Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Palace will be delighted to know that they can now attract very highly rated youngsters and experienced top players.

Sure they wouldn't want them, apparently none of them are good enough to even get into their squad.
 
It feels like some desperate last attempt to defend an obviously failing manager.

Ah these players are championship level! Fergie would have struggled with this lot etc

Now do I think this squad is good enough to challenge for the PL or the CL? obviously not. But do I think it's a better squad than finishing 8th and losing at least 18 games in a season and being on course for the worst season in 35 years? Yeah.

Exactly. The way we're playing is totally and utterly unforgivable, and that's taking injuries etc. into account.
 
Our squad is better than the current 14th even with injuries. In general your point is correct but that's beside the original point, nearly all our players would be picked by Palace instead of theirs.

Many of them yes I agree. Wouldn't say all of them as I consider their forward line better than ours. Olise and Eze are both better than what we have to offer.
 
I think there has been a plan and a vision it was just a shit one. And I don't think any attempt has been made to get through games and adapt to what's available, we've just plodded on with the same set-up all season regardless of which players are available.

And we've had options in attack and midfield all season, injuries haven't been too bad in those areas to be fair.

If that is the case it has been a plan that hasn’t included several key players, so it is unlikely.

And we’ve had plenty of issues with attack that limit variation. We’ve had one striker available for much of the season, so no proper alternative there. We’ve had Rashford and Garnacho as the two wide players consistently available. Amad injured for the first half of the season. Sancho missing all season. Antony has had his own issues. The attack has largely picked itself, with the only question being which two from Rashford, Antony and Sancho.

You would imagine that Mount was part of any plan that he had at the start of the season. But then he was injured all season. Mainoo was also key. But he was injured for first three months. If you think starting Scott McTominay weekly was Ten Hag’s plan and NOT just an idea yo get through Saturday, I’d say that is a strange take.
 
I think given the fairly large sample size it’s too simple to say that it’s constantly bad luck on the opposition teams side that we concede so many shots but concede comparatively few goals.
XG is a fairly good metric to determine how good those chances are,

By our xG we should have conceded 14 goals more than we have this season, so effectively we should already be on 69 goals. It’s a combination of our opponents being wasteful, Onana pulling off miracle saves etc but it’s bound to go back to what is expected and it actually has in recent times with us casually conceding 3 per game.

There are 4 teams in the league worse than us in that metrics: the bottom three and West Ham.

We haven’t been good at defending and have not been restricting our opposition to low quality chances, they just have been very inconsistent at finishing them. However if we continue playing like this we will definitely start conceding 70-80 goals a season eventually.
 
Every question Neville asked Ten Hag in the interview, Ten Hag seemed to bring it back to injuries.

Before and after every game, the topic is injuries.

What does that do to the players on the field? It gives them a ready made excuse. It tells them the manager doesn't believe in them because he is more concerned about the players that are not available.
 
XG is a fairly good metric to determine how good those chances are,

By our xG we should have conceded 14 goals more than we have this season, so effectively we should already be on 69 goals. It’s a combination of our opponents being wasteful, Onana pulling off miracle saves etc but it’s bound to go back to what is expected and it actually has in recent times with us casually conceding 3 per game.

There are 4 teams in the league worse than us in that metrics: the bottom three and West Ham.

We haven’t been good at defending and have not been restricting our opposition to low quality chances, they just have been very inconsistent at finishing them. However if we continue playing like this we will definitely start conceding 70-80 goals a season eventually.

Palace alone could have easily put 2 or 3 more past us if Eze's final ball had been better. Been this way for the whole season.
 
Maybe the Southgate links are there to scare the players straight.
 
Dunno. As an example, probably 50% of visual artists (largely the ones who didn't go through fancier fine art university courses where they're taught to think 'conceptually' and write inscrutable essays as well as going into the minutiae of movements and composition) find it difficult to describe 'what' or 'why' they do what they do: people without 1/4 of their talent but who've studied the textbooks, can write better art criticism or even teach the subject better than they can. Even very good poets find Masters courses in Creative Writing difficult at times because of the theory , despite using the same language.

