Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Beachryan]

I just don't see how certain posters square two things they're simlutaenously posting:
1. This squad is broken and they'd only keep 10 odd players
2. ETH should be doing better with the above

I guess we'll see. By Christmas it'll be one or the other: we'll see a massive improvement with new players or he'll be gone.

 

[Marching On!]

All the manager has done with these constant injury remarks is give the players something to hide behind.

We've seen it with Casemiro's comments yesterday, blaming injuries rather than the poor performances and decision making we've seen ever since Wolves at home. You're still accountable for your own performances.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

I just don't see how certain posters square two things they're simlutaenously posting:
1. This squad is broken and they'd only keep 10 odd players
2. ETH should be doing better with the above

I guess we'll see. By Christmas it'll be one or the other: we'll see a massive improvement with new players or he'll be gone.

It's easy: the squad and manager should be good enough for top 4 but not good enough to mount a title challenge.

 

[stefan92]

I just don't see how certain posters square two things they're simlutaenously posting:
1. This squad is broken and they'd only keep 10 odd players
2. ETH should be doing better with the above

I guess we'll see. By Christmas it'll be one or the other: we'll see a massive improvement with new players or he'll be gone.

The squad is broken and instead of finding working acceptable solutions for that on the pitch EtH just fields a broken team. That's how to square those two points.

The current squad isn't well balanced and most likely won't win anything big, but it isn't that bad that it has to rival relegated teams in a lot of stats. That's on EtH.

 

[NLunited]

Arteta finished in 8th, after being appointed while they were in 10th.

Also, it's not just the position in the league that people criticize Ten Hag.

Arteta
8th, 56 goals, +8 GD, 47 xG (13th), xPts 50.2 (9th)
8th, 55 goals, +16 GD, 51.8 xG (10th), xGD +8 (7th), xPts 58.7 (8th)
5th, 61 goals, +13 GD, 60.5 xG (5th), xPts 64.7( 5th)
2nd, 88 goals, +45 GD, 71.9 xG (5th), xPts 72.5 (2nd)
2nd, 89 goals, +69 GD, 73.2 xG (4th), xPts 81.9 (2nd)

-Improvement every step of the way
-Performances equaling their results

Ten Hag
3rd, 58 goals, +15 GD, 67.7 xG (6th), 66.4 xPts (6th)
8th, 57 goals, -1 GD, 56.3 xG (10th), -12.8 xGD, +44.4 xPts (15th)

United result wise are actually doing better than what their performances actually show, which is what almost everyone that watches United will tell you via the eye test. That's not a good sign at all.

So United are scoring the same amount of goals as Arsenal in Arteta's 8th place side, should probably score 4 more than Arteta, but defensively United are conceding far more than Arteta's side, and are expected to finish far worse than they really did. So United tactically through their performances are showing that even though they are scoring as much, and should be scoring barely a hair over what Arteta's 8th place side did, are only able to achieve that mark by setting themselves up in a way that they sacrifice defensive stability in a terrible way.

I don't see how you find that acceptable. Even if you ignore the fact that United outspent Arteta by 200m euros (if you generously include the first season that Arteta was not included in the transfer period decisions), why would you believe in Ten Hag's set up that only gives you Arteta 8th place side attack, while giving United its Premier League 6th worst defensive side? Usually you can justify suicide football by the massive uptick in attacking performance. You don't get that with United's set up.

For example, Ange actually has Spurs with an expected goals conceded just below United's (14th best or 7th worst defensive side), but with the bonus of giving Spurs its 6th best attacking side in the PL (expecting 13 more goals than United). You can point to a clear benefit of his style of football. United really is just suicide football. Ten Hag is giving us midtable attacking output with relegation level defense. So on an entertainment level, United are boring to watch in attack, while making us feel like we just stole points away from the opposition.

Do your analysis again while taking into account injuries, the lack of squad depth and so on.

The fact that we looked boring in half our games or so has to do with poor form of Rashford/Antony, Højlund needing time and lack of ball playing ability to progress the ball forward.

The plan was to play more attacking football this season, but we got hamstrung by failing in transfers and injuries. Instead of a new cb we got Evans (love him as a back up but he can‘t play the system we wanted to
play).

Pool‘s football would be suicide without Virgil there to defend the counters.

You can argue we should have abandoned the new strategy and played more oragmatic this season. Maybe we would have finished 5th or 6th but it would not have been progress.

To sum it up, I think it is bollocks to claim this style can‘t work or is suicidal. Pool does it as well as other teams.

