Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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NinjaZombie said:
Putting aside the Liverpool result, I'd like us to actually be able to take games to the likes of Liverpool or Arsenal. Counter attacking football has its perks and we should be able to be effective on transitions but why can't we set up to take games to our opponents every once in a while?

Even the league cup final, we were clearly set up to counter. Could be argued that we were in control of that game but Newcastle didn't have enough quality on the ball and a better team would've done us.
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I do get this line of thinking, and I don't totally disagree. But look how Real approached going to Anfield. Let them have it and go at them, then dismantled them on the break. We'd do it under Fergie in big games too. Especially away from home.

I think we have played the big home games on the front foot more often than not too.
 
NinjaZombie said:
Putting aside the Liverpool result, I'd like us to actually be able to take games to the likes of Liverpool or Arsenal. Counter attacking football has its perks and we should be able to be effective on transitions but why can't we set up to take games to our opponents every once in a while?

Even the league cup final, we were clearly set up to counter. Could be argued that we were in control of that game but Newcastle didn't have enough quality on the ball and a better team would've done us.
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Because to play possesion based football you need possesion based players. Ten hag realised we had counter based players so changed the tactics temporarly to fit his players. This is why for example im not giving up on antony yet. lets see how he plays in a possesion based team where we control the tempo than trying to beat everyone on the counter.
 
croadyman said:
That is rubbish about 3 of our 10 biggest ever prem losses weren't this season. The only one was yesterday so maybe check facts first
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*since 2000 - that was the asterisk in the chart.

which, I’ll be honest doesn’t make it better to me personally, but if that’s what people want to use to cope, fair enough.
 
croadyman said:
Sounds to me you have had enough of him already looking at your last two posts,maybe go and support scousers/City if you want to big their managers up
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No I have not had enough of him and its hard to think of any better manager out there that would logically join us to replace him still but I think we all including myself got carried away with recent months results
 
Lee565 said:
No I have not had enough of him and its hard to think of any better manager out there that would logically join us to replace him still but I think we all including myself got carried away with recent months results
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He’s only been here for a few months? So what do we judge him on? Pre season?
 
Berbaclass said:
I saw the Carragher bit and yeah he does have some adapting to do in the big away games. We played really well against Barca obviously but I think those two games + Newcastle took a lot out of the players so I'm not in any sort of rush to start making judgments just yet. They have earned the benefit of my doubt in recent months.

One thing Erik has shown so far is he is absolutely not afraid to change things when he gets it wrong. That gives me a lot of hope going forward.
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Yeah I agree. The team has enough credit in the bank for me as well. And EtH has shown that he can change his approach when things aren’t working. So I’m hopeful.
 
Lee565 said:
Under ten hag I actually now get excited for united facing the top sides in Europe and domestically, last year I was dreadijg us against Liverpool at anfield but now I can't wait for the match
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Lee565 said:
No I have not had enough of him and its hard to think of any better manager out there that would logically join us to replace him still but I think we all including myself got carried away with recent months results
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Space of a few days!
 
One thing that Ten Haag must quickly realize that, in the tough always, the approach should always be not to get beat first and then stamp your authority in the match.

We currently don’t have possession based midfielders or even front players to go to tough away matches and dominate the ball.

If you look at our team on Sunday not a single player from the front 6 is somebody who would be great on the ball when pressed. Our two best players when pressed are Martial and Eriksen and obviously it makes a lot of difference and we are not able to control the game without them the same way.

Our games are more like basketball, which should not happen. I would even go on to say even Eriksen is not the solution for tough always as well because what he gives us with the ball without it we lose a lot which we get from Fred.

That’s why the signing of De Jong is very important because he can perform the dictator role better than Eriksen and also adds the dribbling ability from the middle which further opens up the game, also he is far better than Eriksen defensively so we would not be open defensively.

Ideally this front 6 (below) will allow us a better control and possession in tough away matches. That is also one of the reasons why if Martial can’t remain fit I would choose Kane over the Napoli striker, it would allow us to keep the ball well and no longer be tennis like match, which on a bad day could go anyway.

Martial
Rashford Eriksen Sancho/Antony
De Jong Casemiro
 
Hopefully no more stupid experimentation with Bruno on the flanks ( the left specially) and hopefully he makes a decision regarding Wout that doesn't shift better players around.
I don't think Wout is that good of a player to do that for
 
dwd said:
Unsurprising stuff from him.
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I also saw he wants fans to boo the players and manager at the start of the next home game. Some supporter...

