer, Casemiro as Can, Sancho as, well, Sancho. Maguire as Hummels.

So, I suppose you can continue to make excuses for Ten Hag. But instead of complaining, real managers/coaches like Terzic are putting out exciting teams that are making deep runs in major competitions with a fraction of the resources.

@hobbers @stevoc Would like to know if you watched the match and what your impressions were.

United managers can only be empowered by CEO. CEO can only be empowered by Glazers. So you are in effect a Glazer apologist by focusing all your anger on managers while glazers empower all the wrong people. Same reductive logic as “ETH supporters”.

What world class managers have Dortmund needed ? Some of you think we just need to find “the right man”. Yet Dortmund, Liverpool (Rodgers) , Barca , Bayern can hire relative unproven managers and their clubs don’t fall apart even if it doesn’t work out. Changing managers quickly is not their superpower , it’s having a club that can easily adapt to those changes and doesn’t need a world class coach for the club to not fall apart and waste a fortune.

United, as a club, is setup to fail. Players and managers are setup to fail, 11 years of glazers failure should make this obvious to everybody. Managing at Dortmund and managing at United are completely different prospects because expectations and conditions for success are like chalk and cheese.

Managers at well run clubs are not responsible for signings. Nobody blames a manager at most clubs if that club over spends on a signing. It’s ridiculously unique that many United fans actually blame our managers for our club spending money badly for every manager.

What’s more likely ? That United have just hired the wrong managers all the time or having the wrong people/structure throughout the club has meant that regardless of managers we’d always been over paying for players, extending contracts , have a unbalanced squad and would be doing no better then we are now ?

“Bad Managerial appointments” is a red herring focus. Yes, our managers might not of been good enough aswell, but we will never know how good things might of been with them because everyone of them was working in a amateur organisation spending/wasting world class levels of money.

 

[DJ_21]

People still hold on to this idea that you hire the "right" manager and you're set for a decade when in reality such cases are outliers. You hire and fire as many managers as you need, it's that simple.


West Ham fans want Moyes out. Imagine that, they're pretty much on our level and it's not considered good enough.

Probably due to that whooping of palace. Some fans get to greedy when you win something. There lucky they won a European trophy and are where they are in the table.

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

People still hold on to this idea that you hire the "right" manager and you're set for a decade when in reality such cases are outliers. You hire and fire as many managers as you need, it's that simple.

The bolded part is correct at well run clubs and in my view is where we are looking to get to. But Our squads have never looked balanced, always short on a couple of positions, always stuck with deadwood we can’t move on because our CEO gave out stupid contracts , really bad at getting any sale value for players sent out, really bad hit rate with signings.

It’s silly to suggest that ploughing through managers faster the last 11 years , that would add even more disjointed variables, to an already broken system, would have been better.

Man United is an outlier of a club, not because it keeps its managers on for a ridiculous amount of time , but because it’s continued to plough through money , with the same failed out of date structure, with the same incompetent (or out of depth) people making massive decisions on the football side that includes squad building that’s been a massive failure in pretty much every barometer.

 

[pocco]

My honest answer is I watched it and other than Sancho playing well for the first half wasn’t really paying much attention.

Dortmund have a good footballing operation and have done for a long time. So it’s not a huge surprise that they can have the odd good season or performance in a cup competition. But you know they’re 5th in the Bundesliga behind Leverkusen, Bayern, Stuttgart and Leipzig?

We could also argue that the best footballing structures tend to go the furthest regardless of manager. Real Madrid, Bayern, City now etc are all regulars in these final stages.

If we focus on football and not commercial performances then I’m sure we’ll be back there too.

Do Real have a good football structure? Genuine question as I don't know, but in the past they've thrown money around recklessly and had their fair share of duds.

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

Do Real have a good football structure? Genuine question as I don't know, but in the past they've thrown money around recklessly and had their fair share of duds.

They have a consistent record of success. Man City , Liverpool , Bayern all have consistent records of success relative to spending and what could reasonably expected. They don’t all do things the same way. But they have a proven structure that works, United have an outdated system that was built for Alex Ferguson and our owners did nothing to try and upgrade it.

But I think Chelsea is a prime example of how an owner who runs the ship well (Roman) versus a clown who throws even more money at things (Boehly) can have a massive impact on a clubs demise. Barely took Boehly a year and a billion wasted , to push Chelsea to mid table, we’ve had clowns for over a decade.

