Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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By getting carried away, what do you mean? I am yet to see a post that suggests we played amazing, on the contrary most seem to say we been awful all season.

The sudden change in the poll suggests exactly what I said. About 80% wanted the guy out and suddenly it's all good again and he can stay for another season? I don't get it. I also don't buy the lack of alternatives as a reason to keep him. Give Tuchel a shot.
 
Klopp had an absolutely disaster of a season when Thiago and VVD were injured and Liverpool spent the majority of it fighting in the relegation places until VVD returned and they regained form in the final stretch of the season. They were also playing disastrous football and everyone was banging 2-3 goals in them almost every game. To say Liverpool always played great, well coached and injuries had no effect on their performances is just straight up revisionism. Unfortunately unlike Klopp, ETH never got that luck. Our entire squad went injured for the entire season.

This isn't true. You can check the results for that season here. Liverpool only dropped out of the top 4 in matchday 24th, and got back on matchday 37th. Their lowest position on the table was 8th. They did not spend "the majority of the season fighting in the relegation places." They also conceded 42 goals that season which is not in any way shape or form "2-3 goals in almost every game". "they regained form after VVD returned" is also false, he did not return until the next season. See here.
 
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Firstly, is this true?

The reason I doubt it's true, not that Eric doesn't say some barmy stuff, is that it suggests he hasn't watched us this season and I like to believe, although it's probably naive, that he watches us every week. The entire issue we have had is this was the season ETH decided to just go for the change from counter attacking/double pivot to the more offensive/high possession inverted midfield. Doing that with a fit squad would have been hard, doing it with injuries was mental.
But it wasn't a high possession approach at all. It was still a highly transitional counter-attacking style. It was just "let's have one more player high up to increase our chances if we win the ball back with less defenders"
 
If he was going to be sacked it would have been already done imo.

This delay is making me believe that they haven't made their minds up or are keeping him.
On the contrary, the FA Cup win means they need to wait a little bit as not to be spoil sports. It is only Tuesday after the season ended. Everyone is going on holiday. They can officially sack him at any time over the next weeks or even month and it will not make a difference when.
 
This is turning into a farce. The decision should have already been made. It shouldn't come down to one game and changing fan sentiment. If they drag this out, it would not be a great look considering they promised to change how the club operates. One way or the other be decisive and announce the decision and be prepared to take any blow back from fans and media. Don't be cowards and hope to drag this out. They should announce by end of the week. If drags past that, then the new management is a joke
 
It's also possible that, with our new structure starting to control things, we recruit 3-4 players in the summer with great attitude and high ability, who are also able to stay fit, and then, coupled with returning players and the young players continuing their upward trajectory, results on the pitch start to improve.

I think he deserves one more chance to see if he can do it. The current alternatives (Tuchel, KcKenna, De Zerbi, Southgate, Pochettino) do not make me convinced they can come in and do any better given they would probably require a season to get bedded in. As we saw with big Ange at Spurs, he started on fire then they tailed off a fair bit once the new manager bounce faded.

Edit: I will also freely admit I am also partly being driven by emotion from the weekend, and can completely understand those who think he should be replaced. I have been consistent in wanting him to stay as I genuinely feel the club situation with the sale to INEOS and the terrible injury crisis have been massive mitigating factors. I'll concede that despite this, he and the team did still massively underperform - but I want him to stay one more season just to find out

Those are too many superlatives sandwiched into a hypothesis, what evidence is there of Erik's management in the premier league thus far that demonstrates him being able to deliver such an outcome? If Erik as a coach with his own choice of resources to form and construct the identity of the team, hasn't emulated something reminiscent of what he's done at Ajax, how does having a structure above change that. A structure is nothing more than individuals superseding relevant departments in footballing operations; Wilcox, Berrada and Ashworth can insist on Erik playing a particular way but it's nonsensical view if he as a coach is limited or unable to do so.

All season we have seen nothing that can be described other than a tactical capitulation from the inception of the season right the way through to final few games. I've said before that the failure to adjust to the next phase is where Erik is failing no different to Ole, two different squads the exact same conundrum. Erik failed all season to transition the identity of the team and now the expectation is next season for him to not only do it but with a higher level of success and completion. I think it's becoming telling with Erik that he's an overrated coach and underrated manager.
 
