Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

Status
Not open for further replies.
Also like that he recently said he wants rapid improvements and he's impatient about it. That's a modern manager thinking, unlike Moyesy and LvG who thought they had more time to get things going.
Moyes looked lost at United while LvG always talked about process but we actually got worse with time, we were better in spring of 2015 than one year later. With Mourinho it was always short-term thing and then with Ole we had some good results and periods but style of play made you worried and everything turned into horror last October and November.

With EtH we can't predict the future but performances like against Spurs and Chelsea can make us (cautiously) optimistic.
 
There's a lot of truth to this, but I'd say that at the moment, if anything, we're overlabouring setting up and delivering the final ball ( stemming from ETH's instructions as well as the relative lack of striker movement). We need a striker with instinctive and consistent 6-12 yard box movement, who's also strong enough to hold up when necessary and skillful enough to link play. At the moment we're finding a lot of positions where a prime striker would benefit from a final ball being whipped in quickly but, through instructions and Ronaldo's age-related decreased mobility/Rashford's erratic instinct and tendency to drift/ Martial's injuries and tendency to drift between playing as a 9 and 11, we're not exploiting the relatively better constructed moves around the edges of the box. It was quite frustrating at times during the last game, despite our overall dominance and creation of a decent number of opportunities, and there were elements of that against Newcastle too.
We need to improve in our attacking play around the box. I think the strikers are making good moves, but not found enough.

One example: we do not make use of the sides enough with our full backs and wingers, there is a lack of fluidity in our moves. Too often we see Anthony or Dalot go inside instead of doing an overlap and passing moves to create dangerous passing angles.

Garnacho did well on the other side, but needed a bit more support. Work in progress.

I’m sure improvement will come eventually. I do not think the strikers are the problem, both Ronaldo and Rashford got into good positions last game. With better attacking play on the wings we would score more.
 
I’m sorry but this is total nonsense. Sir Alex Ferguson rarely handled training as time went on, was he not a top manager? The difference is the quality of coaching they had beneath them/the control over the changing room and key players.

Loads of managers do things in different ways, there’s no right way and there’s no wrong way only the application. As it happens, Ten Hag probably is the right personality for this squad, but that doesn’t mean that for other squads Ole’s approach wouldn’t have been better (again, if with better/more experienced lieutenants).

You're confusing 1) Ole the manager (i.e his quality and ability) and 2) Ole's approach. Ole as the manager was just bad; 3 years of some ups but many, many downs. Ole's approach is debatable in that firstly, you can't use the GOAT manager and use that a baseline to say it works, especially as Fergie started as an elite coach and only got 'hands off' because he was Club. Secondly, if you look at all the top coaches across the leagues and in past seasons, who have had sustained success, they are all very involved in the coaching. The outliers either have had vast amount of experiences (e.g Ancelotti at Real Madrid) or there was some other extenuating circumstances (Guardiola/Zidane taking on a demotivated but highly talented team with a GOAT player in a 2/3 team league).

As for the 'if they had better coaches' argument, I would say this only works if the manager themselves knew more/had the ability to still make the 'right' tactical calls and actually get the players to playing how they want. You can't just palm off responsibility as 'the coaches wasn't good' enough. It comes top down. It's why managers like Gerrard (Beale) and Klinsmann (Low) failed as their assistants knew more/were better/whatever you want to call it. This may happen with Ole as McKenna and Carrick may potentially prove themselves to be more competent from a coaching perspective. There's a lot more nuance of course but in its simplicity, it's all on the manager themselves being 'good' enough or not. It's not about the 'approach'.
 
You're confusing 1) Ole the manager (i.e his quality and ability) and 2) Ole's approach. Ole as the manager was just bad; 3 years of some ups but many, many downs. Ole's approach is debatable in that firstly, you can't use the GOAT manager and use that a baseline to say it works, especially as Fergie started as an elite coach and only got 'hands off' because he was Club. Secondly, if you look at all the top coaches across the leagues and in past seasons, who have had sustained success, they are all very involved in the coaching. The outliers either have had vast amount of experiences (e.g Ancelotti at Real Madrid) or there was some other extenuating circumstances (Guardiola/Zidane taking on a demotivated but highly talented team with a GOAT player in a 2/3 team league).

As for the 'if they had better coaches' argument, I would say this only works if the manager themselves knew more/had the ability to still make the 'right' tactical calls and actually get the players to playing how they want. You can't just palm off responsibility as 'the coaches wasn't good' enough. It comes top down. It's why managers like Gerrard (Beale) and Klinsmann (Low) failed as their assistants knew more/were better/whatever you want to call it. This may happen with Ole as McKenna and Carrick may potentially prove themselves to be more competent from a coaching perspective. There's a lot more nuance of course but in its simplicity, it's all on the manager themselves being 'good' enough or not. It's not about the 'approach'.
That’s a lot of words to say that you agree with me that the approach is irrelevant
 
Back ETH to the hilt, new gk, new rb, new striker, cover in the midfield, get rid of the deadweight.

