Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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romufc said:
Anyway, you telling me to re read your posts when you cannot be bothered to read mine. I cant actually be asked going round in circles.

When you say I gave Ole rope that I am not willing to give ETH, show me a post where I have said he is doing a bad job or needs to be sacked. You wont be able to.

Also, on the narrative bit, Its clear you can only see the negative posts about the team but wont see any of the positive posts about Ten Hag because if you actually read, there is plenty of that. I have rated him, I still think he is the best manager for us, but ofcourse you ignore that because you only want to see the criticism so you can come back and say... Oh you criticised the team so you want Ten Hag out.
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Mate you're getting a wee bit upset here. No one is saying that you want him sacked, but as I said, you have a-lot of critique in here. Given what he's achieved this season, I think it's pretty unfair, given the slack you cut Ole. It is what it is, no need to take offence. I mean, if you really want, I can dig up posts from the Ole era where you likely got pissy with people criticising him after win?

Absolutely you have said positive things, but also plenty of negative things. You also dismiss things like fatigue, and seemed to want to post negatively after making the semi-final of the FA Cup; it just doesn't sit right with me, something seems amiss.

I actually agreed with the rest of what you wrote tbf; but you're obviously too annoyed or whatever to see that.
 
romufc said:
When you say I gave Ole rope that I am not willing to give ETH, show me a post where I have said he is doing a bad job or needs to be sacked. You wont be able to.
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It's not the fact that you haven't said he is doing a bad job or he needs to be sacked. It's the fact that you don't offer any balance to your criticism. Here's an example for you - at a similar point in Ole's tenure a poster mentioned the fact that we'd been lucky to scrape a draw with Wolves, and your response was:

romufc said:
'Get over it, sometimes teams win and they do not deserve it, we won loads of games like that.'
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And that was when we were in the midst of an absolutely awful run in the league - our worst for40 odd years.

And let's just remind ourself of your reaction to an FA Cup Quarter-final WIN under ETH:
romufc said:
Yet another game, yet another poor performance and dominated at home again.

This is a recurring theme, we've been so lucky to get away with this. I have said it for weeks, this team is not good and a better attacking team will again put us 4/5 past us again.

Its worrying signs really, its unsustainable what we are doing at the moment. We are in a top 4 dog fight now against Poor Spurs, Poor Liverpool.
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Can you not see a slight difference in tone?!
 
Robbie Boy said:
Mate you're getting a wee bit upset here. No one is saying that you want him sacked, but as I said, you have a-lot of critique in here. Given what he's achieved this season, I think it's pretty unfair, given the slack you cut Ole. It is what it is, no need to take offence. I mean, if you really want, I can dig up posts from the Ole era where you likely got pissy with people criticising him after win?

Absolutely you have said positive things, but also plenty of negative things. You also dismiss things like fatigue, and seemed to want to post negatively after making the semi-final of the FA Cup; it just doesn't sit right with me, something seems amiss.

I actually agreed with the rest of what you wrote tbf; but you're obviously too annoyed or whatever to see that.
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No, its not about upset. Like in football you have opinions that change. I backed Ole, I agree with that but at the end of it, when you look at his tenure, he clearly did not improve and did not have the tactical nouse to get us to challenge, that is clear right.

Having seen what Ten Hag has done, in terms of setting standards, I absolutely love him, I watch his every press conference because he talks sense. He even comes out saying we played rubbish, when we did. In comparison to Ole when he said, Trophies is for egos whereas Ten Hag has said, its all about that. Those are the standards which were lost, I agree.

The thing is when we played like this under Ole it was all criticism that we are a counter attacking team and rely on individual brilliance... what kind of football have we played in the last 4 weeks? counter attacking relying on individual brilliance? Wouldn't you agree?

I agree what he has done in terms of instilling a mentality to this group is amazing and yes fatigue has caught up with us but I am not fooled into thinking that is all. I dont care how many games we play but when you have McT, AWB, Maguire, you will get these performances, regardless of how fresh anyone is.
 
romufc said:
No, its not about upset. Like in football you have opinions that change. I backed Ole, I agree with that but at the end of it, when you look at his tenure, he clearly did not improve and did not have the tactical nouse to get us to challenge, that is clear right.

Having seen what Ten Hag has done, in terms of setting standards, I absolutely love him, I watch his every press conference because he talks sense. He even comes out saying we played rubbish, when we did. In comparison to Ole when he said, Trophies is for egos whereas Ten Hag has said, its all about that. Those are the standards which were lost, I agree.

