No. The whole team was pressing forward.
We did not sit back.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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We did not sit back.
But that is exactly where a good dof can overrule him, barca and bayern have structures in place where managers get their say but they aren't running personal fiefdoms like utd were and still are, the club plays a big role in who goes and who gets brought in.
I can't see a plan. We have an unproductive attack and we've just signed another unproductive player to occupy a key attacking position in it.
I don't see where he's getting the goals from.
He's already got a massive target on his back since day 1 of his tenure, probably mostly for reasons completely out of Ten Hag's control, like being Dutch or managing in the Eredivisie. Most of the fans and pundits will want him out the minute a single one of his transfers doesn't come off perfectly, as if no top manager has ever spend a lot on a dud. What proportion of the Mourinho thread was people demanding he be sacked if the Pogba transfer didn't work out? Was it nigh 1/3rd of them? Ten Hag could get top 4 this season, and if one of the new players doesn't impress enough these fans will still want him sacked.
Nobody's going to give a shit if Malacia doesn't work out. They'll give more of a shit if Martinez doesn't.
But if you sign someone for 80m it better fecking work. Especially if it's an ex-player. If you get it wrong about a guy who you worked with for the last 3 years (an 80m mistake), your footballing understanding should be under immense scrutiny.
No? You can't see he's completely changed the spine of the team already? Sorting out the much maligned attitude problems we've been hounded by over the past few years. You can't see clear evidence of improved coaching? The man has a plan.
Which is why he's still in the market for a forward and I believe he'll get one and who is the unproductive player we've just signed? Have I missed summat?
ETH wouldn't be the first manager to overpay for a player that hasn't worked out and he won't be the last. SAF, LVG, Jose, Ole. That's just at our club. Other top clubs have repeatedly done the same. It happens. ETH's future won't or shouldn't be judged on one signing.
I think he'd be the only manager to have ever made a £80m mistake, on a player he's already previously worked with (for 3 years btw). If he gets this wrong, he's fecked. So if he gets it wrong it's even worse than Maguire for £80m.
They were also prevented by the owners from shipping out players that they viewed as problematic. There's been so much interference in the football side of things from people who know next to nothing about football. No matter what the flaws of the managers that have gone before, it's pretty clear they've all been shocked about how the club has been run.
Even if we have limited periods of success in the future those problems won't go away without a change of ownership.
I would hope that EtH gets more leeway for error than getting utterly lambasted and fired for one bad signing, even if that signing costs £85m...
Rashford, Martial and Sancho have all been capable in the past of hitting double-digit goals in the league. Ten Hag is probably thinking he can get them to that level again and there's Ronaldo of course but I'm not sure what that plan is with him.
loads of managers have bought their old players and failed.. its only the first one at 80m (if it happened) because the markets gone crazy
he's worked with him for two seasons by the way
Even if our football is better and we're playing well and winning games? ETH's fate won't rest on one player dude. It just wont.
Getting it wrong is paying £90m for a disrespectful, injury prone waste of space we let go on a free ... then letting him rinse us for wages and leave on a free twice ... to the same club. A hard working Antony that maybe isn't world class and doesn't work out is nothing in comparison.
I wouldn't have an issue with them 3 as a triple if they can reproduce their previous numbers.
But if we're going to carry a player in our forward line who has never hit double digits before, then their goalscoring will need to increase to levels they've never hit before.
I'm not sure whether Lukaku is considered a success or a failure under Mourinho but he cost 90m including add-ons.
Not a chance. Do you think scouts get fired over bad recommendations? Signings fail for all sorts of reasons. Tbh though, it shouldn't be ETH job to recommend signings.
But shouldn’t the manager be judged on performance and results? For example, suppose this signing propels Martial and Rashford to world class standards and Antony doesn’t get a look in - I don’t think anyone would really care about how much was paid.
That would be mental. If the idea is to just provide competition, you should be able to do that with much cheaper options.
If Antony doesn't get a look in, it means a poor decision has held us back for a season longer than necessary. It's the same thing I said when we signed AWB and Maguire - the price matters, because we don't have an infinite supply of money and many other positions also need strengthening.
Nah.
Not if the manager is Ten Hag, apparently. Mourinho bought Pogba, Lukaku, Bailly and Mkhitaryan, then swapped Mkhitaryan with Sanchez on double the wages, then bought Fred the next season. No one was demanding that Mourinho be sacked because of these, what (rightly) did him in was throwing his typical 2nd/3rd year tantrum and pissing the season away like he does at every club. Good job Woodward gave Jose a big contract extension a few months before too, so he could walk away with a nice £40 million parting gift to thank him for throwing everyone under the bus he parked in front of goal.
The goalposts have moved for Ten Hag apparently, because not only does he have to get the results, he has to play perfect, aesthetically pleasing football immediately and carry a completely spotless transfer record.
Don't think Antony can even fail. Having said that it would actually be interesting to see who he pushes out of the attack. In general our signings this summer are big threats to players people thought were safe. ETH so far doesn't care about using anyone's template. He gave it a try and they wasted their clean slate.
Especially when that 80m could of been spent on a new RB and probably another midfielder.
I’d say he comes in and plays on the right with sancho moving to the left. Question is out of which one of martial or rashford do you start upfront? Martials got a lot better hold up play so he’d probably be the one but he can’t stay fit enough to claim that spot.
Rashford surely
Anthony will start on the right, Sancho back to his best position on the left. That leaves Martial/Rashford/Ronaldo to fight it out for the striker position and Martial looking like winning that battle at the moment
having said that all of them will get games for sure
Maybe Ten Hag might know what he is doing?