Nobody thinks Poch is “spending a billion”. I don’t see “Poch has had 1 billion spent and Chelsea are getting worse” thrown at him. I mean on this spending barometer ETH has only had change spent and yet people bash the money spent and Anthony Against ETH as if it’s proof he’s a failure “cause 400 million spent should do better”.

Again, some of you are applying logic “money spent should mean we can expect better” thats correct at a well run club with a consistent record of success with different managers, with a club that has the exact opposite, a record of doing all the wrong things in all aspects of the football side where pretty much every manager and players stock drops while they are at the club or when they leave. United are the problem , not everybody else.

 

[pocco]

They have a consistent record of success. Man City , Liverpool , Bayern all have consistent records of success relative to spending and what could reasonably expected. They don’t all do things the same way. But they have a proven structure that works, United have an outdated system that was built for Alex Ferguson and our owners did nothing to try and upgrade it.

But I think Chelsea is a prime example of how an owner who runs the ship well (Roman) versus a clown who throws even more money at things (Boehly) can have a massive impact on a clubs demise. Barely took Boehly a year and a billion wasted , to push Chelsea to mid table, we’ve had clowns for over a decade.

Nobody thinks Poch is “spending a billion”. I don’t see “Poch has had 1 billion spent and Chelsea are getting worse” thrown at him. I mean on this spending barometer ETH has only had change spent and yet people bash the money spent and Anthony Against ETH as if it’s proof he’s a failure “cause 400 million spent should do better”.

Again, some of you are applying logic “money spent should mean we can expect better” thats correct at a well run club with a consistent record of success with different managers, with a club that has the exact opposite, a record of doing all the wrong things in all aspects of the football side where pretty much every manager and players stock drops while they are at the club or when they leave. United are the problem , not everybody else.

Calm yourself mate, I never said anything about Poch or that "we should expect better", though I do believe there's legs to it when our manager has worked with most of the players we've signed over multiple years. That should be worth more than any scouting report, if he really knows what he's on about.

But back to my point, are you trying to say Real have a good structure, no matter what it is, because they have a consistent record of success? So if Ten Hag and Murtough had identified better players and bright more success, the structure would have actually been the right one? So effectively, by signing shite players, Ten Hag has moved the blame onto those above him? Some 4d chess he's playing.

 

[stevoc]

We’ve had an abnormally disruptive season.

Past performance and long term structural inadequacies take time to improve.

I've never denied we've had a disruptive season, but I think we simply disagree on how much that has affected what we're seeing on the pitch.

Your second sentence is very vague.

Is this a cop out @DSG ?

Are you implying I did watch the match last night?

 

[DSG]

How am I supposed to respond then?

Im just telling you I didn’t properly sit and watch the game. I was watching American Horror Story with my wife and had it on my phone in the background so I can’t comment beyond what I said.

We’ve had a more difficult season, in a more difficult league, with more off field issues, under greater scrutiny.

Put Ten Hag in Dortmund and do you doubt he’d do well?

Im not making any excuses here it’s called context. Sometimes when we make judgements about success we look at context.

Not all journeys are the same, not all clubs are equally scrutinised and tested. At the end of the day nothing you or I say has any real impact. It’s all just opinions.

So when I do bother to post in here at least accept that when I say something it’s my genuine view and not me trying to be difficult or deflect or cop out.

I reply to pretty much everyone on here even when they are rude to me. So I don’t think you can accuse me of copping out. I just don’t know enough about Dortmund’s tactical set up that night to provide the insight you require of me so sorry to disappoint.

That’s fair. To be honest, you’ve held steady in your views despite yahoos like me firing shots. It’s actually good to have opposing viewpoints.

Respect to you for contributing to the Caf.

 

[DSG]

We’ve had an abnormally disruptive season.

Past performance and long term structural inadequacies take time to improve.

Is this a cop out @DSG ?

No it’s not. But I’d encourage both of you to watch as it helps put Ten Hag’s performance in perspective.

 

[stevoc]

Mourinho won Roma there first cup in so many years. Moyes is doing alright with West Ham and won a European trophy with them. Not saying we should have kept them but managers have been and gone and done well at other clubs. Although I agree the managers haven’t been good enough for here, could you argue the club have failed them aswell? If you look across at our rivals and see city, pep has people above him running a club properly. We’ve had a bunch of clowns running our club and not always signing managers 1st choice targets. LVG, Mourinho, and even Ole have all had some complaints about this club.