If we have decided this is our style (I take this over the zombie passing football many are advocating for), then you have to do it, even if results aren‘t there right away, like Arteta.

 

[NLunited]

I didn't make anything up.

Claiming Arteta did better in his first two seasons is making stuff up.

 

[pocco]

I just don't see how certain posters square two things they're simlutaenously posting:
1. This squad is broken and they'd only keep 10 odd players
2. ETH should be doing better with the above

I guess we'll see. By Christmas it'll be one or the other: we'll see a massive improvement with new players or he'll be gone.

Don't forget that football fans aren't great at judging players for the most part. Half of our posters thought Rice and Havertz were crap or overrated, but now they've just had really good seasons for Arsenal.

I agree with Owen and Scholes in that we genuinely have some good, talented players. To the point that we should look a lot better than we do right now, but not necessarily good enough to challenge City. Look at Villa, they were near the bottom of the league and nobody really rated most of their players, then Emery comes in and suddenly they're rated well. I think we could be in that situation with a new manager next season, though we will probably improve the squad a bit anyway.

 

[Desert Eagle]

I just don't see how certain posters square two things they're simlutaenously posting:
1. This squad is broken and they'd only keep 10 odd players
2. ETH should be doing better with the above

I guess we'll see. By Christmas it'll be one or the other: we'll see a massive improvement with new players or he'll be gone.

Point 1 is in terms of challenging for the title

Point 2 is we should still be comfortably in the top 4 if you consider the time and investment ETH has had.

 

[pocco]

Claiming Arteta did better in his first two seasons is making stuff up.

That depends on what metric you are measuring him by. Rebuilding the club? A lot better. Results? Not as good.

But look at the outcome.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Claiming Arteta did better in his first two seasons is making stuff up.

"Arteta never had a poor season as this nor was he as backed initially financially,

The comparison makes no sense. There was linear progression with Arteta. "

The above is what I said. I never claimed Arteta did better in his 1st two seasons. I stated he didn't have a season as bad as this one nor was he backed financially initially to the extent ETH was. And I stated there was linear progression with Arteta. A clear progression from each season and no regression.

Seems like you're the one making stuff up.

 

[hobbers]

So if people try to find reasons or rational for poor without it just being the manager not being good enough people are deluded or acolytes? Where’s the room for discussion?

Are all those that want him gone smarter by default? Even if he isn’t the one to say the injuries we’ve had don’t affect performances aren’t being fair. Even if players aren’t out for long the fall off from the 11 that play the football he wants and the replacements are evident.

Nobody trying to provide context has been blindly defending the manager from what I’ve seen but are treated like idiots for doing so. Feels like anything positive he has done is ignored and things that have gone against him amplified. Think most managers suggested would have struggled similarly with the issues he has.

The context that you're missing here is that nearly 30% have voted to give Ten Hag another season.

The forum could talk to the cows come home about everything else wrong with the club and the squad but it'll be easier once ETH is gone. Just like Ineos' rebuilding job

 

[big_jeffstar]

That depends on what metric you are measuring him by. Rebuilding the club? A lot better. Results? Not as good.

But look at the outcome.

Worth remembering that most Arsenal fans want rid of him too

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

People still making comparisons to other managers are really stretching at this point.

I am dumbfounded that he has people willing to give him another season. Truly incomprehensible.

 

[pocco]

Worth remembering that most Arsenal fans want rid of him too

They did. I said many times that I can see what he's trying to do and that it would be a dominant style of play once their players gain experience and they improve their squad a bit. I don't see that at all with us, though I think that is exactly what Wilcox is looking for.

 

[NLunited]

"Arteta never had a poor season as this nor was he as backed initially financially,

The comparison makes no sense. There was linear progression with Arteta. "

The above is what I said. I never claimed Arteta did better in his 1st two seasons. I stated he didn't have a season as bad as this one nor was he backed financially initially to the extent ETH was. And I stated there was linear progression with Arteta. A clear progression from each season and no regression.

Seems like you're the one making stuff up.

Um, no, Ten Hag did better over the first two seasons than Arteta, that’s just a fact.

So if we finished 8th and 3rd, it would have been better? Nah, we finished where we did because of injuries and starting to play a new style without all the pieces in place to do it.

 

[Fallon d'Floor]

Worth remembering that most Arsenal fans want rid of him too

Some of them still don't rate him even now.

The one thing that Arteta had in his favour was his age. He was 37 when arrived at Arsenal.

ten Hag should be in his peak years as a manager. He's 54.