The thing is when we played like this under Ole it was all criticism that we are a counter attacking team and rely on individual brilliance... what kind of football have we played in the last 4 weeks? counter attacking relying on individual brilliance? Wouldn't you agree?

I agree what he has done in terms of instilling a mentality to this group is amazing and yes fatigue has caught up with us but I am not fooled into thinking that is all. I dont care how many games we play but when you have McT, AWB, Maguire, you will get these performances, regardless of how fresh anyone is.
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Ok, so do you see any correlation between our drop off in standards the last 4 weeks and fatigue? I wouldn't say we're playing anything like Ole-ball, no. What I have seen these past weeks is a bunch of players that are shattered and are making stupid mistakes every single game. The amount of individual errors when in possession has been infuriating, and performances have been very disjointed. Is this all down to fatigue? Maybe not, but a large portion certainly is. I still think fundamentally, we are trying to play football, but when you're missing Eriksen, Varane and Casemiro, that'll be difficult,

And yes; that's the point; the squad isn't good enough for what ETH wants to do. Yes, for Ole it was fine as he has a totally different brand of football. But tell me why you're being critical in the ETH thread if you can acknowledge that the drop off in quality in our players is absolutely huge? As I said, he started 3 of his own players against Fulham, with two being January loans. Some of the players simply don't have what it takes to play his brand of football, but that's not on him. Before a ball was kicked, I anticipated that he would move on Maguire and AWB within 2 seasons.
 
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romufc said:
Yes, because I rate Ten Hag alot higher than Arteta as manager.
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There you have it, finally.

We could have avoided all this if you just said this.

No wonder you're not using the same parametres for Arsenal and United.
 
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Strelok said:
I'd disagree with this. We have had so many matches this season where we were able to dominate the match and push them back to their own half the whole match. Only after the injury of Eriksen we started to fail to keep the intensity and doing that the whole match. It's rather an issue of our squad depth and fatigue I think.
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So many matches, like how many matches are so many? Especially in Premier League?

Good thing is this season we find ways of winning games even when we've been outplayed.

many games this season we've won which last season was a loss. Just by grit and heart to see the game through.

But don't create an impression that Eriksen is a mini-god in our play, he helps it but let's not magnify his importance to the team.

there is a reason we are 3 points ahead of Newcastle and 19 points behind Arsenal. It's not Eriksen but how our team have been throughout the season.

People need to accept some truths, we are not as good as other thus the gap. Ten Hag has to change another 4 first team players for us to achieve genuine progress. We are still a 70-75 points team.
 
Stacks said:
wildly overachieving after 230 million spend is mad
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It absolutely is.

So let's see if you can identify the players the squad lost between Ole/Ralf?

I doubt you'll reply, but I'll give you a fair chance.
 
The first half highlights were actually showing more United chances than Fulham chances. There was a lot of Fulham territorial advantage that didn't cause us much of a problem. United did not play well at all, but I think the narrative that Fulham were all over us in the first half is total bollocks. They deserved to be ahead when they scored and we woke up after that and the counter that led to the penalty was a lovely move.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
People need to accept some truths, we are not as good as other thus the gap. Ten Hag has to change another 4 first team players for us to achieve genuine progress. We are still a 70-75 points team.
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Who's denying that?
And its not just the grit and heart, general play has been a lot better than last year, we dont win just on luck and grit. Of course there's a ton of work still but we're progressing as a team definitely.
 
GaryLifo said:
The first half highlights were actually showing more United chances than Fulham chances. There was a lot of Fulham territorial advantage that didn't cause us much of a problem. United did not play well at all, but I think the narrative that Fulham were all over us in the first half is total bollocks. They deserved to be ahead when they scored and we woke up after that and the counter that led to the penalty was a lovely move.
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Ah yes I thought it was a dull first half. But it wasn’t all Fulham. It was just a half of nothingness. I remember leaving telling my brother de Gea’s saves seemed exaggerated by him and I would’ve been disappointed if he let any of those in.

Unsurprisingly they scored as that’s usually how it goes when the match is like that. Then we sort of woke up and played a lot better with Anthony’s introduction.

I think there were 5 non first 11 players. It’s not the worst performance by our second string.
 
