Exactly. I understand people being upset with Piers Morgan back in November/December when Ronaldo 'case' was fresh and people were irritated about it. However few months later and Morgan's trolling still gets into people's head successfully. Odd.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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We really played 10 matches over 26 days this month and didn't lose a single one
What is most amazing about all of this going on with the club is the simple sheer number of matches we've played that have completely restricted training days and time with the gaffer
they must spend a serious amount of time watching film and doing film study
they must spend a serious amount of time watching film and doing film study
Did so well yesterday. The players were switched on from the off and handled the first half superbly, especially the first 15 minutes. Hopefully he's getting a handle on whatever was causing the dozy starts and correcting it.
Absolutely. Ten hag has been our best signing. And Woodward leaving second.
He's surpassed Peps first season with City. A top 4 finish with the league cup already won would surpass Mourinho's 1st season with United.
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To quote Cruijff: I never saw a bag of money score a goal. In other words, thanks for the money but I would give my left foot for having these three back and you keeping the money. I also know this isn't how it works but understand the supporters' emotions.
That’s insane.
After Arsenal game I was so worried about this season, it looked as if the wheels had come off, but boy oh boy, the reaction after the Arsenal game has been sublime.
I rank the period after Arsenal game has the peak of his powers to date.
We've scored 23 goals, conceded only 7 goals, had Casemiro out for 3 games, navigated a Red Card in a game, lost 0 games, drawn 2, played 10 games in 1 month, beaten Barca, won a cup, and scored 2 goals/above in every game.
I had genuine worry after Arsenal game especially about goals, but the response after the Arsenal game has been pure sex
A career is not judged on a first season.
Erik knows the clubs DNA,
Amazing that
Really hope he gets backed new owners or not
He is brewing something special and I'm all for it
Who was doing such judging? the point was on first season comparisons.
After 24 games in PL we have conceded 28 goals. 6 in one game vs City, 4 vs Brentford, 3 vs Villa and 3 vs Arsenal - that's 16 goals conceded in 4 games. Another 2 vs Brighton and Leeds. That's 20 goals conceded in 6 games and 8 conceded in 18 other games.
Love this
It’s definitely eight, but that’s a game every 3.25 days. With Casemiro banned for 3, Eriksen out. Obviously some others in Martial, Antony, McTominay.
It’s so impressive how well the team has navigated it. The only players close to being in the red zone right now are Rashford and Bruno I imagine. Both must be rested on Wednesday.
He’s come a long way since Neville and Carragher double teamed him in that grilling interview before Liverpool last year (grilling particularly from Neville). I watched that back today and realised I got the feeling Neville was thinking ETH was going to be the United version of Christian Gross and that the club fecked it up by not going for Pochettino.
I hope in a few years time that interview will be one of those ‘WTF that happened?’ videos.
I hope in a few years time that interview will be one of those ‘WTF that happened?’ videos.
People who wanted Poch 
Someone has mentioned it already but I genuinely get the feeling he takes more pride in seeing the team win than his personal trophy haul.
Our last season with trophies you often felt Jose and Zlatan were more concerned with their individual honours, especially Jose as he threw it in our face any time he faced pressure.
Erik, Casemiro and Varane all have trophies of their own but this feels far different and that they enjoyed this as a collective with the team.
He's completely bought into the team, fans and the city of Manchester, this is why people are so high on him. Crazy thing is this is just the beginning, the love for him is only going to grow more and more from here.
Our last season with trophies you often felt Jose and Zlatan were more concerned with their individual honours, especially Jose as he threw it in our face any time he faced pressure.
Erik, Casemiro and Varane all have trophies of their own but this feels far different and that they enjoyed this as a collective with the team.
He's completely bought into the team, fans and the city of Manchester, this is why people are so high on him. Crazy thing is this is just the beginning, the love for him is only going to grow more and more from here.
I remember O'shea playing several games too. Could have been at right back though.
What's impressive is his growth as a manager/strategist.
I remember some of the comments from 9 months ago by the Ajax supporters here were that ---- he doesn't seem to have a Plan B (or sticks to Plan A way too long) in a game and was very slow at subbing players at Ajax.
Now everyone is lauding his best attribute -- in-game management.
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Don't know why people still pay any attention to Piers Morgan. All he does is say stuff to rile people up and he always gets the attention for it.
Every player has improved under him. Even McT marginally , when he started games before case came in. He’ll not start all games but I can see him getting better.
truly a sign of a good coach and ETH man management skills.
truly a sign of a good coach and ETH man management skills.
Redcafe - your daily dose of Piers Morgan's latest opinions.
He deserves a golden bridge named after him.