Check out Alex Ferguson's 89-90 season record. Goal difference of -1. They lost 16 games in the season. The league had more teams then.
You need to give the manager time to get the foundations right.
 
This is turning into a farce. The decision should have already been made. It shouldn't come down to one game and changing fan sentiment. If they drag this out, it would not be a great look considering they promised to change how the club operates. One way or the other be decisive and announce the decision and be prepared to take any blow back from fans and media. Don't be cowards and hope to drag this out. They should announce by end of the week. If drags past that, then the new management is a joke

I agree with this. The further I get from Saturday the more I remember what the majority of this season looked like. He can blame the injuries all he wants. That's no excuse for the many tactical errors made throughout the season. It's no excuse for the signings he demanded. Yes, winning 2 trophies in 2 years is nice. But it's not enough and there's no sign that he can manage this team to anything better than maybe fighting for 4th.

Get on with it, INEOS. Just not Tuechel.
 
On the contrary, the FA Cup win means they need to wait a little bit as not to be spoil sports. It is only Tuesday after the season ended. Everyone is going on holiday. They can officially sack him at any time over the next weeks or even month and it will not make a difference when.

Ofcourse it makes a difference. A massive one actually.

1. If they sack him end of June, then they need to get a new manager in, its not instant.
2. Transfers - how can you plan your transfer strategy without knowing the manager
3. When going for players, they will want to know the manager for the season
4. Pre season prep

There is a massive difference if its left for another month.
 
United is about winning trophies. We should be trying to win every competition we are in, every season. You have to win to build the winning habit. That is what Erik is doing. Maybe next year we will lift the EL again. From there we can build towards a league, a CL or multiple trophy victories. Step by step, continuous improvement.
There was very little evidence of year on year improvement this season.
 
Firstly, is this true?

The reason I doubt it's true, not that Eric doesn't say some barmy stuff, is that it suggests he hasn't watched us this season and I like to believe, although it's probably naive, that he watches us every week. The entire issue we have had is this was the season ETH decided to just go for the change from counter attacking/double pivot to the more offensive/high possession inverted midfield. Doing that with a fit squad would have been hard, doing it with injuries was mental.

I think it's true but can't be bothered to put in the legwork necessary to justify with data. My internal narrative is:
  • Came into United, played some decent possession / pressing football in the friendlies.
  • Tried to do that in the PL and got smashed 4-0 in the first two games. Mostly a personnel thing because you can't really build up with McFred.
  • Gave up on that and reverted to midblock, counter-attacking system and got some decent results. I will say that his mid block and Ole's mid block are quite different and he managed to force a lot of transition opportunities. Rashford / Bruno best form coincided with this.
  • Cue comments about not playing like Ajax with United and Caf meltdown.
  • He got Mount and started his attempts towards pressing / possession football again. Was unsuccessful (the first Wolves game was something of a masterpiece in dismantling Ten Hag tactics) but injuries also contributed.
  • It's hard to tell what the thoughts were after because we were so crap due to injuries. The donut formation ensued with one midfield / forward line pressing high up, one back line sitting deep and a big ol' hole in the middle.
  • He started inverting the fullback at some point to fix the donut and give the lone DM some support in build up. Results were mixed mostly due to lack of personnel.
  • Sat and counter attacked with 25% possession and won the final
Overall, his best attribute for me is setting up a decent mid block and exploiting transitions (as Cantona alludes to above). I haven't seen any evidence that we can actually consistently build up under pressure or that we can press high without getting runover. You can still get top four with that if you have decent players. Maybe you can even win a few CLs on the trot if you're Real. But I don't expect him to get to a point where we can match City / Pool equally on the pitch.
 
And yet many fans wanted Ten Hag to stay before a ball was kicked in the final, knowing that the club is a mess and managers need room to make some mistakes (perhaps even big ones) before getting on the right track. His floor brought home an FA cup. Il take it to see what his ceiling is.

True but sure we won 2 games in a row for the first time in a while before Saturday. Even that was swinging the poll on here.

Its from the red army official account, so I guess you could look at who's a part of that group to gauge sentiment.

