Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Adnan]

@Stacks
Guardiola was given almost £500m in his first two seasons at the club. And when you have a nation state backing you like that, then playing football manager becomes a reality, where you can buy and sell who you want. United can't do that. You can go only go as fast the wealth of your club in comparison to Man City, who are bankrolled by a nation state, where as our owners take every opportunity to take money out of the club.

Both Fred and McTominay were more useful than Pogba last season. And it's important we evolve as a team and bring in new blood who will help us create a new dynamic in midfield where we can impose our game on the opposition. We've made two signings in that regard and need one more player to balance the 3 in midfield.

 

[r0663664]

ETH won't be supported like Pep, Glazers will probably sanction 120 million and rest thru' sales. I think think Maguire, McTominay, AWB and Fred would probably fetch 120 million. ETH will need to use this money wisely and make zero mistake in transfer dealing. Hopefully, 240 million, we can bring in 4-5 players. I truly believe he has the ability to unearth talent on how he wants to play.

 

[Zen86]

You can sell whoever you want when you want. Its hardly an overhaul. We lost one or two useful first teamer last year (guy who actually contributes or is not semi retired) and thats Pogba and J-Lingz. In Pep 1st season he brought in 7 (I wont include Moreno) and sent out 7 serviceable (including loans out).
In his 2nd season he brought in 6 and ejected 12 (excluding youth players with barely any caps).

You can go as fast as you like

We certainly can’t.

 

[Stacks]

Guardiola was given almost £500m in his first two seasons at the club. And when you have a nation state backing you like that, then playing football manager becomes a reality, where you can buy and sell who you want. United can't do that. You can go only go as fast the wealth of your club in comparison to Man City, who are bankrolled by a nation state, where as our owners take every opportunity to take money out of the club.

Both Fred and McTominay were more useful than Pogba last season. And it's important we evolve as a team and bring in new blood who will help us create a new dynamic in midfield where we can impose our game on the opposition. We've made two signings in that regard and need one more player to balance the 3 in midfield.

roughly £360 million net over the 2 years for Pep. We've just done 204 million net and £100 million net the year before. about 50 million difference and I'm sure ten hag will get decent outlay next year. Pep got so much because they actually moved guys on. As I point out we seem to suck at moving players on even when we spent millions on them. We just keep them on the bench for years contributing nothing. The nation state aspect is bull. Any team can sell players regardless of who is backing them. As pointed out their net spend is similar.

 

[Stacks]

We certainly can’t.

Thats an internal issue. Just like renewing contracts for dudes like Jones and Baiily others because they are "assets" but no intention of using them. its poor operating, just like letting Lingard and Pogba run down their contracts when we could have sold earlier

 

[romufc]

ETH won't be supported like Pep, Glazers will probably sanction 120 million and rest thru' sales. I think think Maguire, McTominay, AWB and Fred would probably fetch 120 million. ETH will need to use this money wisely and make zero mistake in transfer dealing. Hopefully, 240 million, we can bring in 4-5 players. I truly believe he has the ability to unearth talent on how he wants to play.

I hate the Glazers as much as the next person but this is based on 0 evidence.

If you take what has happened since Pep joined, we have spent the most money... so what you are saying is baseless.

 

[mav_9me]

I hate the Glazers as much as the next person but this is based on 0 evidence.

If you take what has happened since Pep joined, we have spent the most money... so what you are saying is baseless.

Obviously have wasted a lot of money.

I think the question is will Glazers continue to spend? I fear they won't because they are caught in a bad situation. Debt is increasing if I'm not mistaken (or at least not going down). So with rising interest rates, I think the glazers are stuck. They can't spend money and at the same time without spending money (without proper investment) they risk losing money by not getting CL. so either they take on more debt or lose money. Either way we are fecked.

Point is what they have spent so far is less relevant than a) their ability to keep spending and b) arguably more importantly their incompetence running the club. Bottomline Glazers are the biggest problem for the club.

 

[AjaxCunian]

6/10 so far.

 

[Adnan]

roughly £360 million net over the 2 years for Pep. We've just done 204 million net and £100 million net the year before. about 50 million difference and I'm sure ten hag will get decent outlay next year. Pep got so much because they actually moved guys on. As I point out we seem to suck at moving players on even when we spent millions on them. We just keep them on the bench for years contributing nothing. The nation state aspect is bull. Any team can sell players regardless of who is backing them. As pointed out their net spend is similar.

