Not really a change though. That's one of the few things we've done well under every manager post-SAF.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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He still has the transfer veto though? Although phrasing it as fired is strange. You wouldn't say someone was "fired as assistant manager and re-employed as head manager"
Right. 22/23 is a good example.
Fed up of the Jamie Jackson "exclusives" on the Guardian website. Clearly it's Ratcliffe's team feeding him all this PR shite. The latest being Ten Hag taking Wilcox's advice to play Bruno as a false 9. Yawn.
Just to clarify, when you say that you very very clearly stated that some fans are deluded to think things will change under Erik Ten Hag, do you mean that all fans that think things will change under Erik Ten Hag are deluded or that some fans that think things will change under Erik Ten Hag are deluded.
It isn’t very very clear.
I laughed just picturing this.Honestly the idea of Ten Hag buzzing around makes me like him more, he's a bald weirdo.
Essentially, yes. It was always going to be the job role regardless of who took it.
I bet he got a good buzz in after the FA cup win.
Who on Earth suggested anything of the sort?
Madrid would’ve sacked him in November 2023.
Then why do you have a problem with what he said there? He's clearly trying to support and give some confidence to an underperforming player.
What would you have liked him to say……“Antony, I’ve doubted him for a very long time. I know he his weaknesses, he has many weaknesses. When he plays how I know from the past, he's useless. Every defender can stop him because he's one of the worst players in the first 10 yards..'
Ultimately, no one really cares what he said about Antony. The fact he chose to sign him is the issue.
I think everyone knows Antony isnt good enough. Name me 1 manager that gets 100% of signings right?
I don't think it's true. He's still going to have a say on transfers and I very much doubt he is going to be told how to play. He doesn't strike me as a type of person that surrenders authority that easily, he'd probably rather walk than have his role dramatically reduced.
Did you imagine the same for a significant number of league games such that you'd not end up forming an opinion on one game?
It’s funny how much people make about the Anthony signing. Oblivious to the fact that , as you say , every manager makes bad signings but equally that United uas a history of making bad expensive signings.
One of them is on holidays in Germany , playing fifa and popping up in the odd game to look half decent. But Anthony is apparently worse cause something something ETH.
Always remember Keane mocking Pep “who needed 2 fullbacks and got 4”. City just throw bodies at Pep and replace whoever isn’t good enough while United managers are stuck with under performing players from other managers aswell.
No issues with Grealish being crap this season, he will probably be sold if they want but spending 100 million on an underperforming player isn’t held against a manager if the team wins. It doesn’t change the fact that the club over spent on a player.
The problem is and has been that United should never be over relying on their managers for targets. Coupled with that, we paid way over the odds for players and gave out stupid contracts that have nothing to do with our managers.
Casemiro missed 17 games and 83 days between October and January at a time we were also missing Martinez, Shaw, Dalot, Martial, Eriksen, Malacia, Diallo. Had Sancho and Antony drama, Hojlund, AWB, Varane, Lindelof all also had varying amounts of time off through injury in the same period or beyond.
We were fielding the back up of the back up, you cannot compare this to Real Madrid at all, not only is our depth incredibly poor due to historically poor squad building, we were playing depth of depth in key positions through the spine of the team. Those that did play unscathed were therefore overplayed leading to poor performances of our best players.
There was plenty wrong with the first half of our season to give Ten Hag the benefit of the doubt.
That being said. The second half of the season was clear the team was shot of any confidence and in survival mode, Ten Hag is solely responsible for not switching tactics up and grinding out some wins with weeks in between games. Instead he was stubborn, and I feel if he was going to go down that route he should have promoted players to fit the system and used it as a development period for the future.
Yep, oh he is a rubbish manager because he signed Antony, he should be sacked purely on that.
Klopp, Pep, Arteta have all signed players that haven't worked out, that is recruitment.
I get and respect people who speak about his tactics, how he sets us up and performances. I saw a poster crying over Ten Hag praising Antony.. I mean even Pep was crying saying he cannot replace Aguero only to get Haaland and a treble.
What you will note is fans who dont like Ten Hag consistently think he is the only United manager to make signings that haven't worked. They have forgotten the 10 years before with Mata, Pogba, Maguire, AWB, Fred, DI Maria, Sancho etc....
There's a little less tolerance for a transfer failure when you've personally trained the player in the recent past
Arteta says Hi with Zinchenko and Jesus who are both surplus to first team requirements.
Very bizarre to whine about justified criticism of ETH signing Antony when he managed him previously and brought him to the club with him. It wasn’t a punt or a gamble on a scouted talent.
The only valid signings to compare him to are Martinez, Matic, Fellaini. And all of those at least had good points.
Given how closely he worked with Antony, and the fee, it is by far the worst signing we’ve ever made or any other club has ever made, bar none
Were the Glazers here in the period between Sir Matt and Sir Alex?
Would be more expensive with an extended contract
The broader issue is: the more specific the argument gets, the less falsifiable it is, and therefore the less people can actually engage in it.
