He deserves next season even if we finish 5th and crash out of the remaining cups. Why would you want to undo everything that’s happened so far?
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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But this has been happening for years now with Bruno, McTominay and Fred, Rashford etc.
If he only has those players to choose from now I don’t understand the surprise when it doesn't work.
We've all watched it not work for years.
It's why ETH went and bought two new CM's.
Priorty this summer is 2 new midfielders and a CF that scores goals.
Without Eriksen and Casemiro were not a good side and we get dominated every game when not available.
Too many players in squad not good enough.
Without Eriksen and Casemiro were not a good side and we get dominated every game when not available.
Too many players in squad not good enough.
Thing is, the games we lost against top half teams, there's zero argument to be had that those games could have gone either way - with luck, referee decisions, etc. We were comprehensively outplayed in every single one of them bar Arsenal at Emirates but even there the result flattered us as they were all over us. City, Liverpool, Brentford, Newcastle and Villa you could have zero discussion about, all were very heavy batterings where we could have probably conceded more (Liverpool game aside which was probably more of a 3-0/4-0 than 7-0).
Meanwhile our only convincing win against a top half team where you could say there was no other outcome possible was Spurs. Arsenal, Liverpool and City at Old Trafford were fair wins but were not firm, strong victories which I'd like to see come at some point. We have literally beaten one top half team in that manner all season.
I don't know how anyone could not have an issue with that. I know Brentford and Brighton were early in the season but we basically put in the same performance against Newcastle literally yesterday.
And I'm not even saying ETH is wrong for the job or trying to downplay the effect he's had on the club, just merely pointing out there is a serious issue with how we play against good teams and there's been almost no improvement with that over the course of season, which is concerning if our long term goal is to go toe to toe with those teams.
Unfortunately it seems like Ten Hag is a victim of his own success - it was widely accepted at the start of this season that we were rubbish at playing non-transitional football, and it was going to take time, new personnel, and a few drubbings before we started to look like a coherent front foot team.
Because he's done such a great job with us this season, the expectations are higher than they should be, and we're playing an absurd number of matches which has led to us losing key players to injury and fatigue, while the ones who are still fit are running on fumes.
Because he's done such a great job with us this season, the expectations are higher than they should be, and we're playing an absurd number of matches which has led to us losing key players to injury and fatigue, while the ones who are still fit are running on fumes.
Ten Hag deserves next season should never be questioned.
However; I don't get why fans are getting annoyed when the teams performances are called into question. No one can think we are playing any better than 1 year ago at the moment.
Newcastle could have won 5-0 and it would not have been a fluke. This has been happening for a month and more now.
Yesterday Ten Hag felt he needed to reward McTominay and it backfired, nothing more. He'll learn from this.
We've seen better performances than yesterday by using McTominay and Fred in positions they are familiar with.
No one has banged the 'quality of players are more important than any manager' drum more than me, but I was also told that with better coaching we should expect more from these players. Was I just right all along.
Away games yes. Were we 'comprehensively outplayed' in our home games vs top teams?
Lucky, refereeing decisions, all those things happen in football and as I said we were unlucky in some other games. And we deserved our wins vs Liverpool, City and Arsenal.
You're numbering defeats without context. Yes the same game happened yesterday, there's a busy schedule, injuries, lack of quality in the squad. All things need work.
Yeah its like he went out of his way cause McT scored 4 goals for Scotland.
The performances have been getting worse for a while, but I don’t think that’s necessarily on the manager. Injuries, fatigue, suspensions, lack of reinforcements and playing every 3 days have taken their toll. We’re all annoyed about things we probably wouldn’t be annoyed at if he hadn’t built our expectations up by doing so well early on.
In my mind, it should always go without saying that a manager should get 3 years to establish their team, coaching setup, and style of play. I think it was a mistake we didn't give Van Gall another season, and I think it was a mistake not to keep Ole until the end of last season - I think things would've settled a bit and not looked quite as bad as they did at that precise moment.
Judging ETH only on results and progress in competitions, it's got to be a positive year. There's a very good chance we'll win at least one more trophy, and it shouldn't be too hard to get top 4. At the start of the season that would've looked excellent.
Having said that, some of the praise that's been given to him this season has been absurd. Journos have been lauding him as a 'genius' many times over, and people on here have been talking like the football has been silky smooth and light years away from previous seasons. It just hasn't. It's been improved by 2 particular quality additions (Martinez and Casamiro), a solid third (Erikson), and one of Rashford's hot streaks, but I don't see any significant improvement to any other element of our approach to matches, or 'mindset', or any of that nonsense people have been harping on about. I'm not saying we should expect there to be - we're less than one year in - but the genius talk has been bizarre.
