He made some poor decisions yesterday. He's also been a pretty major net positive for us on the whole. Both things can be true.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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The way some of you analyse football matches every manager makes dodgy seasons every season. The amount of real time decisions that are made in the public’s eye are enormous and when you have a public that’s dying to use hindsight to pick the bones out of each decision and look to blame someone this is what happens. It’s knit picky feckwittery at its finest. You win some you lose some. Just a couple of weeks back people were on about how his subs have won more points than most managers, and that Pellistri deserves more chances.
Lots of opinions regarding manager is based on hindsight. It is how things work. He makes decisions. If it backfires it is perfectly fine to point out on that decision. Same goes in other way. If decision gives result then he is praised for it.
Wrong thing would be to go overboard. To call for his head after one or two bad results or wanting to give him 10 years contract after few good results.
Look, we all (well most of us) think that Erik is doing great job. I wouldn't trade him for any other manager. But why is such a problem to point at things which went south (because of him, bad luck or whatever). What we should do here? Have a contest who will praise him more and talk only about good stuff?
I did not get the sense that Antony was really that frustrated, Acuna was trying his best but he did not seem particularly fussed.Everybody could see Antony was wound up no end, but Bruno? He was rightly pissed off about the yellow, but did he do anything special after that? Not that I could see. Maybe he was pissing and moaning as usual?
There's plenty of managers working with far, far less.
The Emirates game was horrible management, because he did absolutely nothing to even try and address the inevitable Arsenal winner despite how badly the team were struggling.
He just cannot rely on his squad. Not his fault. Imo it was right to rest some players, especially since top 4 is tight and key to achieve
Amen. There is such a weird sensitivity around this place these days as soon as people look in the direction of the manager. Traumatized by the last 10 years I guess and granted, some of the criticism we have seen over those years has been nothing than weird and agenda-driven but acting as if every critique is some sort of hurting a legend will only lead to such polarisation again. I am happy, we have ETH and I think, he is capable of bringing us back to big boys table but on the way, he has to improve as well. Nothing wrong with that - even Pep had to adjust to the league.
We have lost control of the game in the last 30minutes, arguably losing lots of it after the first 30 minutes. DDG made I think two very good saves, focussing too much on the character of goals conceded doesn't tell the whole story. ETH and the team don't seem to have figured out a way to boost control onto a game and/or shut up shop. Be that with personal changes or system wise. That is an issue the team has to work on because opponents will always get fired up in games and when you just watch and let it happen, you might get overwhelmed.
When you apply the bolded parts on a general level, there wouldn't be the need to discuss anything football related. I think, nobody argues against "you win some, you lose some", but people try to get their minds around why it might have happened. Not to lay blame, but to try to identify what to adress to maybe not repeat the issue. I haven't seen any criticism that was completely OTT, some people have isses with his subs, so what. I personally didn't think, the subs were outright mistakes but ETH could have tried to bolster control in the match but didn't do it. He also didn't close up the shop. You have to live with your decisions, if they don't work out, nothing wrong with people calling you out as long as it is in a mostly constructive manner.
Ok so I’m not saying he’s perfect because his away record in PL is truly awful against big sides, he’s trying to take them on and we don’t have the squad for that yet, however if he achieves his goals of Top 4, a cup win and at least establishing a way of playing that is identifiable then for me he deserves to be cut a little slack, purely for how bad Wreck it Ralph left the clublast year!
He’s had to work with the worst owners that any football club could have, the Ronaldo Debacle, The Mason Greenwood problem!
The mounting injury problems and the club not having a dime to give him in January.
Has any Man united Manager ever had so much to deal with in one single season?
I do agree with you however, that should new owners take over, especially Middle East, he will have far less say in who the club can and can not buy and he will need to produce results like he did at Ajax where he went toe to toe with Madrid and Bayern and won away from home in that semi final run in the CL, however he also showed that he knows how to lose a 2-0 lead in a semi final like he did yesterday.
If he doesn’t get CL football, as much as I like him and I do, he may be sacked by new owners who will see that as completely unacceptable.
If Qatar take over, coming second will be seen as a sackable offence!
Just out of curiosity who should we replace him with ? Naigelsman, Zidane, who because the players will have to start again under their 7th manager in 7 years nah that’s most of the problem, the club needs to be settled right now.
ETH needs to find his mojo, finish the season strongly and make top 3, win another cup and build and learn from his mistakes this season of which there has been quite a few.
Problem is at United, the price for losing is always the highest in the PL. Imagine we play pretty football but finish 7th in the league and out of cups? That will put him under immense pressure which we don't want to see. I can understand that he has temporarily abandoned his way to play atm because we simply don't have the players that he wants. Oh and I disagree with what you said that we don't play pretty football now. We are not like City but I'm excited with what I'm seeing. We can consistently create chances every matches and he's already improved many of our players. At the current stage I don't expect more from him.