My original response to you was that he (ten Hag) can't ship out everyone in one window. And he can't ship out everyone in one window for several reasons. And some of those reasons have been mentioned in the media, which can be discussed on here.

Pep got so much because first they were bank rolled by a nation state and secondly due to Brian Marwood who had paved the way for future success by creating the structures on the football side of the club which put people in charge of various departments from the scouting to the data science departments. And Marwood was brought to the club when he was working for Nike. But he was a football man and when you put football men into positions of power on the football side of the club, things happen for the better. It took us almost a decade to do the same after non footballing people were put in charge of contracts, people like Woodward, Baty and Judge.

And if he had brought Marwood to United, alot of our fans would've derided the decision to hire him to oversee the football side of the club. And the only thing the Glazers and Abu Dhabi had in common was that they put two non footballing men in charge of their clubs in Woodward and Gary Cooke, but the difference was that Cook realised his mistakes after a year and sought help from his former colleague at Nike, which was Brian Marwood who shaped the Abu Dhabi era at City.

So yes, any team can sell players but you need to have a football department headed by football people and not headed by non football men. And now when the damage has been done it's not going to be a quick turn around unless the Glazers splash the cash similar to Abu Dhabi, which isn't possible.

 

[Forevergiggs1]

Disagree. The CL has the biggest clubs with the most talented squads in the world. It’s the premier competition, better even than the World Cup. The PL is the best league, but the CL has been the gold standard for decades.

Pep hasn’t won the CL in 11 years, despite managing for Barca, Bayern and Man City. Never won without Messi. He’s literally working for a club owned by a country. In order to subvert FFP requirements, they literally cooked the books, selling advertising and marketing to their own parent company in order to avoid FFP and open the vaults to buy whoever they want with no spend limit.

I don’t like Pep personally. He is a sore loser, constantly complains about refereeing. His tactical fouling deep in the opponent’s territory to stop counter attacking is a scourge in the game, and it makes the product worse. From a coaching perspective, he’s truly brilliant at preparing a team. He is a great coach and his attention to detail is fantastic. That being said, his inability to win the CL post Messi shows he is too rigid in his philosophy. Maybe he’s unlucky, or maybe he’s not as good of a manager when facing sides with equal talent and an equally astute manager. To say that Zidane isn’t his equal after winning 3 straight CLs and two La Ligas in 4 and a half seasons is ridiculous. In 25 meetings vs Pep, Klopp has won 11, Pep 9 with 5 draws. And probably with inferior talent overall.

Pep is a great manager, but to say he is significantly better than Klopp or Zidane, or even Ancelotti, is a stretch.

Our own SAF won 2 CLs. Does that make Zidane a better manager than him for winning 3? Of course not. The CL is a lottery where not always the best team wins. Granted Guardiola is sometimes his own worst enemy like his team choice that started the CL final against Chelsea but he's revolutionised the PL with his style of play and I very much doubt any manager in world football could play at such a high standard for so long given the same money as Guardiola has been given. We've found out at a very heavy cost that splashing silly money on players doesn't guarantee success. Klopp is the nearest thing to competing against Pep but I'd still put Pep half a tier above him, 1 tier above Conte, Mou or Ancelotti and 2 tiers above Zidane.

 

[JB7]

I hate the Glazers as much as the next person but this is based on 0 evidence.

If you take what has happened since Pep joined, we have spent the most money... so what you are saying is baseless.

I find these arguments weird, similar to the "last decade" stuff that was around the other week. Look at what they had prior to that. They had a number of windows of pretty much unprecedented spending long before Guardiola or even Pellegrini took over while we were selling the best player in the world to pay off a load of fecking interest. Yes, the club has started spending its money over the past 8/9 years or so and it has been spent very poorly but the reality is during those final Ferguson years where City were spending unbelievable money while we weren't doing an awful lot really hurt us in the long run as one would expect. It will be interesting to see what happens if we finish outside of the Champions League places as those are the summers we have tended to spent the most money, although I imagine we wouldn't spend so highly if it was two years outside the competition as our sponsorship payments would obviously drop off further.