United won't find a manager like him out there again.
 
I’m sorry but this is total nonsense. Sir Alex Ferguson rarely handled training as time went on, was he not a top manager? The difference is the quality of coaching they had beneath them/the control over the changing room and key players.

Loads of managers do things in different ways, there’s no right way and there’s no wrong way only the application. As it happens, Ten Hag probably is the right personality for this squad, but that doesn’t mean that for other squads Ole’s approach wouldn’t have been better (again, if with better/more experienced lieutenants).
Not nonsense. Fergie proved he was a top manager/trainer in Scotland first by training the players, not coming in to a big club and delegating from the off like Ole did. Even when Fergie joined Utd, it took several transfer windows and 4 years to win the FA cup another 3 to win the league. Fergie was in the job for years, before delegating everything.
 
Not nonsense. Fergie proved he was a top manager/trainer in Scotland first by training the players, not coming in to a big club and delegating from the off like Ole did. Even when Fergie joined Utd, it took several transfer windows and 4 years to win the FA cup another 3 to win the league. Fergie was in the job for years, before delegating everything.
Agreed. It completely ignores the fact that the reason Fergie was able to devolve so much responsibility was because he'd built the club to a point where the structure around him allowed for it.
 
Not nonsense. Fergie proved he was a top manager/trainer in Scotland first by training the players, not coming in to a big club and delegating from the off like Ole did. Even when Fergie joined Utd, it took several transfer windows and 4 years to win the FA cup another 3 to win the league. Fergie was in the job for years, before delegating everything.

This post is a clear indication that none of you know about Ole's history before he became manager here. Anyway lets not derail this thread with unnecessary comparisons with Ole and like what @phelans shorts mentioned, there are various ways to manage a football team so stop emphasizing on the systemic approach being the best one.
 
This post is a clear indication that none of you know about Ole's history before he became manager here. Anyway lets not derail this thread with unnecessary comparisons with Ole and like what @phelans shorts mentioned, there are various ways to manage a football team so stop emphasizing on the systemic approach being the best one.
Let's not compare Ole's pre united career with fergie's. It's just silly.
 
This post is a clear indication that none of you know about Ole's history before he became manager here. Anyway lets not derail this thread with unnecessary comparisons with Ole and like what @phelans shorts mentioned, there are various ways to manage a football team so stop emphasizing on the systemic approach being the best one.
He managed the team in Norway with the most money. Anything else ive missed?
 
The one season I’m enjoying and looking forward for United games has to be the season with a fecking World Cup in the middle of it
We are playing well as a team but we still don't have a killer up front. It's difficult to predict what the World Cup will do for our momentum but we can potentially use it to our advantage if we sign a striker in January.

It reduces the amount of games where we have to play Rashford or Ronaldo up front if we do it right. Get a proper striker in and we'd almost certainly get top 4.
 
Back on the ETH topic, it was obvious he needed time to implement the system he wanted us to play in, but what surprises me is his adaptive and motivational capabilities. He learns from any mistakes very quickly and makes sure that they are eliminated as soon as possible.

In the Man City game, he realized that the team were still in a "holiday" zone with their movement, especially the midfield lacking control and he immediately forced a change with Casemiro replacing McTominay in the next game, despite McTominay having a successful four to five games prior to the Man City game. Even in victories, he will change players who don't seem to be contributing such as the Sancho case. He has created a disciplined, team-based attitude where everyone is driven to win.

In terms of tactics, ETH is quite flexible. The game might start with a 4-3-3 or a 4-1-2-2-1 but depending on where the opponent is weak and strong, the midfield shape changes accordingly. The key positions are the 2 midfielders on either side of the DM which is either Fred, Bruno or Eriksen. They act like free-roaming central midfielders, where they take up positions to make the line between the defense and attack compact. During attack, they can play the role of AMs, false nine or inverted wingers depending on the current positions of the attackers and during defence, they typically form a 3-man defensive midfield to narrow down the opponent's passing channels. It is a very fluid midfield shape which influences our attacking and defensive movement.

It would be interesting to see ETH's tactics against managers like Ancelotti or Mourinho, who are excellent at studying their opponent's formation shape and creating a counter formation. Even if ETH gets a bad result, he will learn immediately and will not repeat the same mistake against such managers.
 
He managed the team in Norway with the most money. Anything else ive missed?
For starters, he was the forwards' coach under Fergie before taking over the reserves team. Ole is very much an "on the pitch" coach and always has been. All of this is publicly available information.

When you don't know something, at least google it, do some basic research before giving strong opinions. Otherwise, it just shows ignorance.
 
I wonder how EtH will handle the next week. We've got an away game in Europe on Thursday followed by an away game against Villa next Sunday. Finishing 1st in our EL group is already unlikely without a superb performance with all of our best players.
 