Yes the club hasn't been ran properly, yes it's negatively affected all the managers but none of them are or were good enough to win League titles regardless. All managers who have been sacked will have complaints, comes with the territory whether their complaints are valid or not. Ferguson never always got his first choice Targets, but he just got on with shit. As do many other managers.

I agree there all different players apart from Rashford who’s played under most of them managers. And he could be a major figure in the dressing room that affects other players… Ole said last year that there’s still a bad player in the dressing room

So you think Rashford 18 to 26 has been behind the downfall of Van Gaal, Jose, Ole, Ralf and now Erik?

 

[NLunited]

Yes, we had no striker (because ETH bought Mount instead of an experienced striker). But the main question is: why did ETH try to use Sancho as a striker and not his boy Antony who was completely useless as a RW?

I don‘t know, but Antony doesn‘t strike me as a good false nine. Sancho is good in small spaces.

So you think we should have got another striker instead of a midfielder? Truth is we needed both.

 

[NLunited]

First doubts I have with ETHs position today.

Not due to the performances, or the noise around the club, but he doesn't know what's going on above him.

Bruno said about his future so clearly the players are briefed but ETH claims the reports are untrue. Clearly there may be plans without ETH at the helm.

If that was true, it would be a huge issue. Like, unbelievably dysfunctional. It is probably not true.

 

[stevoc]

People still hold on to this idea that you hire the "right" manager and you're set for a decade when in reality such cases are outliers. You hire and fire as many managers as you need, it's that simple.

West Ham fans want Moyes out. Imagine that, they're pretty much on our level and it's not considered good enough.

Yep those days are long gone, anyone still banging on about Ferguson getting 6 years in the 80's in 2024 is living in the past. That dream died on the 22nd of April 2014.

And West Ham could still finish above us this season. Could you imagine if they sack Moyes and we keep Ten Hag in that scenario?

 

[HookedOnAPhelan]

Ralf Rangnick diagnosed many of our problems and told us of several players we should pursue but we knew he wasn't good enough for us. How stupid is Bayern Munich for wanting him? The rot in this club from tip to tail is thorough and is hopefully being addressed. I'd take Rangnick back as DOF in a second.

Maybe give our new DOF a chance before pining for a new one?

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

Calm yourself mate, I never said anything about Poch or that "we should expect better", though I do believe there's legs to it when our manager has worked with most of the players we've signed over multiple years. That should be worth more than any scouting report, if he really knows what he's on about.

But back to my point, are you trying to say Real have a good structure, no matter what it is, because they have a consistent record of success? So if Ten Hag and Murtough had identified better players and bright more success, the structure would have actually been the right one? So effectively, by signing shite players, Ten Hag has moved the blame onto those above him? Some 4d chess he's playing.

How many Madrid managers had to rely on a Ighalo or Weghorst level striker option ? How many Madrid managers are stuck with chronically injured players like Jones or Martial ? How many Madrid managers are stuck with under performing players (like Pogba) 4 years after these players wanted to leave ? How many quality players joined Madrid and their form collapses with a few months ? How many Madrid managers have had to spend a season relying on 2 of their 4 forwards who had to start who had zero experience in their league ? How many Madrid managers had to make do with an “Anthony” level signing that seemed to mean they had zero other meaningful options and that was ok ? How many Madrid managers actually choose signings, doesn’t the club actually identify its own targets mostly ?

Even if ETH decided to spent 100 million on Weghorst , the issue is United doing it and not having a competent way of squad building. Of course yoh sing want to talk about Poch, he’s a good manager , a lot of money has been spent for him and his team are doing bad, this shows “400 million spent badly” is not really a meaningful statement against ETH.

 

[frostbite]

I don‘t know, but Antony doesn‘t strike me as a good false nine. Sancho is good in small spaces.

So you think we should have got another striker instead of a midfielder? Truth is we needed both.

In my opinion, ALL of ETH's transfers were mistakes. ALL of them. Bar none. Waste of 400 million. I can't even understand how a manager can be THAT incompetent.

Even Hojlund (a player I like), he was not the striker we needed at this point. We should have bought a striker aged between 25-30, experienced. We could buy Hojlund after two years or so, but not now, not while we have no other good strikers.