 

[Who's Kissing Cameras?]

We were officially the worst coached team in the league.

The worst. Pound for pound. 1 game a week since January for training pitch work.

That is all that is needed to be heard. INEOS will make the decision to get rid of ETH. He has failed.

 

[Who's Kissing Cameras?]

Nah, we finished where we did because of injuries and starting to play a new style without all the pieces in place to do it.

We played a style of football for 35 PL games in a row that Matthaus, Xavi and Gullit would’ve looked shite in.

All pouring into the opposition half and running back to their own goal 20 times a game.

 

[TsuWave]

OK then you can look at a different season.

In 20/21, Real Madrid had a serious injury crisis. The Athletic wrote an article about it. They had 60+ injuries. This Real Madrid was not a top 2 team in the world, it was the post-Ronaldo years when they weren't as good. The manager was Zidane, who is not an all-time great.

They got 84 points in the league, scored 67 and conceded 28. The previous season they had 87 points, scored 70 and conceded 25. So worse but not much different.

You’re fighting a losing battle. Some of these Manchester United fans will fight tooth and nail to tell you that it’s OK for a manager (that’s spent like nearly half a billie in two years) to finish 8th, with a negative goal difference, and with some of the worst football and metrics for the club in prem history - because “injuries”. They might sprinkle “structure” and “Arteta” in there sometimes to spice it up a bit.

 

[100]

The season can be summed up by the Wolves game. The optimism was at its highest with the new additions. They ran through us for 90 minutes.

No big deal - first game nerves, teething problems for Onana, the Mount / Bruno system. Few adjustments needed to tighten up at the back.

30 games later and bar one or few exceptions, we were playing the same way.

 

[MadMike]

That depends on what metric you are measuring him by. Rebuilding the club? A lot better. Results? Not as good.

But look at the outcome.

He's a head coach. Most of the club rebuilding was done by Edu, not Arteta.

 

[Who's Kissing Cameras?]

He's a head coach. Most of the club rebuilding was done by Edu, not Arteta.

He was promoted to First Team Manager in 2021/2022.

 

[Maticmaker]

There's never a right time to hire a new manager. It's always a risk and always requires a big slice of luck.

Honestly if you really believe that is the way to look at the process of appointing a manager, then perhaps our exchange of views should end here.

For years United fans use to keep telling ourselves precisely that, in between Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson,era's, and it led to some twenty odd years in the footballing wilderness.

It carried on after SAF, finished, first appointing a man who had no idea the size of the job; then a 'yesterday's man'; then a man with a recorded of silverware, but little entertainment value; then a very good ex-player (with legendary status) who made an excellent 'interim' manager but did not have the experience required for the permanent job; now we have a man who had built a reputation, but outside the EPL and we want to give him the boot, with no second chance.

Perhaps we should invest in a rabbits foot or other lucky charm

What is the single characteristic missing since Busby and again after Ferguson?.... Succession Planning, the club has never done that, even before the Glazers.

Sir Jim and the people he seems to be appointing offer some hope on that score.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Pool‘s football would be suicide without Virgil there to defend the counters.

Liverpool conceded less goals in 16/17 (without Virgil) and 20/21 (long-term injury to Virgil) than United did last season with Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Casemiro...

 

[MadMike]

He was promoted to First Team Manager in 2021/2022.

Exactly. So based on his title alone, he had no involvement in the rebuilding on the squad in the years 19/20 and 20/21 when he was finishing 8th. Which was the whole argument to begin with ("he was getting bad results, but he was rebuilding the club")

 

[Woziak]

You can’t lose 19-20 games as a United coach and keep your job, it’s that simple!

 

[Alex99]

Honestly if you really believe that is the way to look at the process of appointing a manager, then perhaps our exchange of views should end here.

For years United fans use to keep telling ourselves precisely that, in between Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson,era's, and it led to some twenty odd years in the footballing wilderness.

It carried on after SAF, finished, first appointing a man who had no idea the size of the job; then a 'yesterday's man'; then a man with a recorded of silverware, but little entertainment value; then a very good ex-player (with legendary status) who made an excellent 'interim' manager but did not have the experience required for the permanent job; now we have a man who had built a reputation, but outside the EPL and we want to give him the boot, with no second chance.

Perhaps we should invest in a rabbits foot or other lucky charm

What is the single characteristic missing since Busby and again after Ferguson?.... Succession Planning, the club has never done that, even before the Glazers.

