Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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Andersonson said:
Feck no. Ten Hag will learn from this. But losing 7-0 in this fashion is not acceptable. Poch, you're having a laugh
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I'm pretty sure him and players know that this is not acceptable. But saying that the job is not so secure is laughable to say the least. Like one freak result and people lose their shit.
 
NotoriousISSY said:
Despite all of that, there is no logical explanation for getting absolutely mauled by a Liverpool side we've all categorically written off this season.

Losing the game at Anfield can happen, that's not the issue.

The manager has effectively called them unprofessional today. That's as damning as it gets at this level.
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Its mental.

They may be fatigued and just broke too easily.
 
Remember the geese said:
What a ridiculous reaction. Depressing.
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Absolutely. People have zero patience and are just reactive. This is what happens in social media era. One bad game, casemiro is shit, ETH is just slightly better than Ole, Bruno is shit and can never help us win the title, Martinez is not that good, Shaw is regressive, Rashford is hype etc etc etc
 
It was a hard loss no doubt and it is tough to be watching United late in the night in Asia to watch a 7 goal loss.

That being said. Just going to post my perspective on the loss.

I think our players are battered and they are holding injuries or bumps after so many matches. They are resilient till the point where they view there is no return. This explains why they totally gave up after the third goal. They are not willing to sacrifice their body and pain after a "confirmed" loss. This explains Bruno and Shaw.

I still think it is totally unacceptable but i seriously hope the league gives a look at this crazy schedule with a bloody World Cup mixed in the middle. It is killing players and destroying health. In a world where a death is too many, i am not sure how a serious or permanent injury to any player on any team is tolerated with this planning!
 
AshRK said:
Absolutely. People have zero patience and are just reactive. This is what happens in social media era. One bad game, casemiro is shit, ETH is just slightly better than Ole, Bruno is shit and can never help us win the title, Martinez is not that good, Shaw is regressive, Rashford is hype etc etc etc
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It's such a childish, spoilt brat attitude.
 
The only tactic he got wrong is playing Rashford up front and not playing Rashford against Trent. But that won’t be the reason we conceded 7. Those 7 goals in second half were purely players mistakes and players stop running, lazy and soft but just ball watching.

If you re-watch those goals we conceded especially the ones in second half, they were mainly from misplaced passings and players showed no intention to win the ball back. They were ball watching, too soft and too weak. I used to use these words to describe Lindelof but this time these players were. We don’t do good at passing against the top teams but at least we always win the ball back everytime we lose it. Not this time. Is it because they were too tired and overwhelmed by anfield‘s atmosphere? Absolutely shocking attitude in second half.
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
The only tactic he got wrong is playing Rashford up front and not playing Rashford against Trent. But that won’t be the reason we conceded 7. Those 7 goals in second half were purely players mistakes and players stop running.

If you re-watch those goals we conceded especially the ones in second half, they were mainly from misplaced passings and players showed no intention to win the ball back. They were ball watching, too soft and too weak. I used to use these words to describe Lindelof but this time these players were. We don’t do good at passing against the top teams but at least we always win the ball back everytime we lose it. Not this time. Is it because they were too tired and overwhelmed by anfield‘s atmosphere?
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Good post.

As for what happened? I don't think fatigue was the reason. I feel the players mentally gave up after the 3rd goal but rather than trying to shut stop they were naive and were still looking to attack. Sometimes you have to take a back seat and respect the occasion. The team will learn from this.
 
Freak said:
Wants to play possession football but keeps picking players who are do not know how to keep possession.
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Surely the problem there is we just don't have that many squad players who can. So we either stay as a counter attacking team for the long term until we can replace them all, or he keeps on implementing it now so that even though we may get beaten like this every now and again - i’m hoping it benefits us long term
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
The only tactic he got wrong is playing Rashford up front and not playing Rashford against Trent. But that won’t be the reason we conceded 7. Those 7 goals in second half were purely players mistakes and players stop running, lazy and soft but just ball watching.

If you re-watch those goals we conceded especially the ones in second half, they were mainly from misplaced passings and players showed no intention to win the ball back. They were ball watching, too soft and too weak. I used to use these words to describe Lindelof but this time these players were. We don’t do good at passing against the top teams but at least we always win the ball back everytime we lose it. Not this time. Is it because they were too tired and overwhelmed by anfield‘s atmosphere? Absolutely shocking attitude in second half.
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Agree. Pre-game I was still telling my mates (including Scousers) that it will be difficult to win at Anfield but a draw is v possible, given we had been mentality monsters recently. We were indeed losing all the 2nd balls and always 2nd-best in all the tackles in second half. Even our clearances seemed soft n lacked strength. Some of the goals were follow-ups from what u can describe as schoolboy/amateur level of clearances. Adding to the half-heartedness & lack of intensity, we were asking for trouble in front of a Kop determined to throw everything they had at us to derail our season.
 
Heavy defeats have now become a routine in the PL. It is how he comes back in the next few matches that will define his prowess as a manager.

A series of bad results in the next few matches is not acceptable.
 
We have to win for the rest of the month and there's no excuses not to.

