Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

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It's the opposite. Some of you are completely fine with whatever he achieves as long as it's Ten Hag. Look at your earlier post about losing on top 4 this year "It would have been like that for previous managers but not Ten Hag". Why exactly ? He's just another employee for the club like the previous managers.

The expectation for next season should be at least be close to the top by the end of March. If we drop after it, it'll be fine but we would have shown progress and that we can actually close the gap with the top. I don't expect us to win the league, but settling for another top 4 finish next season and be content with it will be inacceptable for any other manager, bar Ten Hag.

He should be evaluated based on what he achieve. Finish top 4 with the cup win this year and he deserves another year. If no improvement over this is achieved next year, it'll be fair to ask if that's his ceiling or not. That's reasonable.

He's not immune. Some of you just never learn from giving managers immunity like what some did with the previous managers.
Of course progres is needed. Progress from the way we are top 4 this season (comfortable..) purely table wise is literally being in a title challenge. Thankfully there are multiple ways to measure progress, especially underlying metrics. Would expect a ton of underlying metric improvement even if it doesn't necessarily mean more points (we've overperformed expected points for example, massively underperformed expected goals even if the expected goals aren't good).
 
Yeah I would say better to focus on our own points return rather than comparing directly to others. The aim next season should be to break 80 points imo.That's unlikely to be title challenging form but it would be clear progress and show if we are on the right track. If we are scraping around the 70 point mark again at the end of the season to hang on for top 4 then we can be disappointed.
Think it's more relevant to look at our expected points, expected goals next season and it's important to see big improvements in those metrics, as those are a better predictor of actual level than points totals which can be flukey (especially during progress seasons). Ours are a bit shit this season, but with clear reasons why and with clear splits so you can explain them away.
 
Nothing to add, couldn't have said it any better. One note to make my point in regards to FDJ a bit more clear: I thought that the club would be trying to bring in a longterm player. Someone who is in or close to his prime, offering exactly what we need in a certain position, is proven on the highest level and physically ready to contribute from day one. Eriksen and Casemira don't check all the boxes (obviously they check a lot of them) - FDJ would have checked all of them (even though personally I am not a huge fan of him). Actually I am happy we ended up with Casemiro instead as I thought, a midfield player who is very capable against the ball would be more useful than a progressor. Not because one role trumps the other, but because I thought maybe a DM could "unlock" progressing skills with Fred, Bruno, McTom or DVB. To me it seemed more likely those guys would be able to find something in terms of progressing the ball than that they would find something in terms of defensive skills.


I think, in this situation overpaying to such a degree is a problem. Not to beat anyone with it. But I really hope the club isn't going to repeat something like this.


I think I know what you mean. I am not particularly against Dutch players or ones from that league. On the contrary. Buy whoever you feel can be useful to you. Issue is solely the price and that (to me) it kind of made it evident, that we didn't really had a plan prepared.


Yeah will be interesting to see, how much of an effect a new team and a new approach will have and how it will be "visible" from the outside.


I'd be happy to recommend you to them. Have you ever thought about offering your skills to them? Maybe they're happy to bring in expertise, maybe in form of freelance first. Imagine the story the club could promote - from fan to exec. I'm sure you'd have the backing of everybody here.
I can‘t tell if you are being sarcastic here. I hope for your sake that you are.
 
So the target for next season is ultimately just another top 4 and improving playstyle ? Ok.
Why is that a bad thing in the mean time? What do you actually expect from next season with say just another 4 players out, 4 players in transfer approach?

If you look at Liverpool and Klopp they showed incremental progress season after season until they won the champions league and then the premier league. Look at Napoli who i think went from 7th, to 5th, to 3rd to 1st in Italy. Even Arsenal recently have shown a similar trajectory. You might get a title challenge next season with ETH but it's unrealistic with the problems of this squad to expect a premier league win.

The playstyle improvement will be key for next season because even under Jose and Ole you could see that things were not right or sustainable in the long run, despite slightly improved finishes in successive seasons. I think Jose beat Klopp to second in 17-18 when even the most biased United fan could see that the two clubs were heading in opposite directions and actually that they were better than us at that point, even if the table did lie.
 
I can‘t tell if you are being sarcastic here. I hope for your sake that you are.
Which part do you mean? ^^

If its about the club being happy to add some expertise then no, not being sarcastic. Obviously I don't know the clubs stance on this but if I owned a club I wouldn't be firmly against bringing in knowledge from the outside. Creating scouting reports and data summaries isn't something where somebody would need to be integrated deeply into the club as well. And on a freelance level maybe even more so.