 

[el3mel]

Disagree. The CL has the biggest clubs with the most talented squads in the world. It’s the premier competition, better even than the World Cup. The PL is the best league, but the CL has been the gold standard for decades.

Pep hasn’t won the CL in 11 years, despite managing for Barca, Bayern and Man City. Never won without Messi. He’s literally working for a club owned by a country. In order to subvert FFP requirements, they literally cooked the books, selling advertising and marketing to their own parent company in order to avoid FFP and open the vaults to buy whoever they want with no spend limit.

I don’t like Pep personally. He is a sore loser, constantly complains about refereeing. His tactical fouling deep in the opponent’s territory to stop counter attacking is a scourge in the game, and it makes the product worse. From a coaching perspective, he’s truly brilliant at preparing a team. He is a great coach and his attention to detail is fantastic. That being said, his inability to win the CL post Messi shows he is too rigid in his philosophy. Maybe he’s unlucky, or maybe he’s not as good of a manager when facing sides with equal talent and an equally astute manager. To say that Zidane isn’t his equal after winning 3 straight CLs and two La Ligas in 4 and a half seasons is ridiculous. In 25 meetings vs Pep, Klopp has won 11, Pep 9 with 5 draws. And probably with inferior talent overall.

Pep is a great manager, but to say he is significantly better than Klopp or Zidane, or even Ancelotti, is a stretch.

In the history of football, the most CL trophies won by a manager were 4 times, and the rest of the best managers the football world has known only known it twice or once in their entire career. To consider Pep not winning it more than two times in his history as a failure is a ridiculous level of standards that if anything proves that people want to invent anything to bash him with and ignore his massive success.

CL is a cup competition and in 2 legs games anything can happen. I have seen worse teams won in undeservedly multiple times. Chelsea won it in 2012 despite being the worst one among the semi-final back then and it showed later in the next CL, UEFA Super Cup and CWC which they lost all of them embarrassingly. That's what a club competition is.

You're basing your entire opinion on him not winning one competition, one ! And ignoring all his other achievements. And you're asking why is CL overrated ?

As for the head record between Klopp and Pep, Ferguson had only defeated Mourinho twice in his career out of 14 matches. Does that mean anything ?

Finally, I don't get why Zidane is involved in this. Guy has only managed one team in his life. When he manages another team, we can start this comparison.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Ridiculous post. I'll kill to have Pep Guardiola as our manager.

If you have unlimited funds then yes, he is the best choice. But in a real world, he would fail in other English clubs. And by fail i mean that he wouldn't compete for title.
He needs 2 top class players for every position and all those players must be exactly the type of players that he wants. Guy is a fraud. Give him Liverpool with 100 mil budget and he would do shit. In Spurs he would be finishing 6th.

 

[el3mel]

If you have unlimited funds then yes, he is the best choice. But in a real world, he would fail in other English clubs. And by fail i mean that he wouldn't compete for title.
He needs 2 top class players for every position and all those players must be exactly the type of players that he wants. Guy is a fraud. Give him Liverpool with 100 mil budget and he would do shit. In Spurs he would be finishing 6th.

All English clubs have ton of money to spend. We ourselves have spent 80 and 90m on single players multiple times. Liverpool have spent 70 and 80m on players before under Klopp. The notion that he won't have the same funds as other English clubs is simply wrong. And money isn't everything anyway, we spend ton of it and are shit. People act like City are the only team spending money is ridiculous. As I said before, it screams jealousy of Pep's success whenever I see these claims.

City spending aren't that over the top as people making it out to be and they decided against overspending against several players before like Maguire and Sanchez. They just spend their money wisely most of the time. That's why they get their value worth it. They used to bring multiple players for 50-60m each while United for example splash 100m on one player and consider it good business. That's the difference.

And regardless of the money spent, no other manager no matter how much money he got to spend, would have achieved the same level of dominance on the league. City have spent money a lot before Pep came too, and they weren't dominating England as much as this.

 

[RedOrange]

Pep got so much because they actually moved guys on. As I point out we seem to suck at moving players on even when we spent millions on them. We just keep them on the bench for years contributing nothing. The nation state aspect is bull. Any team can sell players regardless of who is backing them. As pointed out their net spend is similar.

You're right, we should just sell all the overpaid, underperforming players 20 million pounds each and then use that money to buy better players! It's so simple and possible!

