Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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I still think he will stay because (a) Firing him costs us a lot of money and (b) None of the alternatives are clearly better (and likely to gather unanimous support among decision makers). The path of least resistance will be to stick with him for one more year.
 
If you grade a manager like you grade an exam, I.e x% from PL position, x% style of play and performances, x% player development, x% CL position, x% other Cup competitions etc, one would think the logical deduction is still a low grade for EtH.

I believe many of us here said that he should go regardless of result before the FA cup final.

The only reason he should stay is if INEOS finds out that the injury crisis was a freak occurrence and not related to his training/ playstyle; EtH gives assurances that he has learnt from trying to implement his chaos ball style and will adapt; EtH is willing to work in a new structure with less say in transfers and be open to take onboard help in progressing our play

The injury crisis is almost a secondary issue. For me it should all be about how he managed that crisis, how did he approach dealing with that challenge and finding innovative solutions to keep the team competitive.

By every underlying statistic 8th massively flattered Utd, if they had finished 10th/11th/12th or even lower it would not have been an unfair position given the performances. Structurally Utd were an utter shambles for most of the season and injuries can not be used to hand-wave that away. They contributed but Ten Hag showed an inability to adapt his tactics to fit what he had available, his choices made Utd much less than the sum of their parts. That is hugely concerning to me if Utd choose to move forward with him, his management of the squad was not far off negligent for most of the league campaign, showing a disregard for basic areas of team structure.

A lot of people seem to act as if it was a binary choice between parking the bus with everyone behind the ball or what we ended up with, a 4-------1------------------------5 shambles.

Based on these 2 years you don't really want him near recruitment or tactical set up.
 
Why are you conviently forgetting the quite frankly horrible season until the final match and instead opting for nothing but praise and create a conspiracy theory that the criticism he has received is solely due to them being terrified of us getting back to the top? The final win was fantastic, but in no way can it completely overshadow how bad we have been since February 2023. It's like putting lipstick on a pig. I just cannot fathom anyone coming to your conclusion based on what we have witnessed this season.

It did show that he knows what he's doing tactically imo. That's important both in the league and even more so in knockout competitions, but it's also not sufficient to be competitive at the top of the league. I think there are better managers out there (Poch and Tuchel for example) but I have been impressed with how Ten Hag has handled some of the bigger games.
 
Imagine sacking him for De Zerbi/Poch who have 0 achievements with their teams. The minute he had most of the squad mostly fit, we were able to stand up to probably the best team in the past 15/20 years. And we did it with academy products. Look at the relationship he has with the players, he never threw them under the bus this whole season. He was praising them all the time. Poch is a bottle job, De Zerbi is not proven, I get Potter vibes.
I think Hag finally got the grip of what it means to be United manager and sacking him in the middle of the project is madness.
What about the other games martinez and Shaw were fit for when we were atrocious or do we just conveniently ignore those.

It's probably more worth noting the moment he changed his midfield setup we looked more solid. Why did it take so long for him to see what everyone else did for an age

We have played well for about 2-3 months of his tenure and that is surely not enough

Do we also just ignore the impact ten hags lack of rotation last season may well have had on our injury list as well

We played well against city but we won't often have the opportunity to play against such a high line on the counter and its all too easy to imagine us still being dross against other teams
 
I’ve watched Brighton a lot over the last two years due to having close friends connected to the club.

Even without mentioning his sensational 22/23 season, in 23/24 Brighton finished with an xGpts of 8th while dealing with similar injuries to us. And losing 150m worth of midfield talent without replacing them in Caicedo and Macallister. Their squad this season is very poor.

He also improved and raised the technical level of players like Veltman, Gilmour, Dunk, March and Welbeck in his time at Brighton. While heavily relying on youth like Buonanotte and Hinshelwood.

Brighton kept up their style of football, averaging the 4th highest possession, only behind City, Spurs and Liverpool. 10th in xG created, 8th in xGA. All higher underlying stats than Ten Hag’s Utd. Also has gotten the better of Ten Hag in every match up statistically including dominating Utd at Old Trafford with his B team earlier this season, winning 1-3 comfortably.