Real Name said:
Why do you think that?
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Yeah, i thought that was a strange comment too. I would say we are one of the most stable of the 'massive' European clubs for a manager to be at. Who would he want to leave us for? If he can get decent financial backing - which one way or another it looks like he will - and patience from the board (who historically are TOO patient if anything) then why would he want to jack it in for a couple of years at Madrid or a Barcelona that have major financial and legal issues?
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
Yeah, i thought that was a strange comment too. I would say we are one of the most stable of the 'massive' European clubs for a manager to be at. Who would he want to leave us for? If he can get decent financial backing - which one way or another it looks like he will - and patience from the board (who historically are TOO patient if anything) then why would he want to jack it in for a couple of years at Madrid or a Barcelona that have major financial and legal issues?
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I just hate the talk about Barcelona or Madrid potentially taking one of our players, now there's talk about them possibly taking the manager too. We're fekin Manchester United, not some lowly club who should worry if someone will take players or manager from them.
 
Bebestation said:
Feel like he is a very quick short term manager but that’s both good with benefits but problems long term.

Ultimately i don’t care and it’s great not to worry about the future too much and just think about the present for a whilst.

Can see Barcelona creaming for him after 3 years time. Will probably pay someone behind someone’s back too.
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He did excellent jobs in finding and fitting in replacements for players that left at AJAX and keeping them competitive despite losing so many quality players over the years to bigger clubs.
At his first ever season at United he didn't go for ready made superstars (outside of Casemiro but even he is no longer young) to fix a mess that was United. Also went for a player that everyone had forgotten about in Eriksen.
I don't see him as a short term manager, if anything he fits the profile of a medium to long term manager more. He can build and rebuild squad under constraints. Definitely not in the mold of Jose and Conte. He doesn't have a striker this season because of Ronaldo shitshow and Martial's fitness. And guess what? he borrowed a striker mid season who is more comparable to Felaini than anyone and make him work for the system! he wouldn't have done it if he was a short term manager and instead would have told the owners to go all out on Felix despite him not fitting the profile of CF we're looking for the long term. The fact that he settled with mediocre players than go for better but non optimal players tells me he has the future in mind. And this might sound crazy, but I think Antony is another example. Everyone expected him to be a world class player when he joined but that's definitely not the case, Ten Hag seems to sign him for the future.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
So many matches, like how many matches are so many? Especially in Premier League?

Good thing is this season we find ways of winning games even when we've been outplayed.

many games this season we've won which last season was a loss. Just by grit and heart to see the game through.

But don't create an impression that Eriksen is a mini-god in our play, he helps it but let's not magnify his importance to the team.

there is a reason we are 3 points ahead of Newcastle and 19 points behind Arsenal. It's not Eriksen but how our team have been throughout the season.

People need to accept some truths, we are not as good as other thus the gap. Ten Hag has to change another 4 first team players for us to achieve genuine progress. We are still a 70-75 points team.
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I'm not saying Eriksen allows us to play like that, it's simply a point in time. And I could ask you the same question, how many matches we were set up to play with a counter attack approach?
 
romufc said:
Arsenal played 120 minutes and then 3 days later put in a dominant performance against Palace, when last week after an away game to Sporting, absolutely finished Fulham in 45 mins.

We rotated our players too, DDG, Bruno, Rashford, Licha, WW are the only ones really who play every game. The rest of the team is rotated.
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You are failing to mention, can't imagine why, prior to the first Sporting game they had a 5 day rest - when was the last time we had that? Start of Feb they had an 8 day break - when was the last time we had that? Comparing us with Arsenal is apples and pears.
 
romufc said:
Agreed. I bet you 2 years ago Arsenal fans would be saying the same about Xhaka though.

Why is it hard for people to understand that you can criticise a performance without it meaning you want the manager gone or questioning the manager?

I back Ten Hag and always have, having players like Maguire, AWB, McTominay not being able to pass the ball has nothing to do with fatigue, its got to do with quality.

All 3 of those players are fresh, 2 of them were our worst performing players. The amount of times I get nervous when Maguire, McTominay, AWB get the ball and I think, there is a mistake on its way, it filters down to the rest of the team.
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Yes but he had the talent (like Henderson). McTominay and Awb simply don’t.
 
marktan said:
I don't disagree with you, it's a good strategy for this game specifically. It's bad though in the long run. ETH will have to hope that Rashford and Bruno in particular don't burn out before the end of the season, they've had next to no rest.

For me? I'd have started them on the bench, and if we conceded then at 4-2 bring them on. Still a margin of safety, but also likely that we either don't concede or even score.

SAF rotated all the time. It's why you had some weird lineups and players like O'Shea, Gibson, Cleverly playing so many games. Though you're probably right that the most important attackers probably didn't get rotated as much, I don't recall Ronaldo sitting out much at all.
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You referenced John O'Shea which is a great example as I recall he used to fill a variety of positions.