I could yeah.
 
United is about winning trophies. We should be trying to win every competition we are in, every season. You have to win to build the winning habit. That is what Erik is doing. Maybe next year we will lift the EL again. From there we can build towards a league, a CL or multiple trophy victories. Step by step, continuous improvement.
Building a winning habit by losing? :wenger:

I saw no improvement this season, only a diabolical stubbornness to use tactics that were shite.
 
This is turning into a farce. The decision should have already been made. It shouldn't come down to one game and changing fan sentiment. If they drag this out, it would not be a great look considering they promised to change how the club operates. One way or the other be decisive and announce the decision and be prepared to take any blow back from fans and media. Don't be cowards and hope to drag this out. They should announce by end of the week. If drags past that, then the new management is a joke
It is not a farce. The decision was made to sack him after the season, and the end of the season has just about arrived. And since you do not want to sack your manager in the immediate days after a cup win (why would you?), they'll do it at some point in the coming days. What is the impatience?
 
Are you kidding me ?

Seriously , are you honestly saying you think that when posters have said “I want to keep ETH”, the response has been “I respect your view but must disagree”?


People have absolutely been acting like keeping ETH is “writing next season off” and some suggest pushing the club further away from success.

Relentlessly posting in here all the negative stuff about the season , the XG, the wrong records broken and pretty much insulting anybody who thinks differently to you (they must be rival fans or they are ETH Fanboys) implies you see more then “these fanboys”.

I asked a simple question mate. Not sure why you feel the need to put words in peoples mouths.

You're saying people have claimed they ''absolute confidence that they (Ten Hag) are definitely going to fail'', all I'm asking is did anyone actually say that?

I've seen a lot of people say they think next season will be a write off or that he'll fail next season, don't know if I've seen anyone say that 100% will happen. Could be wrong.
 
But it wasn't a high possession approach at all. It was still a highly transitional counter-attacking style. It was just "let's have one more player high up to increase our chances if we win the ball back with less defenders"
That’s what it turned into for sure, basically gambling on the press high up/turnover because we couldn’t build through the middle.
 
Firstly, is this true?

The reason I doubt it's true, not that Eric doesn't say some barmy stuff, is that it suggests he hasn't watched us this season and I like to believe, although it's probably naive, that he watches us every week. The entire issue we have had is this was the season ETH decided to just go for the change from counter attacking/double pivot to the more offensive/high possession inverted midfield. Doing that with a fit squad would have been hard, doing it with injuries was mental.
I think you mean his system is a tepid high press with a low block defensive line. The first manager in the history of football to employ those tactics. Genius.
 
I’m musing over the delay, thinking of the bigger picture. All that jizz about Wembley of the North, meeting Starmer, upgrading stadium, helping local area. All about politics in one sense. That was what Ratcliffe was supposed to bring. Being the local boy, the football man, the complete opposite to the disconnected, aloof arrogant American owners. Remember the protests? Fans were surprised at how much impact they had. Valuable asset; drain; shield needed. Cure for Glazer nervousness and being booed in stadium urgently required. SJR!

This ETH in/out struggle was not supposed to happen, where the INEOS smooth facade slipped and the ‘new owners’ appeared disconnected from and at odds with a big chunk of the fanbase.

There is a lot of sensitivity to image and PR. Think of how they puffed out chest over Greenwood, and promptly revised stance.

There is a direct, visceral buzz from being at a match, shaking hands with Bruno, etc., even seeing Guardiola throwing a strop. Hearing the fans chanting. Maybe all this won’t change the outcome in the end. But PR and fan opinion and the general mood music around the club is not irrelevant here.
 
They'll need to factor the injury crisis, also. It's there. You may suggest tactics are a bigger factor, and other clubs had many injuries, but they are still a major factor. The primary cause, in my opinion.

As for the replacement, Ineos will know they will need to emphatically improve but since there is no discernible 'cheat code' replacement, they could impugn their own reputation hiring a sleek new coach.

Winning the cup has definitely supplanted Ineos' best laid plans. A new coach is now a much bigger risk. 'Give him time' doesn't work if the predecessor won trophies in both seasons and had a massive injury crisis when doing so.