Since joining, he’s beaten every top 6 team bar City. And last season, beating Arsenal 0-3 at the Emirates. Arsenal fans will tell you that’s the best away performance they’ve seen from a team at their ground in a very long time.

Hopefully @The Boy can back up this statement. A lot of my Brighton friends didn’t want De Zerbi to go.
Brighton have been playing beautiful football before De Zerbi though. Have we forgotten about Potter and how much buzz there was about him? He left and Brighton, was supposed to be the next big thing , Brighton continued as usual and Potter failed spectacularly in making the big jump. The difference between Brighton and us is that have an actual proper footballing structure. The people in charge know what team they want and what structure they want. The coach is there to just streamline the process. I don't think if we de-aged SAF to be 50 years old or have Guardiola right now we'd be able to play beautiful football. Our squad isn't really that good, much of it created on the basis of individual quality that each manager wanted without any proper idea how the various players would fit. We don't have that system, but hopefully now we will. And we have a lot of potential with the coming talent ETH has developed.
 
The one thing that makes me okay with ETH getting sacked is that after 2 years, I dont understand the brand of football he wants to play. He keeps saying we want to play good football, attacking, but half the time I do not see it. I think injuries have not helped at all this year, but for a lot of the season we have had our main attackers available and I just don't understand what they do. The main striker never gets any service, we have most the players jogging around like they don't care, yes injuries didn't help but what's the reason that Rashford does not put any effort in, Antony his 80m choice has done nothing, casemiro even when in midfield watched people glide past him, erikson has disappeared, mount although has been mainly injured, I just don't get where he fits in the team, Onana has had a good second half of the season but makes weird mistakes ... some of this is coaching and this you have to pin on the staff. He has had some good successful moments, Mainoo, Garnacho, I thought he handled Ronaldo situation as best as he could as well as the take over talks.

Overall, thank you for the two cup wins, but this season despite injuries, we should have at least seen an evolution in the way we play and it feels like we have gone backwards. The fa cup win feels like another plaster over the cracks and if I was a player, thinking this would be my last game and I could win a trophey, I would put in 1000% too. Alan Shearer asked the right question, why have we not seen this all season?
 
Any rumours if and when we will get an announcement? Surely, we should get one this week.
 
It's our worse premier league finish ever and to top it off a negative goal difference yet he's ideal? It's a deranged view :lol:

People have spent so long slagging the team off and now they're putting a cup win all on Ten Hag rather than recognising the players. Of course doing so would undermine the narrative that Ten Hag didn't have the squad to do any better.

Our league finish is on Ten Hags tactics, they were shite and he deserves the sack for it. You can't and don't get a pass from such underachievement.
As I already mentioned, injuries have played a significant role in our poor season. Key players like Martinez, Shaw, and Varane are crucial to United's overall play, and their return in the FA Cup final highlighted their importance. With a fully fit squad, Ten Hag previously led us to a third-place finish. I have no doubt we would have finished in the top four if these players had remained fit this season. Our performance against City in the final is a glimpse of what Ten Hag can achieve with a healthy squad.

Since his arrival, Ten Hag has had to manage a number of off-field issues. The challenge to deal with these issues while maintaining focus on the team’s performance cannot be ignored.

Ten Hag has led us to three finals and won two trophies. Considering that we’ve only won five trophies in total since Sir Alex left, Ten Hag delivering two of them in just two seasons is a significant achievement. Testament to his winning mentality and ability to bring silverware to the club.

Since Fergie’s departure, we have finished outside the top four on six occasions. It’s clear that we haven’t been consistent contenders even for top four. You’re living in cuckoo land if you believe McKenna, Tuchel or anyone would come and make us title challengers. We need to evaluate this season in the context of historical underachievement. Plus although we finished on 8 place, we’re 8 points off the top 4. Surprising, isn’t it?

Ten Hag puts faith in young players, which aligns with United's tradition. Players like Kobbie, Garnacho and Hojlund represent our future and have shown significant promise under his guidance.