Lee565 said:
So will the team and manager as a whole get booed at the start of our next home game to show that the club does have standards or will we give the players and manager the message that we accept any old rubbish
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Lee565 said:
And as I said in that second reply quoted, I like many others may have got little carried away with the progress ten hag had done at the club
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Or you’re overreacting to one match instead of the 25 before that?
 
kouroux said:
Hopefully no more stupid experimentation with Bruno on the flanks ( the left specially) and hopefully he makes a decision regarding Wout that doesn't shift better players around.
I don't think Wout is that good of a player to do that for
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I'm afraid Wout simply isnt good enough. He cant even be a target man and win headers. Maybe a last 10 minute impact sub but we must have better players in the squad. I will lose a fair bit of faith in ETH if he starts Wout in the next league match, its increasingly like playing with 10 men. Garnacho would have made Liverpool nervous on Sunday, Real showed their vulnerabiltiy at the back.
 
izak said:
Tbf we Played Livercunt without our controller in Eriksen as also played Assanal(second leg) without Casimiro but we lost those games deservedly...

I'd imagine if everyone was fit we would have played the top six teams with something like this; 4-3-1-2

DGG, Dalot/AWB, Varane, Martinez/Shaw, Shaw/Malacia

Eriken Casimiro Fred/Sabitzer

Bruno

Antony/Sancho Rashford

We've seen ETH deploy this tactics before(Man Cithe second leg) and i strongly believe he was left short handed with Eriken injury and Sabitzer yet to get up to speed, this system would have helped us in and out of possession, we would have theoretically seen Rashford and Antony pulls wide into the flanks to help cover the full backs while Bruno act as the false nine, but when in possession Bruno has the freedom to roam any and everywhere in the attacking third while Rashford and Antony move more Central occasionally depending on the side of the pitch the ball is at; let's assume the ball is on the right flank where Antony occupies out of possession, so it's Rashford and possibly Bruno's(if he isn't involved in the build up to creating the current chance) to move into the box with a late runner from Midfield, same applies on the Rashford flank.

The midfield trio of Eriksen(Controller) Casimiro(Destroyer) and Fred(Enforcer/ Harasser) would have brought perfect balance which in turn would have made everyone's task alot simpler, which would have seen us controlling the tempo, destroying opp attacks and Harassing the opposition in different moments in games.

The fullbacks would also help in Bumping foward from time to time, while still having the tactical option of bring players like Martial, Sancho, Granacho, Lindelöf, Maguire, Sabitzer and Wout off the bench when needed to aid for different tactic depending on how the game in going.

It's all hindsight but like i said we've seen ETH use it before and i believe that would have been the way at least at Anfield last Sunday.

We March on even in defeat and we can only hope ETH can turn it around again like he did after the Brentford slapping.
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ouch! someone call the burns unit, third degree up in this ma’f.
 
Apparently he made them sit in silence and listen to the Liverpool dressing room celebrations.

Good.
 
One thing is clear, we still desperately need a better director of football.

Although we signed some good players in the summer we can't just brush the Antony signing under the carpet. We could have bought a good rw and cf with that fee and instead we have neither and are desperately short on options up front.

Ten Hag may have an eye for a player but the Antony signing and prolonged pursuit of fdj show the danger of relying too much on the manager and not having someone competent to check and challenge
 
I have seen situations in the Netherlands where team players pay for the tickets of the away supporters in order to try and make up at least a little of what they had to endure. Is this a thing in England?
 
We tried to rotate against West Ham but were 1-0 down and had to bring on the cavalry again to rescue the game. Some players are probably feeling knackered after the Barca tie, the cup final win and the rescue job midweek, they might mentally want to have a breather.

Luke Shaw is reported to say things had changed since the league cup final and I can believe there's some players that expect to be utilized more, some are not up to the task though.

I definitely feel ETH has to be more clever with Sabitzer Sancho AWB, leave Bruno out sometimes, go 433 and keep the players and minds fresh. They're starting to look pissed and tired. Squad players the more underutilized the more rusty and disjointed they look when used.
 
maxtrash said:
I have seen situations in the Netherlands where team players pay for the tickets of the away supporters in order to try and make up at least a little of what they had to endure. Is this a thing in England?
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It should be.
 
He has still done an incredible job this season, just rewind the clock back to August. Loss at home to Brighton, a 4-0 thumping at Brentford. Ronaldo whipping up a big drama, same players as under the previous regime. Folks are losing the context with us based off one result, in no world should we ever accept it like any other result but we aren't the finished article yet, we still have ways to go. We have rebounded from both of our humiliations this season (Brentford, City), so he knows what he is doing. Give him time and support, for once we have appointed the right manager since Fergie retired.

Also, the Bruno slander in media has been absolutely appalling. So much talk about him wanting to be substituted, or how he is a poor captain. It is fair to say there are still snakes in our dressing room who are happy to throw other players under the bus to save their own bacon. Funny, how none of the articles in media ever go for our homegrown/British players. He still has his work cut out to slowly weed out these bad apples, and we as fans need to be realistic about it too.
 