Betis should be brushed aside over two legs. Southampton at home in the league and Fulham at home in the FA cup.

Anything less than 3 victories in 3 comps would be another wheel off the wagon.
 
Whatever he thinks Dalot offers, it's absolutely not worth his defensive frailties. United is not at the point where it can carry a RB that can't defend.

TheLord said:
Heavy defeats have now become a routine in the PL
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This should not be acceptable
 
For me the players really let ETH down today, however, I think starting Wout and Dalot, and Bruno on the left, weren’t the right decision and proved costly. ETH has gone with a two man midfield away at Anfield, the Emirates, and the Etihad. We’ve lost every single game, and two by large score-lines.

He needs to learn quickly the games you can play a two man midfield and the games you can get away with playing the likes of Dalot and Wout, and experimenting with new formations. I think ETH tried to be too cute today playing Wout as #10 and Bruno on the left. Both were largely ineffective and we didn’t target TAA like we should have. It also isolated Rashford up top against two defenders, which really nullified our attacking threat.

Their two goals either side of half time were killer. What surprised me the most is ETH didn’t make a change at halftime. I think that was a really big mistake. I think he also underestimated how tough it is to play away at Anfield and the fragility of some of these players. Personally, I’ve never seen anything like it and ETH has his hands full shifting the mindset and belief. I’m confident he’ll be able to do it overtime.

I’m still fully behind ETH and some of the comments in this thread are way over the top. I really hope he learns from this quickly and we see an immediate reaction on Thursday and until the end of the season. Our form since the World Cup has been really positive and we can’t forget that. Winning a trophy is also the step in the right direction too.
 
ayushreddevil9 said:
I'm pretty sure him and players know that this is not acceptable. But saying that the job is not so secure is laughable to say the least. Like one freak result and people lose their shit.
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People should be losing their shit. They were saying on the broadcast that it's United's worst ever defeat in this fixture. How long does the game go back? 100 years? 150 years? So there's no worse defeat even in 1893 or something when they played with one defender or whatever? That is bad.

Obviously talking about sacking him is silly. But this has put a massive dent in the narrative that United were on an inexorable path back to the absolute pinnacle of the game. The feeling now is that it may not be so straightforward and there is a lot more work to be done and a lot more overhauling of the squad to be sanctioned.
 
Andrade said:
People should be losing their shit. They were saying on the broadcast that it's United's worst ever defeat in this fixture. How long does the game go back? 100 years? 150 years? So there's no worse defeat even in 1893 or something when they played with one defender or whatever? That is bad.

Obviously talking about sacking him is silly. But this has put a massive dent in the narrative that United were on an inexorable path back to the absolute pinnacle of the game. The feeling now is that it may not be so straightforward and there is a lot more work to be done and a lot more overhauling of the squad to be sanctioned.
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It was never the case. The whole challenging / quadruple nonsense was cringeworthy. We need a lot of time and effort which will take possibly a couple of years to drill this team to play a specific system to the tee. People get easily fooled by a winning run.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
It was never the case. The whole challenging / quadruple nonsense was cringeworthy. We need a lot of time and effort which will take possibly a couple of years to drill this team to play a specific system to the tee. People get easily fooled by a winning run.
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When Ten Hag joined and how he began implementing his style of football, my first thought was "let's see where we are in 2-3 years". Not "we're gonna be back on top this season, will not get whooped again against big teams and we will win the quadruple". People who have those in mind were preparing themselves to be disappointed.
 
AshRK said:
Good post.

As for what happened? I don't think fatigue was the reason. I feel the players mentally gave up after the 3rd goal but rather than trying to shut stop they were naive and were still looking to attack. Sometimes you have to take a back seat and respect the occasion. The team will learn from this.
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Even at 3-0, I felt that we could still salvage something if only we scored a goal to make it 3-1 with 20+ minutes to go. That 4th goal killed all the believe, imho.

It's testament of EtH's good work, that I still thought we had a chance even 3 goals down in tough away game.
 
The bottom line for me, and this isn’t an excuse, it’s just a fact; is that we’ve played more games than any side in Europe this season, and we have no real depth. The players are exhausted. We’ve been playing at a high intensity and it was all just too much.

You should never lose by 7, but we have been victims of our own success here. The players should be ashamed of themselves. But frankly, I would rest everyone for a week and see where we are.

It’s a disgraceful result and for any other manager since Fergie, a sackable offence. But we have to look at the bigger picture here. We’ve been playing big games with less than 72 hours rest, while our opponents in many cases have had a full week off. Eventually, shit falls apart. That is all that happened today.

3pts dropped. We have to move on. I don’t go in for shit like humiliation etc. it doesn’t help anyone. We have to get our heads back up and get back to what we’ve been doing so well for so much of this season. This is all Liverpool had to play for and at the end of the day, it’s only 3pts. 4-0, 7-0, whatever. It’s all unacceptable but we still have so much to play for. So no time to feel sorry for ourselves.
 
Andrade said:
People should be losing their shit. They were saying on the broadcast that it's United's worst ever defeat in this fixture. How long does the game go back? 100 years? 150 years? So there's no worse defeat even in 1893 or something when they played with one defender or whatever? That is bad.

