Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Santoryo said:
Ok. So explain the sub of bringing on Martial to replace Dony in the hole, leaving Ronaldo who had done nothing all game on the pitch playing CF instead of bringing an actual midfielder in Fred to replace Dony and have Martial play as CF replacing Ronaldo.
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We were down 2 goals so had more attackers on the pitch. Down 2 goals so we were going to play with more high balls, crosses etc (same logic as Maguire mid week). Ronaldo's goal threat reputation, him still being decent in the air, and us being down 2 goals made it a pretty easy call to leave him in?
 
ETH's press conference confirmed that the quick crosses to Ronaldo aren't part of the plan. He actually described it as stupid which basically confirms part of the issue we have with him in the team. Funny enough, as bad as Ronaldo has been, playing VDB was the big mistake today. Eriksen may not provide much of a press as a no.10 to cover Ronaldo, but he would have done a far better job than Donny today or on Thursday. In addition, he would have offered something on the ball as well as a viable passing option.

One real question I've had for a while now, both with Ole, Ragnick and now ETH, is why has Ronaldo not been shifted out wide. His weaknesses are too impactful as a striker. I would guess they would be much more hidden from the flanks, even if it means more work for Dalot or Shaw. A team is very unlikely to target one flank for an entire game. Last season, Rashford wasn't pressing much and being out wide for us hid his issues defensively. Sancho has been able to skate on this matter as well. Why not try Ronaldo out wide again. Just a thought
 
MadDogg said:
We were losing so wanted more attackers on. Not exactly rocket science. Replacing Ronaldo with Fred (which is basically what you've said) is very different than replacing Ronaldo with Sancho for example.

I'm not saying it was the right call, but it's hardly some sign that he's succumbing to the pressure of playing Ronaldo. Once again, if he's making that same decision when we have actual attacking options then it'll be time to criticise. But seeing as ETH seemed to have no problems starting the season with Ronaldo as 4th or 5th choice, it's something I'm fairly confident about.
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So you're saying sacrificing an extra midfielder in a game we were struggling to control is the way to go if you want to get back in a game? Surely you know that's not true.

Ten Hag has before subbed out a striker (Ronaldo himself) to chase a goal (against Newcastle), so the chasing game part isn't an excuse.
 
we've played 11 matches since October 2nd with several players being injured....these guys must be a bit knackered and it's not really that big of a surprise there was a poor performance today as it was bound to happen

i hope he plays just the kids on thursday
 
bosnian_red said:
We were down 2 goals so had more attackers on the pitch. Down 2 goals so we were going to play with more high balls, crosses etc (same logic as Maguire mid week). Ronaldo's goal threat reputation, him still being decent in the air, and us being down 2 goals made it a pretty easy call to leave him in?
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So sacrificing a midfielder in a game we were already struggling to control was the way to get back in the game instead of simply doing the simply thing which was to removing the ineffective striker for another one.

This excuse doesn't add up given we've seen ETH replace a striker for another one in a game he was chasing a goal (Newcastle).

I'm pretty confident ETH is well aware that just stacking up attackers with no midfielders won't get you any closer to scoring than ever before. He knew tantrum would have ensued had he dared subbed out Ronaldo(which would have been the correct move).

You put Rashford, Martial, Ronaldo and Elanga with Eriksen, essentially you have no midfield here. You remove Ronaldo and put in Fred then you have Casemiro, Eriksen and Fred in midfield and a front line of Rashford, Martial and Elanga, that's balanced.
 
Santoryo said:
So sacrificing a midfielder in a game we were already struggling to control was the way to get back in the game instead of simply doing the simply thing which was to removing the ineffective striker for another one.

This excuse doesn't add up given we've seen ETH replace a striker for another one in a game he was chasing a goal (Newcastle).

I'm pretty confident ETH is well aware that just stacking up attackers with no midfielders won't get you any closer to scoring than ever before. He knew tantrum would have ensued had he dared subbed out Ronaldo(which would have been the correct move).

You put Rashford, Martial, Ronaldo and Elanga with Eriksen, essentially you have no midfield here. You remove Ronaldo and put in Fred then you have Casemiro, Eriksen and Fred in midfield and a front line of Rashford, Martial and Elanga, that's balanced.
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We were 2 down, it was a gamble that the majority of managers take to get back in the game. Against Newcastle, we we're controlling the game but it was level. It was a different situation. We also had options to replace Ronaldo with in that game. We had no options to replace Ronaldo with here. It was a more dire situation where you abandon balance in the hope of overloading the attack enough to pile the pressure. You can't compare 0-0 at home to 3-1 down away. Don't be ridiculous.

The facts are, Sancho and Antony were injured. Martial just back from an injury. Bruno suspended. Before these injuries and suspensions, Ronaldo was 5th choice for the front 3. Suddenly he is playing... Because players are unavailable. That's all it is.
 