 

[el3mel]

You're right, we should just sell all the overpaid, underperforming players 20 million pounds each and then use that money to buy better players! It's so simple and possible!

If they are overpaid that's actually our problem to start. No one told us to give giga salary contracts to everyone and they complain about not being able to sell them.

 

[Andycoleno9]

All English clubs have ton of money to spend. We ourselves have spent 80 and 90m on single players multiple times. Liverpool have spent 70 and 80m on players before under Klopp. The notion that he won't have the same funds as other English clubs is simply wrong. And money isn't everything anyway, we spend ton of it and are shit. People act like City are the only team spending money is ridiculous. As I said before, it screams jealousy of Pep's success whenever I see these claims.

City spending aren't that over the top as people making it out to be and they decided against overspending against several players before like Maguire and Sanchez. They just spend their money wisely most of the time. That's why they get their value worth it. They used to bring multiple players for 50-60m each while United for example splash 100m on one player and consider it good business. That's the difference.

And regardless of the money spent, no other manager no matter how much money he got to spend, would have achieved the same level of dominance on the league. City have spent money a lot before Pep came too, and they weren't dominating England as much as this.

Remember his first season in PL? He inherited team which were champions 2 years before and he finished 4th. And no other manager in the world has luxury to buy wrong player like he has.
He bought Bravo and then gor Ederson. His spending on central defenders is a joke too. He just got bloody Haaland because Jesus is not good enough. His 100 mil winger is bench warmer. He bought backup of the backup dmc for 50 mil. And so on, and so on.

As i said; for unlimited budget he is best manager to have. But in real world, he is a fraud

 

[NZT-One]

Sensational? A CB who played 90 minutes in each of our 3 defeats this season in which we conceded 11 goals? As I said he has been refreshing influx of aggression and temperament.

Weird response... I attacked the mentioning of the word in my post, didn't I.

It doesn't matter who the manager is when players like Fred and Mctominay are still first 11 players, and are starting in midfield. The midfield/central areas are crucial for any head coach who wants to impose his idea on the opponent and attempt to play a dominant brand of football.

As a coach you can prepare the team better than the opponent and have superior ideas compared to the man in the opposing dug out. But if your players in key areas fail to execute the idea on the ball due a lack of technical security, then it shouldn't be a surprise to see a Newcastle midfield containing Joelinton, Guimaraes and Longstaff more than hold their own.

Eriksen for me is our most creative player and our reliance on him as a ball progressor from the defensive and middle thirds needs to be replicated by one or two other players in midfield. And that can only be replicated by either signing a play-making #8, along with bringing one or two of the younger talents through who have shown the potential to be the play-making #8, and hence exhibit the qualities required on the ball that we're badly missing in midfield.

I'm confident once we add a couple of midfielders who are technically and physically capable we'll see a very dominant team.

Fully agree on this. BUT - I think, we have to paint the full picture - If ETH knew that the midfield was as instrumental to his ideas, the transfer window should have looked extremely different. Not only the "leave it until late" issue, but also the number of midfielders issue. We knew, that one player plus Eriksen wouldn't be enough.

@Stacks
Guardiola was given almost £500m in his first two seasons at the club. And when you have a nation state backing you like that, then playing football manager becomes a reality, where you can buy and sell who you want. United can't do that. You can go only go as fast the wealth of your club in comparison to Man City, who are bankrolled by a nation state, where as our owners take every opportunity to take money out of the club.

Both Fred and McTominay were more useful than Pogba last season. And it's important we evolve as a team and bring in new blood who will help us create a new dynamic in midfield where we can impose our game on the opposition. We've made two signings in that regard and need one more player to balance the 3 in midfield.

I understand why you are bringing it up, but again - we shouldn't always bring up the monumental amounts of City when Pep took over when we are splashing the cash just as well. All you are saying is correct - but it doesn't feel right to get circle around this and that because of "we don't have City" money, when there seems to be enough money to overspent 3 times in one summer.

 

[DJ_21]

Ten Hag arriving 4 hours early at old Trafford. Wonder where the squad are. I’ve noticed that every home game he goes out onto the pitch hours before… is this to check the conditions?