It's very weird what bias and narrative can do. Many had formed their opinion long ago about Ole and were convinced that he was just a nice guy, not a good coach. But he'd coached well in a foreign league, come over, saved one season then had 2 really good seasons after that, interspersed with some purple patches, some great performances, some excellent results, and some awful dips. Under Ole, Bruno had an exceptional run of form, Rashford had ups and downs, Martial, Shaw and Fred too. But people had made their minds up that the guy with the roll-neck sweater was Pep incarnate, and even when the return is almost identical to those seasons under Ole, have hailed it to be galaxy brain excellence.
But have those people actually watched us since the world cup? Have people seen the persistence in playing a lanky guy as a high-press, drop-deep, false nine every single game with absolutely no goal return, impactful hold-up play, or even aerial threat? Imagine Ole playing Wout like that? Carnage! Does winning a tin pot trophy make so much difference? Do people remember we were 11 penalties into a shootout close to winning the Europe League under Ole? or that we won the league cup and Europe league under Mourinho? and the FA cup under Van Gaal? Did that change the world? Were any of those particularly relevant?
People are so blinkered. We did ok with Ole for a bit and then the wheels came off when Ronaldo returned. Things are OK with Ten Hag and should hopefully get better with the right investment in the right areas. You don't have to be team OGS or team ETH. We're a pretty average team playing pretty disjointed, average football. Just like we have been for most of the last ten years. Those arguing that the football has been treacle are too invested in the narrative they want to be true.
Let's give this current guy a chance - things are hopefully moving forward and it's not a false dawn. But don't claim him as the messiah for Christ's sake. So far he's performing right about par with the squad he has. No need to get rid of him, no reason to birth his children, no reason to panic, no reason to celebrate.
Judging ETH only on results and progress in competitions, it's got to be a positive year. There's a very good chance we'll win at least one more trophy, and it shouldn't be too hard to get top 4. At the start of the season that would've looked excellent.
Having said that, some of the praise that's been given to him this season has been absurd. Journos have been lauding him as a 'genius' many times over, and people on here have been talking like the football has been silky smooth and light years away from previous seasons. It just hasn't. It's been improved by 2 particular quality additions (Martinez and Casamiro), a solid third (Erikson), and one of Rashford's hot streaks, but I don't see any significant improvement to any other element of our approach to matches, or 'mindset', or any of that nonsense people have been harping on about. I'm not saying we should expect there to be - we're less than one year in - but the genius talk has been bizarre.
It's very weird what bias and narrative can do. Many had formed their opinion long ago about Ole and were convinced that he was just a nice guy, not a good coach. But he'd coached well in a foreign league, come over, saved one season then had 2 really good seasons after that, interspersed with some purple patches, some great performances, some excellent results, and some awful dips. Under Ole, Bruno had an exceptional run of form, Rashford had ups and downs, Martial, Shaw and Fred too. But people had made their minds up that the guy with the roll-neck sweater was Pep incarnate, and even when the return is almost identical to those seasons under Ole, have hailed it to be galaxy brain excellence.
But have those people actually watched us since the world cup? Have people seen the persistence in playing a lanky guy as a high-press, drop-deep, false nine every single game with absolutely no goal return, impactful hold-up play, or even aerial threat? Imagine Ole playing Wout like that? Carnage! Does winning a tin pot trophy make so much difference? Do people remember we were 11 penalties into a shootout close to winning the Europe League under Ole? or that we won the league cup and Europe league under Mourinho? and the FA cup under Van Gaal? Did that change the world? Were any of those particularly relevant?
People are so blinkered. We did ok with Ole for a bit and then the wheels came off when Ronaldo returned. Things are OK with Ten Hag and should hopefully get better with the right investment in the right areas. You don't have to be team OGS or team ETH. We're a pretty average team playing pretty disjointed, average football. Just like we have been for most of the last ten years. Those arguing that the football has been treacle are too invested in the narrative they want to be true.
Let's give this current guy a chance - things are hopefully moving forward and it's not a false dawn. But don't claim him as the messiah for Christ's sake. So far he's performing right about par with the squad he has. No need to get rid of him, no reason to birth his children, no reason to panic, no reason to celebrate.
You were and I'm of the same opinion. It's about players. Managers aren't puppet masters.
We have seen better performances from the likes of McTominay and Fred but equally we've seen lots of performances just like yesterday's.
The problem is that we're in the era of the manager. Fans genuinely believe managers can turn water into wine. They've convinced themselves managers can transform players just with coaching. If they could why do they all go out and buy so many new players.
ETH know this though. If he thought he could transform Fred and McTominay he wouldn't have bought Eriksen and Casemiro.
He should probably go, Enrique is out of work.