The only thing I'd disagree with there mate is I think the tactics and setup are the main cause for our poor form/perfromances this season.

People will point to saturdays perfromance with players back form injury but we also dropped the tactics we've used for most of the season.
 
That’s what it turned into for sure, basically gambling on the press high up/turnover because we couldn’t build through the middle.
He never did or said anything that would lead me to the conclusion that he was going for more possession. I don't think this is what it turned into, this is more or less what he wanted.
 
Check out Alex Ferguson's 89-90 season record. Goal difference of -1. They lost 16 games in the season. The league had more teams then.
You need to give the manager time to get the foundations right.
Would have saved us a lot of time to just have kept Moyes then, managers just needs time to be as good as Sir Alex apparently.
 
I agree, Newcastle and Chelsea have better coached players at the moment. What also we have seen as the similar groups of players under various managers do the same.

Our recruitment over the various managers has been the same too, over priced.

How can it serve no purpose? we were trophyless for 6 years. Clearly he knows how to win something.

You see keeping Ten Hag as INEOS incompetence but who is to say they get Tuchel and we are still 6th at Christmas, what would you call that foresight?

Well this is the issue Erik by his own admission a few days ago stated that the United job is a project, a project is a collective of measures that's objectively determined by an end goal or a sequence. What we are seeing with Erik is a deviation from the project by a change in determining what the goal is. So now we have situation where United have had the worst season in the club's recent history and the vindication from fans is that the manager won a medium level domestic competition which eviscerates how we actually determine the success of his management as an objective in an elite organization where he is measured against those values.

If you read what I posted critically, I said that it's incompetent of INEOS to let Erik manage the final season without extending his contract. Because it denotes short-termism and is an aversion of INEOS having a tailored approach essentially matching for comprehension the same steps as the glazer business model occupied which has been determined by impulse. It's more beneficial to begin the season with a new manager than it is for INEOS to have a 'see how it goes' approach by Christmas. I keep seeing this incentive for the new season and it's proof that most fans if having a competitive entity would likely run it into the ground by overlooking frameworks such as a top-down analysis to come to crunch decisions.

Does / has Erik as a manager demonstrated the viability in leading United to be sustainable? The best way to determine the difference between what I'm attempting to contrast is the result of the FA cup win has created an Arteta vs Eth comparison by managerial pedigree, but what INEOS need to observe is Arsenal vs United by way of sustainability, one is tailored towards success at a respectable level whereas the other highlights volatility.
 
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I think it's true but can't be bothered to put in the legwork necessary to justify with data. My internal narrative is:
  • Came into United, played some decent possession / pressing football in the friendlies.
  • Tried to do that in the PL and got smashed 4-0 in the first two games. Mostly a personnel thing because you can't really build up with McFred.
  • Gave up on that and reverted to midblock, counter-attacking system and got some decent results. I will say that his mid block and Ole's mid block are quite different and he managed to force a lot of transition opportunities. Rashford / Bruno best form coincided with this.
  • Cue comments about not playing like Ajax with United and Caf meltdown.
  • He got Mount and started his attempts towards pressing / possession football again. Was unsuccessful (the first Wolves game was something of a masterpiece in dismantling Ten Hag tactics) but injuries also contributed.
  • It's hard to tell what the thoughts were after because we were so crap due to injuries. The donut formation ensued with one midfield / forward line pressing high up, one back line sitting deep and a big ol' hole in the middle.
  • He started inverting the fullback at some point to fix the donut and give the lone DM some support in build up. Results were mixed mostly due to lack of personnel.
  • Sat and counter attacked with 25% possession and won the final
Overall, his best attribute for me is setting up a decent mid block and exploiting transitions (as Cantona alludes to above). I haven't seen any evidence that we can actually consistently build up under pressure or that we can press high without getting runover. You can still get top four with that if you have decent players. Maybe you can even win a few CLs on the trot if you're Real. But I don't expect him to get to a point where we can match City / Pool equally on the pitch.
Agree with early timeline.