 

[AneRu]

How many Madrid managers had to rely on a Ighalo or Weghorst level striker option ? How many Madrid managers are stuck with chronically injured players like Jones or Martial ? How many Madrid managers are stuck with under performing players (like Pogba) 4 years after these players wanted to leave ? How many quality players joined Madrid and their form collapses with a few months ? How many Madrid managers have had to spend a season relying on 2 of their 4 forwards who had to start who had zero experience in their league ? How many Madrid managers had to make do with an “Anthony” level signing that seemed to mean they had zero other meaningful options and that was ok ? How many Madrid managers actually choose signings, doesn’t the club actually identify its own targets mostly ?

Even if ETH decided to spent 100 million on Weghorst , the issue is United doing it and not having a competent way of squad building. Of course yoh sing want to talk about Poch, he’s a good manager , a lot of money has been spent for him and his team are doing bad, this shows “400 million spent badly” is not really a meaningful statement against ETH.

Do you know that two things could both be true? Like yes the Glazers are/were incompetent and our recent failure is also mainly due to ETH, an incompetent manager appointed by an incompetent structure?

By Ten Hag's own admission he was the one driving our recruitment in the summer of 2022 and 2023. Bar Martinez all have been flops or poor fits for what this squad needs so yeah he wasted £400m on shit, that remains true no matter how anyone tries to dress it. The structure above him was at fault for deferring to him but he still led our recruitment astray.

 

[frostbite]

Do you know that two things could both be true? Like yes the Glazers are/were incompetent and our recent failure is also mainly due to ETH, an incompetent manager appointed by an incompetent structure?

By Ten Hag's own admission he was the one driving our recruitment in the summer of 2022 and 2023. Bar Martinez all have been flops or poor fits for what this squad needs so yeah he wasted £400m on shit, that remains true no matter how anyone tries to dress it. The structure above him was at fault for deferring to him but he still led our recruitment astray.

Martinez is also a flop. He was good for 4 months. Since then he is either injured or doesn't play well. Do you think that in 2 years Martinez will be our main DC? I don't think so.

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

In my opinion, ALL of ETH's transfers were mistakes. ALL of them. Bar none. Waste of 400 million. I can't even understand how a manager can be THAT incompetent.

Even Hojlund (a player I like), he was not the striker we needed at this point. We should have bought a striker aged between 25-30, experienced. We could buy Hojlund after two years or so, but not now, not while we have no other good strikers.

United is a club that’s spent probably over half a billion on wingers since 2014 and not one of them was worked out and most have not lasted more than 2 years at the club.

Weird that we keep kicking managers who are “so bad at picking bad players”…

 

[The Mitcher]

How many Madrid managers had to rely on a Ighalo or Weghorst level striker option ? How many Madrid managers are stuck with chronically injured players like Jones or Martial ? How many Madrid managers are stuck with under performing players (like Pogba) 4 years after these players wanted to leave ? How many quality players joined Madrid and their form collapses with a few months ? How many Madrid managers have had to spend a season relying on 2 of their 4 forwards who had to start who had zero experience in their league ? How many Madrid managers had to make do with an “Anthony” level signing that seemed to mean they had zero other meaningful options and that was ok ? How many Madrid managers actually choose signings, doesn’t the club actually identify its own targets mostly ?

Even if ETH decided to spent 100 million on Weghorst , the issue is United doing it and not having a competent way of squad building. Of course yoh sing want to talk about Poch, he’s a good manager , a lot of money has been spent for him and his team are doing bad, this shows “400 million spent badly” is not really a meaningful statement against ETH.

The club chose to rely on them, we could have bought better players but made the wrong decisions nonetheless.

 

[The Mitcher]

In retrospect, it seems to me that Ten Hag was at fault in each and every fight he had with players! He is stubborn, he has some ideas but he cannot adapt them to the actual players he has available, he cannot really understand who has what talent, and he has favorites. All these are serious deficiencies, especially for a top manager. As a top manager, you have to understand what each one of your players can do and cannot do, and somehow find a way to inspire them to perform at 100%.