I love that the same people who are moaning about bringing Weghorst on would’ve been the first in line to moan had Martial broken down again “how can he play him for the full 90 minutes???? He literally just came back from injury!!!!”
97%
the arrival of Ten Hag has exposed large chunks of the fanbase for the entitled, short sighted, needy, and whinny imbeciles most of us are.
This fanbase has the memory of a goldfish, they don’t really think things through they are addicted to the dopamine hit they get from people responding to their shite takes and reactionary outbursts whenever United doesn’t win a game.
I agree. Love the guy and am confident he'll prove to be the one, but this has just been a good but not great first season so far. He started slow at Ajax too if I recall.
He's steadied the ship for sure, so, if he is allowed to bring in players that he believes will fit the system and improve the quality, we should see an upturn next season, that's where he will show if he can really get his feet under the desk and start building some real momentum.
I really like him, he seems to get the club, and he is calm and talks as straight as is possible these days, so hopefully things do keep on improving under him because he clearly has a plan, so if that plan works for the club long term that would be excellent!
I really like him, he seems to get the club, and he is calm and talks as straight as is possible these days, so hopefully things do keep on improving under him because he clearly has a plan, so if that plan works for the club long term that would be excellent!
Not to mention we played with ten men at 2-1, so we were down a CB.
https://www.redcafe.net/matches/manchester-united-vs-paris-st-germain.360/page-30#post-26431826
https://www.redcafe.net/matches/manchester-united-vs-paris-st-germain.360/page-72#post-26433730
Here you are (and you do it about five times in this thread) calling for Fred to be subbed in a yellow and you continue to call Ole an idiot for not subbing someone on a yellow card when he was in danger of getting sent off.
It wasn’t his best game yesterday, but he has to rotate a bit when he can, I mean as much as he want to play his best team (and gets criticized here about his lack of rotation, sometimes correctly), he knows he has to manage players, he put Eriksen in (good because he needs some game time), took Martial out (easing him back in) is also a good decision in my opinion. He could have done better with subbing Antony out I suppose, but subbing him off at 2-0 with 9 minutes left is not the end of the world.
The problem is our best 11-14 is a lot better than the rest, the players who come on also need to do better, can’t blame it all on ETH.
Also it’s unbelievable how unlucky we were yesterday! Two own goals within 10 mins! I hope we smash them next week.
The problem is our best 11-14 is a lot better than the rest, the players who come on also need to do better, can’t blame it all on ETH.
Also it’s unbelievable how unlucky we were yesterday! Two own goals within 10 mins! I hope we smash them next week.
Lots of 20/20 hindsight experts on here. ETH clearly had his reasons for his decisions last night. Several were forced on him - Varane, Martinez. Others were the right call. The one I have seen argued is Bruno. He clearly had a reason for it - he almost never subs him so maybe it was a tactical change or to give Eriksen more minutes? Whatever the reason, ETH has got so much right this season - we can give him the benefit of the doubt on decisions like this.
Decent all things considered.
He said in his presser this afternoon that Bruno was in danger of getting a second yellow so he took him off for that(must have been the 4th official that told him).
Incredible stat for ETH, didn’t remember Pep was so shiteDecent all things considered.
Hence, the origin of the "Pep Guardiola is my idol" meme
That feels fair.
I'm very happy with him. I'll be interested to see how he reacts to this season in the summer. I think theres been plenty of Ole / Rangnick performances in the team this season but im inclined to say its part of this squads repertoire and hes done well to limit them. I do worry about how much support the gets in the transfer window. This squad isn't going to keep a United manager employed for too long.
Get top 4 another trophy would be great but not a must for me anyway.
He hasn't been perfect by any means but he's our best manager since Fergie by far.He gets the club and understands what we're about and hopefully in the summer get 3/4 players that he wants in and remove some of the deadwood and I think we'll see Big improvements next season.
I really like him he's straight talking doesn't take any shit and I think he'll of learned a lot this season.
He hasn't been perfect by any means but he's our best manager since Fergie by far.He gets the club and understands what we're about and hopefully in the summer get 3/4 players that he wants in and remove some of the deadwood and I think we'll see Big improvements next season.
I really like him he's straight talking doesn't take any shit and I think he'll of learned a lot this season.
70% win rate is a brilliant stat for his first season. If he builds on this he can go onto incredible things next season.
People pointing out that our general play is still poor and there's lots of work still to do isn't getting the knives out.Knives well and truly out
Getting off our main attackers pretty much give the opponent the chance to control the game and start dominating and attacking us without much fear. It was a poor move, no matter how much we try to excuse it.
We surrendered the 2nd half.
I try not to analyze in hindsight. I mean what's the point?
