We’ve not been this fragile, at least in the league..We went undefeated away in the 20/21 season. That season was actually quite good in general but the abysmal CL campaign (including a defeat at f**g Istanbul) and then bottling the EL to Villareal made it one of the worst…
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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We’ve not been this fragile, at least in the league..We went undefeated away in the 20/21 season. That season was actually quite good in general but the abysmal CL campaign (including a defeat at f**g Istanbul) and then bottling the EL to Villareal made it one of the worst…
Fecking hell, does this have to keep being pointed out? If you are criticising ETH for things that you gave Ole a free pass for (and maybe even attacked other posters for saying) then it might be assumed that your views are somewhat skewed by personal bias. It's nothing more than that you drama queen.
that was the season where away matches weren't really away matches though.
I don't think our players are that fragile. We had some very decent away results before the injury of Eriksen/Casemiro suspension if my memory serves me right. Imo the players were simply too knackered because of the insane schedule. Of course not having to travel, stay in the hotel, etc. helps a lot. Recently our players generally look much faster, stronger and sharper at home than away. They're human after all.
We're out of the EL now so the schedule will be much less hectic. Let's see if our away results can improve.
Will you ever get over Ole?
I'm unsure what you mean.
Agreed, the GA is a bit flukey away from home and I think many would agree we've largely looked very solid with our first choice defense and Casemiro in front shielding.
But yes, adding some cutting edge to our attack and better technique/athleticism in our midfield is no doubt priority #1 (replacing DDG is also right there). Our biggest issue in this big games is the lack of control we tend to have along with poor final third execution. We address those and we instantly go up a level as a side
There was one, may have been a WUM.
But there have been others who only come here after a loss or draws like Sevilla at home, don't explicitly call for his sacking but basically insinuate that he is not the guy or similar.
If you are only coming here to criticize then obviously you are biased against him, no?
Not sure why some can't resist having a dig at Ole. Ole is a Man United legend, who answered the call after the dark, dark days of the tail end of Mourinho's reign. He knew himself he was under-qualified, but couldn't turn down the club he had served with such distinction as a player. He managed two successive top four finishes, a task beyond his more illustrious predecessors. Yes, it fell apart during his last few months, but had he enjoyed the same luck as United did on Sunday, he'd have ended the previous season with a major European trophy to his name and things may have worked out differently. Those who choose to remember his time as manager only as an ultimate failure should remember also the joy he brought after the toxic one departed, and how close he came to that first trophy that may have made all the difference. As a person, player and manager, he deserves a bit of respect.
Yes, but also do you not think that the general consensus is 90% of the fans back him?
When did we last have a manager that majority of the fans agreed he is the right man?
This is the ETH thread mate - the digs are towards people who are criticising him but never had a bad word to say about Ole. Without that I don't think you'd see Ole's name mentioned.
The last time SAF made it to an FA Cup Final our run was
Aston Villa (H)
Portsmouth (H)
Reading (H) (Needed a replay)
Middlesbrough (A) (Needed a replay)
Watford (N)
Sometimes it's the luck of the draw but you still need to go out and do the job
Also the Fulham match the 2 reds thing, eh Sancho was scoring and it would have been 1-1 and we had started to take it to them before Sancho scored. I reckon we would have gone on to win that one if they didn't get 2 reds.
By away, I mean travelling for the game and playing in a stadium that the adversary calls home and is far more used to than us…
I could have used other seasons. 2017/18 was a pretty solid one both home and away.
And honestly I don’t think our current « away season » is as bad as it’s made out to be. This is a tough season because of the WC and other scheduling issues. Going far in the Cups was always going to impact the fitness which impacts the results, and more likely the away ones. We’ve played every 3 days all year.
I don’t think fragility is the issue. I believe we have a big issue scoring goals. Whenever Rashford doesn’t score we seem toothless.
