Agree
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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Genuine question: if you were the owner, how much money would you have been willing to spend (after the 400m+ already spent) on players suitable to play the football EtH wants? And how long you would be willing to wait?
Honest question: would you be willing to stick with him for the next 3 seasons, assuming we perform just as we have this season, if you know at the end of these 3 years he will finally have his squad?
Obviously we are working under assumption that he’s getting a lot of money to bring exactly the players he wants and our board does not interrupt it by bringing their own players which may or may not suit his vision.
If we don't win another game this season and still stick with Erik ten Hag regardless, would you have a begrudging respect for United's defiance?
I would unironically be curious to see how Big Sam would do for a few games with this side until May. Most of the pleasure right now is morbid, car-crash stuff, with the expectation that the cup final will be a 4-0 cruise to City (3 early goals, cruise control, United running around, and a piece de resistance in the 88 minute) and no European qualification, so it'd be fascinating at least to see how he'd deal with the defensive mess and currently horrible shape whenever possession is turned over etc
I will certainly have some admiration for our ability to just ignore reality.
The thing is I think most of us are patient enough that if we saw any positivity we could understand the need to persist. A pain before the gain kind of situation makes sense when you consider just how differently we've been coached for years.
However, there is a world of difference persisting with this tactical approach when 1-2 players are missing vs when 9-10 are out. Last night was entirely predictable not only because we've played this way all season but also because we were now trying to do it with a half-fit Evans and Casemiro at CB along with Eriksen in midfield. This open midfield needs legs more than anything (if it ever could work) and we simply don't have the kind of young energetic players needed.
Nobody would have criticised Ten Hag for setting up deep last night and having us hit Palace on the break. I'd have even just played Hojlund and Garnacho up top and then have Amrabat in for Antony to help protect the defense. Eriksen and Mainoo could hit counter attack passes.
Yeah definitely for me. Normal practice is to wait until the pressure from the media / fans becomes untenable and then a drubbing and then sack. So if we follow that pattern it's a 5-0 loss against Arsenal and then we sack him.
Part of me wants him to just stay so all these idiots who've already gone off on their summer breaks are shipped out and we reset the club culture a bit.
That's an incredibly weak argument for keeping him. It's barely worked at all, and the very few examples we have in the "worked" column were still very "headless chicken".
It's going to take much more than one summer to sort this squad out, it'll be his third, and it looks like we won't actually have our full structure implemented above him anyway.
How much longer do you give him? Because without Ashworth in post, it looks very much like all of these naff excuses can apply to next season too.
Well I would sack/reposition whoever negotiated these deals (which they've done), they overspent on every transfer target and that's not a managerial problem.
I would then align the manager to the style thats consistent with the club, and have the right qualified people to make transfer decisions to get those players in. I would then judge the manager on their ability to operate with the tools he was given.
For me the max I'd give him is the start of next season. I would expect any manager to align with better structure and owners and see an immediate improvement in our play stylistically and in results.
If he's still a fish out of water I'd have the axe on him and would do it mid season if needed.
City fans will be wanting us to get an interim before we play Arsenal.
Respect? No.
It would be a very fascinating experiment though. A bit like putting lots of resources and hiring the best scientists in order to prove that Earth is actually flat. Bizarre and ultimately doomed to fail, but quite fascinating.
Again, how we are playing now is not how he actually wants the style to be executed. This is a circular argument.
Answered the question in your post to Sarni:
For me the max I'd give him is the start of next season. I would expect any manager to align with better structure and owners and see an immediate improvement in our play stylistically and in results.
If he's still a fish out of water I'd have the axe on him and would do it mid season if needed.
Exactly. There's some logic to seeing what your backups can do, even if you don't foresee them having a long-term future, but we've been providing a patched up defense absolutely no midfield cover, then wondering why we've got massive gaps that are constantly exploited by our opposition (no matter how objectively crap they are).
No it won't but it could change the stuff happening on the pitch week to week. We've been a joke all season, with a manager who keeps making the same selections, in the same stupid system that clearly doesn't work. And repeating it over and over again in the blind hope that it will somehow start working.
Even last night, away game in London, season sliding down the shitter as it is, your job is on thin ice and you've got 36 year old Evans and 32 year old Midfielder at centre back. Should I change things up to give them a bit more protection? Nope, let's just stick an 18 year old in front of them, two attacking midfielders ahead of that leave the same gaping chasm where our midfield should be thats been there all season.
Madness. He'll only have himself to blame when he gets sacked.
How exactly do you reset the culture by making it clear complete failure and zero standards from management is tolerated? Counter intuitive...