Unless you pointed it out at the time that you were worried, in which case I'll acknowledge it, I don't see a point to all this criticism of ETH subs. At that time I didn't see Sevilla coming back into it. We weren't playing great but they were doing nothing either.
Unless you pointed it out at the time that you were worried, in which case I'll acknowledge it, I don't see a point to all this criticism of ETH subs. At that time I didn't see Sevilla coming back into it. We weren't playing great but they were doing nothing either.
i mean if WW had just an ounce of goal scoring ability we prob go 3-0 and see it out. Instead two late own goals screwed us, possibly out of the competition. Hard to see us getting a win in sevilla with our injury situation. I understand subbing out martial, need to manage his fitness. Im not sure about the bruno sub. Only thing i can think of is he was worried about him getting the red, but i didnt think he was in danger of that. Other than that only so much we can do with the shit squad depth we have. This is why it is important we move on from the deadwood and stop keeping players around who only play well once in a blue moon.
Absolutely. He’s miles better than Ralf, significantly better than Ole and Jose. Still happy he’s our manager.
I agree with this. I watched A LOT of Dortmund Sancho. He was legitimately excellent for two seasons there and if we had THAT Sancho, we’d be flying. I’m not sure what happened to him, but that guy had bags of confidence, was constantly taking on defenders and was delightful around the box. This Sancho is meek, nervous, and passive.
I will, however, note that while there are players underperforming, ETH has to take some blame for the Sevilla result. It was a bit unlucky, and yet, he really shot himself in the foot by swapping out the entire front line, none of which add to control of the match, did not go with an extra midfielder, and used up all of his subs, so that when Lisandro went down, we were unable to replace him. He bears quite a bit of responsibility for the result. Add that to the fact that Sevilla’s high press was damn effective and he failed to make adjustments.
It really isn't all in my head, I've seen the posts over the past few weeks. Obviously no one directly came out and said 'sack him!' but you could see that some were saying it without actually saying it if you get my meaning.
A 70% win rate is genuinely phenomenal given this is his first season. Pep has a 73.3% win rate this season, while Arteta is at 71%.
Finish the season in the top 4 I'll be very happy. Throw in the FA cup and I'll be over the moon.
Finish the season in the top 4 I'll be very happy. Throw in the FA cup and I'll be over the moon.
By the way I love how some people with complete confidence state that "he's made mistakes this season", as if they are the arbiters of managerial competence from their cozy armchairs with the benefit of hindsight.
Good god. There’s some absolute numpties in this thread.
We are a far better squad now, playing far better football, than we were/have since 2013 and before.
We are a far better squad now, playing far better football, than we were/have since 2013 and before.
A lot of good points, especially the bit about Ole. On the other hand, I don’t believe he’s made a lot of “bad” decisions in the starting 11 or tactically. He’s at a 70% win percentage and lost just 8 matches all season. The tactical errors / in game substitution errors have been the exception rather than the rule. Is he perfect? No. The 7-0 loss, 6-3 to City and 4-0 to Brentford were really bad. However, I believe he’s been hamstrung by suspensions and injuries. When we were really humming, we had Rashford, Eriksen, Shaw and Casemiro all healthy and available. The fact that he was able to utilize the backups in those positions and still get results is a credit to him. When you start digging into the roster, it’s a damn thin squad. We’ve seen McFred for years and know that’s not an answer. Martial is out constantly with silly injuries, the fact that he has continued his run while starting Wout is frankly amazing given his goal scoring record. There is really very few reliable options in the squad. I don’t blame him for picking his typical 11, the other options are uninspiring.
I disagree that if we fail to make top 4 he should be sacked. I’d rather build around his philosophy. To me, he’s shown enough to tell me that with a competent set of squad additions this summer, we’ll be able to kick on.
It was not a poor move at all, and Ten Hag explained it all in conference and called out all hindsight masters. Call out all armchair "Captain Hindsight" managers Erik, loved it!
In a way, Ten Hag is a victim of his own success in that he raised our expectations so much, particularly around the time of the cup win. He has also had to deal with the ownership situation, resulting in our failure to invest in January. Despite last night’s tragicomic collapse, it has been the most enjoyable season since 2012-13 and I do expect us to beat Spurs to a top 4 place. However, no one is perfect and, whether due to lack of bench options or otherwise, there has sometimes been a Southgate-esque tendency to let games drift beyond our control.
I’m not saying I’d want him sacked if we don’t make it, especially as it will be largely driven by injuries, but he will definitely be in threat as the expectation for the season would have been to get back into CL and it would have become even more expected with rather spectacular demise of Liverpool and Chelsea who are both out of contention with quarter of a season to go.
I still reckon we are going to make and if we do not I would attribute it to injuries and short squad so would still be in favor of giving him another year (of course if we finish below 4th again he would then absolutely have to go).
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