Mount wasn’t issue for wolves though although he is learning that role, the issue is Case isn’t a sitting DM who can play that build up role and Bruno wants to play 10 not 8 and if you look at Bruno/Mount heat maps they were in the same area with almost no influence outside of that classic 10 area. The core of our team is too slow (partly ETH’s fault but mostly on the club for crap recruitment) so most teams can drive straight through us + at that time Rashford was CF so there’s minimal pressure on their build up as well.

City and Pool play very different styles of football, neither is unachievable but one for me is much more effective and exciting - Pool’s. There’s no reason we can’t out a much stronger press in place and once that’s done, we’ll be so much harder to play and score more goals.
 
They’re either waiting for the dust to settle after the FA cup win so that if they do decide to sack him, the emotional side of things has calmed down a bit. Or they still haven’t decided on what to do, which is farcical given they had at least a month to make the decision, when Wilcox came on board to assess ETH.
 
I think it's true but can't be bothered to put in the legwork necessary to justify with data. My internal narrative is:
  • Came into United, played some decent possession / pressing football in the friendlies.
  • Tried to do that in the PL and got smashed 4-0 in the first two games. Mostly a personnel thing because you can't really build up with McFred.
  • Gave up on that and reverted to midblock, counter-attacking system and got some decent results. I will say that his mid block and Ole's mid block are quite different and he managed to force a lot of transition opportunities. Rashford / Bruno best form coincided with this.
  • Cue comments about not playing like Ajax with United and Caf meltdown.
  • He got Mount and started his attempts towards pressing / possession football again. Was unsuccessful (the first Wolves game was something of a masterpiece in dismantling Ten Hag tactics) but injuries also contributed.
  • It's hard to tell what the thoughts were after because we were so crap due to injuries. The donut formation ensued with one midfield / forward line pressing high up, one back line sitting deep and a big ol' hole in the middle.
  • He started inverting the fullback at some point to fix the donut and give the lone DM some support in build up. Results were mixed mostly due to lack of personnel.
  • Sat and counter attacked with 25% possession and won the final
Overall, his best attribute for me is setting up a decent mid block and exploiting transitions (as Cantona alludes to above). I haven't seen any evidence that we can actually consistently build up under pressure or that we can press high without getting runover. You can still get top four with that if you have decent players. Maybe you can even win a few CLs on the trot if you're Real. But I don't expect him to get to a point where we can match City / Pool equally on the pitch.

They lost 2-1 to Brighton, not 4-0. McTominay didn't play the 4-0 loss to Brentford either, was Eriksen. Martinez played that game too and was crap.
 
He never did or said anything that would lead me to the conclusion that he was going for more possession. I don't think this is what it turned into, this is more or less what he wanted.
No way you can equate signing Onana, Martinez, Antony and think this guys want to play direct. He also wanted De Jong. Come on now.
 
Well this is the issue Erik by his own admission a few days ago stated that the United job is a project, a project is a collective of measures that's objectively determined by an end goal or a sequence. What we are seeing with Erik is a deviation from the project by a change in determining what the goal is. So now we have situation where United have had the worst season in the club's recent history and the vindication from fans is that the manager won a medium level domestic competition which eviscerates how we actually determine the success of his management as an objective in an elite organization where he is measured against those values.

If you read what I posted critically, I said that it's incompetent of INEOS to let Erik manage the final season without extending his contract. Because it denotes short-termism and is an aversion of INEOS having a tailored approach essentially matching for comprehension the same steps as the glazer business model occupied which has been determined by impulse. It's more beneficial to begin the season with a new manager than it is for INEOS to have a 'see how it goes' approach by Christmas. I keep seeing this incentive for the new season and it's proof that most fans if having a competitive entity would likely run it into the ground by overlooking frameworks such as a top-down analysis to come to crunch decisions.

Does / has Erik as a manager demonstrated the viability in leading United to be sustainable? The best way to determine the difference between what I'm attempting to contrast is the result of the FA cup win has created an Arteta vs Eth comparison by managerial pedigree, but what INEOS need to observe is Arsenal vs United by way of sustainability, one is tailored to success where as the other highlights volatility.


I know where you are coming from and what you are getting at. If INEOS decide he isnt the man then he isn't the man, at this point I am going to have to trust them.

This is a very crucial summer for them, how you start of your reign will be remembered. They have made some nice moves, making structural changes but from what I am seing, the evidence they are not going to change things that much.