If a person says, "the number of injuries affects the team" then another person can look at different teams with a number of injuries, see how it affected them, etc. and based on that draw some conclusions. The same is true of "number of injuries to starting 11 players", things of that nature. You can agree or disagree with the arguments but they can be engaged with, they are quantifiable. Some people have made these arguments like BenitoSTARR.
But if the argument is that it's a specific combination of injuries happening in some specific order to a specific squad with a specific composition then... that cannot be engaged with in any meaningful way. Nobody is ever going to find a similarly-built squad with similarly occurring injuries.
He was a good player for him at Ajax? Sometimes transfers don't work out. He thought he could make the step up, and he didn't.
Very Bizzare to keep whining on about it.
Matic had what good points?
If you talking about a few isolated good points... Antony has had those too. Arsenal, Barca...
I think he has been a rubbish signing personally but same as Alexis, Lukaku, Maguire, AWB, Fred, Sancho.
I mean if you think Sancho is worse than Antony? When he is on bigger wages on loan and has had longer. Shows the type of agenda you have. Someone we chased for 2 years.
Aye, that's the risk I mentioned.
When the new contract is signed it should demonstrate what INEOS view as success for the manager so there's accountability and a way to measure if he's reaching seasonal campaign objectives or not.
Various mentions in previous page about the playing identity of the team and realistically I don't think Erik has the capacity to get United to be an attractive proposition by playing good football. 24 months in charge and United haven't cemented a consistent playstyle that's synonymous with fans coveting to see games because of the teams displays.
The hierarchy would have gone for someone like De Zerbi if playing style was the most significant factor, the close-ties with Tuchel suggest they are also looking at the pedigree to win as a criteria which is a reasonable balance.
So I think heading into the new season it will be for performances to improve (albeit not drastically) with more of a demand and emphasis to win a more prestigious competition. If the new contract is a 2 year extension then I think it points towards the above reasoning.
Various mentions in previous page about the playing identity of the team and realistically I don't think Erik has the capacity to get United to be an attractive proposition by playing good football. 24 months in charge and United haven't cemented a consistent playstyle that's synonymous with fans coveting to see games because of the teams displays.
The hierarchy would have gone for someone like De Zerbi if playing style was the most significant factor, the close-ties with Tuchel suggest they are also looking at the pedigree to win as a criteria which is a reasonable balance.
So I think heading into the new season it will be for performances to improve (albeit not drastically) with more of a demand and emphasis to win a more prestigious competition. If the new contract is a 2 year extension then I think it points towards the above reasoning.
I can't disagree with any of that. A poorly functioning club makes the manager's job harder.
I was generally positive going into last season. Ten Hag looked as if he was potentially building something and if that had continued then I'd be happy he was staying on. The manner in which the wheels came off last year surprised me. Injuries had an impact but his stubbornness is an issue, his in game management is poor, and the way he set the side up in the latter part of the season was bizarre. There is no sustainable system building as far as I can see, even the open/chaotic system he employed at the back end of the season (which I personally don't think will ever lead to success) being abandoned for something else in the last few games.
Good managers make good decisions at the right time, and for all the problems he's had, he didn't do that last season. Throwing more time and investment in players at it, in my view, is the wrong decision.
Hopefully I'm wrong and somehow it clicks, but that seems me to be more blind hope than anything else.
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Because it's quite clear to me the decision was a bit "emotional" and based on what the fans wanted. I am convinced the "business" decision was to get rid, but somehow one game must've changed the owners mind what I don't like because that's not a good way to run a football club.
The bolded part would be even better if we had a competent manager.
We were rubbish under rangnick but how long will it take. At the moment the trajectory has been downward since the mid point in ten hags first season and no clear improvement in our playing style. Even the last few games of last season where we improved, we were just using oles setup
I have no idea. But apparently, the whole place was a shitshow so it may take a while.
FFS, really?
Both of whom did relatively well at Arsenal and are now ready to be moved on to make room for improvements. Not even remotely comparable to one of our biggest ever transfer flops. Try again.
It's incredible how some posters here will defend literally anything rather than admit that the manager made a costly error.
That's fine, and I'd agree entirely if there was any actually process or plan clearly evident on the pitch. Instead, we're two years in, have a squad full of rubbish (many of whom Ten Hag recommended) and are no further forward. In fact, you might make a case that we've gone backwards.
All other succesful clubs sack managers who don't meet the required standards and appoint someone else. That's modern football.
Rewarding a manager who performed so poorly in their job with a new deal, likely on better terms, is the wrong decision. Pressure from the press isn't a reason to renew his contract. If he can't take pressure from the press he hasn't got what's required to manage United, or indeed probably any top club. It's arguably the most high profile job in the game and that's not going to change.
A two year extension at £9 million a year and presumably new contracts for his staff as well is a huge sum to deal with in terms of pay offs. Add to that the potential cost of compensation for a new manager and his staff, assuming you don't just take someone out of a job and it's knocking on £30 million.
He's staying so that's that, but for this to have any prospects of working they need to back him to bring in players to play the style he wants. If that doesn't work, let's hope the next man doesn't want 10 of the squad out.
The club is "backing him", but based on what? Because they couldn't get Tuchel or someone else?
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