For example, we don't really know what exactly happened between Sancho and ETH. But we know that last year ETH was constantly using his boy Antony on the right, despite the fact that he was not performing. And then in the summer, he tried Sancho as a striker. Perhaps Sancho told him "Mister, I am not a striker". Why ETH did not try Antony as a striker? Antony has been useless on the right. But of course for ETH "Antony is unstoppable", so he has to play in his favorite position. Naturally, Sancho was upset that ETH so blatantly prefered to play an inferior player. This does not mean that Sancho does not have deficiencies. But it certainly means that ETH is not good at managing.

Why would you start someone so technically inefficient as Antony in the middle? Also, Sancho had been crap for us long before ETH. ETH isn't to blame for that, Sancho is. Nonetheless, I don't think either covered themselves in glory over their spat.

 

[frostbite]

United is a club that’s spent probably over half a billion on wingers since 2014 and not one of them was worked out and most have not lasted more than 2 years at the club.

Weird that we keep kicking managers who are “so bad at picking bad players”…

ETH is a category of his own. He spent 400 million bying mainly players he had managed previously! And none of them is good enough! That's really the definition of incompetence!

Think about this. In general, you need scouts because you don't really know much about a player. But a manager knows everything there is to know. We did not need scouts or a committee to decide about Antony, we had his football manager with us, who assured everyone that Antony is "unstoppable"! One foot Antony is unstoppable, that's what his own manager believed!

What can a scout say to this manager? What can a "structure" do? The only thing "the right structure" will do is sack him right away! That's what we are missing!

 

[frostbite]

Why would you start someone so technically inefficient as Antony in the middle? Also, Sancho had been crap for us long before ETH. ETH isn't to blame for that, Sancho is. Nonetheless, I don't think either covered themselves in glory over their spat.

I think that Antony should not be in Man Utd, it's ETH's fault he is here. He should not play at all, but ETH keeps playing him. We should have a good, senior striker, but ETH did not buy anyone except a 20 year old who is not ready, and wasted money on Antony and Mount and Onana. So, it is ETH that created all these problems, nobody else.

Now, since ETH needs to play his boy Antony, and since someone else will play out of position as a striker (if Hojlund is not available), then we have TWO positions wasted, RW and striker, it is like playing with 9 players. If Antony plays as a striker, we have only one position wasted, we are playing with 10 players, which might be an improvement. Just sack ETH already, he created this mess.

 

[frostbite]

And don't forget that our problems will not end when ETH is sacked. He will leave behind 400 million worth of mediocre players. We will need years to recover from ETH's incompetence. Are we going to find 400 million to spend on players any time soon?

 

[BenitoSTARR]

Do Real have a good football structure? Genuine question as I don't know, but in the past they've thrown money around recklessly and had their fair share of duds.

Yes the most successful European club has a good structure. They scout some of the best up and coming talent, add in world class quality and more recently know the difference in when to do both.

I've never denied we've had a disruptive season, but I think we simply disagree on how much that has affected what we're seeing on the pitch.

Your second sentence is very vague.



Are you implying I did watch the match last night?

It’s vague because none of us know the exact extent and depth of our issues. We just know we have them and they are clearly significant seeing as every manager has made reference to them and INEOS themselves have said as such.

No I’m just being silly with that tag.

That’s fair. To be honest, you’ve held steady in your views despite yahoos like me firing shots. It’s actually good to have opposing viewpoints.

Respect to you for contributing to the Caf.

Appreciate it.

I never take issue with an opposing view I agree it’s good to have them (otherwise we’d all just be having one big circle jerk so to speak).

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

Do you know that two things could both be true? Like yes the Glazers are/were incompetent and our recent failure is also mainly due to ETH, an incompetent manager appointed by an incompetent structure?

By Ten Hag's own admission he was the one driving our recruitment in the summer of 2022 and 2023. Bar Martinez all have been flops or poor fits for what this squad needs so yeah he wasted £400m on shit, that remains true no matter how anyone tries to dress it. The structure above him was at fault for deferring to him but he still led our recruitment astray.

Yes, ETH May not be good enough, that’s totally possible and maybe INEOs have already made that conclusion. Maybe he will be replaced regardless.

But it’s a chicken and egg situation, we don’t know if United managers since SAF have been simply as bad as they’ve shown or if the club’s dysfunction has made things far worse that made success improbable. Since the glazers were unable to have any relative successful manager we have no benchmark.

 

[frostbite]

Yes, ETH May not be good enough, that’s totally possible and maybe INEOs have already made that conclusion. Maybe he will be replaced regardless.