Several players have improved noticeably under Ten hag. Young talents like Kobbie, Garnacho, and Hojlund, as well as established players like Dalot, Martinez, Bruno, and even McTominay.

As I already mentioned, Arteta is an example of the importance of patience. Despite finishing 8th for a couple of seasons, he has since transformed Arsenal significantly.

Sacking Ten Hag now would disrupt the progress made and force the club to start over again. There is no a better manager available who can instantly transform us into title challengers.

Giving Ten Hag another season is a wise choice to allow him to build a team capable of making United serious contenders once more.
 
The injury crisis is almost a secondary issue. For me it should all be about how he managed that crisis, how did he approach dealing with that challenge and finding innovative solutions to keep the team competitive.

By every underlying statistic 8th massively flattered Utd, if they had finished 10th/11th/12th or even lower it would not have been an unfair position given the performances. Structurally Utd were an utter shambles for most of the season and injuries can not be used to hand-wave that away. They contributed but Ten Hag showed an inability to adapt his tactics to fit what he had available, his choices made Utd much less than the sum of their parts. That is hugely concerning to me if Utd choose to move forward with him, his management of the squad was not far off negligent for most of the league campaign, showing a disregard for basic areas of team structure.

A lot of people seem to act as if it was a binary choice between parking the bus with everyone behind the ball or what we ended up with, a 4-------1------------------------5 shambles.

Based on these 2 years you don't really want him near recruitment or tactical set up.

How many innovative solutions are there realistically to keep a team competitive when even the backups to the backups to the cb's are injured and we have to stick Casemiro as a cb, a player that was already having a shit season. When we've been without a recognized left fullback for the majority of the season and we've been forced to rotate between Dalot, AWB, Lindelof (when he hasn't been injured) out there. I mean, christ. How competitive does City look without individual players like Rodri? How well did Liverpool fare when they lost VVD and struggled with injuries in midfield. Teams have key players in key positions that allows them to play as intended, we didn't just lose the key players we also lost all of their backups.

"Throughout the course of the season, 21 Old Trafford players were injured and a total of 1,620 days were lost to those on the sidelines.

This does not include left-back Tyrell Malacia because he was injured before the start of the campaign, but it does include Lisandro Martinez who has missed 214 days from three separate injuries."

Just gotta come up with an innovative solution.
 
Why are you conviently forgetting the quite frankly horrible season until the final match and instead opting for nothing but praise and create a conspiracy theory that the criticism he has received is solely due to them being terrified of us getting back to the top? The final win was fantastic, but in no way can it completely overshadow how bad we have been since February 2023. It's like putting lipstick on a pig. I just cannot fathom anyone coming to your conclusion based on what we have witnessed this season.
Please see my response above.

Remember Rome wasn't built in a day. Why disrupt the progress and start over again? Tell me which manager could immediately turn us into challengers.
 
It still needs context in terms of what type of control we're talking about it. Is it about being able to veto transfers if the club wants to bring in someone you don't want, is it about being able to fully determine who the player should go after ala how Fergie handled things. There's a bit of a difference between the two. Also: He's not responsible for negotiations and again we need context.

Being without key players has consequences. Playing pretty much the entire season without a proper left fullback has detrimental consequences. Martinez started the season injured, never looked right from the start, he's absolutely crucial to the way we want to play because of his ability to be aggressive, break the oppositions play and get forward with the ball between the lines. Replace Martinez with Evans for the entire FA cup final, does anyone think we'll look similar? I don't. I reckon City would've found it much easier to pick out teammates between our defense and midfield, and they'd have a lot more success higher up the pitch, simply because we'd have slower players that would need to take out more of a distance as they can't leave space they know they won't be able to close down again. It's just an immense overall drop in quality.

The context is in there in his own words and quoted as saying"I set requirements in advance about how I want to work," he told Dutch outlet Trouw.

"If they aren't granted, I won't do it. I am ultimately responsible and accounted for the results. I don't want to be the sole ruler, I stand for cooperation, but control in transfers is a condition for me."