Again, why do you think that signing players he does not necessarily want is suddenly going to turn him into a good manager? Especially considering that the players he wanted, actually players he coached in the past are some of the worst culprits (Onana, Antony, Amrabat).
If he cannot get a tune out of players he coached and worked with in the past, why will he do better with some players he doesn't even know. Especially considering that the list of senior players that improved under him looks like: Dalot.
There is no evidence or insinuation that he had any output or pushback or even an overlay of better candidates when these players were signed. Athletic even reported he was initially hesitant to go to Ajax for Antony. Managers need to be supported from this, because their scope is very limited in understanding player recruitment. This is why Pep/Klopp have very limited input on transfers.
He wants us to play a certain way but he knows he doesn't have the players for it. But he thinks changing the style will cost even more points in the long run.
For example you saw an old unfit Evans trying to push up last night with a predictable result. A younger, faster player just ran straight past him and scored. Had he instead defended deep the same player would have run it into touch, but then there would have been huge space in the final third and something else bad would have happened. So the root of the problem is Evans on the pitch at all, not how he is told to play.
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His interview was nonsense, if he can't coach a plan B then he's no business being in a job this big. A manager with sense changes things up mid-season to save his job and try to salvage the clubs season.
Not really!
Because although ETH would have more power, his football just doesn’t suit the PL, he’s used to managing the best side in a 2/3 side league where he can use the best players to mask his errors.
His in game management is truly shocking as are his picks for player transfers and reacts far too slowly to developing on field problems.
His level of delusion knows no bounds, here’s a guy that will genuinely believe that he can go at Arsenal and not worry about a midfield which will be emptied as 7 or 8 players flood forward, lose the ball and get countered on until Arsenal gain possession and systematically break us down, Saka will destroy this version of AWB, Rice, Partey and Odegard will just bully the midfield into submission, while The odd time we do manage to attack, we will witness Garnaucho run into blind alley or Antony step inside and shoot 30 yards over the bar, all that why Bruno, if he returns throwing his arms hysterically and Poor Rasmus just running in straight lines and losing the ball to Saliba!
Yep this is one game, I’m not watching tbf I don’t see any point watching this club until next season and that big red reset button is pushed!
I’ll ask again, if we are not playing how he wants then why duck is he setting us up so open instead of being more pragmatic with the players we have. It’s suicide and meaningless if this isn’t how he wants his style
It's circular because your argument is contradictory. "This isn't how he wants us to play, also he won't change how we play because this how he wants us to play."
As I said, it's obvious that the results and performances aren't what he wants, but sticking with a system that's wholly unsuitable to the players available just stinks of a man with no other ideas. It's dreadful management to continually set your players up to fail.
We also won't have the full structure until the start of next season (at the earliest) while we're waiting for Ashworth.
I'd be extremely wary of backing a manager to continue trying to implement something we have no evidence of working after a whole season of it leading to us being repeatedly embarrassed.
The "what if" just isn't cutting it as a reason for keeping him.
The problem is not incompetence, the problem is just giving up, going through the motions without intensity and not giving your 100%. I don't have a problem with McTominay not playing like prime Zidane / a guy like Fred loosing the ball due to a terrible pass, but I do have a problem with Rashford's half arsed attempts at pressing or Sancho downing tools because the manager dared to criticize him a tiny bit.
Re: Ten Hag - His tactics might be suicide but we can't really fault his work ethic / the standards he sets for players. The players on the other hand were on vacation mode by the time we sacked all of our post-Fergie managers. You can't decide to give your 100% only when things are going right and the moment there's a downward spiral in results, give up and wait for a new manager.
Don’t know if people have seen this or it has already been posted, but interesting stuff from Scholes and Owen starting from 13min mark on. Both of them were unanimous and adamant that Steve Mclaren has had nothing to do with setup. Both said he was the best coach they’ve ever had, how he taught them about spacing, angles, etc. They said he hasn’t been allowed to touch that first team. Also said that the current squad has good players.
Bizarre that Ten Hag persists with these tactics.
Thanks. I think this is basically the worst thing we could do now, ie keep him with a view of sacking him next year. We should not be expecting big improvement next season because if the reason we are keeping him is that we genuinely trust him to have this grand, long term plan, then seeing how we have failed to show any real progression so far we should by no means be expecting things to improve that dramatically after Summer, in particular with FFP constraints making it virtually impossible to make significant changes to the squad and buy him the players he needs.