But it’s a chicken and egg situation, we don’t know if United managers since SAF have been simply as bad as they’ve shown or if the club’s dysfunction has made things far worse that made success improbable. Since the glazers were unable to have any relative successful manager we have no benchmark.

Nope, that's not how it works in real life. An incompetent manager is incompetent under any "structure".

You want the "structure" to prevent the mistakes the manager is doing, right? For example, ETH wants Antony, the "structure" will tell him that Antony is not good enough and refuse to buy him, problem solved. Right? Actually, nothing is solved. The problem is that ETH, after managing Antony at Ajax, believes that Antony is good enough for Man Utd. This is incompetence.

I blame the "structure", too. Our structure has a lot of incompetent people. That's why it takes so long to fire incompetent managers. An incompetent CEO cannot really understand that his manager is incompetent and should be fired. A competent CEO would have fired ETH long time ago.

 

[DSG]

United managers can only be empowered by CEO. CEO can only be empowered by Glazers. So you are in effect a Glazer apologist by focusing all your anger on managers while glazers empower all the wrong people. Same reductive logic as “ETH supporters”.

What world class managers have Dortmund needed ? Some of you think we just need to find “the right man”. Yet Dortmund, Liverpool (Rodgers) , Barca , Bayern can hire relative unproven managers and their clubs don’t fall apart even if it doesn’t work out. Changing managers quickly is not their superpower , it’s having a club that can easily adapt to those changes and doesn’t need a world class coach for the club to not fall apart and waste a fortune.

United, as a club, is setup to fail. Players and managers are setup to fail, 11 years of glazers failure should make this obvious to everybody. Managing at Dortmund and managing at United are completely different prospects because expectations and conditions for success are like chalk and cheese.

Managers at well run clubs are not responsible for signings. Nobody blames a manager at most clubs if that club over spends on a signing. It’s ridiculously unique that many United fans actually blame our managers for our club spending money badly for every manager.

What’s more likely ? That United have just hired the wrong managers all the time or having the wrong people/structure throughout the club has meant that regardless of managers we’d always been over paying for players, extending contracts , have a unbalanced squad and would be doing no better then we are now ?

“Bad Managerial appointments” is a red herring focus. Yes, our managers might not of been good enough aswell, but we will never know how good things might of been with them because everyone of them was working in a amateur organisation spending/wasting world class levels of money.

No need to insult me by calling me a Glazer apologist!

Your point, which is that only great organizations can win major trophies is not necessarily wrong, but it’s not 100% true either. It is a factor to sustained success, but it isn’t the only factor. If that was the case, then Bayern could hire Bob’s uncle and still win the Bundesliga. Real could hire Solari and win La Liga.

Also, great organizations place responsibility and accountability on those lower in the organization to achieve results and if they don’t, they are sacked. Those Glazer goblins aren’t calling up Ten Hag and demanding he plays a 4-4-2. What happens between the lines and to some extent in transfers is on Ten Hag’s head. If underperforming assets like Sancho and Rashford aren’t performing at a high level, that is also partially down to Ten Hag.

SAF managed to win 9 trophies after the Glazers gained control including 5 league titles and a CL title

Don’t get me wrong, the Glazers have been horrible owners. When it comes to football, there are two areas where they have done poorly: setting up a modern football structure and proper scouting, youth teams etc., and selecting managers. They have actually spent a lot of money. But they’ve been slow to make changes when it’s clear the manager isn’t good enough.

So, you have this bizarre loyalty to Ten Hag, but in reality, his selection as manager was decided by the very organization that we all despise as being flawed and impotent. Isn’t there a decent chance that, given the poor results and performances, they made the wrong choice by appointing Ten Hag????

 

[DSG]

Nope, that's not how it works in real life. An incompetent manager is incompetent under any "structure".

You want the "structure" to prevent the mistakes the manager is doing, right? For example, ETH wants Antony, the "structure" will tell him that Antony is not good enough and refuse to buy him, problem solved. Right? Actually, nothing is solved. The problem is that ETH, after managing Antony at Ajax, believes that Antony is good enough for Man Utd. This is incompetence.

I blame the "structure", too. Our structure has a lot of incompetent people. That's why it takes so long to fire incompetent managers. An incompetent CEO cannot really understand that his manager is incompetent and should be fired. A competent CEO would have fired ETH long time ago.