I think, the user is very thorough when analyzing things so why not. Fan to exec is obviously tongue in cheek. But who knows. This one guy Rene Maric started as an author on Spielverlagerung (the German version of zonal marking, the tactics blog) and later become assistant manager....
 
Is that supposed to be good ? It's indeed abysmal.
'Abysmal' means horrendously bad. If you're 4th in the league table, you can expect to be around that place in the 'away table' as well - as indeed United are Being one place lower really isn't a big deal. Yes, it's unfortunate that United hasn't done better away against top opposition, but those are also by definition the hardest games, where a win is least likely.

However, turn a few of those games into draws and wins while maintaining the home form, and youre pretty much title contestants. In that sense, it's a reasonable result this year and shows a clear path to progress for the next.

So I don't quite understand why people are making this into such an enormous downer. Feels like the media have found a story angle and people are biting.
 
'Abysmal' means horrendously bad. If you're 4th in the league table, you can expect to be around that place in the 'away table' as well - as indeed United are Being one place lower really isn't a big deal. Yes, it's unfortunate that United hasn't done better away against top opposition, but those are also by definition the hardest games, where a win is least likely.

However, turn a few of those games into draws and wins while maintaining the home form, and youre pretty much title contestants. In that sense, it's a reasonable result this year and shows a clear path to progress for the next.

So I don't quite understand why people are making this into such an enormous downer. Feels like the media have found a story angle and people are biting.

Going by his logic everyone bar Arsenal and Citeh have been abysmal away.

Arsenal- 36 points (11 wins. 3 draws)
Citeh- 33 points (10 wins, 3 draws)
Newcastle- 30 points (8 wins, 6 draws)
Brighton- 25 points (7 wins, 4 daws) (game in hand)
Us- 24 points (7 wins, 3 draws)
 
So the target for next season is ultimately just another top 4 and improving playstyle ? Ok.

That's certainly what my expectation would be.

We'll likely finish top four this season and have certainly progressed from last season. But, being real, our actual level of performance this season could easily have seen us miss out on top four in other years, as indeed we were widely expected to at the start of the season.

We're not just 16 points behind the current league leaders, we're 48 goals behind them in goal difference and not much better in terms of expected goal difference with a 35 xG gap. That's 6th place in the league for both those measures. It's a massive gap in level and one you don't need stats to see, it's evident even if you just watch games.

Realistically we could improve a massive amount next season and still "just" finish in the top four. And if that's what happens, great, things will still be going in the right direction. I'll worry if it doesn't.
 
Going by his logic everyone bar Arsenal and Citeh have been abysmal away.

Arsenal- 36 points (11 wins. 3 draws)
Citeh- 33 points (10 wins, 3 draws)
Newcastle- 30 points (8 wins, 6 draws)
Brighton- 25 points (7 wins, 4 daws) (game in hand)
Us- 24 points (7 wins, 3 draws)
And unsurprisingly, that's the current top 5 (if Brighton win their game in hand).

I have to say I find this 'top 9' narrative funny. There is no such thing, it's how far down whoever first came up with this could go for this particular narrative. Also, I know people laught at the idea, but in the Alternative Table they have on RAWK, they consider what games a club aiming for the title should expect to win and can accept to draw or even lose. Those expectations probably have to change a bit given the new standard in point totals that City has set; but those 'away against the top 9' games is exactly where it's permissible to drop points - and in fact the only place where you could reasonably accept that and still challenge for the title. Yes, United have to improve in this regard; but do that, and you're likely competing for the title.
 
And unsurprisingly, that's the current top 5 (if Brighton win their game in hand).

I have to say I find this 'top 9' narrative funny. There is no such thing, it's how far down whoever first came up with this could go for this particular narrative. Also, I know people laught at the idea, but in the Alternative Table they have on RAWK, they consider what games a club aiming for the title should expect to win and can accept to draw or even lose. Those expectations probably have to change a bit given the new standard in point totals that City has set; but those 'away against the top 9' games is exactly where it's permissible to drop points - and in fact the only place where you could reasonably accept that and still challenge for the title. Yes, United have to improve in this regard; but do that, and you're likely competing for the title.

I don't think it's necessarily just results but also the style. We haven't just lost all our home games to top opposition, we have been absolutely battered against every good team in the league (bar Arsenal, which was our best performance of season away from OT and still, if they could finish it wouldn't have been just 3-2). City and Liverpool annihilated us, Newcastle should have beaten us by 4-5 as well, Brentford game was an absolute joke and if they hadn't stopped playing in the second half it would have been a 10-0, and then there's Sevilla game in EL which was downright embarrassing.