Sir Jim and the people he seems to be appointing offer some hope on that score.

The lack of succession planning has really been the killer. Fergie tried to retire in the early 00s, changed his mind, then spent the latter part of his career on a rolling contract, yet the club seemed completely blind-sided by his retirement.

 

[Bobski]

We played a style of football for 35 PL games in a row that Matthaus, Xavi and Gullit would’ve looked shite in.

All pouring into the opposition half and running back to their own goal 20 times a game.

No-one has an explanation for the midfield set up beyond wishy-washy moving to a new system generalities. The amount of times Utd were pressing with 5 guys and 1 pass would go through and suddenly there was a 50 yard gap between defense and attack with 1 poor fool in deep midfield trying to deal with multiple runners was insane. We had fans calling the midfielders lazy when the set up had them attempting constant high intensity sprints over distance. Nothing about it was sustainable in match let alone over a season.

Add to that the constant hoofing balls down the channels as the main attacking tactic, the total lack of focus on implementing periods of controlled possession that might have given the team some rest periods, press high, force turnover, hoof, repeat. That was it.

Impossible to watch and think injuries were the key factor. What have people seen from post league cup to now to suggest that Ten Hag is capable to building a team that can compete?

 

[RedC]

You’re fighting a losing battle. Some of these Manchester United fans will fight tooth and nail to tell you that it’s OK for a manager (that’s spent like nearly half a billie in two years) to finish 8th, with a negative goal difference, and with some of the worst football and metrics for the club in prem history - because “injuries”. They might sprinkle “structure” and “Arteta” in there sometimes to spice it up a bit.

I think some people actually just have the ability to consider multiple factors when assessing a situation. I haven't seen a single person on the forum say that any of this season was ok, or absolve the manager of blame, the main point people are trying to make is that considering Ten Hag a complete bust because of this season is more than likely not very fair.

 

[NLunited]

Liverpool conceded less goals in 16/17 (without Virgil) and 20/21 (long-term injury to Virgil) than United did last season with Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Casemiro...

Pool were a lot worse without Virgil, that’s the point I’m making.

Last season we had the most clean sheets, despite De Gea making a bunch of mistakes.

 

[hobbers]

Last season we had the most clean sheets, despite De Gea making a bunch of mistakes.

Because we played Ole's system with better players than he had.

 

[stevoc]

Honestly if you really believe that is the way to look at the process of appointing a manager, then perhaps our exchange of views should end here.

For years United fans use to keep telling ourselves precisely that, in between Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson,era's, and it led to some twenty odd years in the footballing wilderness.

You don't think every managerial appointment is a risk to varying degrees?

Or you dont think you need a bit of fortune in finding the right man at the right time to take over when you need a new manager?

Or both?

It carried on after SAF, finished, first appointing a man who had no idea the size of the job; then a 'yesterday's man'; then a man with a recorded of silverware, but little entertainment value; then a very good ex-player (with legendary status) who made an excellent 'interim' manager but did not have the experience required for the permanent job; now we have a man who had built a reputation, but outside the EPL and we want to give him the boot, with no second chance.

Perhaps we should invest in a rabbits foot or other lucky charm

What is the single characteristic missing since Busby and again after Ferguson?.... Succession Planning, the club has never done that, even before the Glazers.

Sir Jim and the people he seems to be appointing offer some hope on that score.

No second chance?

Van Gaal got the boot for missing 4th on GD despite winning the Cup.

Jose and Ole got sacked after bad runs of 10-15 games. But nothing as awful as we've witnessed this season.

Had the takeover shenanigans not been taking place before Xmas, Ten Hag most likely would have been sacked then. But he wasn't because there was no one in place other than an interim Ceo to make the decision.

He's had his second chance, more than his predecessors got and he's squandered it if we're being honest.

 

[Fallon d'Floor]

Exactly. So based on his title alone, he had no involvement in the rebuilding on the squad in the years 19/20 and 20/21 when he was finishing 8th. Which was the whole argument to begin with ("he was getting bad results, but he was rebuilding the club")

Most of Arsenal's best players over the past 2 seasons were signed or developed before Edu took the role of Sporting Director.

Saliba was signed in 2019
Martinelli was signed in 2019
Gabriel was signed in 2020
Partey was signed in 2020
Ødegaard was initially loaned in during the 20/21 season before signing permanently
Saka was already at the club and converted to a RW by Arteta

Edu can take credit for Trossard, Rice and Havertz.