His highest appearance count was 34 in 2005

For context, Malacia is already on 30 appearances this season - so it's likely he'll have more appearances than O'Shea ever achieved despite being in his first season (and Shaw being in form for most of it)

Perhaps you're overestimating Fergie's rotation and/or under estimating Ten Hags?
 
mav_9me said:
It absolutely is.

So let's see if you can identify the players the squad lost between Ole/Ralf?

I doubt you'll reply, but I'll give you a fair chance.
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Most of those players were surplus and we did not need them. I mean two of our main rivals have been trash, we are 19 pts off 1st and Newcastle are competing with us for 4th. If we could not come ahead of that pack I'd be concerned. We should always be above Newcastle and Co
 
romufc said:
Arsenal played 120 minutes and then 3 days later put in a dominant performance against Palace, when last week after an away game to Sporting, absolutely finished Fulham in 45 mins.

We rotated our players too, DDG, Bruno, Rashford, Licha, WW are the only ones really who play every game. The rest of the team is rotated.
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Surely you see the numerous differences in that comparison. Others have pointed out the time the managers have had but theirs more obvious differences. Do I need to point them out?
 
Stacks said:
Most of those players were surplus and we did not need them. I mean two of our main rivals have been trash, we are 19 pts off 1st and Newcastle are competing with us for 4th. If we could not come ahead of that pack I'd be concerned. We should always be above Newcastle and Co
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Over 60 posts in this thread, and literally no praise whatsoever. What more were you hoping for?
 
Ten Hag has rarely had his first 11 out this season

De Gea
Dalot Varane Martinez Shaw
Antony Eriksen Casemiro Rashford
Bruno Martial

so we can't be overly critical. No manager can work miracles or coach players beyond their ability.
 
mav_9me said:
Surely you see the numerous differences in that comparison. Others have pointed out the time the managers have had but theirs more obvious differences. Do I need to point them out?
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Go on then... point them out.

So let me get this straight, others have pointed out to fatigue being the main reason, which I can agree with.

This 3 year thing, I do not agree with, after having seen what Ten Hag can do in 8 months, I cannot agree with the tenure differences.

I actually think an elite manager does not need 3 years like you think so.

I actually think Ten Hag can get us playing and dominated in 12 months.

Are you saying in your opinion we have to wait 3 years to see us dominate games?
 
Stacks said:
CL qualification and a cup so he is doing the job I expect, no need to go overboard. Every manager we have hired have made CL in their 1st season. His win ratio is pretty good. I shall extend his contract for another year.
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You were expecting to be in 3rd place, have won the League Cup, be in the semi's of the FA, and quarters of the Europa League at this point in the season?
 
romufc said:
Go on then... point them out.

So let me get this straight, others have pointed out to fatigue being the main reason, which I can agree with.

This 3 year thing, I do not agree with, after having seen what Ten Hag can do in 8 months, I cannot agree with the tenure differences.

I actually think an elite manager does not need 3 years like you think so.

I actually think Ten Hag can get us playing and dominated in 12 months.

Are you saying in your opinion we have to wait 3 years to see us dominate games?
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They rested Saka, Odegaard and Partey (only came to the end of 90) midweek before Palace.

They had one absentee from their starting XI against Palace (Saliba, 2 if you want to count Jesus but they bought Troussard while we loaned WW) while we had 4 out (Varane, Casemiro, Eriksen, Martial) I wonder how easily Arsenal would have won if they didn't have Partey and Odegaard.

No that's not what I am saying. It took them/Arteta 3 years to get the squad how he wanted. It might be sooner for ETH if say this summer we bought his CM, striker, GK etc. We are after all capable of spending more than them, even more this summer. But surely more time while growing is better? So arteta in 3.5 yrs has a better squad better coached squad than ETH in 10 months. That's not surprising.
 
For Ten Hag to play the football he wants to he needs a playmaking ball carrier and a strong, technical no.9 with good hold-up and link-up play. That's why he was desperate to land FDJ and why we'll go all out for either Kane or Osimhen in the summer.
 
mav_9me said:
They rested Saka, Odegaard and Partey (only came to the end of 90) midweek before Palace.

They had one absentee from their starting XI against Palace (Saliba, 2 if you want to count Jesus but they bought Troussard while we loaned WW) while we had 4 out (Varane, Casemiro, Eriksen, Martial) I wonder how easily Arsenal would have won if they didn't have Partey and Odegaard.