Yeah, we got 24 points so far and have done reasonably well against bottom 10 teams but when you look at manner of those wins, we have hardly had a convincing away win all season long - I'd literally only have Nottingham and Everton games on that list. Our wins at Wolves, Southampton, Fulham, Leeds and Leicester were all hard fought / lucky. It's of course acceptable to struggle to dispose even of lesser teams at their own ground but it's not fine to struggle to do that in almost every game you play. You can't have two genuinely good away games all season, just can't.

If people are deluding themselves into thinking that our away form has been acceptable then the bar is so low that it's no wonder people consider it an absolute miracle to finish top 4.
 
Who in the squad should be starting ahead of Antony? I understand that he's not justified his price tag but we're a considerably better side when he plays than when he doesn't.

Weghorst I somewhat understand because I do think he's probably been given more minutes than he should. With that said, in no way should he be used to make a point about Ten Hag's ability to identify talent. He was signed as a stop-gap because we were in a desperate situation up front and had basically no money to rectify it in January. There's no sign that we intend to keep him on in the summer.

Pellistri now or Amad when he returns
 
But improvements to where, at what cost, what's the going concern of those improvements. Aston Villa, Newcastle have had fabulous improvements but at what cost, where has that improvements taken them to, and is those improvements sustainable?

You can say their improvements have been more manager centric but our improvement has been just to pump money to the problem.
My main problem with ETH is how he set-ups 2 man midfield. This is our biggest problem. Mourinho for sometime, Ole and now ETH have tried it, and it has failed miserably. That's why tactically he is being found out in every away or pressed game we are involved in.

We can sign Kane, Osimhen but we won't achieve 90 points. This is because we lack the basic control of football games. You can't autopilot in a 38 games. You can't win a league on emotions, Arsenal have tried it it will fail. You don't see City winning games because of emotions, they win them through control and superior authority in the field that is 100% sustainable in 38 games.

You get why people say City games bore them, because 9/10 city have total control of games. Incidentally they have finished above us now 10 years in a row in the league. 10 years in a row. Pep was not there 10 years ago, so it shows its our previous managers who were tactically a level below shitty managers.

Even now, it's evident. We are still stuck on the 2018 game, ball over the top to Rashford, 2 man midfield, keeper who can't play from the back, very unproductive wingers, non existent/pensioners strikers.. the last genuine striker we signed is Lukaku a flop. The rest have been pensioners.
Last time we played 3 man midfield was Herrera, Matic, Pogba. We finished with 82 points, we have never achieved anything like that as shit as Mourinho was.

He needs to completely change our structure and stability in the Midfield first. That will cure alot of our problems. The pitch is so big, Casemiro has to slide tackle everytime, we can hold the ball more than 5 seconds in midfield without a turnover or misplaced pass or vertical pass, we cant receive the ball in half turn in the midfield, we can't progress the ball from defence to attacking third without a splitting line passes from defence, in short our midfield is very unbalanced.

We don't create genuine turnovers of chances from pressure. You saw the last few minutes against Brighton, they had like 5 genuine chances to score. We were under immense pressure. All out pressure to opponents is through transitions.

ETH has to find a way of controlling football games. Is simple. It seems through coaching it has become difficult. So we go to signing players who can control games. If by Oct we have zero control of games be rest assured we will not win a league title under him.

Achieving 29-30 wins in a 38 games season needs upmost control and consistency.

Oh yeah his control of games is non existent,mind you doesn't help our midfield is utterly dire at either keeping the ball or progressing it effectively so no wonder
 
We needed no striker? Who would you have signed without spending more than a few million?

WW helped us through a congested period when Martial was injured. You should not look a Gifthorst in the mouth.

If you honestly think Wout Carthorst was the best CF Man Utd could get on loan… a man who also happens to be a good friend of ETH… and comes from the same town in Nederlands… then we’ll agree to disagree.

And once signed, and proven to be completely useless at this level, to keep starting him and bringing him on is very concerning for a Utd manager to be doing.

It’s very odd and is certainly something that put big question marks on ETH.
 
If you honestly think Wout Carthorst was the best CF Man Utd could get on loan… a man who also happens to be a good friend of ETH… and comes from the same town in Nederlands… then we’ll agree to disagree.

And once signed, and proven to be completely useless at this level, to keep starting him and bringing him on is very concerning for a Utd manager to be doing.

It’s very odd and is certainly something that put big question marks on ETH.
He’s not a good friend of ETH, they’ve never worked together before. No need to make things up.
 
We literally just saw the impact it had on Arsenal. They dropped out of the EL, lost Saliba and then proceeded to pick up 3 points from 4 games and, in the process, lose the massive advantage they had over City. This was the pretty much the best team in England up until May. A team that has been in the work for a few years, yet all it took was few negatively impacting events to derail their season (lets face it, the league is Citys).