Obviously talking about sacking him is silly. But this has put a massive dent in the narrative that United were on an inexorable path back to the absolute pinnacle of the game. The feeling now is that it may not be so straightforward and there is a lot more work to be done and a lot more overhauling of the squad to be sanctioned.
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Carry on losing your shit then. Changes nothing and brings nothing onto the table.

We can only hope that to see a reaction from these players.
 
Lets be honest here. If Erik guides us to a 4th placed finish, I'd be fecking ecstatic.

As would most of our supporters at the start of the season.

We just need to get back to the CL. That for me would be a successful first season.
 
Isotope said:
Even at 3-0, I felt that we could still salvage something if only we scored a goal to make it 3-1 with 20+ minutes to go. That 4th goal killed all the believe, imho.

It's testament of EtH's good work, that I still thought we had a chance even 3 goals down in tough away game.
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That's genuinely where I was. They are fragile... I still believe that. I didn't realize we were so fragile too...

Wish we had made the changes at half time to get Garnacho or Rashford on the left.
 
My worry is at what point does it stop becoming a freak result?

4 against Brentford
3 against Brighton
3 against villa
6 against city
7 against Liverpool

All that in one season with 12 games still to go

The manager should have plans in place when things aren't going to plan

Some of the players shouldn't have returned at half time

I still believe in what he's doing but results like these are becoming synonymous with us and they need to stop
 
Hope this is not another false dawn. We had major collapse after a brilliant start from Ole.

Hope ETH can get the team back to playing with confidence, fighting spirit and more importantly back to winning way.
 
DevilRed said:
Lets be honest here. If Erik guides us to a 4th placed finish, I'd be fecking ecstatic.

As would most of our supporters at the start of the season.

We just need to get back to the CL. That for me would be a successful first season.
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It would've been after the Brentford game, but now winning another trophy has to be a priority. The CL isn't in question any more, as I think we will finish a strong 3rd.
 
The one hopefully silver lining is that ETH sees this evidence as to us being a much more long term project than our run suggested. And accordingly needing upgrades in personnel and of course coaching to make that possible.

As much as we have improved our possession play for example needs a lot of work. And is he willing to watch DDG constantly boot it upfield for the next two years with us needing to play on the break as we can’t hold on to the ball?
 
amolbhatia50k said:
It was never the case. The whole challenging / quadruple nonsense was cringeworthy. We need a lot of time and effort which will take possibly a couple of years to drill this team to play a specific system to the tee. People get easily fooled by a winning run.
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Outside of the league, winning the FA Cup and Europa is very realistic. Talk of the quadruple is just fancy since mathematically it's possible but hardly anyone truly expects a collapse from both Arsenal and City. You say people get easily fooled by a winning run? I say the winning runs in our season so far tells us more about the team than the 3 bad defeats which constitute less than 10% of games we played so far. I don't think anyone on this forum, punditry, or ETH has said we are the finished product but we are not far from challenging. This ridiculous result seem to have made people forget we have already beaten all of Barcelona, Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Tottenham and Newcastle already this season.
 
Raoul said:
It would've been after the Brentford game, but now winning another trophy has to be a priority. The CL isn't in question any more, as I think we will finish a strong 3rd.
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Goes to show what a good job he’s done. Just need to get it right the next 4 home games
 
Andrade said:
People should be losing their shit. They were saying on the broadcast that it's United's worst ever defeat in this fixture. How long does the game go back? 100 years? 150 years? So there's no worse defeat even in 1893 or something when they played with one defender or whatever? That is bad.

Obviously talking about sacking him is silly. But this has put a massive dent in the narrative that United were on an inexorable path back to the absolute pinnacle of the game. The feeling now is that it may not be so straightforward and there is a lot more work to be done and a lot more overhauling of the squad to be sanctioned.
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So many of us have been saying the same for a long time even while there are threads on belonging in a title race. That has always been the case.

For those who didn't realize that this is a reality check.
 
Ceteris said:
My worry is at what point does it stop becoming a freak result?

4 against Brentford
3 against Brighton
3 against villa
6 against city
7 against Liverpool

All that in one season with 12 games still to go

The manager should have plans in place when things aren't going to plan

Some of the players shouldn't have returned at half time

I still believe in what he's doing but results like these are becoming synonymous with us and they need to stop
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Yeah but you have to take it all in totality, which includes wins against City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, a cup already in the bag and a decent shot at winning more. The first year was always going to be a bit Jeckyl and Hyde because changing a culture doesn't happen overnight. He has excelled wildly beyond what most expected and with another summer window, will have us competing for every trophy next year.
 
Raoul said:
It would've been after the Brentford game, but now winning another trophy has to be a priority. The CL isn't in question any more, as I think we will finish a strong 3rd.
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That remains to be seen no?
 
mav_9me said:
So many of us have been saying the same for a long time even while there are threads on belonging in a title race. That has always been the case.

For those who didn't realize that this is a reality check.
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They have only themselves to blame if they let themselves get sucked into the quadruple talk. We are a work in progress, everyone who thought we were back to the football pinnacle were just happy because things like last season didn't happen.
 
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