No that's not what I am saying. It took them/Arteta 3 years to get the squad how he wanted. It might be sooner for ETH if say this summer we bought his CM, striker, GK etc. We are after all capable of spending more than them, even more this summer. But surely more time while growing is better? So arteta in 3.5 yrs has a better squad better coached squad than ETH in 10 months. That's not surprising.
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Manutd rested Anthony, Sancho, Sabitzer, McTominay, Shaw for the game. I mean I get the injuries but really how can you even put Martial in there when he is never fit?

Casemiro was out because he made a silly tackle, you cant fault anyone but him for being out the games he will be.

No, I dont actually think that matters in football, you dont need 3 years to train a group of players if you are an elite coach.

I saw Pep, Klopp, Tuchel all within 12 months implement a style of play, I expect Ten Hag to do the same because he is imo an elite coach.

Our issue is passing, our players cannot pass the football. People have a right go at Bruno for his passing, when most of our players are in the similar boat, Casemiro has a passing accuracy of 78% this season wheras Rodri is 92% and Partey is 87%. Our best passing accuracy is Eriksen at 82%.

Imo that is where we are failing, how often we struggle to get the ball up the pitch, is because of sub par midfield passing. I guarantee, with a elite CM next to Casemiro and better ST who can hold up the ball and receive the ball from the CB/CM's, in the same system we will look a different team. Fatigued or not, I think we would be at least 5 times better on the ball.
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
It's not the fact that you haven't said he is doing a bad job or he needs to be sacked. It's the fact that you don't offer any balance to your criticism. Here's an example for you - at a similar point in Ole's tenure a poster mentioned the fact that we'd been lucky to scrape a draw with Wolves, and your response was:



And that was when we were in the midst of an absolutely awful run in the league - our worst for40 odd years.

And let's just remind ourself of your reaction to an FA Cup Quarter-final WIN under ETH:

Can you not see a slight difference in tone?!
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@romufc didn’t reply to this one
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
OK, there's a difference between 'expected' and 'hoped'. So, up to now, he is doing as well as you had hoped might be possible? Still no praise though, just a kind of 'meh'?
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I mean shiiiiit he has managed to win a lot of games with mediocre selections and big gaps in the team so that is testament to his management. Got rid of Ronaldo, brought in Martinez and Rashford has got back to form so I am pleased with that. I was disappointed we did not offload Maguire and McTom in the summer so we could strengthen better but he has instilled the spirit and belief back in the club. He is doing well, sure
 
romufc said:
I didn't realise that comments on games is not allowed. I dont know why you want to make this a Ole v Ten Hag thing when its not.
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You are really missing the point here. No, it isn't an Ole v Ten Hag thing - it's a comparison between your supportive approach to Ole and your critical approach to Ten Hag. And that's only come up because your negativity towards him has been so evident in this thread - which is specifically to discuss his performance.
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
You are really missing the point here. No, it isn't an Ole v Ten Hag thing - it's a comparison between your supportive approach to Ole and your critical approach to Ten Hag. And that's only come up because your negativity towards him has been so evident in this thread - which is specifically to discuss his performance.
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Again, I said the performance was bad, do you think it was good? Be honest?

Also, you keep saying I am negative towards Ten Hag, please point to me 5 posts of mine that are negative towards Ten Hag and not the team....

I will wait.
 
romufc said:
Again, I said the performance was bad, do you think it was good? Be honest?

Also, you keep saying I am negative towards Ten Hag, please point to me 5 posts of mine that are negative towards Ten Hag and not the team....

I will wait.
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This is a thread specifically about ETH - if you consistently post stuff about disappointing performances on this thread then what are we supposed to think you mean? There is a separate thread for post match analysis after every game if you want to discuss specifics about the team performance.

Also, it's a bit disingenuous to attempt to separate out the two - ultimately the manager is responsible for the performance of the team, so if the team is continually disappointing you then surely a fair proportion of that is on Ten Hag isn't it?
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
This is a thread specifically about ETH - if you consistently post stuff about disappointing performances on this thread then what are we supposed to think you mean? There is a separate thread for post match analysis after every game if you want to discuss specifics about the team performance.

Also, it's a bit disingenuous to attempt to separate out the two - ultimately the manager is responsible for the performance of the team, so if the team is continually disappointing you then surely a fair proportion of that is on Ten Hag isn't it?
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Yes, so are you saying I have more negative posts about Ten Hag than positive ones? are you not allowed to call out performances if they are bad?


Right, so I guess you dont criticise any player then? because if a player e.g. Maguire, McT, AWB, Bruno is continue to disappoint, is it not on Ten Hag because he picks then and gives them instructions?
 
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