Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Was slightly concerned going into the season, but I'm very impressed so far with his tactical flexibility and the high standards he demands of the players as well as of the club hierarchy.
 
The leadership Ten Hag has introduced has been so key to our rehabilitation. We now have so many pace-setting leaders on the team. Every single player we've brought in is a leader in their own way. Even Antony, the way he presses, shows bravery on the ball and his swagger, I expect these things to filter into the other attackers as well.
 
The biggest compliment I can give Ten Hag is that I can clearly see what he wants to do, and what he wants the team to be, and isn’t going to to settle.

Every other manager you’ve had has come in and tried to be a soft touch to win over the dressing room, and theyve turned on them like a substitute teacher.

Ten Hag calling out the players so early, benching Ronaldo, establishing that he HAS to be the Alpha of the team is to succeed … it’s exactly the approach that was needed.

Now …. United fans need to remember this as the year goes on. This is still a work in progress. There might be stretches of bad results, injury plagues, etc.

In those moments remember you look to have the right guy.
 
Great to see he learned quickly after getting a bloody nose. It is also important that he does not seem to be naive enough to play his brand of football no matter what.

However, I want to see more dominance on the ball. Counterattacking football is fine, and he worked a small miracle when it comes to our defense. Now it is time to make the next step.

Will say it again that it's gonna be difficult to implement his style of football until the spine of team is sorted out
 
Mike Tyson:
“Everyone has got a plan until they get punched in the face”

Ten Hag after Brentford
”Hold my beer”
 
Where are people getting counter attacking from? Against arsenal, I don’t think we scored using counter attacking. Sure, we transitioned from defense to our attackers quickly with the two rashys goals but that was hardly “counter attacking”. I think a lot of posters see a quick attack and just assume it is a counter when in reality the team is coached to attack the open spaces behind the opposition midfield and defense quickly. You saw this with Eriksens run in behind and some quick passing form Bruno as well.
 
Where are people getting counter attacking from? Against arsenal, I don’t think we scored using counter attacking. Sure, we transitioned from defense to our attackers quickly with the two rashys goals but that was hardly “counter attacking”. I think a lot of posters see a quick attack and just assume it is a counter when in reality the team is coached to attack the open spaces behind the opposition midfield and defense quickly. You saw this with Eriksens run in behind and some quick passing form Bruno as well.

I suppose attacking quickly after a turnover in your own half is a counter attack.

We tried to press continuously but weren’t always successful at that.

The first goal was not a counter attack, because it came from our own possession.
 
Where are people getting counter attacking from? Against arsenal, I don’t think we scored using counter attacking. Sure, we transitioned from defense to our attackers quickly with the two rashys goals but that was hardly “counter attacking”. I think a lot of posters see a quick attack and just assume it is a counter when in reality the team is coached to attack the open spaces behind the opposition midfield and defense quickly. You saw this with Eriksens run in behind and some quick passing form Bruno as well.
Because both our goals , the second and third came from a pass where all of Arsenal's defenders were practically standing on the half way line of the pitch. Arsenal on the other hand were creating chances against us with most of our players standing in and around our own box.
We were in essence playing low block.
We need to see if we can create chances against a team doing the same thing.
 
One thing that comes to mind about the job he has already done is a reference back to the "football heritage" speech Mourinho did when he was United manager. When he mentioned the way managers find a club and the way they leave it when they move on. Before Ten Hag came we were arguably at the lowest point in four decades, the perception was that we needed 11 new starters and a 4-5 year rebuild. Now its looking like we are 2-3 players away from being able to be one of the top 2-3 teams and title challengers. He found the club in disarray, and he could step out now and the club is in a miles better position. That is football heritage.
 
Encouraging that we've managed a good run largely without the services of Casemiro, Antony, and Ronaldo. Have to believe we will get significantly better over time as confidence begins to snowball and these three begin to contribute more.
 
I can see Real Madrid coming in for Ten Hag sooner rather than later. He'd suit them to a tee. Hopefully we can stave them off.

Pragmatism > Idealism
Kind of hope Arteta does well for this reason, the likes of Madrid and Barca would favour him being Spanish. Nagelsmann being so young should be able to hold onto the Bayern job for close to a decade you'd hope, but he needs to have success.

I do think Klopp will be at either Real Madrid or Bayern in the next 2 years depending on whether Ancelotti retires and if Nagelsmann succeeds.
 
I'm more surprised by the growing number taking offense to others saying we scored on the counter. Takes an unnecessary leap to make that a bad thing. We are absolutely using more deep defensive strategies till the team is ready to control games for 90 minutes. We play both styles in spurts and see out results playing deeper where the counter becomes the natural weapon. This one time, a spade really is a spade. Somethings just don't need policing. The team isn't ready so we've made pragmatic adjustments.
 
Funny hearing Mourinho talk about football heritage. He tore everything up when he came and tore everything down when he left.

Hag is a chance to start a process to instill a style and philosophy into the club at all levels, one that I think fits United’s history.
 
We are playing Hag ball, but not consistent, which is normal when playing a good opponent.
Yes. The posters saying he is holding off on his system don't have a good grasp of what is going on. His system is fully installed and they are playing it. You cannot partially install a system or elect to do away with it at one point in a game. That is ludicrous, something a coach would never do as it would be chaos and the team would be confused and they would lose big. This team is trying to possess by playing the positional rules and are not good enough at it yet so spend most of their time in non-possession mode of EtH's system. Without the ball they are pressing to get the ball back, and attacking at every opportunity as is his philosophy.