If we keep him and truly believe that he is going to work out then we need to give him at least two years of a free pass and support him to the maximum in the market. He quite clearly wants to get the players of his choice, and buying anyone else is just risking that he won’t be able to use these players in a very specific formation that he wants to exclusively play. It will take a while before he can put together a full team of capable players, and he won’t get a 100% hit rate in signings either so even 2 years is probably not enough. During this time you need to give him a free pass and ensure him that his position is not at risk or else you risk sacking him too early to reap rewards of the plan.
Of course the odds of things working out after those 3 years are very slim but if you don’t allow him the long term then the odds of things falling into place and working consistently from next year onwards are exactly zero because we won’t have the team to support his ‘vision’.
You didn’t really answer he question. He wants to play a certain way yes. But the poster said how we are playing is not that way. So why the feck play so open if it’s not how he wants to play anyway. I think this is his style but the players are not good enough for it. We will forever be a wide open run players to death style with him, no matter what players he has
It's been answered.
There's literally nothing contradictory about what I said. I agreed ages ago he was too stubborn and it would probably be what gets him sacked.
We also won't have the full structure until the start of next season (at the earliest) while we're waiting for Ashworth.
Ten Hag, or any coach we sign for next season will implement the style he's told by the people above him. If they want a possession based Ajax approach they'd do that, but whoever it is will need the players for it first.
If that were true then that probably makes Ten Hag look worse, you don't persevere with somthing that clearly isn't working for 10 months. You have to manage the situation, make the best with what's available to you and change things up, it's literally in the job title.
Yeah, no argument from me there. I've said dozens of times that he's been too stubborn and his unwillingness to adapt is frustrating
Why he didn't say No then? He has a veto power after all. You probably think he is intelligent. He has coached Antony in the past and knows how he plays. His intelligence, albeit limited, might have made him understand that it is better to save 80m that he could spend next season.
I also find very bizarre how you yet again claim that it wasn't players he necessarily wanted. Somehow, the United hierarchy, whom last shopped in Eredivisie when we had a Dutch manager, decided to impose to their new Dutch managers, players who were playing or have played in the past in Eredivisie, quite a few of them players he coached in the past.
Or maybe Occam Razor. The united clown hierarchy asked EtH whom do you want to sign. He said Timber or Martinez as CB, Antony or Gapko as RW, Malacia as LB and FDJ as midfielder, and Erikson as second midfielder in a free (all players who played in Eredivisie, three of which he coached). Then they want and signed Martinez, Antony and Malacia, while making a deal with Barca for FDJ but unable to get him to sign, went and signed Casimiro. Isn't it a coincidence that from all strikers, we chose a Dutch one? Yes, a loan, but there probably were a large number of useless strikers so why it had to be someone EtH knows well?
Then this season we went and signed Onana, whom he coached. And Mount, whom we wanted in loan while in Holland. And Amrabat whom he coached.
I mean, come on.
We have McClaren on the staff already who have worked as an actual manager, so give him the rest of the season - it can only be an improvement.
FFS
. If you don't laugh, you just have to cry.I'm not sure it will make much of a difference. Considering we'll have to have to change the squad significantly if people are going to buy into his philosophy and the Euros are on, pre-season will likely have little impact. I only see him staying because there's not really an alternative worth pursuing currently. I think that will change if Tuchel is a real option though.
Yeah, no argument from me there. I've said dozens of times that he's been too stubborn and his unwillingness to adapt is frustrating
Stubborn is definitely one way to describe it. But he's basically tanked a season and almost certainly got himself sacked. So I would say it's more stupid than stubborn.
Antony was a target that the club unanimously landed on. I think the problem here is more the club's failure to put down a single right winger and say "no mate, you're getting this guy". If Klopp can suggest Brandt over Salah and still be a top coach, I think the likes of Ten Hag can make a feck-up with Antony in the boardroom too. The problem is our support was so shite we actually went ahead with experimenting with that for a fee 3x more than his supposed worth.
No, I'm claiming that we didn't actually trust our own scouts with targets to challenge his own with. We did worse than that and sacked the global scouts when he joined.
I don't think you know what we're debating anymore. I agree most of our shortlisted players are known to Ten Hag. I'm asking why this ever was the case. Why is it a club like Manchester United are so heavily reliant on the manager to propose targets of his own?
The answer is that the structure/decision makers at the club are clueless.
Not that I am batting for ETH to continue, but why change your mind? There is no real advantage in sacking him vs sacking him later. I mean we are 8th and at worst will finish 10th. Both sackable results.
Not surprised if INEOS think they want to concentrate on the footballing structure instead of this circus.
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