Gazza had a high footballing IQ: not the most illuminating pundit, and not just because of the booze. Lots of footballers see pictures of the game and can respond to some level of pre-match game-plan along with individual instructions described to them, but asking them to put why a player does what they do into words on the spot, rather than reacting kinetically, is different. I wouldn't be surprised if Mitten, as a long-standing football journalist ( just like Jonathan Wilson or Kuper or other people who've never played the game professionally but have written extensively on it) genuinely does have a better understanding of 'what and why' when it comes to tactics than Scholes, with the latter having had managers do most of his tactical thinking for him and just 'problem-solved'' relating to discrete game moments - very well, of course - there and then...

I lean towards believing Owen because he explained why McClaren was such a good coach, how he discussed the structure of the team before each game and how certain aspects of our play are things he would normally sort out, as he did with them.

I think there's a great deal of difference between an artist and a footballer who functions as part of a team and is instructed by somebody else. It's not imagination that makes them part of a functioning team, a lot of coaching and tactical work goes with it. It's not comparable to an artist in that sense, but perhaps more comparable if you were asking Owen what his trick was in terms of finishing (just a natural instinct) or how Scholes could ping a pass 40 yards onto the toe of a sprinting winger (again talent). And Gazza probably fell more into that bracket of footballer that largely played off ability and instinct, whereas those around him were better drilled to compensate for the work he wouldn't be doing. After all, they did used to say they were just told to give him the ball and let him do the rest.

I'm digressing a bit here, but one other point to make is that most football coaches or managers, even DoFs etc, were all players. I think many more do pick up these nuances than those that don't. And I don't see why anybody would think neither of these two didn't as players.
 
They should bring Ole back for the rest of the season then go in on Tuchel.

Ten Hag isn't cut out for it. Any great manager would be able to work with what they have and make the team play well as a group - he can't.
 
Leaks will never stop, for a club the size of ours there is too many who know somebody from within or someone who knows someone who knows someone. Most is Chinese whispers but some do tend to be true.
Few if any leaks got out during Ferguson's time as it was a tight ran ship. Don't see much or near as much leaked out with the clubs ahead of United in the table either. And yes journalists especially the MEN idiots such as Samuel luckhurst love running with stories about United regardless if true or not.
 
I have a lot of reservations about him

imagine having lot of reservations after getting doubled on by Crystal Palace and being 8th.

my brother in christ this is literally worse than Moyes.
 
If that is the case it has been a plan that hasn’t included several key players, so it is unlikely.

And we’ve had plenty of issues with attack that limit variation. We’ve had one striker available for much of the season, so no proper alternative there. We’ve had Rashford and Garnacho as the two wide players consistently available. Amad injured for the first half of the season. Sancho missing all season. Antony has had his own issues. The attack has largely picked itself, with the only question being which two from Rashford, Antony and Sancho.

You would imagine that Mount was part of any plan that he had at the start of the season. But then he was injured all season. Mainoo was also key. But he was injured for first three months. If you think starting Scott McTominay weekly was Ten Hag’s plan and NOT just an idea yo get through Saturday, I’d say that is a strange take.

No one disputes that managing United has been a poisoned chalice under the Glazers and that we have had injuries this season. But….we are not talking about a failure by a proven winner like Klopp or Guardiola that would leave us all with a sense that the club is cursed. We took a punt on a manager from a 3rd tier league (with a one-time cup run 5 years ago that ended in out-Spursing Spurs) in the hope that he could step up. Despite a promising 3 month spell from December 2022 to February 2023, it appears, on the evidence of nearly two full seasons, that he is badly out of his depth and lacks the skillset to compete against managers in the richest league in the world (or from leading clubs in Turkey and Denmark). Why the need for such impassioned debate? We took a (reasonable at the time) gamble, it failed, now let’s move on.to try someone else like any other club would.
 
Exactly. The way we're playing is totally and utterly unforgivable, and that's taking injuries etc. into account.

The way we are playing is predicated on the idea that we have to evolve the football and not go backwards to a deep sitting counter attack. Because if we do that we will never evolve. We will just carry on buying the kind of players that fit that system. There is a logic to ETH's position, even if we look like a pile of shite and lose every game. I mean at this point in the season does it actually matter that much?

I mean yeah, it's fekkin stupid. But that's the nature of being stuck with players and not being able to spend your way out of a hole. It will take time to clean up this mess.
 
Palace alone could have easily put 2 or 3 more past us if Eze's final ball had been better. Been this way for the whole season.
And their xG wasn’t even that high, it was merely 1.75.

I struggle to think of a single game where we could have felt hard done by the number of goals conceded and in about 75% of the ones we’ve played it felt like we conceded fewer than we should have… Brentford, Everton, Newcastle, Villa away off the top of my head, should have conceded way more than we did.
 