I remember that too. But looking back at how Ajax where under his management and how dominant they were in the league, and well punching above their weight in europe, I suspect that was nip picking as that all they really had. So the small amount of times they lost a season, was mostly smash and grab defeats, where the only compliant was the assumption he can only play one way. Same sort of criticisms pep gets too when any of his teams lose after mostly dominating the ball.
And the subs argument after defeats is always the go to excuse with captain hindsight.
Can't deny it with us this season, his subs and tactical tweaks 2nd half has been one of his main strengths.
Maybe he has more resources at United -- to know his players and the oppo better/quicker? Better analytics? Bigger team than at Ajax? I always think of that team of analysts sitting at the top of the stadium looking at the game. Its NFL like.
Its a very short period of time to turnaround his past liabilities. Thats why I am curious.
Controlling territory is the next stage of our evolution. We simply don’t have the technical capacity, we have too many turnovers.
The second thing was, we did not have the legs to match Newcastle. Ten Hag did what he had to do.
Even with all that, our counter pressing was still brilliant in the second half.
Ten Hag is a clever man. A very very clever man. He even said United is his team, in the lines, he's meant for United.
There was one pundit, Hargreaves or someone else who said last season before Ten Hag was appointed
" Who couldn't want to manage United, a 75k full stadium every game, top of tree money to sign players, amazing fan base, a board which gives managers time, mammoth publicity it doesn't come bigger than that"
When you see it on those lines, as much as we are lucky to have Ten Hag, deep down Ten Hag knows he's extremely lucky to manage Man United.
Imagine moving from a Club which you had to sell your best players from time to time ( Ajax) to a club which buys those players from time to time ( United).
Imagine moving to a club which can spend £230M in window, have a backing of the supporters world wide, then 75k humans singing your name every game, then the board supports you to the tilt on Ronaldo's saga
You will flourish in ways you can't imagine..
The resources under Ten Hag disposal is near perfect even with penniless January window.
If he's backed on August with around 150M, then for sure we will have an incredible team.
It's not a coincidence he's been able to lift the team up.
His skills + United resources are meant for each other like a key and a lock.
Completely agree.
We need players who provide technical security on the ball without sacrificing off the ball intensity. And once we get the correct profile of players for the way ten Hag wants his team to play, we will see the next stage of the team's evolution.
The play style in question requires all 11 players to provide a high level of ability in possession, without sacrificing the pro-activeness without the ball. The issue currently is that we have several players in the first 11, who don't fit into the above, hence ten Hag has adapted/compromised on his fundamentals.
We're a good transfer window away from challenging for both the league and champions league imo. We were making up the numbers prior to ten Hag's arrival and it just goes to show that it starts of with the idea of playing a certain way and then the club bringing in the head coach to execute the idea. So it's about backing the idea and not backing a manager blindly.
When did you guys start to believe we had the right man in charge? For me, it was the run of 4 games after the Brentford loss where we won them on the bounce.
What I liked about him then was his pragmatism. Even now, we're not watching an EtH team fully in terms of style. He wants control, high possession stats, complete domination in all of the thirds of the game.
We're not there yet, we were far from there way back in September, yet we beat Liverpool, Arsenal and a couple of tricky away games after that horrendous start.
What I thought then is that we have a guy willing to sacrifice his philosophy to get the best out of what he has at his disposal. Winning footballing games is the number one priority, and he'll find a way to win no matter what.
I guess in a way that sounds like Mourinho, but for me that's where the similarities end. He has earned the respect of the group instead of throwing them under the bus, he has instilled standards and belief instead of talking about the next transfer window, he's working with and improving what he has, not exiling players. The way he handled those opening losses, and the 6-3 humiliation vs City and the reaction to that, it's when I started to really believe.
Our best performance this season was the 2-0 win at home to Spurs. That game was utter domination, and if Rashford was in the form he's in now, that game ends probably 4 or 5 nil. When he gets the players he wants, I think that Spurs game is the benchmark as to what we can expect.
Right now, I think we're slightly overachieving, but he's unlocked the fighting spirit and never say die attitude of this squad. That's carrying us brilliantly through a gruelling season with the spirit and character of born winners like Casemiro, Varane and Martinez. I can't wait to see what we can do with another transfer window and a proper pre-season with a settled squad under our belts.
I remember under Ole (and I'm not using this as an excuse to bash Ole) but we were fighting on all fronts multiple times like this season. I almost wanted us to drop out of the cups because I didn't feel like we'd win them and be able to finish top 4. And that's where the extra games sap the squad completely, when you've given it all to a certain point, and all of a sudden you are out of the cups and facing an uphill battle for CL football.
Now, I want us fighting until the bitter end in every competition because I think we can will all of them. And if you have that belief, and can actually win the competitions, that trumps the demands of the extra games.