 

[romufc]

Remember his first season in PL? He inherited team which were champions 2 years before and he finished 4th. And no other manager in the world has luxury to buy wrong player like he has.
He bought Bravo and then gor Ederson. His spending on central defenders is a joke too. He just got bloody Haaland because Jesus is not good enough. His 100 mil winger is bench warmer. He bought backup of the backup dmc for 50 mil. And so on, and so on.

As i said; for unlimited budget he is best manager to have. But in real world, he is a fraud

Let me tell you the reasons why.

1. The reason why Pep is allowed to spend like he does, he produces results. 3/4 PL titles.
2. He replaced Jesus after years with one of the most talented CF's.

Our managers have had money to spend too, the difference is the managers we picked have been unable to coach players and make them better.

No other manager has dominated like he has in recent years, which gives him the ability to ask for players.

We have a £50m Fred on the bench too btw.

 

[Skills]

Let me tell you the reasons why.

1. The reason why Pep is allowed to spend like he does, he produces results. 3/4 PL titles.
2. He replaced Jesus after years with one of the most talented CF's.

Our managers have had money to spend too, the difference is the managers we picked have been unable to coach players and make them better.

No other manager has dominated like he has in recent years, which gives him the ability to ask for players.

We have a £50m Fred on the bench too btw.

Not only results, but they play by far the best and most entertaining football in the country.

 

[Strelok]

They used to bring multiple players for 50-60m each while United for example splash 100m on one player and consider it good business. That's the difference

Agree.

If it doesn't work then they'd sell those players for 30m. So they actually lose only 20m. Here we bought these 100m players and because of the fee more than often we'll have to offer insane wages too. If it doesn't work nobody will pay even 50m with that kind of wages. Worse thing is we don't look like we even want to get rid of our deadwoods. Won't suprise me if Maguire stay with us until the end of his contract.

 

[Adnan]

Weird response... I attacked the mentioning of the word in my post, didn't I.


Fully agree on this. BUT - I think, we have to paint the full picture - If ETH knew that the midfield was as instrumental to his ideas, the transfer window should have looked extremely different. Not only the "leave it until late" issue, but also the number of midfielders issue. We knew, that one player plus Eriksen wouldn't be enough.


I understand why you are bringing it up, but again - we shouldn't always bring up the monumental amounts of City when Pep took over when we are splashing the cash just as well. All you are saying is correct - but it doesn't feel right to get circle around this and that because of "we don't have City" money, when there seems to be enough money to overspent 3 times in one summer.

I think Erik ten Hag knew the midfield needed prioritising and wanted both Eriksen and de Jong. But what he likely didn't know was the existing issues in the squad because he was coaching a different team in a different competition. You only understand the scale of the job until you undertake said job.

I think there's a difference between the Glazer ownership and the one at City where the City ownership has financially doped up a club whose best chance of winning a derby was against Stockport before their arrival. One ownership model which uses the club as their personal ATM and the other one that uses their club for sports washing purposes. Do I think we can compete with City? Yes I do, but we have to look at Liverpool and not City who are a club that can absorb the hit of failed big money signings without it effecting their budget. And it's going to get worse with Clear Lake Capital and the Saudi Public Investment fund, unless the current owners sell. Man Utd have never been able to spend the large sums of money that City have in successive windows. If Guardiola was at Liverpool and Klopp at City, then I believe Klopp would've been dominating in England on the back of Abu Dhabi support aided by Brian Marwood who was the head of football.

I haven't just spoken about the financial doping aspect either at City and have pointed out the key contribution of Brian Marwood, who built the foundations on the football side of the club. And contracts and hiring and firing was his responsibility and he's a football man with a football background. When Fergie retired, the contracts and the hiring and firing process was led by non football men like Woodward and Judge and things got worse when Cliff Baty was appointed the Chief Financial Officer in 2016. And the three of them together have caused this mess with the contracts. This also demonstrates the utter incompetency of the Glazer ownership.

 

[Stacks]

My original response to you was that he (ten Hag) can't ship out everyone in one window. And he can't ship out everyone in one window for several reasons. And some of those reasons have been mentioned in the media, which can be discussed on here.

Pep got so much because first they were bank rolled by a nation state and secondly due to Brian Marwood who had paved the way for future success by creating the structures on the football side of the club which put people in charge of various departments from the scouting to the data science departments. And Marwood was brought to the club when he was working for Nike. But he was a football man and when you put football men into positions of power on the football side of the club, things happen for the better. It took us almost a decade to do the same after non footballing people were put in charge of contracts, people like Woodward, Baty and Judge.