Yes, this.

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

No need to insult me by calling me a Glazer apologist!

Your point, which is that only great organizations can win major trophies is not necessarily wrong, but it’s not 100% true either. It is a factor to sustained success, but it isn’t the only factor. If that was the case, then Bayern could hire Bob’s uncle and still win the Bundesliga. Real could hire Solari and win La Liga.

Also, great organizations place responsibility and accountability on those lower in the organization to achieve results and if they don’t, they are sacked. Those Glazer goblins aren’t calling up Ten Hag and demanding he plays a 4-4-2. What happens between the lines and to some extent in transfers is on Ten Hag’s head. If underperforming assets like Sancho and Rashford aren’t performing at a high level, that is also partially down to Ten Hag.

SAF managed to win 9 trophies after the Glazers gained control including 5 league titles and a CL title

Don’t get me wrong, the Glazers have been horrible owners. When it comes to football, there are two areas where they have done poorly: setting up a modern football structure and proper scouting, youth teams etc., and selecting managers. They have actually spent a lot of money. But they’ve been slow to make changes when it’s clear the manager isn’t good enough.

So, you have this bizarre loyalty to Ten Hag, but in reality, his selection as manager was decided by the very organization that we all despise as being flawed and impotent. Isn’t there a decent chance that, given the poor results and performances, they made the wrong choice by appointing Ten Hag????

I didn’t call you a glazer apologist. I said it’s “the same reductive logic as ETH supporters” Comment. Implying “you are a ETH fan therefore your opinions are flawed” is relatively shallow way of debating these things , like me saying “glazer apologist”.

What loyalty have I to ETH? Please explain my loyalty and provide recent quotes where I am extremely loyal to ETH?

 

[Dec9003]

United is a club that’s spent probably over half a billion on wingers since 2014 and not one of them was worked out and most have not lasted more than 2 years at the club.

Weird that we keep kicking managers who are “so bad at picking bad players”…

The same people picking poor players likely also chose poor managers.

 

[Leftback99]

Chelsea likely to finish above us now. A team that have been a laughing stock all season.

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

Frostbite has really come in swinging, like the cut of your jib sir!

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

Nope, that's not how it works in real life. An incompetent manager is incompetent under any "structure".

You want the "structure" to prevent the mistakes the manager is doing, right? For example, ETH wants Antony, the "structure" will tell him that Antony is not good enough and refuse to buy him, problem solved. Right? Actually, nothing is solved. The problem is that ETH, after managing Antony at Ajax, believes that Antony is good enough for Man Utd. This is incompetence.

I blame the "structure", too. Our structure has a lot of incompetent people. That's why it takes so long to fire incompetent managers. An incompetent CEO cannot really understand that his manager is incompetent and should be fired. A competent CEO would have fired ETH long time ago.

In real life good managers fail at some clubs for different reasons. In real life good managers sign bad players but it doesn’t mean they are bad managers.

Real life is seldom as simple as you are trying to make out.

 

[Sarni]

Chelsea likely to finish above us now. A team that have been a laughing stock all season.

They haven’t had the worst injury crisis in history of football though, have they?

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

They haven’t had the worst injury crisis in history of football though, have they?

They’ve spent 2.5 times ETH budget , by the “ETH spent 400 million we should be doing much better” dumbass logic , he should be double digit points ahead of us.

 

[Leftback99]

They haven’t had the worst injury crisis in history of football though, have they?

True, they've had it worse.

 

[Sarni]

They’ve spent 2.5 times ETH budget , by the “ETH spent 400 million we should be doing much better” dumbass logic , he should be double digit points ahead of us.

don’t think Chelsea are really setting any examples here but it’s actually pretty clever to create yet another extremely low bar for EtH to be measured against.

 

[BenitoSTARR]

don’t think Chelsea are really setting any examples here but it’s actually pretty clever to create yet another extremely low bar for EtH to be measured against.

He’s not seriously arguing that point though because it would be an idiotic argument to just think money spent on transfer = success. Especially if you’ve got some idiots throwing money at players they shouldn’t be spending that much on.

I don’t think any sensible person would make that argument seriously either in support of or against anyone. Especially if the manager isn’t negotiating the fees.

It would be absolutely insane to criticise Pochettino for this. and Ten Hag