How good it feels to be excited once more.
What I liked about him then was his pragmatism. Even now, we're not watching an EtH team fully in terms of style. He wants control, high possession stats, complete domination in all of the thirds of the game.
We're not there yet, we were far from there way back in September, yet we beat Liverpool, Arsenal and a couple of tricky away games after that horrendous start.
What I thought then is that we have a guy willing to sacrifice his philosophy to get the best out of what he has at his disposal. Winning footballing games is the number one priority, and he'll find a way to win no matter what.
I guess in a way that sounds like Mourinho, but for me that's where the similarities end. He has earned the respect of the group instead of throwing them under the bus, he has instilled standards and belief instead of talking about the next transfer window, he's working with and improving what he has, not exiling players. The way he handled those opening losses, and the 6-3 humiliation vs City and the reaction to that, it's when I started to really believe.
Our best performance this season was the 2-0 win at home to Spurs. That game was utter domination, and if Rashford was in the form he's in now, that game ends probably 4 or 5 nil. When he gets the players he wants, I think that Spurs game is the benchmark as to what we can expect.
Right now, I think we're slightly overachieving, but he's unlocked the fighting spirit and never say die attitude of this squad. That's carrying us brilliantly through a gruelling season with the spirit and character of born winners like Casemiro, Varane and Martinez. I can't wait to see what we can do with another transfer window and a proper pre-season with a settled squad under our belts.
I remember under Ole (and I'm not using this as an excuse to bash Ole) but we were fighting on all fronts multiple times like this season. I almost wanted us to drop out of the cups because I didn't feel like we'd win them and be able to finish top 4. And that's where the extra games sap the squad completely, when you've given it all to a certain point, and all of a sudden you are out of the cups and facing an uphill battle for CL football.
Now, I want us fighting until the bitter end in every competition because I think we can will all of them. And if you have that belief, and can actually win the competitions, that trumps the demands of the extra games.
How good it feels to be excited once more.
He had me at 'Hello, heh!'
Was convinced in summer 2021 that he was a great manager and we should do all we can to replace Ole with him. If you look at how he did with Ajax, it was clear that he had an extraordinary impact. He played great football, he had results that were only surpassed by the likes of Van Gaal, Michel and Cruyff there, after a drought he dominated the league and cups, punched way above his weight in Europe and kept on succeeding despite losing multiple key players every year. He just kept adapting the system and stayed dominant. He was the clear choice for me and I always felt that United's biggest issue on the pitch wasn't the Glazers necessarily but that our managers were just constantly the wrong choices.
A good structure will mean nothing if you have a shit manager, while a great manager will still be successful with a shit structure. We just didn't have the right managers. And I always believed that we were in fact in a great position for someone to takeover. There's no other club out there who has our potential financially where they can spend a feck ton every summer, have the highest wages, have our global fame, but be floundering around where we were. Not to take any credit from EtH away, but the Ronaldo stuff also was relatively simple. You're the manager. Don't bow to the player who is 37 and can't do much just because of his name. It would have been a tougher task for Ten Hag IMO if Ronaldo was 1 or 2 years younger where he actually still could score 25-30 goals, and then the question was truly a balance of how much do the goals outweigh the bad. At this stage he provided literally nothing so it was easy enough.
Ten Hag is the first manager who has been able to come in and make the right decisions, stick to them and not change what he wants under the pressure. But mainly, he's also the only one aside from Van Gaal who clearly knows what he wants, and unlike Van Gaal, what he wants is good enough for a top club like United both in entertainment and in results in modern football.
I thought he was the right man when ole was still in charge. Was praying when we hired rangnick that we were waiting for ten hag.
I can answer that question for you. Ajax is able to put together a great starting line up and if we are lucky even three decent subs but after that it's either second tier or of course highly talented but very young academy players. ETH would never complain about this because he knows the club and to protect his team he would always say we have 20 good squad players while in reality he knew only 12/13 were ready for it. It sometimes made us mad as supporters that he said one thing and did the other but in retrospect it was purely because of lack of real depth in the squad. Too little Ziyechs too many Garnachos if you will.
You saw it in 2019 against Spurs. I an sure we wouldn't have lost the second match had we had Neres fit and Dolberg in form. Instead when the pressure was on we had to resort bringing in a defender with Magallan who was never good enough. That cost us and ETH knew that but he would never blame it on ayone in particular, instead he told us all to keep our chins up because there were two more finals up and that resulted in the first double in years where many of us feared the elimination would cost us all titles.
Great insight. Thanks!
So when he can make 5 changes per game or at HT, he must feel like a kid in a candy store at United.
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