You're kidding, right?
Because modern fans have no common sense and patience.
Yes, every manager has to deal with injuries and fatigue, I can understand that. However; we cannot keep using fatigue as a reasoning when we have just had a 2 week break, yes some players played in the international break but alot had a 1 week off minimum.
Lack of reinforcements for a manager than spent 230m in the summer, is not an excuse. It seems we are the only played loads of games and we can be bad for 6 weeks and use it as an excuse.
Then a more fair assessment would be that we were comprehensively outplayed in all our away games against them and were not very convincing in almost any of the home games, to the extent I’d like to eventually see.
And to be fair we did have some firm wins against Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Liverpool at home in previous campaigns, we are capable of that.
Fascinated to see how long the next owner, who I think will be more hands on, will give Hag.
New owners ,more often than not, tend to have a their 'own man' in constant contact or lined up.
New owners ,more often than not, tend to have a their 'own man' in constant contact or lined up.
Yes, any trophy would have done. Heck, I'd even say that finishing 5th and a League Cup would be better than 4th and no trophy. The rebuild was always going to be a gradual process and that run after the World Cup was quite unexpected. How many expected us to be in this position after Brentford away?
This is Ten Hag's first season. At the moment, he's on course to at least equal Mourinho. In his first season, we had as many bad moments as good (Like ETH) but the season was a success in the end.
If we're still losing every away game v a team in the top 6 next season, I'd be concerned. We're a long way from that.
We also rotated very little when we could have, which was praised at the time as it got us results but seems to be taking its toll now. For instance there was no reason to play a strong team against Nottingham at home after winning 3-0 away, yet we did it. It is taking its toll now in what is going to be our longest season in history.
No, not really. I like him, I want him to stay and I want it to work out but we're routinely getting hammered since February, we're playing shite, and if it continues we're going to lose out on the top 4 and the cups we're still in, and god knows how many batterings between now and then we'll face. You can't finish outside the top 4 and spend silly money every summer, someone has to pay the price for that.
I dont agree on the home part. Especially not the 'almost any games'. We look far more assured at home now and in some games our win looked as only outcome possible. That's a difference for instance compared to previous campaigns.
Maybe you meant home games against top half teams and I stand by my point of those games looking pretty good by us.
Strongly disagree. If we fail to get a CL spot in a season where both Chelsea and Liverpool have struggled, it will be a massive failure of a season despite League Cup.
It could be a league cup, our biggest hiding ever to a rival and a europa league finish. That could literally be his United legacy at this point.
So you think he should get the sack if we dont end up in top 4?
Or he should get sacked right away.
You can't sack him after one season. Especially when he's won a trohpy.
I think the praise has been way overboard but that's crazy.
Yeah, one of the few things I agree with from yesterday, Weghorst should of been off at half time immediately, hopefully Martial can stay fit for the remainder of the season, because we looked much better with him in the side.
The problem with WW is that he can't win aerial duals and keep the ball when we need to relieve pressure, which combined with his non existent scoring, basically makes us start with 10 men at the moment.
Or a league cup plus FA cup or EL and top 4.
Depends on how you look at it.
You can't keep on changing the manager with more trust given to the same dud players as well. ETH is not a magician. People keep on saying he spent so and so, well he hasn't been able to play 2 of the midfielders he actually bought to make is better. Eriksen going means we have lost the creativity and Casemiro missing games means we lose stability.
ETH is not a magician to turn turds into diamonds. We need to give him time or else we just continue to sack managers and each manager will continue to have the likes of Mctominay stink the place.
I think with the money spent, and the players available he should make 4 easily and that should be our priority all season. It's nice with a cup and all that but for some reason his ego has allowed him to think this squad can compete on all fronts and it just can't so now we're in a position where we're playing 8 to 10 games again this month and staring down the barrel of hammerings and going out of everything based on current form.
So if he can't turn this around then it's on him, yes. If he makes top 4 I want him to stay.
They're not dud players, he's got them playing in every competition deep into the season which has caused injuries and fatigue. He should have managed the competitions better, he's picked the same squad almost every game. We've got reserve players that could have played in the league cup, we didn't even play a difficult side en route to the final. Now we're paying the price.
The Wan Bissaka/Dalot contract situation is really testing my faith.
Dalot had what, a 10 game purple patch where he wasn't exposed much defensively and looked quite good on the ball but other than he's looked shit for the majority of his Manchester United career.
Wan-Bissaka is proven elite 1 v 1 defender and had one bad season last season like most squad but other than that and has performed consistently at a high level for the majority of his time here.
How it's Dalot that's getting the new contract and Wan-Bissaka according to Ornstein is for sale is a complete joke.