And if he had brought Marwood to United, alot of our fans would've derided the decision to hire him to oversee the football side of the club. And the only thing the Glazers and Abu Dhabi had in common was that they put two non footballing men in charge of their clubs in Woodward and Gary Cooke, but the difference was that Cook realised his mistakes after a year and sought help from his former colleague at Nike, which was Brian Marwood who shaped the Abu Dhabi era at City.

So yes, any team can sell players but you need to have a football department headed by football people and not headed by non football men. And now when the damage has been done it's not going to be a quick turn around unless the Glazers splash the cash similar to Abu Dhabi, which isn't possible.

fair enough. I agree with much of this but I was unaware of the Marwood dude.

You're right, we should just sell all the overpaid, underperforming players 20 million pounds each and then use that money to buy better players! It's so simple and possible!

Might as well

 

[Dec9003]

He cost way over his worth.

Less than 100 million pounds.

 

[DSG]

Ok, lets agree on this - you consider getting rid of remarks that are burned like this one and I'll consider trying not to expect the worst in other posts. We'd be benefitting both.


I agree with you. But one single game is of course only an indicator. I mean, look at Newcastle from the weekend - do you think, we were so good, that we just contained that exceptional side that kept City at bay? Probably not. Lets face it, the league gives a good indicator about a team in general - because there is a number of games against more or less comparable opposition. Over the course of a season, other teams are consistently better in creating chances and preventing chances. Its not a dig, just a description of the status quo because this is what we should be striving for. One off games are great to watch, but should be seen as limited in terms of adapting things from one club to the other as there are too many variables.


I do. And to be perfectly honest, I haven't seen anybody lately who doesn't want to give him a chance. But discussing specific decisions, set ups, approaches isn't taking the chance away. It is just discussing specific things.


You're probably correct on this one, but the point isn't going to help you much in terms of guidance. If we want to reach the top again, in the national league and cups and the international cups, we have to see who is where we want to be and we need plans how to get there. Stating that the money level increased might be correct, but it is true for Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea as well. They are playing the same matches as we do so the observation doesn't really get you anywhere.

I agree with a lot of this. One game is not an indicator. I will say that Newcastle didn’t have St Maximin or Isak available against us and therefore weren’t as threatening on the counter. But I also think Ten Hag set up more conservatively than Pep and they really didn’t get a sniff in the 2nd half. If memory serves, City were up 2-0 and cruising and City was still trying to score, pushing forward. Once Newcastle scored, it was like the secret code was unlocked and they ran the City defense ragged.

Regarding Ten Hag, I have no issues with criticism, but some has been blind criticism that has been a bit unfair. Generally, agree with you, we should be able to discuss his picked team, subs, and lack of goals. No one is perfect.

Our revenues have increased as well — it’s all relative. But there really aren’t many awful teams in the PL. Can’t say the same for the other leagues in Europe. My only point here is that our climb back to the top is more difficult, and potentially will take more time than it would have two decades ago. As such, we should view progress through that lens.

 

[el3mel]

Remember his first season in PL? He inherited team which were champions 2 years before and he finished 4th. And no other manager in the world has luxury to buy wrong player like he has.
He bought Bravo and then gor Ederson. His spending on central defenders is a joke too. He just got bloody Haaland because Jesus is not good enough. His 100 mil winger is bench warmer. He bought backup of the backup dmc for 50 mil. And so on, and so on.

As i said; for unlimited budget he is best manager to have. But in real world, he is a fraud

A) The team he inherited barely finished fourth the previous season ahead of LvG's awful United by goal difference only.
B) He finished 3rd, not 4th.

A lot of the clubs around us buy the wrong players and replace them quickly. It's just United's problem, because we give most of our players giga contracts which make getting rid of them hard later on. City sell their bad signings, we struggle to do so because of our stupidity in handling contracts.

I don't get the point about Haaland. Jesus is indeed not good enough. What's the point? He has always been an inconsistent player for them, and the lack of striker came back to bite them few times before. Champions keep on reinforcing themselves with better players every year to keep their dominance and if you stop, you will fall off the cliff soon enough.