For starters, he was the forwards' coach under Fergie before taking over the reserves team. Ole is very much an "on the pitch" coach and always has been. All of this is publicly available information.

When you don't know something, at least google it, do some basic research before giving strong opinions. Otherwise, it just shows ignorance.
Out of the horses mouth as a manager Ole said he delegated he didnt train. Google it.
 
Out of the horses mouth as a manager Ole said he delegated he didnt train. Google it.
There is nothing wrong with delegating, if the staff is good. As long as you control most aspects so that you work towards a concept and general goals.

Sometimes a manager just doesn’t work out, it was clear for all to see. Ole got longer than he should have probably.
 
Some managers are more 'manager than coach', others the other way around. Fergie was definitely the manager, not a coach, Ole tried to be a bit of both and fell between two stools. ETH it seems is predominately a lead-coach, but he has a management perspective to go with it. so far, it's working well, judging by what's happening both off and on the pitch.
 
There is nothing wrong with delegating, if the staff is good. As long as you control most aspects so that you work towards a concept and general goals.

Sometimes a manager just doesn’t work out, it was clear for all to see. Ole got longer than he should have probably.
I agree. The fact was the staff were inexperienced at the top level and shouldnt have been in control of the clubs training.
 
For starters, he was the forwards' coach under Fergie before taking over the reserves team. Ole is very much an "on the pitch" coach and always has been. All of this is publicly available information.

When you don't know something, at least google it, do some basic research before giving strong opinions. Otherwise, it just shows ignorance.
The way Rashford and Martial haven't developed much under Ole was annoying, considering Ole has been a forward's coach for a long time.
 
Brilliant manager but had an absolute stinker today. We were lucky.
 
Really, really shit tactical choices and subs second half. Needs to learn that moving Bruno wide for a midfielder doesn’t make us better.
 
Today's substitutions were highly questionable.
 
Surely today's performance will stop his mctominay as 2nd half sub nonsense, that's 2 games in a row, he's come on and killed our control on the game.
 
Can thank his lucky stars today.

Oh shut up. Look at the bench & squad his working with.
You think we’re going to blow teams away week in and week out?
We had many games like this under Fergie. Last season a game like this ends with a heavy defeat. We can credit ETH with making the team resilient.
Too many people have forgot the shambles of last season.
 
Conceded full control of the game and left us hanging on for dear life with the subs he made today. Not a big fan of that approach.
 
Subs yeah, took off the wide players giving West Ham easy overloads out wide, Ronaldo for a full 90 was insane.

Also, Ten Hag is going to have to accept the need for rotation, some of the guys were blowing hard in the last 30.
 
Terrible substitutions also evident against Chelsea. I understand that there's not much choices but even to alter the shape offsetting the need to bring on the likes of Fred / Mctomminay in games where control is needed more than anything. The last 10 mins could have been played out in a different manner.

The narrative is still the same with United. Up for it against the top, nowhere to be found against the bottom.
 
Subs yeah, took off the wide players giving West Ham easy overloads out wide, Ronaldo for a full 90 was insane.

Also, Ten Hag is going to have to accept the need for rotation, some of the guys were blowing hard in the last 30.
What game would we have rotated in? They’ve all been huge!
 
Needs to use his squad better. Rashford, Ronaldo and Bruno looked knackered. Should have brought on one of Garnacho, Sancho or Pellestri to take advantage of the space behind.
 
Those subs were pretty iffy. Taking Eriksen off for Fred was the wrong move
 
Oh shut up. Look at the bench & squad his working with.
You think we’re going to blow teams away week in and week out?
We had many games like this under Fergie. Last season a game like this ends with a heavy defeat. We can credit ETH with making the team resilient.
Too many people have forgot the shambles of last season.
We were a bit iffy but in control mostly until he decided to bring mctominay on and we completely lost control of the game and failed to ever get it back as subs were very negative. That is on him, he's done a fantastic job but he should be criticized for his mistakes just like every other manager
 
What exactly were his sub mistakes? We needed McT for his height, Eriksen was getting bypassed easily in midfield , so brought Fred and Elanga was shit. Not his problem that Casemiro decided to play a blinder today.

Some people love to exaggerate things. We played like crap today and didn't deserve 3 points but feck it, that's how the game works!!
 
Really, really shit tactical choices and subs second half. Needs to learn that moving Bruno wide for a midfielder doesn’t make us better.
Today's substitutions were highly questionable.

I’d love to know what alternatives subs our backseat managers would have made?

That’s our worst bench of the season. Desperate lack of quality. Elanga had to be taken off because the game was passing him by and Eriksen seemed to hit a wall. McT was brought on to give us some height for the inevitable aerial assault and Fred was an inch away from sealing the game for us.
 
Keeping Ronaldo on the pitch was pointless as the form of the player.

Other than that, he keeps defense in one shape and we needed that under Ole.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.