Dalot had what, a 10 game purple patch where he wasn't exposed much defensively and looked quite good on the ball but other than he's looked shit for the majority of his Manchester United career.
Wan-Bissaka is proven elite 1 v 1 defender and had one bad season last season like most squad but other than that and has performed consistently at a high level for the majority of his time here.
How it's Dalot that's getting the new contract and Wan-Bissaka according to Ornstein is for sale is a complete joke.
I hope you're right but we haven't played well since Barcelona and we don't look like improving.
Making top 4 easily with Eriksen out and with makeshift midfield for a good while now plus the schedule? Lets not agree on that one.
Also its strange you're speaking about going out of everything all the while us being in everything. Its as if you see the future.
Then what do we do? Back him again in the summer, another £200m and hope for the best? I know we need new players but we should make top 4 this season with no danger at all.
The main priority for every season at Man Utd should be to be a step closer to being the best team in the land. If cup wins are a by product of that, then great!! But being shite in the league ( not saying we are shite this season but making a general point) and winning a Carabao Cup does not make it a successful season.
Ole's issue was that after 2 seasons of gradual improvement in the league, shite hit the fan in the 3rd and he was sacked. DDG could have saved a penalty in the EL final and Ole would still have been sacked after our league form the following season. As much as people like to harp on about them, cup wins mean very little at the end of the day if you are a club as big as Utd and not challenging for the league titles year in year out.
Can he not see how poor De Gea is at defending corners and crosses into the box?
Also can he stop playing 2 in midfield against top teams?
We've lost to Brentford, Man City, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Liverpool (albeit a ridiculous collapse) and now Newcastle.
In each of those games we've started with 2 in midfield and been overran every time.
Not starting Fred yesterday in midfield with McTominay and Sabitzer while Weghorst had less than 12 touches was ghastly.
There's a humongous drop off from Casemiro and Eriksen to our backups so why he can't compensate for it?
Also Weghorst needs to remain on the bench and not even play as a sub for the rest of the season. Play Rashford as a CF and play Sancho/Antony/Pellistri on the wings. Also Fernandes is becoming an issue. Especially when he plays off Weghorst. He was so bad yesterday. He should be droppable.
Sancho and Antony need a kick up the behind. They're ridiculously passive and ineffective most of the time.
Also can we stop playing out from the back? Has led to unnecessary pressure and goals e.g Arsenal equaliser in the 3-2 defeat and Newcastle first goal yesterday.
I'm worried if Weghorst starts vs Brentford, Everton, Sevilla, Brighton. We will play awful especially with Casemiro banned in two of those games.
Also Shaw yesterday was dreadful. Reminded me of how he played vs Saka and Salah away. He was constantly letting Jacob Murphy beat him.
Also can he stop playing 2 in midfield against top teams?
We've lost to Brentford, Man City, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Liverpool (albeit a ridiculous collapse) and now Newcastle.
In each of those games we've started with 2 in midfield and been overran every time.
Not starting Fred yesterday in midfield with McTominay and Sabitzer while Weghorst had less than 12 touches was ghastly.
There's a humongous drop off from Casemiro and Eriksen to our backups so why he can't compensate for it?
Also Weghorst needs to remain on the bench and not even play as a sub for the rest of the season. Play Rashford as a CF and play Sancho/Antony/Pellistri on the wings. Also Fernandes is becoming an issue. Especially when he plays off Weghorst. He was so bad yesterday. He should be droppable.
Sancho and Antony need a kick up the behind. They're ridiculously passive and ineffective most of the time.
Also can we stop playing out from the back? Has led to unnecessary pressure and goals e.g Arsenal equaliser in the 3-2 defeat and Newcastle first goal yesterday.
I'm worried if Weghorst starts vs Brentford, Everton, Sevilla, Brighton. We will play awful especially with Casemiro banned in two of those games.
Also Shaw yesterday was dreadful. Reminded me of how he played vs Saka and Salah away. He was constantly letting Jacob Murphy beat him.
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The midfield is shit, we know that but it's his job to find something that works and he's not. It can't be down to Casemiro all the time to bail us out of the shit. He got Sabitzer in January, he sent Sancho away for months to get better, they're both shite. He needs to get a tune out of these players.
I see our future every time we play, we've been gash and continue to be gash. We're on the wrong end of batterings most weeks at the moment. We'll scrape through Sevilla, get another 2 games against Sporting, they'll smash us, Brighton will dump us out of the FA cup and we'll be sitting 5th or 6th by that point.
Then the narrative really changes.
If this is legit and a goalkeeper isn’t one of our top three priorities, then the manager is writing his own P45 and you can legitimately ponder what a post-ETH United looks like. De Gea is an absolute millstone around the neck of this team. He will cost the manager his job.
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