The decision to keep / sack EtH should have been made and communicated to everyone by now, it allows people to prepare for the summer.

They are really going to hamstring the next manager if they decide to sack. Imagine getting in a manager in July then plan for the summer, which means late summer arrivals again.

I see what you say about Arteta but say Arseanl finish outside the top 4, would you still say its sustainable over volatility if they get hit with injuries?
 
It is not a farce. The decision was made to sack him after the season, and the end of the season has just about arrived. And since you do not want to sack your manager in the immediate days after a cup win (why would you?), they'll do it at some point in the coming days. What is the impatience?


Is it helping anyone by letting it linger on? It's not respectful to the manager to let speculation run wild and hang him in a limbo. You are just adding fuel to the fire by letting the media, social media and the fans run wild with all kind of scenarios.

What is the ideal time to wait to announce the sacking, if it is indeed the way they have decided to go?
 
It's the exact opposite isn't it. If this comment is true it suggests he actually did watch the dross EtH served us up with for most of the season.
It wouldn't really make sense if he has, as in why say 'well done on the FA cup but the style you are trying to move on from isn't what I think you should play'.
 
This is turning into a farce. The decision should have already been made. It shouldn't come down to one game and changing fan sentiment. If they drag this out, it would not be a great look considering they promised to change how the club operates. One way or the other be decisive and announce the decision and be prepared to take any blow back from fans and media. Don't be cowards and hope to drag this out. They should announce by end of the week. If drags past that, then the new management is a joke

I initially thought so too. But when you think about it, it doesn't make sense to rush no matter how quickly fans want it resolved.

They came here letting us know that they would be meticulous with their decision making. They even mentioned there being an end of season review.

It's not their fault that the press picked up on their activities meeting with managers.

For them to actually give a proper review, they would need the time.

If they are going to sack or keep Ten Haag, a lot of it would depend on what he tells them and the tactical review he provides. This would need to be mulled over by different parties within the club before a final decision is made.

My guess is that they would also like to make a formal announcement of who he would be replaced with and ensure that the terms of the termination are clear. Them spending so much time, despite fan and media pressure, actually shows that they are actually doing a review, rather than simply succumbing to pressure. This is not simply a transfer. It's a decision on the way forward next season.
 
I know where you are coming from and what you are getting at. If INEOS decide he isnt the man then he isn't the man, at this point I am going to have to trust them.
Yes, I stated from 6 games into the season that United would finish in a dismal place and the team exceeded that expectation. Erik has lost all the respect from me in terms of his ability to actually deliver the project provisionally but if INEOS annunciate the intention to keep him over something reflective of at least 24 months I'll respect that decision.

I see what you say about Arteta but say Arseanl finish outside the top 4, would you still say its sustainable over volatility if they get hit with injuries?
I don't really deal with hypothesis but that's what sustainability entails the ability to have an approach to success within the pipeline. Arsenal are there, two seasons in a row they have mounted a genuine league challenge essentially bottling it last year, played what i'd consider the best football 22/23 season and have emerged as one of the best teams in Europe assessing the relativity of the league something United haven't done in a decade.

Rather than use Arsenal it's better to use Liverpool they serve as a literal example having suffered injuries last season and then the very next campaign it was business as usual. It's not just about results but the determining factors of influence; the playing identity, framework of the team in possession out of possession, build-up, phases of play etc. Arguably if Erik both last season and this season built stronger foundations in the teams performances it's increasingly likely INEOS wouldn't even have considered his job.
 
Is it helping anyone by letting it linger on? It's not respectful to the manager to let speculation run wild and hang him in a limbo. You are just adding fuel to the fire by letting the media, social media and the fans run wild with all kind of scenarios.

What is the ideal time to wait to announce the sacking, if it is indeed the way they have decided to go?

There isnt and this situation is not showing good light on INEOS tbh. They just come across very similar to Glazers, 0 planning.

They've known they are taking charge since December. Like everyone says, why wait till the cup final to conduct a review, this should have been done in the last 3 months based on his training, tactics, the lot.

It seems as if they started well and are beginning to realise the size of the job.
 
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