There's not a single top quality source that has strongly linked us to Southgate.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
- Thread starter sewey89
- Start date
- Status
Good for the most part. We won 2 trophies in the next 2 seasons and qualified for the CL in both. While the football under Jose wasn't the best it was definitely far less sleep inducing than Van Gaal ball. The dark days where a shot on goal was a highlight in games.
To be honest, I'd be more surprised if he actually stays, FA Cup win or no.
He won't. It would be the ultimate sign of incompetence from Ineos. The only reason to keep him was because there weren't many options besides Southgate a few weeks ago, and most managers staying, but the situation has changed now.
Lets hope there is a minimum in such matters with players arriving with the right profile and leaving only when their ambition /legs goes. With managers I recall a management consultant's quote that " when a manager (any set up) has done five years, if he won't leave then chuck him out, because after five years he has already made any difference he is likely to have done... and has nothing more to offer".
Bit harsh perhaps, but wonder if Sir Jim has read the same book?
Seems harsh but it could be true.
I think Chelsea will be Pochettino's last big job, probably end up somewhere like Spurs, Everton or Newcastle next.
I’m sure the decision has already been made and the Cup Final won’t make a difference. Still find it extremely difficult to believe he won’t be sacked as they’ve made no attempt to clarify his position and it’s a huge risk to start a season with a manager on the brink of the sack.
Think INEOS are just doing a better job of keeping their intentions secret but in sure he will be gone early next week.
Mourinho’s football was terrible, the EL run was a slog to watch.
I totally agree we were very boring in LvG’s second season. That could have been fixed by the right manager.
Nothing can fix Mourinho ball, you start over.
I've read from someone on twitter(who used to leak lineups), that the only reason he's stayed so long this season is because they are looking to save money, something about him leaving on his own after the season.
There are two ways of looking at it I guess. On the flip side we devolved into a team that often parked the bus and countered against the best teams and he said himself it wasn't sustainable ("my best achievement getting second place with this team"). That really has set the tone for the following years, first with Ole who played with a variant of this style, and EtH who did something similar last season.
The best thing (only thing?) you can say for LvG is that he wanted us to boss games and dominate the ball. One of the reasons I don't want Southgate is for another manager to come in , get top 4 with dour, hard to beat football and then be all clueless when taking the next step.
If the leaks are coming directly from the men above him, it is classless. However if the leaks are coming from a different camp, there is nothing the club can do about that.
You cannot force the club to not consider his replacements due to some concerns that it may be leaked. If they have not let him know yet, that is fine too since they may not want to disrupt the team morale before a cup final.
Nothing they can do except not allow a silly situation like this to develop in the first place.
If they've decided ETH isnt worth a contract extension and needs to go in the summer, then sack him when that decision is made. Otherwise you risk this happening every time you start a conversation with another managers agent.
If it's a fact that ETH is not staying beyond this season, then keeping him around until then has benefitted absolutely no one. Not like it's kept our football at an acceptable level or we've won more games thanks to him.
Ineos have basically repeated the same mistake the Glazers made when they decided not to back Mourinho at the end of his second season, but then failed to sack him.
Maybe they wanted to save some money based on the CL qualification clause, which was not triggered until the last 2-3 weeks, by which point it made no sense to sack him and get in a new man. Also we didn’t really have the structure above the manager set up by then to actually take a call on this.
Again, I am not trying to justify him staying on - he should have been sacked months ago, but just playing devil’s advocate as to why the club has not triggered it yet.
Erm, what
There were periods under Mourinho were the football wasn't bad actually but yeah towards the end of the season he tended to get more pragmatic and defensive.
Would be very typical of us to miss out on the good managers who are on the market because we took too long to sack ETH
I meant Ten Hag's lawyer. It auto changes to "pep guardiola is my idol" when you type "bald fraudd" if you type fraud correctly
No there is definitely no progress. We've been giving the ball away way more than last season, we are much less fluid, AND every single team we've played against including relegation fodder and championship teams has had a tone of chances against us. Where is the progress?