I wasn't the only one obviously always suspected Arsenal was over performing this season based on their squad depth, experience and I still can't really rate Arteta. A couple of injuries, one or two bad results and the wheels came off which shouldn't have surprised anyone.

It's fairly obvious looking at the number of games we've played and the drop off when some of the replacements come in that we need to increase out squad depth and the quality of our squad to effectively challenge on all fronts.

I found the post you replied to funny though as ten Hag is apparently simultaneously running the squad into the ground and causing injuries so much that he can't now rotate at all but this also isn't the worst injury crisis seen at OT and these things happen in football.
 
I'm a fan of ETH's work this season for the most part, he's won us a trophy and looks like we're on course for top four, which would be a good first season to build from. One thing I thought we'd see a bit more at this point on the pitch however is more fluidity in our passing. Particularly the front three which had looked disjointed for years now whoever lines up. Our decision making from an attacking sense can be still far too bewildering this late into the season.
 
Games like this show why we can’t spend really big on a single player like Kane or Caicedo. We have too many positions we need to upgrade and need to spread out the funds.

That's a slightly bizarre take given a player like Kane could well have won us the game yesterday by taking some of our first half chances.
 
Really fear he will have a very frustrating summer window. We aren't going anywhere quickly until a lot of these players are moved on, it is clearly not a 2 or 3 year job.
 
I agree, but Ten Hag insisted on Antony for £90m, he could have vetoed that for someone cheaper who can do what he does. Then he wouldn't have had to go cap in hand back to the board once we got hammered in our first two games for a midfielder when the budget was already spent.

Exactly he fecked up big time on that
 
Games like this show why we can’t spend really big on a single player like Kane or Caicedo. We have too many positions we need to upgrade and need to spread out the funds.

If we had Kane yesterday we’d have won comfortably. Our attackers had chances that he’d have buried without a doubt.
 
If you honestly think Wout Carthorst was the best CF Man Utd could get on loan… a man who also happens to be a good friend of ETH… and comes from the same town in Nederlands… then we’ll agree to disagree.

And once signed, and proven to be completely useless at this level, to keep starting him and bringing him on is very concerning for a Utd manager to be doing.

It’s very odd and is certainly something that put big question marks on ETH.

:lol:
 
I don't think it's necessarily just results but also the style. We haven't just lost all our home games to top opposition, we have been absolutely battered against every good team in the league (bar Arsenal, which was our best performance of season away from OT and still, if they could finish it wouldn't have been just 3-2). City and Liverpool annihilated us, Newcastle should have beaten us by 4-5 as well, Brentford game was an absolute joke and if they hadn't stopped playing in the second half it would have been a 10-0, and then there's Sevilla game in EL which was downright embarrassing.

Yeah, we got 24 points so far and have done reasonably well against bottom 10 teams but when you look at manner of those wins, we have hardly had a convincing away win all season long - I'd literally only have Nottingham and Everton games on that list. Our wins at Wolves, Southampton, Fulham, Leeds and Leicester were all hard fought / lucky. It's of course acceptable to struggle to dispose even of lesser teams at their own ground but it's not fine to struggle to do that in almost every game you play. You can't have two genuinely good away games all season, just can't.

If people are deluding themselves into thinking that our away form has been acceptable then the bar is so low that it's no wonder people consider it an absolute miracle to finish top 4.

Yeah glad someone else brought up how fortunate we are to win those away games against teams in the bottom half
 
Players we
The mess was never going to be sorted in a season and I don't think it'll be sorted next season in full either, with or without new owners. For us to move on from the mediocrity and poor mentality of the previous regime I think we're a couple seasons away to be honest. That said when ETH was brought in most people were saying it's about seeing gradual improvement. Back in the CL and a trophy would be exactly that, but the ownership fiasco needs resolving quickly or I fear we'll be left reeling in what is going to be probably our most important summer window in years for both incomings and outgoings.
Agree 100% and the reaction to last night result or any poor result is throwing the toys out with the bath water. We at United do not deserve instant success it has to be earned like our previous winning squads did. Leave in all on the park ? only a handfull do it. `This squad under previous managers were quite happy to throw them under the bus as long as the wages were still paid. The reason for last night are simple Marriner was never sending Casemiro off even though he wanted to so to compensate he gave Brighton a free pass to foul without recourse. Why did Rashford seemingly fall over in front of the linesman when he was 99% favoured to get the ball before the Antony incident. Antony was then fouled more than the free kick Shaw gave away at the end yet nothing from the ref. Brighton 100% knew they could foul our runners on counteracts as the ref wasn't penalising them. At one such incident 2 of our players end up on the floor in one incident. We are not getting anything away from home maybe its because Ten Hag is new. New anything doesn't get the run of the green in life you have to fight tooth and nail for it. It ran same as the Palace game Martinez elbowed in the face , McTominay no penalty. Yet we have watch Liverpool hand a pen for Nunez not been touched by Fulham player yet Wout was cleaned out, no pen. You know how this is going they want Liverpool in CL. We have to get behind the team 100% from here on in and get the points one way or tother. We have to get street wise and be better at the cheating. We will have plenty of time post FA Cup to set the bonfires and negativity.
 