I'd say 4 matches skew it. 20 allowed in those
Brentford (early days, ETH still figure out the team )
Citeh (Bad day, first Manchester Derby for ETH. Beat them in the reverse fixture)
Villa (New manager bounce for them, they had 6 shots all game, 4 on target and 3 went in, horseshoe up their arse finishing for them beat them a few days later 4-2 in the league cup)
Liverpool (They had a horseshoe up their arse, 8 shots on target, 7 went in, we actually played well defensively for half of that match. )
In the other 11 away matches in the league we've conceded 9 goals, and 3 of them were to Arsenal and I still contest their winner was offside. Kept a clean sheet in 5 of those 11 matches. Probably should have had another clean sheet in 2 others but Stuart Atwell* gave a soft penalty to Chelsea and Palace had a worldie free kick in stoppage time. So 2 things away from potentially having a clean sheet in half our away matches.
*Same Stuart Atwell that refused to give us a penalty a couple years back vs Chelsea for a clear handball, which according to Luke Shaw Atwell told Maguire " “If I say it’s a pen then it’s going to cause a lot of talk about it after.”
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Well yeah, but nobody thought of SAF as a great manager because he won 5 fa cups in 26 years. It was the dominance in the league with 13 titles that did that.
I think it’s obvious that 1-legged domestic cups require an element of luck in the draw. And that we’ve had a lot of luck this year. Hence they are not a really good metric to measure progress. Don’t get me wrong I’m happy as anyone that we won the league cup, I’m just conscious of the fact that it doesn’t really say too much.
European football with group phases and 2-legged ties, is a better better. And the league is the best.
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Wining silverware means bugger all now apparently if it’s a knock out competition
The away game management, which includes GA and performances, is very concerning. In that sense, the GA for away is not exactly an outlier.
If he could mastermind a win against City in that final...
Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs have been very poor this season. Luckily for United I can't see them being any better next season.
I agree Brighton pushed us back and played well, as they always do. Pep has recently called them the best build up side in the World. We weren't playing any scrub team out there. We were playing what realistically are the 5th best team in the League. They spanked Liverpool in the FA Cup and League back to back and Liverpool are still a very good side. The main difference I see in this season is they pushed us back but we still had the exact same amount of chances as them. We probably actually shaded the chances outside of set pieces, which we really have to improve. With 60% possession they created the same amount as us with 40%. That's the difference for me. That's why it was a 50-50 game. Either team could have won the penalties and no one could complain. However for periods we made Brighton struggle on the ball in a way I haven't seen in 6 months. All while we missed our 2 CD and consequently our best LB. Our 2 CM - one is in bad form since suspension, the other is still unfit. Bruno's ankle was fecked since 20 minutes. Rashford is clearly not fit. To be fair they missed Ferguson too but then they have played a lot less games this season.
So many said that this Brighton team would destroy and embarrass us. To be honest I feared the worst too. However we won. So many give out about our resilience under ETH. Well here you go, here is top class resilience. Brighton are a problem game for any team and we beat them while completely destroyed with fatigue and injuries. We did it after 120 hard minutes. We did it after throwing away a tie we should have won against Sevilla. We may have rode our luck but we only did it after having no luck at all for the rest of this season so far that I can remember. And even that 'luck' is minimal as we had as many chances to win that game as Brighton did.
It was a gutsy performance in matching a team I hold in very high regard over 120 minutes.
The point was that the away form is something I would like him to improve. Are we happy with the team's away form and performances this season in general? Not at all if you want to win bigger trophies.
That post was mostly full of ifs and buts. The reality is the away form has been worrying for the whole seasons even if we took out of some (abnormal) bad games.
How was it that? I literally provided facts. 4 out of 15 matches skew our away form.
Take out those 4 and it's 7W-2D-2L with 9 goals conceded. Got no idea how anyone can say outside those 4 matches it's worrying and bad. The 2 losses are to Arsenal (needed a 90th minute winner) and Newcastle. 1 of the draws should have been a win (That was a penalty on McTominay, match would have been put to bed)
Guess we are supposed to be 11W-0D-0L in those other matches for it to not be worrying and bad. No team other than Arsenal has more than 9 away wins right now.
We look on course to finish with more points than Spurs did last season so we probably would have got top 4 last year as well.
Although given our lead and injury issues we could afford and most likely will drop more points than if those two circumstances didn’t exist
Liverpool and Chelsea will both be better next season. But so will we.