 

[Andycoleno9]

A) The team he inherited barely finished fourth the previous season ahead of LvG's awful United by goal difference only.
B) He finished 3rd, not 4th.

A lot of the clubs around us buy the wrong players and replace them quickly. It's just United's problem, because we give most of our players giga contracts which make getting rid of them hard later on. City sell their bad signings, we struggle to do so because of our stupidity in handling contracts.

I don't get the point about Haaland. Jesus is indeed not good enough. What's the point? He has always been an inconsistent player for them, and the lack of striker came back to bite them few times before. Champions keep on reinforcing themselves with better players every year to keep their dominance and if you stop, you will fall off the cliff soon enough.

City selling players has nothing to do with Pep. Thry have great Dof for that.

City had already best team when he came in. Then he spent one fecking billion in new players. And now he bought best striker in the world. Wow, what a coach. When Haaland scores 3, it is all about coaching, right?
He inherited Bayern who won triple and did what? Was trashed in CL 3 years in a row. Even Niko bloody Kovac won double with Bayern in Germany.

Pep is excellent coach. I don't deny that. But only in situation where he has best team around so he can do tweaks then and there. In other words he is best cheque book manager ever. Give Conte or Jose all that money and they will not create a monster like Pep did in City. But give Pep a "normal" club and he will do shit.

 

[el3mel]

City selling players has nothing to do with Pep. Thry have great Dof for that.

City had already best team when he came in. Then he spent one fecking billion in new players. And now he bought best striker in the world. Wow, what a coach. When Haaland scores 3, it is all about coaching, right?
He inherited Bayern who won triple and did what? Was trashed in CL 3 years in a row. Even Niko bloody Kovac won double with Bayern in Germany.

Pep is excellent coach. I don't deny that. But only in situation where he has best team around so he can do tweaks then and there. In other words he is best cheque book manager ever. Give Conte or Jose all that money and they will not create a monster like Pep did in City. But give Pep a "normal" club and he will do shit.

Never said it has to do anything with Pep though? I'm just replying on the unlimited budget thing. They spend their money wisely, they get rid of their bad played which generate more cash to spend. They don't splash ton of money on one player. United make all these mistakes, it's our own problem.

City weren't the best team when he inherited them. They haven't challenged for the league the previous two seasons. Chelsea walked the league without competition in 2015 and City barely finished 4th as we mentioned in 2016. When did you bring that from?

He was dominating the league Before Haaland too, so what? Not like that's the first season he started winning in.

All Bayern fans remember his time fondly with them and think they played great football under him.

 

[Kostov]

Weird response... I attacked the mentioning of the word in my post, didn't I.

I structured my post strangely. I understand that we agree, sensational is over the top as you mentioned.

 

[Bubz27]

Why isn't he making us score? He can't keep getting away with it!

 

[MDFC Manager]

We'll get pasted a few times, but one of these days we're also going to absolutely tonk someone too.

 

[SER19]

Doing a very good job it's clear tonight how much we've improved, despite areas still to improve. All of his signings are excellent. But we're fronted by a player who's around 10th-14th side in league level and it means we've to work trebly hard to win

 

[Idxomer]

He's starting to make us play like his Ajax team, fans will need to have patience if the results don't come instantly.

 

[Irwin99]

The passing and standard of play has gone up many levels. Attack isn't quite clicking though in terms of taking chances but the improvement in other areas is so obvious.

 

[Baneofthegame]

Wonder if he should put the ball in the net for us as well, 18 shots and he’s probably trash.

 

[Zen86]

Better with every game. The scoring is alluding us but we have very few finishers (if any) in the middle

 

[Kaos]

You know what, a smash and grab from Spurs would be annoying but I wouldn't be that upset if this is the framework for how we play going forward. This season is a free hit for Ten Hag as far as I'm concerned, but that was probably the most enjoyable half I've seen from us in years, just missed the goal which hopefully comes in the second half.

 

[Red Dreams]

If we had a proper striker we would be winning games far more than we are doing now.

 

[MDFC Manager]

You know what, a smash and grab from Spurs would be annoying but I wouldn't be that upset if this is the framework for how we play going forward. This season is a free hit for Ten Hag as far as I'm concerned, but that was probably the most enjoyable half I've seen from us in years, just missed the goal which hopefully comes in the second half.

Fully agreed. I've already been entertained enough for the night.