I like that Ten Hag is not having any of this 'tired' bullshit.

There's no point working so hard for CL football and when you get there, you are 'too tired' to play the competition properly to the end.

2 games a week is standard for every top team.
 
spiriticon said:
I like that Ten Hag is not having any of this 'tired' bullshit.

There's no point working so hard for CL football and when you get there, you are 'too tired' to play the competition properly to the end.

2 games a week is standard for every top team.
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We also rested some of our worst players on the day like Shaw.
 
I feel he will always get a reaction out of the players, just like SAF used to do. I wouldn't be surprised if we suddenly go on a 5 game winning run or a 10 game unbeaten run on the back of this, just like after Brentford. ETH has the dressing room by the dangly bits.
 
spiriticon said:
I like that Ten Hag is not having any of this 'tired' bullshit.

There's no point working so hard for CL football and when you get there, you are 'too tired' to play the competition properly to the end.

2 games a week is standard for every top team.
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So true.
I keep thinking back to the teams that used to fight to get into Europa League spots in the league and then treat the competition as 2nd rate the following season cause they have too many games.
What was the point of all that sacrifice in the previous season then??
 
redshaw said:
We tried to rotate against West Ham but were 1-0 down and had to bring on the cavalry again to rescue the game. Some players are probably feeling knackered after the Barca tie, the cup final win and the rescue job midweek, they might mentally want to have a breather.

Luke Shaw is reported to say things had changed since the league cup final and I can believe there's some players that expect to be utilized more, some are not up to the task though.

I definitely feel ETH has to be more clever with Sabitzer Sancho AWB, leave Bruno out sometimes, go 433 and keep the players and minds fresh. They're starting to look pissed and tired. Squad players the more underutilized the more rusty and disjointed they look when used.
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What things had changed. Haven’t seen that comment
 
spiriticon said:
I like that Ten Hag is not having any of this 'tired' bullshit.

There's no point working so hard for CL football and when you get there, you are 'too tired' to play the competition properly to the end.

2 games a week is standard for every top team.
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Being "tired" is far from bullshit - its common sense and if you think that fatigue did not play some sort of role in that defeat then I think you're kidding yourself. ETH was criticized at Ajax for not rotating effectively - which could be because, as it the case here, he didnt have the bench to do so without compromising quality of play and execution of his game plan. Now a few more transfer windows might fix that but without a doubt, more players could have been rested in the run up to this fixture.

Finally, 2 games a week is only standard for certain periods of the season - we have been doing it for months on end with largely the same core players. Injuries have occurred and ETH has been forced to rethink but its clear he only trusts a core group.

I dont blame ETH or think he is at fault - its his way and i trust him. But to simply ignore the amount of football our key players have been asked to play is just silly.
 
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And yes we won the league that season. Conceded 11 goals in one week. Stop being an idiot and support the man. We won't get anyone better than him, there are not many top managers around and they're all not available.
 
captaincantona said:
Being "tired" is far from bullshit - its common sense and if you think that fatigue did not play some sort of role in that defeat then I think you're kidding yourself. ETH was criticized at Ajax for not rotating effectively - which could be because, as it the case here, he didnt have the bench to do so without compromising quality of play and execution of his game plan. Now a few more transfer windows might fix that but without a doubt, more players could have been rested in the run up to this fixture.

Finally, 2 games a week is only standard for certain periods of the season - we have been doing it for months on end with largely the same core players. Injuries have occurred and ETH has been forced to rethink but its clear he only trusts a core group.

I dont blame ETH or think he is at fault - its his way and i trust him. But to simply ignore the amount of football our key players have been asked to play is just silly.
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I'm not ignoring it, but it is what it is. If you want to challenge on every front, then it's about 60 games a season. It's always like this. If you mentally/physically crash at game 30 then you don't win anything. Simple as.

Yes there are other arguments that ten Hag should have rotated more etc, and I would agree that he needs to rotate more. But the core number of games doesn't change.
 
maxtrash said:
I have seen situations in the Netherlands where team players pay for the tickets of the away supporters in order to try and make up at least a little of what they had to endure. Is this a thing in England?
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I hope not, because half the tickets there were touted. It'll be the profiteers who get the refund, not the actual fan in the stands.
 
maxtrash said:
I have seen situations in the Netherlands where team players pay for the tickets of the away supporters in order to try and make up at least a little of what they had to endure. Is this a thing in England?
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Nope, instead we get an apology on the players social media which is copy and pasted by the players PR team, sometimes on the wrong players account. Better than a refund!
 
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