Another one who was an apologist for our previous manager right up until the very end and yet suddenly has impossibly high standards for the new guy.
Ten Hag has credit in the bank so far, and if he gets Utd into the Champions League and wins 2 trophies, derailing the City treble dream along the way, then
he has done incredibly well given the many question marks on and off the pitch.
he has done incredibly well given the many question marks on and off the pitch.
You've got some memory for who said what.
It's incredible to see all the players have such strong mental strength. It's great to be winning again.
I understand thar you are trying to explain the context, but dissecting in this way, there is always a risk of cherry picking only the positives.
At the end of the day, our away form has not been as good as it can be, especially against top oppositions. There have been mitigating circumstances like injuries and fixture congestion, but this is going to be one of the key areas to improve.
The improvement can come from 3 areas : 1) Improving the players mentality & confidence 2) Improve cutting edge through a new striker and more chemistry between our front players 3) Moving to a more possession oriented style by bring in players across the team but especially in midfield who are comfortable with the ball.
This is a process and we can’t expect everything to be sorted out in EtH’s first season, especially considering where we were 1 year ago.
Tbf lot of hypocrisy when it comes to managers.
Lot of posters who made excuses for Jose failures blaming players, management and coming up with posts like we have midtable players suddenly raised the bar for Ole. Now there wasn't any excuses, everything was on Ole. Likewise people who kept making excuses for Ole have very high standards now, no excuses for EtH.
I take notes
But the problem is those 4 games you're saying, are part of the league.
We can also count our home games where we hang on to wins, same way you're counting away games where we were beaten.
Meaning it's a zero sum game..
What the whole season has shown is,
we are not a consistent team to challenge for the league.
We lack control and stability to see games through especially against high quality opponents.
We dont create to many chances, even without a striker. City last season had no striker, Arsenal have been without their main striker for some months this season..
Tackle those problems we go a level higher.
Two competent midfielders and one elite striker elevates this team into a 90+ team.
Only goal keeping could have a question mark afterwards.
I mean, this is true, but I guess the question is 'were you expecting more'? No manager in world football with less than a season in charge and one summer transfer window was going to be able to compete with Man City given where we were last year.
You can't just take out games for various arbitrary reasons. Every club could do that and suddenly it's a rosier picture.
I'm sure Arsenal fans would like to erase the last three games.
I'm a believer in the old Fergie maxim that our goal should always be to win something each season, so it says that we can do that, at least. But agree there are much bigger fish to fry. A cup and top 4 are great for this season (2 cups & top 3 would be superb). Next season, a Cup, a good run in the Champs League and a sustained title run would be a good showing, I think.
I mean I can because I was making the point that a few games skew how we actually have been away. If we still lost those games but it was
2-1 Citeh
1-0 Liverpool
1-0 Brentford
people are looking at the away form much differently
I don't think people can say when we are 5th on the away form table that "it's been bad", we had a few bad results but it hasn't been bad, it's been okay, not great, not bad.. The difference between us and Citeh league form away is Citeh has 2 more wins and 1 more draw and people are talking about them winning the treble and being one Pep's best teams ever. Whereas ETH has had literally 1 window so far trying to build his team
But we didn't lose those games in a tight fashion did we? We got battered.
This is an alternate reality you're judging the team on.
What about all the games where maybe we got a bit lucky? Where we only had say three shots on target but scored two. Should we also change those results to a draw or a loss and reevaluate where we are? It has to go both ways if you're going down that road.
From my point of view I think ETH has done well this season. It's only those batterings that have prevented him from doing really well. So I and I'm guessing most other fans can't just pretend they didn't happen. They sting too much.
This is crazy! a Man City comparison. I mean they are battering teams in the CL whilst we losing to Sevilla in the EL, a team they beat 3-0 away from home.
The City team is no comparison to our team.
ETH has had 1 Summer window and has shown he can improve the team and players but there is a long way to go before you can compare us to City.
Since our two disastrous opening games City have picked up just 5 more points than we have and we have reached two domestic cup finals.
It’s not as bad as it looks.
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