Basically saying that whilst he doesn’t expect to just bring absolutely everyone he wants straight away he wanted to bring the players in that he wanted and the club would then work on bringing those players in for him, this was non negotiable as maybe he saw how we’d bought players in over the years and believed he could do better.

I disagree. I think Ten Hag liked the structure at Ajax where he was fed players that suited the style of football they played. He didn't need to have much, if any input. He just trusted the club to provide what was needed.

We don't have that structure and rely on the manager to do their own scouting and identify specific players they want.

His job is to coach and manage the first team. He doesn't (or should not) have time to do anything else. If the club is asking him who he wants, then all he can go off is players he's worked with or seen up close regularly.

We're not signing players because Ten Hag wants them specifically. We're signing them because no one is offering any alternative options.

As I’ve just shown above in ETH’s own words him having control over who was brought in was non negotiable for him and he wouldn’t have agreed to join us without such control, maybe because of how bad our recruitment had been he wanted that control but he’s shown he’s no better at it.

Like I said first time round though I wanted ETH in and not using this as a stick to beat him with, unlike a lot of things often seen on this isn’t based on opinion and is actual quotes from the man himself. I’m not going to get into tactics, formations, in game management or stubbornness and just on recruitment alone which in his own words he has/had major control over.
 
If it's an actual genuine talent on the market like Guardiola or Klopp and we have their guarantee they'd come? Yes. But there is nothing on the market. Even Xabi would be a huge gamble, but the point is moot since he's staying at Leverkusen. I was for sacking Moyes because he was inept at everything and had zero resume. I was for sacking LVG because Mourinho, who was a proven winner and without a doubt the best manager after Guardiola at the time. I was for sacking Mourinho since he crashed and burned, dragging the club with him. I was for sacking Ole because he was in over his head and a genuine talent like ETH, who had achieved at that point some remarkable things, was available. But right now I don't see any manager of United caliber that will be a significant or even a moderate upgrade over ETH. At this point the people advocating for the sack of ETH just want him gone for the sake of it not because they planned what is gonna happen after.

I would agree that this has been a bad season and Ten Hag is at fault for a large part of that, but I think a lot of people are ignoring how abnormal it was in the grand context of things, as well. I don't need to explain how tumultuous United's problems have been off and on the field. And I think ETH's resume, 2 trophies and him achieving more than what was asked in his first season has at least, in my mind, given him enough credit to give him a chance to showcase what he is capable of with a proper footballing structure behind him.

Do you only rate Pep and Klopp above Ten Hag?

Anyone else?
 
Villa, Spurs and Everton in that period, well that's a fecking good one. No, just no.

Three title races within 2007-2011, jesus. Points wise you were close in 2007/08, but it was hardly much of a race, that's the only time in this period you were actually close to it.

That doesn't refute my point, those teams were up there and had good footballers

Well yeah 2008, points wise we were close. In 09/10 and 10/11, Arsenal were also in the race for large portions but dropped off.

This thread isn't even about Arsenal; but don't compare Wenger to ETH
 
Just read that INEOS are unsure about sacking ETH because they think it will be an unpopular decision amongst the fan base.
 
It is important to remember that the entire season, regardless of injuries, ten hag had the option to play compact with two mobile players sitting in front of the makeshift defence, and chose to be more open.

If he goes, it was his own choices that did it.

Injuries are an excuse for not improving on last year, but its ten hags tactics that got us struggling against brentford.
 
Any rumours if and when we will get an announcement? Surely, we should get one this week.
You’d want them to be thorough and take their time on a decision of this magnitude. Ideally, we’d have Omar and Ashworth on hand to make it but that might be too late, which is why I expect them to end up extending Ten Hag for one more year and bank on fan gratitude from the FA cup.
 
How many innovative solutions are there realistically to keep a team competitive when even the backups to the backups to the cb's are injured and we have to stick Casemiro as a cb, a player that was already having a shit season. When we've been without a recognized left fullback for the majority of the season and we've been forced to rotate between Dalot, AWB, Lindelof (when he hasn't been injured) out there. I mean, christ. How competitive does City look without individual players like Rodri? How well did Liverpool fare when they lost VVD and struggled with injuries in midfield. Teams have key players in key positions that allows them to play as intended, we didn't just lose the key players we also lost all of their backups.