We will have an agreement with a new manager before we sack him imo. Berrada will have a big say and he doesn’t officially work for us yet. It’s a tricky situation to navigate, not as easy as just firing Ten Hag and hoping for the best, otherwise we end up with a manager the new structure doesn’t even really want and we end up in chaos again. There’s really no rush on any of this. It’s more important to get it right than to do it fast.
guy's sounding more and more "football heritage" adjacent to me
Seemed very confident in presser and spoke well for once
He really is a shit manager.
All the budget in the world and he chooses players that doesnt fit his style, players that he coached before and failed to see the biggest glaring weakness of not being good at the basic and sanctioned 80M for it
And I don't buy manager has no input on the price. They would be notified, to the very least the budget available, which players they want as priority, how to spent the budget and what sort of alternative should the main target is too expensive. As the head coach that's what they're paid for.
Do you honestly believe ETH simply list 7 players he wanted without doing priority, backup plan, and valuation of such players according to his expertise (football manager)? If you can't get 7 at least you priorities on the most crucial players that can benefit the team and make your system works, finding compromise with loans, academies, or makeshift player. The idea that it's not his fault because he doesnt get all 7 so his system can't work is stupid.
Maybe ETH dont and wont need to dwell with how many percentages of the payment upfront, or the financial installment and the details but simply 80M for Antony would uses 50% of this year budget. Is it ok or would you like someone else and spread the budget accordingly? Manager seen hundrers of matches around the world and by right he should have a good list of players that fit his system, how much roughly is their fair market price, how much budget is available. We're not talking about finding the next Messi. Even armchair managers have a decent list of good players let alone a manager of Manchester United which should have agents phoning him right left center
Not saying anything is simply neglecting the very main job of a manager.
Even if it's a scout and board recommendations it's his duty to consult and veto players that wont suit his system
All the budget in the world and he chooses players that doesnt fit his style, players that he coached before and failed to see the biggest glaring weakness of not being good at the basic and sanctioned 80M for it
And I don't buy manager has no input on the price. They would be notified, to the very least the budget available, which players they want as priority, how to spent the budget and what sort of alternative should the main target is too expensive. As the head coach that's what they're paid for.
Do you honestly believe ETH simply list 7 players he wanted without doing priority, backup plan, and valuation of such players according to his expertise (football manager)? If you can't get 7 at least you priorities on the most crucial players that can benefit the team and make your system works, finding compromise with loans, academies, or makeshift player. The idea that it's not his fault because he doesnt get all 7 so his system can't work is stupid.
Maybe ETH dont and wont need to dwell with how many percentages of the payment upfront, or the financial installment and the details but simply 80M for Antony would uses 50% of this year budget. Is it ok or would you like someone else and spread the budget accordingly? Manager seen hundrers of matches around the world and by right he should have a good list of players that fit his system, how much roughly is their fair market price, how much budget is available. We're not talking about finding the next Messi. Even armchair managers have a decent list of good players let alone a manager of Manchester United which should have agents phoning him right left center
Not saying anything is simply neglecting the very main job of a manager.
Even if it's a scout and board recommendations it's his duty to consult and veto players that wont suit his system
Last edited:
Sounds like a sacked manager setting his stall out like a Michael Owen advert brochure. Hopefully.
He has earned the right to be bullish about by delivering the cup last year, let it sink in, we won the cup. That was huge, for a club like Manchester United, to win that cup was something special.
And risk our preferred candidates moving to another club in the meantime? Ya, no, that would be stupid
If you look at our squad compared to that of a City or a Liverpool you can easily see that we have a mix of 3-5 manager's players. Its like being asked to put together a Lego set of the Titanic, but you have pieces for like 4 other sets included. ETH in my opinion needs time to implement his squad without dealing with leftover pieces that dont fit his puzzle. I thought he worked miracles with last years team to be honest and this year... its been overall a more competitive year in the premier league and we didnt hit the targets we shot for, but to just throw it out is a bit quick to shoot and slow to ask questions.
We will have a fantastic idea of what we are by next Winter transfer period, and if its not what the board think is acceptable then I am behind them, but he has not been given enough time.
We have a final to play.
Wont be a good thing either to tell you're sacked after the final regardless of what happens
You'd think we'd never won a fecking league cup before my goodness.
I agree with the bolded part. The progress is the following:
-replacing DeGea with a gk comfortable playing out the back
-a high pressing approach as a baseline
-more chance creation
We haven’t seen the results overall, for which there are mitigating circumstances.