 

[Newstyle]

And the injuries could have something to do with the manager's choices regarding whether to rotate or not and the intensity of training, while his exceptionally high net expenditure in year 1 had consequences for the amount of transfer funds in subsequent years.

Managerial choices have consequences. We finished 8th due to those choices. Ten Hag's fingerprints are all over the crime scene.

If you use a central midfield partnership of Casemiro + Eriksen in year 1 then quite frankly, you deserve what you get in year 2; performance decline is almost inevitable. Ten Hag thought spending £55m on Mason Mount was the answer; yet another blunder.

Ten Hag is probably an elite Eredivisie manager but when it comes to the PL, it he has made some absolutely bizarre decisions from strategy to tactics, player identification, team preparation and so on.

Love this quote.

 

[NLunited]

The season can be summed up by the Wolves game. The optimism was at its highest with the new additions. They ran through us for 90 minutes.

No big deal - first game nerves, teething problems for Onana, the Mount / Bruno system. Few adjustments needed to tighten up at the back.

30 games later and bar one or few exceptions, we were playing the same way.

They ran through us because we lost every duel: you can’t play this system without having a baseline of hard work and aggression.

You are right though that it kept on happening. But we did get it right sometimes, although rarely for a whole game.

 

[TsuWave]

I think some people actually just have the ability to consider multiple factors when assessing a situation. I haven't seen a single person on the forum say that any of this season was ok, or absolve the manager of blame, the main point people are trying to make is that considering Ten Hag a complete bust because of this season is more than likely not very fair.

For some reason you read that post and thought multiple factors weren’t considered when assessing the situation - despite the post outlining multiple factors. So much for said ability.

I do understand people reserve the right to discuss “degrees of fairness”, ultimately that’s not a conversation I’m interested in - when it comes to managing Manchester United - Ten Hag has underperformed, as such, the outcome should be clear.

 

[NLunited]

We played a style of football for 35 PL games in a row that Matthaus, Xavi and Gullit would’ve looked shite in.

All pouring into the opposition half and running back to their own goal 20 times a game.

Yes which is not intended to happen. If we defend proactively and take care of the ball there is no tennis chaos ball. A smart foul once and a while would help too.

 

[golden_blunder]

Ok, so a better example, but still comparing a team that had won an outrageous amount of things up to that point with the manager, with what I can imagine was a much better squad. It's a bit different to a manager in their second season trying to set a style of play at a floundering club with some awful structural issues. There's no question he should have done better, I'm just not sure there's really a manager in existence that could have done a lot better if put in his shoes.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to argue this, as I'm not particularly Ten Hag in, I just think this season was a complete shit show, putting aside his mistakes.

Shit show of structure and injuries aside, the number one failing is not recognizing his midfield setup doesn’t work OR did recognize it but chose to do nothing about it. Its that stubbornness that will get him sacked

 

[MadMike]

Most of Arsenal's best players over the past 2 seasons were signed or developed before Edu took the role of Sporting Director.

Saliba was signed in 2019
Martinelli was signed in 2019
Gabriel was signed in 2020
Partey was signed in 2020
Ødegaard was initially loaned in during the 20/21 season before signing permanently
Saka was already at the club and converted to a RW by Arteta

Edu can take credit for Trossard, Rice and Havertz.

Edu was the Technical Director at Arsenal since July 2019. He was working under Raul Sanllehi who was the Head of Football. When Sanllehi got fired in August 2020, Edu was the most senior director with regards to football matters and has remained that ever since. Edu finally got the title of Sporting Director (new role) in November 2022 and the Head of Football role was officially scrapped. But he has de facto been the Technical Director/Head of Football whatever you wanna call it, since August 2020.

Even so, I would say Technical Director would have more involvement on the building of a squad than a head coach. The caveat about the 19/20 season, is that we don't know how much the transfers were input/decisions from Sanllehi or from Edu, or both.

 

[fergiewherearethou]

No second chance?

Van Gaal got the boot for missing 4th on GD despite winning the Cup.

Jose and Ole got sacked after bad runs of 10-15 games. But nothing as awful as we've witnessed this season.

Had the takeover shenanigans not been taking place before Xmas, Ten Hag most likely would have been sacked then. But he wasn't because there was no one in place other than an interim Ceo to make the decision.

He's had his second chance, more than his predecessors got and he's squandered it if we're being honest.

Agree 100%.
All the games after December(and the humiliation in the CL stages )seemed like second chances for ETH, if he didn't get any I don't know who did.