Gives us a nice balance, and plenty of options.
Maybe… but no one can predict how transfers work out so spending big on him could work, or could not work. Time will tell.
Nice post NL. That said gonna nitpick on one point here: Maguire was dropped because he is a captain who was not only playing poorly himself in his positioning on defense, but also telling other players what to do wrongly, like making Martinez swap with him then sitting on his ass too deep to affect the outside threat. He had to sit for reason of playing like shit and being a bad leader causing confusion.
And one thing I really like about this manager is that he doesn't make it personal. He is hard on his players and demanding but also defends them and has their best interests in mind. I think he's going to try to get Maguire back to playing how he used to, and the first step in that process is the wakeup call of being benched. No idea if Maguire's ego will be able to handle that but I hope so because when his head is on straight he is one hell of a defensive player. And the guy has been doing his own thing for so fecking long it's going to take time to get him back in line.
Probably, but it's not really a stretch to assume that.
Definitely. If they get Antony he locks down the right side. If they get Gakpo he will replace Christiano, or at least fill his position. But the strength of that is the depth of forward options and the speed off the bench. Martial might deserve the starting nod, but either way these players will be rotated game to game and kept fresh with subs to keep the intensity high.
We can win a lot of games like that I think.
Exactly. You can afford to indulge if you don't have any other pressing needs. But this is mad, when we can easily upgrade the midfield and RB position.
True, but I don’t like the sound of rotating to much. Will knock the players confidence and you need a settled front 3 to get them playing good football so they know each other’s game. Liverpool had the same front 3 for years and hardly rotated and it worked wonders. I get what your saying though.Definitely. If they get Antony he locks down the right side. If they get Gakpo he will replace Christiano, or at least fill his position. But the strength of that is the depth of forward options and the speed off the bench. Martial might deserve the starting nod, but either way these players will be rotated game to game and kept fresh with subs to keep the intensity high.
We can win a lot of games like that I think.
I mostly agree, although the same thing could be said about Rashford, Sancho and Dalot. Basically the whole team.
I really hope Maguire will improve or move on. Him playing in a three at the back seems to work well.
Maguire it was not just because of speed, it was because we decided to skip the midfield and play long and counter attacking football with the intention to fight for the 2nd and 3rd ball. So the ball control quality of Maguire is not useful in that context, we went with the agility of Varane.
We pressed around the midfield or slightly before that area and just made sure to cut the path to the middle as much as we could before tiring out and going back into crowding the box. But it was not some kind of pressing all over the field, it was very targeted.
If Liverpool found Elliott more often, they would have been more dangerous.
This is exactly how Ole set this team up, for example against City. The pressing is even very similar with one that happens around the 3/4th of the pitch. Even the direct way of playing to try to find players faster, and the focus on the attitude and the drive, or giving Scott a role where he is not asked to build but just to roam forward and disrupt the opposition, this was too similar to the way Ole had to play because of the quality of the squad.
It was good to play that way for that game. The question is: are we going to revert back to trying to build anything more possession based or are we going to get trapped to be playing that ways as was Ole at some point because those are the qualities our players have?
Ole invented counter attacking football?
Clubs worldwide using at as a tactic cite and credit him?
Clubs worldwide using at as a tactic cite and credit him?
It's going to be very hard to build from the back without a new keeper and Frenkie De Jong (or a midfielder with similar qualities), so unless those kinds of transfers happen we'll probably see a modified Ole ball with much heavier pressing throughout the pitch and gradually improving ball progression.
Signing Martinez, Malacia, Eriksen and (possibly) Antony is a very strong indication that the long term goal is to install a possession based philosophy.
So far I'm very impressed with the job ETH has done. He was bequeathed a steaming pile and despite all the cash we have at our disposal, we're not going to replace the starting XI with a new starting XI. Maybe 4 or 5, but no 11.
Part of his job will be to break old habits by players he can't unload at the moment or for whom some hope is warranted. Harry Maguire, for example, is a player we're not going to sell and on his day is actually pretty decent. What can ETH do with Harry? He can't turn him into a speedy player, but what he can do is coach into taking 1 or 2 touches max and not the 3 or 4 we too often see from him. Harry also needs to learn to how to head the ball. These are coachable skills. ETH and his keeper coach also needs to work with De Gea on his footwork. Bruno needs to make better decisions, which ETH can work with him on.
Part of his job will be to break old habits by players he can't unload at the moment or for whom some hope is warranted. Harry Maguire, for example, is a player we're not going to sell and on his day is actually pretty decent. What can ETH do with Harry? He can't turn him into a speedy player, but what he can do is coach into taking 1 or 2 touches max and not the 3 or 4 we too often see from him. Harry also needs to learn to how to head the ball. These are coachable skills. ETH and his keeper coach also needs to work with De Gea on his footwork. Bruno needs to make better decisions, which ETH can work with him on.
What do you guys think about his English so far? I think he understands it very well, and can get his point across, but sometimes I feel that he can't fully express himself. I watched a couple of press conferences for him in Dutch which I don't understand, but he seemed much more confident.
What do our Dutch residents think? Is there much of a difference in how he speaks in Dutch vs English?
What do our Dutch residents think? Is there much of a difference in how he speaks in Dutch vs English?
Not really a durch resident but well aware of the fact that he was often ridiculed for his lack of charisma, the way he speaks is a big part of that. So it's not a language thing I think.
Yes sometimes he’s not been able to get his point across as clearly as he would like I’m sure, but I don’t think that’s held him back from achieving what he wants during the pressers. His answers have been top notch and he’s handling the constant media assault really well imo
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