There have been ups and downs with each point.
Playing another pragmatic season would not have been progress, although it might have gotten us top four.
We need to keep building, not start over again.
The way he's constantly tried to big himself up these last few months is a little pathetic. Clearly feels like everybody should appreciate the wonderful job he's doing. He's Mourinho without the charisma
I dont disagree that there are things he could have done better, but its not all on him. This board has been shite to him in many ways.
First season - Ronaldo fiasco with a player that we should have never brought back. That was poor business looking back on it and only tugged on emotional heart strings and not really trying to better the club going forward. That took a lot out of this team and its unity in my opinion. ETH had to fix that and carry on.
He scores a top 4 finish and a trophy with a FA cup final that we lost. I would say overall that is a good season.
Last summer transfer market was a joke. We signed Mount (for what?) and our board dicked around until the last minute. How many games had we played already before our striker got his first game time? Most of our summer signings came late and therefore we had a awful preseason with no time to unify the squad. Sancho does his bullshite and we cant keep anybody healthy...
His style is playing out the back, and yet the players that we have that can play with the ball at their feet out of the back are hurt. Its not ETH's fault we overpaid for Antony and I will be the first to say it.. watch him have a good year this next season...
Just needs a bit more time and I think it will pay off.
Just my 2 cents
First season - Ronaldo fiasco with a player that we should have never brought back. That was poor business looking back on it and only tugged on emotional heart strings and not really trying to better the club going forward. That took a lot out of this team and its unity in my opinion. ETH had to fix that and carry on.
He scores a top 4 finish and a trophy with a FA cup final that we lost. I would say overall that is a good season.
Last summer transfer market was a joke. We signed Mount (for what?) and our board dicked around until the last minute. How many games had we played already before our striker got his first game time? Most of our summer signings came late and therefore we had a awful preseason with no time to unify the squad. Sancho does his bullshite and we cant keep anybody healthy...
His style is playing out the back, and yet the players that we have that can play with the ball at their feet out of the back are hurt. Its not ETH's fault we overpaid for Antony and I will be the first to say it.. watch him have a good year this next season...
Just needs a bit more time and I think it will pay off.
Just my 2 cents
the cup - the holy grail, bigger than any champions league or premier league. It’s the cup, the biggest trophy that Manutd has earned in its entire existence. We should consider ourselves lucky and blessed for the cup was ours for an entire year, the cup.
He is a charisma vaccum.
At the beginning he was saying injuries were part of the game, we should play better, yada, yada, yada but started using them as an excuse as the pressure ramped up and he couldn't get a tune out of our players with his crazy tactics. Really pathetic.
Even Spurs havent won a cup. And we aspire to be like them.
Yep he changed his tune when the results didn’t come and the injuries became even more ridiculous. It would have been weird to keep ignoring the injuries at that point.
He's leaned fully into the injuries excuse to absolve himself of any accountability. His tactic is transparent and makes him look like he cares more for his pride and ego than about the club.
It would've been reasonable to mention them as a mitigating factor if we at least consistently played well but results here and there didn't go in our favour. But they don't come close to excusing the utter shit show of this season, both in performances and results. He should learn the meaning of humility and exercise it.
Yes it auto corrects, probably to stop people making idiot posts.
exactly. feck injuries, he has been implementing his tactics with the group of players he has, and it has resulted in just abysmal performances. Constantly allowing a shitload of shots, zero midfield control, repeated games where we make the other team look like world beaters while we look like a brand new pub team.
There were hardly any long term injuries in the midfield and the attack. Whatever they were, they were manageable. Mount was a surplus, anyway.
It was the defense where we struggled the most. But there too we had Onana & Dalot who were available for the most part. The central defense & LB was a bit of a mess. Though that is why we have a big squad with 5 central defenders & Dalot who is totally capable of playing on the left. (Played most the season at Milan as a LB). Good managers overcome those situations and come out on top. That's why they get paid the big bucks. Also, our expectations weren't to win the title or leave a mark in the CL. What we didn't want was to get humiliated in a CL group with Gala and Copenhagen and to finish 8th in the league.
- Status