"Throughout the course of the season, 21 Old Trafford players were injured and a total of 1,620 days were lost to those on the sidelines.

This does not include left-back Tyrell Malacia because he was injured before the start of the campaign, but it does include Lisandro Martinez who has missed 214 days from three separate injuries."

Just gotta come up with an innovative solution.

What message does that send to the under 21’s and under 18’s ? Basically saying “as manager I’d rather play a past it defensive midfielder who’s having a nightmare season at centre back than you even though you’re a natural centre back” or “hi Harry Amass, look I know you’ve shown this season that you’re one of the best young left backs around and trained with the first team countless times but even though we don’t have any left backs I’d rather play Lindelof there than you”
 
Just read that INEOS are unsure about sacking ETH because they think it will be an unpopular decision amongst the fan base.

I'm against sacking him, but this is not a good reason. This new ownership look like they don't have a clue.
 
How many innovative solutions are there realistically to keep a team competitive when even the backups to the backups to the cb's are injured and we have to stick Casemiro as a cb, a player that was already having a shit season.

Real Madrid (who Casemiro was signed from) also used their DM as CB a bunch of times and they had a good season (95 pts, CL final...).
 
He didn't want Casemiro, he wanted de Jong. Casemiro was a stop gap last minute opportunistic Glazer buy that lasted even less time than he had hoped. He was a bad transfer after one season and the only sense he wanted him was that he was better than nothing. What's ETH gonna say? No I never wanted him? That's not how classy people behave.

Frenkie de Jong and Casemiro, they would be really connected with each other. They would have been really complimentary with each other, absolutely. If you want to play the Ajax style, you need that type of player."

Maguire and Evans can't play a high line. What are you smoking? We've seen them sit deep week after week and when they do push up they get skinned alive by anyone with pace. Players like Martinez and van Dijk can.

They've been told to sit deep.

Also explain why they can't when loads of defenders without pace play in a high line?

And Maguire and Evans aren't even that slow despite not being lightning quick. Varane is pretty fast yet he's been told to sit deep as well.

Plus you say Ten Hag wants to play his system regardless of personnel, if thats the case why is he persisting with such a deep defensive line?

ETH can be criticised for persisting with his system without the players to play it. He surely would have done better playing counter attack like at Wembley. And yet would he have been able to sit off Sheffield United at Old Trafford? Crystal Palace? He'd have been sacked for a more fundamental reason that he'd abandoned the project he was brought in to implement. And he still would have lost quite a few games. Better to be hanged as a wolf than a sheep.

There's many different systems between sitting deep and playing on the counter and playing with no midfield and allowing the opposition to attack your goal unopposed mate.
 
I assume people who want him to have another season really only means have essentially a probation period for next season.

Because if he does stay we don't need a full season of he continues doing bad. If we let him stay and we are doing bad 1 or 2 months into the season then he should be sacked on the spot.
 
Just read that INEOS are unsure about sacking ETH because they think it will be an unpopular decision amongst the fan base.

It wouldnt be unless Southgate was his replacement.

But also, if there was even a hint of truth to that then we're doomed because that'd make them even worse than Woodward.

He had his decision making influenced by fans and pundits in hiring Ole. Ineos will have gone a step further into insanity by actually changing their minds because of fan sentiment.
 
I assume people who want him to have another season really only means have essentially a probation period for next season.

Because if he does stay we don't need a full season of he continues doing bad. If we let him stay and we are doing bad 1 or 2 months into the season then he should be sacked on the spot.

Issue with that is that the managers we could have got during pre season are gone.
 
The most depressing thing about all this is that you can already predict the moans from the majority if things go wrong.

De Zerbi - won 4 of 19 league games in 2024. How does that qualify him to come and manage United? Ridiculous from the club

McKenna - nowhere near experienced enough for a club of this size. Stupid gamble. What were INEOS thinking

Pochettino - serial underachiever. His Spurs and Chelsea records will be picked apart. Even Woodward wasn't stupid enough to hire him

Tuchel - we knew he was difficult to work with. Look at his record! Was always going to blow up just like Jose did.