Let him work it out on his own. This is @pocco finest moment

I'm siding with two ex MUFC footballers who were coached by the best, over a United supporter turned journalist (who had flip flopped on his opinion on Ten Hag once already). Any day of the week. The feck does Mitten know about coaching? Nothing, it's just his job to report on gossip. And I bet even then Owen and Scholes have a much better line into the club than Mitten and know what's going on better than him right now.

So I wouldn't act too sure of yourself when you're clearly the one backing the wrong horse. @Plant0x84 this is in response to you too.
 
I'm siding with two ex MUFC footballers who were coached by the best, over a United supporter turned journalist (who had flip flopped on his opinion on Ten Hag once already). Any day of the week. The feck does Mitten know about coaching? Nothing, it's just his job to report on gossip. And I bet even then Owen and Scholes have a much better line into the club than Mitten and know what's going on better than him right now.

So I wouldn't act too sure of yourself when you're clearly the one backing the wrong horse. @Plant0x84 this is in response to you too.

I take you dont know who Mitten is
 
Some random Spanish journalist (barely) has caught wind of an Englishman hiring an Englishmen before English journalists get wind of it. Makes sense.
 
Which of the teenagers on the subs bench would like him to have put in instead?

The problem is that he didn’t offer them any protection from a tactical perspective. He could’ve played a more compact and defensive shape and try to get Palace on the counter rather than leave both Case and Evans with no midfield protection.
 
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.

Not going to lie, I had no idea this was a particular skillset of Mclaren. Mind you, if Sir Alex picked him then there must be something to him qualititively.
 
Going to a back 3/ultra defensive and counter at this point is an absolute waste of time.

They do not have to get thrown into a dysfunctional side and I think you know that's not how anyone would expect these kids to make their debut. Mainoo and Garnacho have got their on merit, these guys are there because there's no one else.

I think you're setting them up for failure, attackers get a much longer rope. A CB would need guiding through a game at that level for their debut. They'd be absolutely lost at sea.

I just don't think it's an experience conducive to development, if you actually care about their development.
And getting spanked by everyone isn’t? I’d rather a manager try something different and set us up with a chance of getting a result.
 
The problem is that he didn’t offer them any protection from a tactical perspective. He could’ve played a more compact and defensive shape and try to get Palace on the counter rather than leave both Case and Evans with no midfield protection.

You're wasting your time. The issues have been there all season, with much better options on the bench. These posters just can't see what's right in front of them and it's not your job to have to spell it out for them. Yet after every game they'll find one thing that wasn't ideal and cling to it, as though there's no other option but to do what he's done tactically. In the end it just all adds up to him intentionally setting us up this way.

The "fool me once" saying comes to mind, except these posters have been fooled 40-50 times this season already. So what's the logical conclusion as to why? They're just fools.
 
This is just becoming toxic situation. Same but different with our previous managers.

Club needs to come out and say something. You either say that he stays or you let him go tomorrow. There is nothing in between. As a big club there needs to be some kind of communication in this kind of times. Otherwise press and so called experts will speculate and we know how they love talking about us.

But I don't expect them do anything like they haven't about referees and VAR.
 
I came here just to support the manager! Bring pep to coach the team that lost to crystal palace yesterday and we will still lose. We lack quality players and players who have determination! How many manutd players last night will get into crystal palace squad???
Seriously? :lol:
 
I'm siding with two ex MUFC footballers who were coached by the best, over a United supporter turned journalist (who had flip flopped on his opinion on Ten Hag once already). Any day of the week. The feck does Mitten know about coaching? Nothing, it's just his job to report on gossip. And I bet even then Owen and Scholes have a much better line into the club than Mitten and know what's going on better than him right now.

So I wouldn't act too sure of yourself when you're clearly the one backing the wrong horse. @Plant0x84 this is in response to you too.
I mean, we know the bold bit alone is bollocks. Quite embarrassing how little you know about Mitten. Your view on ex players is quite hilarious.
 
This is just becoming toxic situation. Same but different with our previous managers.

Club needs to come out and say something. You either say that he stays or you let him go tomorrow. There is nothing in between. As a big club there needs to be some kind of communication in this kind of times. Otherwise press and so called experts will speculate and we know how they love talking about us.

But I don't expect them do anything like they haven't about referees and VAR.
Agree 100%. The fans and players need to know what’s going on.
 
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