We tend to get too excited by wins and too depressed by losses.

Ten Hag is going to sort this over time, I'm convinced of it. There'll be more days like today though before the end of the season.
 
TheGame said:
What mistake was that poster pointing out exactly, it was a general comment that hinted we should think about sacking him. I agree that no manager is immune to criticism, I disagreed with his selections today and have often felt he is too timid with subs.
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Hinted ? There's nothing in his post that says we should sack him, just that we shouldn't blindly follow him. Other posts in this thread have talked about asking questions if we failed to get top 4 which is a legit comment, only to be faced by people saying he should stay regardless of how this season pans out!
 
Keep selling half-professionals, raise some funds and get your kind of players because this is really getting boring... Another manager to be sacked by unambitious tossers and contract poachers.
 
Lindelof
Maguire
Fred
Vdb
Elanga
Ronaldo

He needs to ship this lot first and foremost to make room for some new better players. Waste of space these are. Also, buy a fecking striker or two in January. Sick of seeing the incompetency upfront. Like watching a eunuch trying to feck.
 
Don’t know why a lot of people are surprised we lost today and a few blaming Ten Hag. He’s said it time and time again that they’ll be bumps along the road and it certainly doesn’t help having most of our best players out. We’ve no squad depth what so ever. Rashford had to play RW ffs because the only RW we have is injured. We have to play an unsettled striker because he’s the only one we have that’s fit! The only thing Ten Hag did wrong was start VDB. I’d of probably played Eriksen, Fred and Casemiro in a midfield 3 and let Eriksen focus on creating.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
Elanga or Pellistri. Point is that with Ronaldo our general play suffers. Without him, not.
It is pretty simple.
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Our play suffers if Elanga is on there, and Pellistri is behind him in the pecking order. Throwing one winger who’s not really at this level yet in with Garnacho and then doing the same thing on the other side is a recipe for, well, exactly the same kind of crap we saw anyway.

It was a gamble that didn’t pay off, but it was still the “safer” bet of the two options.
 
Insisting with Ronaldo is a strange one. He hardly played before, leaves early, and then starts every game
 
I got hounded on here for lamenting the Newcastle and Chelsea draws, and for calling our start to the season average. The rationale of the criticism towards me being that we had the hardest fixtures of the top teams and had “a run of very winnable games” - the inference being we would be in a better position after said fixture run.

Today is why I am reserving judgement and not getting carried away with ETHs start. We could easily fail to beat Fulham and then how would we assess ETHs start and our season going into the WC break?

My point is I’m growing concerned about 3 things:

1. Our form against ‘lesser’ teams.
2. Lack of squad depth (doesn’t fully excuse today)
3. Lack of goals and creativity to a degree.

If all three persist I think we’ll really struggle to get top 4. Only consolation is spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool have had patchy form at best.
 
I am baffled by how much Ronaldo is being used when he clearly doesn't fit. I know we're short of options, but even Elanga makes more sense from a style perspective.
 
Escobar said:
You reall think they can influence the starting XI? Highly unlikely
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It just doesn’t make any sense unless he’s being pressured from the executive level. As you said he was out in the cold and then showed his arse and then he’s captaining the side ? It’s fecking bizarre.
 
bosskeano said:
we've played 11 matches since October 2nd with several players being injured....these guys must be a bit knackered and it's not really that big of a surprise there was a poor performance today as it was bound to happen

i hope he plays just the kids on thursday
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Arsenal are managing just fine and I don’t see that they have a much better squad in terms of depth at all. Where is their unexpected poor performance that ends in a defeat?
 
Got every faith ETH will get us there. Going to be loads of bumps along the way, especially playing 3 games a week and with a lot of key player unavailable at times…..
ETH post match comments impress me, the players didnt stick to the plan, lack of defending unacceptable etc.
great to have someone who spks plainly and has very high standards.
 
Bruno has been a great engine in the middle this season so it was surprising to see Eriksen and VDB there. Fred should've been in, perhaps the only other player with the engine style, maybe with Eriksen further up. Would've had Rashford out left or up front, he's been our most lethal player in a very low scoring team with some running outlets in Elanga/Garnacho. Today before the match I could see the goals being tough to come by so we had to have Rashford around the left or front position, we got a lucky deflection consolation goal from Shaw and nothing else.

If we have to have Ronaldo I do think he still plays best off someone, perhaps a 4-4-2 diamond.

Overall I'm really happy with ETH, can't wait for Jan and the end of the season to get a some players/problems out and some better players in. He has a lot to juggle. I could see with the few players out it would be like last season today.
 
hellhunter said:
Elanga and Fred for Donny and Ronaldo would've given us at least a bit of energy and pressing. Elanga isn't all that, sure, but at least he's a tryer (trier?)
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Fair points. I think it's alot to fully realise that Ronaldo, the GOAT, is just not up to the task in this team structure.