All of these guys are being backed now for the simple reason that everyone's decided they need a change, because they've argued for it for so long. Dont care who - get this guy out. All the same posters will be first in the queue to rip them apart for 6 months the first chance they get.
 
I'm against sacking him, but this is not a good reason. This new ownership look like they don't have a clue.

Not really fair on Ineos, that, the reality of the situation is there is no major upgrade on EtH. Tuchel perhaps, but he isn't a 'yes man' by any stretch.

Plus, they really do not want to have the relationship with supporters which the Glazers had. Exceptionally bad for the brand. So they'll be blanch about appointing duds as the PR is difficult to wrangle.
 
I assume people who want him to have another season really only means have essentially a probation period for next season.

Because if he does stay we don't need a full season of he continues doing bad. If we let him stay and we are doing bad 1 or 2 months into the season then he should be sacked on the spot.
Nope. Needs a whole season to implement his style of play. Injuries stopped him from doing it this season
 
Just read that INEOS are unsure about sacking ETH because they think it will be an unpopular decision amongst the fan base.
If that's the case we are well and truly fecked. They are willing to sabotage another season just because fans on social media are emotional? Hopefully sensible heads prevail here.
 
Not sacking a manager because of fan reaction/sentiment is not the way to run a football club. The fanbase will be divided any decision they make, they need to make one, announce it and stick with it.
 
I'm starting to think Jim is an idiot.

Unless they have evidence that Ten Hag's incompetence led to the MULTITUDE of injuries, the attitude of Sancho and Rashford, and the players being shit in many many games, then how can they sack him?

And De zErbi now being touted in the Jamie Jackson fanzine, I mean the Guardian football page. Give me a break.

Leave Ten Hag alone. Sort out the attitude of the players and their lifestyles. And sort out the injuries.
 
Nope. Needs a whole season to implement his style of play. Injuries stopped him from doing it this season
What is his brand of football? This is a genuine question, 2 years and 400m later nobody can answer it.
 
And another thing. The Gary Neville bandwagon also has a lot to answer for. All the failed managers producing content to make money for Sky and themselves. Get a grip.

And the ITV and BBC pundits are not much better. They were embarrasing on Saturday with ETH after the game. The amount of shit he has had to deal with this year. And they play a near perfect final.
 
It did show that he knows what he's doing tactically imo. That's important both in the league and even more so in knockout competitions, but it's also not sufficient to be competitive at the top of the league. I think there are better managers out there (Poch and Tuchel for example) but I have been impressed with how Ten Hag has handled some of the bigger games.
Doesn't Ole have the best record of any manager against Pep or something equally ridiculous? One off games aren't representative. We have 18 months of shite that is far more telling.
 
And another thing. The Gary Neville bandwagon also has a lot to answer for. All the failed managers producing content to make money for Sky and themselves. Get a grip.

And the ITV and BBC pundits are not much better. They were embarrasing on Saturday with ETH after the game. The amount of shit he has had to deal with this year. And they play a near perfect final.
Oh god relax. Neville and Keane were both saying ten Hag in as recently as last week. Do people actually bother to listen to pundits before getting their knickers in a twist about them? It's literally endless with people moaning about Neville and co.
 
Please see my response above.

Remember Rome wasn't built in a day. Why disrupt the progress and start over again? Tell me which manager could immediately turn us into challengers.

Noone has asked for anyone to come in to immediately make us title contenders, so no point using that as an argument. What we are asking for though is ability to get the best out of what you have available, instead of constantly setting us up to fail.

Injuries have made it significantly harder I agree, but the tactical issues have been evident since the first match with pretty much a full squad for the first matches of the season (which included pretty much the same loss rate). We have been dreadful regardless of opposition for pretty much the entire season. Since your argument is about progress; what progress has there been this season? Underlying metrics had us racing to the bottom, embarrassing results have been frequent.

I'll give him praise for keeping faith in the youngsters, and keeping squad harmony (from the outside looking in) in check despite embarrassing results all over.
 
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