His system is partially why Casemiro is not playing. He has to be on the same page with the rest of the midfield in conjunction with ten Hag's rules at least to the level McTominay is at right now, which is to say solid starting level production. Once he gets in there and has his role down he'll be the regular starter there.

The previous game the team missed out on some good opportunities in space and obviously worked hard on them in preparation for Arse, anticipating what Arteta would do. That is just good coaching. He is very good at finding the weaknesses of the opponent and attacking them and getting his side to run through walls to execute the gameplan.
 
Where are people getting counter attacking from? Against arsenal, I don’t think we scored using counter attacking. Sure, we transitioned from defense to our attackers quickly with the two rashys goals but that was hardly “counter attacking”. I think a lot of posters see a quick attack and just assume it is a counter when in reality the team is coached to attack the open spaces behind the opposition midfield and defense quickly. You saw this with Eriksens run in behind and some quick passing form Bruno as well.

Its a narrative set by arsenal fans on SM as far as i know its how started.
Either its refs or belittling others is their way of making up a loss
 
People just want to act like nothing has changed. Everything has changed though. They're going to be prioritizing Hagball all the way through the organization now, from the youth teams on up. This is a complete organizational overhaul with EtH at the center.

Which, btw, is about the only way the morons who own this team will ever win in the PL.
 
Because both our goals , the second and third came from a pass where all of Arsenal's defenders were practically standing on the half way line of the pitch. Arsenal on the other hand were creating chances against us with most of our players standing in and around our own box.
We were in essence playing low block.
We need to see if we can create chances against a team doing the same thing.
The third started with our throw in.

Like the first, we scored the third from our own possession.
 
Because both our goals , the second and third came from a pass where all of Arsenal's defenders were practically standing on the half way line of the pitch. Arsenal on the other hand were creating chances against us with most of our players standing in and around our own box.
We were in essence playing low block.
We need to see if we can create chances against a team doing the same thing.
We did against Southampton. People seem to remember only the last 30 mins of that game, but before our goal Southampton were pretty much just defending all game. Same against Leicester who weren't exactly sitting back but were hardly coming onto us either.

Also, Arsenal didn't create much. Lots of pretty passing but only 3 shots on target, while most of their other shots were from acute angles. Possession is not domination. We should know that having lived through LvG.
 
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You're confusing how ETH wants us to play vs how we're currently playing our games. All our goals are coming from counter attacks - absorbing the pressure and scoring on the break. There's nothing unique about this that's not happened in the last 3 years. We are more organized a a team defensively and have better mentality and a winning attitude of course but in terms of the prime approach, it's not different at all. This isn't a bad thing by any means as long as we're winning.

Our first goal is built from forward > midfielder > defenders > keeper > defenders > midfielder > forward
Our third goal is built from a slow throw in at our right final third.
Both goals look very easy to break Arsenal defending line and no defenders in surrounding while scoring just because they set a extremely stupid high line against us. So people moaned our three goals as counter attack goal after they watched the 10sec highlights cut only or they do not accept we score as team goal should be their strengths.
Also there is no one moaned about Arensal allowed and disallowed goal as counter attack goal, they just prised Arsenal played a dominant (with high procession only? but ignoring they provided less chance created, less shot on target)
 
I can't place my finger on what changed after the Brentford collapse, how true is it that he ordered the players feck off their usual off day, to turn up for training a day after a game to run 8 miles?
 
Encouraging that we've managed a good run largely without the services of Casemiro, Antony, and Ronaldo. Have to believe we will get significantly better over time as confidence begins to snowball and these three begin to contribute more.
Ronaldo? Him not starting is probably one of the reasons for our good run. Our football with him up top last season was completely a disaster. More like Martial. I really want to see how we'd play once he's back. Guy can't get fit ffs but imo we'll play a much better football when he's back. He's ETH's first choice #9. Ronaldo is even behind Rashford in the pecking order.
 
I can't place my finger on what changed after the Brentford collapse, how true is it that he ordered the players feck off their usual off day, to turn up for training a day after a game to run 8 miles?
Pretty sure Sancho confirmed it in an interview?
 
I can't place my finger on what changed after the Brentford collapse, how true is it that he ordered the players feck off their usual off day, to turn up for training a day after a game to run 8 miles?
Main thing is he (Ten Hag) ran it with them.
 
I can see Real Madrid coming in for Ten Hag sooner rather than later. He'd suit them to a tee. Hopefully we can stave them off.

Pragmatism > Idealism
If thats the case then maybe he would have achieved something of note here.

Something I would be happy with.
 
You can clearly see his ideas and his coaching working on the pitch. I love that he’s made us a lot more compact and organised. He’s trying to make us hard to beat. We should of had clean sheets against Liverpool and arsenal if it weren’t for lack of concentration. The more we get use to it I think we’ll start seeing a lot more goals. I remember his Ajax team scoring 5+ goals in quite a lot of games. The work he’s done with the current players is great, that’s when you know you have a proper coach. Someone who can improve players who was awful the season before. I don’t recall guardiola or klopp improving to many players..: I think guardiola sold the majority of his team and replaced them all.
 
I can see Real Madrid coming in for Ten Hag sooner rather than later. He'd suit them to a tee. Hopefully we can stave them off.

Pragmatism > Idealism
I can see them coming for Martinez and Antony in 2-3 years time.
 
Simon Jordan talking for 10 minutes to prove he really wasn’t wrong about the job being too big for Ten Hag.
That’s a start I suppose

Ha, he's changed his tune. I remember when ETH gave his first press conference, neither Jordan or Danny Murphy were impressed.
 
feck me Real really has done a number on some of you. Worrying about them taking our manager and new signings after 6 games (or in Antony’s case, 60 minutes) :lol:
 
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