Also if you are reliant on Elanga and Fred to win you a game, then arguably the barrel is being scraped!
 
RedIan said:
Got every faith ETH will get us there. Going to be loads of bumps along the way, especially playing 3 games a week and with a lot of key player unavailable at times…..
ETH post match comments impress me, the players didnt stick to the plan, lack of defending unacceptable etc.
great to have someone who spks plainly and has very high standards.
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I agree there will be bumps but do you not find the nature of todays defeat, Brentford, city to be alarming? They were effectively capitulations.

Hopefully more a hangover of last season and in future if we are to lose games it’s by a single goal having somewhat turned up in the game.
 
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frostbite said:
Fred or McTominay.

No, ETH made a mistake. The same team won in Spain, so he made no changes. He has done this a few times and it does not work.
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You think that one change would've won us the game?

Im not sure. But I would be surprised if VDB gets another try out.
 
phelans shorts said:
If Ronaldo scores his one on one on Thursday and we won 2-0 then today we’d be saying it was worth it. It’s fine margins and hindsight is 20/20.

Not going for it on Thursday would have been easily worse than what we did do.
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Expecting to win by two goal difference while we barely had a positive goal difference in the PL was a tall order, especially away from home. All it did was putting more toll on the players who already has an insane fixture list
 
Andersonson said:
Expecting to win by two goal difference while we barely had a positive goal difference in the PL was a tall order, especially away from home. All it did was putting more toll on the players who already has an insane fixture list
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So? If we don’t go for the two goal wins the fixture list becomes even more insane, so we went for it as we should have.
 
phelans shorts said:
So? If we don’t go for the two goal wins the fixture list becomes even more insane, so we went for it as we should have.
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Atleast we have squad players who had a shot and had the chance to actually show something and they will be match ready. Now we have 11-13 players who are match fit and they are more and more exhausted. The rest havent had sniff and are rotting. Its a long season and this wont end good if there's zero rotation. Thats my view on it
 
MUFC OK said:
Arsenal are managing just fine and I don’t see that they have a much better squad in terms of depth at all. Where is their unexpected poor performance that ends in a defeat?
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arsenal are managing fine as they aren't going thru injuries especially in the attacking half....

we're dealing with missing martial, sancho and antony so we are having to start a 37yr old who's past it, rashford and a young kid with only his second start as well as a young kid in Elanga as our only option

arsenal put out sako, gabriel and martinelli...their starting forwards so i'd say it's massively different
 
Andersonson said:
Atleast we have squad players who had a shot and had the chance to actually show something and they will be match ready. Now we have 11-13 players who are match fit and they are more and more exhausted. The rest havent had sniff and are rotting. Its a long season and this wont end good if there's zero rotation. Thats my view on it
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and if we rotate with the crap on our bench at the moment it won’t end good at all.
 
When we signed Eriksen to play CM, I thought he would play CM for home games but when we play away from home Ten Hag would play Fred to be more solid.

We've now been orangutaned in midfield away from home a few times. Yet Ten Hag persists to play Eriksen in the role. Even before the game I thought this was a CLEAR game for Fred to come in. I'm not a Fred fan and it's not often I feel a call to give him a start. But away from home against a mobile midfield who were going to be up for it in front of a new manager that was nothing short of naive and stupid from Ten Hag.

I winced at the team sheet of Eriksen and VdB in front of him. Eriksen should have been played as a number 10 in front of Fred and Casemiro today for the mobility and defensive cover needed. Eriksen would have covered nicely for Bruno.

Yes, the players selected didn't play well enough but Ten Hag didn't have to select VdB over Fred today. Neither did he have to play Luke Shaw every game for the past month.

Malacia, Fred, even AWB have been completely underutilised to give other players a break.

Ten Hags mistake today had cost us. He'll now look for a reaction midweek in the carabao Cup and probably play too strong of a team. Which weakens us for a must win game Vs Fulham before the World Cup break.

Today was a stinker from us but Ten Hag needs to take it on the chin rather than blame player attitude. He chose those 11 and set them up for this game naively.
 
MUFC OK said:
I agree there will be bumps but do you not find the nature of todays defeat, Brentford, city to be alarming? They were effectively capitulations.

Hopefully more a hangover of last season and in future if we are to lose games it’s by a single goal having somewhat turned up in the game.
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Between the schedule, the European matches - we just came back from our toughest Europa League match of the season so far - and the players missing, something had to give.

We're still in the early stage of the rebuilding. The players aren't used to the style enough so that the players who aren't regulars will fit in easily, and the lack of quality depth in the squad means we can't rely much on individual abilities.

It's simply going to take time. Even Pep's City took a year to really get going.
 
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