Really fear he will have a very frustrating summer window. We aren't going anywhere quickly until a lot of these players are moved on, it is clearly not a 2 or 3 year job.
3 years is an extremely long time in football. If we can’t turn things around in that timespan given our resources and status, then we likely won’t after that.
 
If you honestly think Wout Carthorst was the best CF Man Utd could get on loan…

Can you list the CF's that were available or went on loan in January that went for a 2.5m or less fee?

ETH reportedly wanted Gakpo but we had no money because the glazers ran us dry. Could have had Felix who would have probably done well but ETH wasn't allowed to stump up the 10m fee because again, glazers.
 
1 point against top 9.
If only there were another way to assess team quality - something like taking the total number of points accrued over the course of the season against ALL teams in one league, irrespective of whether they are in the top 9 of the league or not. You could also further and count matches against teams when we play at Old Trafford if you felt like it!
 
Can you list the CF's that were available or went on loan in January that went for a 2.5m or less fee?

So you think that Weghorst was genuinely the finest CF ON EARTH available to Manchester United?

Yes or no will do.

Either ETH fecked up by bringing him in and has thus fecked up further by constantly playing him, or not.
 
3 years is an extremely long time in football. If we can’t turn things around in that timespan given our resources and status, then we likely won’t after that.
I just don't see the ability within the club to rid itself of a lot of the players that need to go, while also recruiting properly to replace them. Certainly not this summer, which I can see being a very frustrating one in the market.
 
Can you list the CF's that were available or went on loan in January that went for a 2.5m or less fee?

ETH reportedly wanted Gakpo but we had no money because the glazers ran us dry. Could have had Felix who would have probably done well but ETH wasn't allowed to stump up the 10m fee because again, glazers.

If he didn't want him and just signed him because no one else was available, why does he keep on bringing him whenever we're in a tight corner instead of a youngster like Pellistri ?
 
I just don't see the ability within the club to rid itself of a lot of the players that need to go, while also recruiting properly to replace them. Certainly not this summer, which I can see being a very frustrating one in the market.
I don’t expect us to see major turnaround in the Summer but then there’s Winter after that and the following Summer and there’s another year after that. The look of the team in 2025 let alone 2026 should be drastically different.
 
If he didn't want him and just signed him because no one else was available, why does he keep on bringing him whenever we're in a tight corner instead of a youngster like Pellistri ?
Ah the classic case of "just throw the unproven youngster on even if he plays a different position, can't be worse".
 
Can you list the CF's that were available or went on loan in January that went for a 2.5m or less fee?

ETH reportedly wanted Gakpo but we had no money because the glazers ran us dry. Could have had Felix who would have probably done well but ETH wasn't allowed to stump up the 10m fee because again, glazers.

You’re defending the indefensible. He brought Weghorst in because he knew him and that’s it. Whilst signing a major striker wasn’t going to happen, the idea that weghorst was the best resort is laughable.
Man United could have signed about 10 strikers in the Championship better than Weghorst who wouldn’t have cost more than 5-6 million. Three years ago we loaned in a much much better player then Weghorst in Odion Ighalo.

Ten Haag simply doesn’t have a wide enough range of knowledge on footballers. Hence why the majority of his signings have come from Holland. He can’t fall back on our recruitment department because they are absolutely horrific at identifying suitable players for this club.
 
Ah the classic case of "just throw the unproven youngster on even if he plays a different position, can't be worse".

This club is literally built on trusting youngsters and giving them chances. This was a major complaint many had here with some of the previous managers. This just more of confirm why I believe Ten Hag is treated with double standards in comparison to our previous managers.

That's beside the logic of trying something new than just throwing the same shit again and again at the opponent and expecting different things. At least there's a chance the former will work.
 
Too much being made of the away form, especially as a lot of it is couched in against 'top 8, top 9, top 12' caveats so as to not include that we tend to beat all the rest of the league away.

Swap out some home wins for away wins - i.e. we lose at home to Arsenal, Spurs, City, Newcastle and Liverpool, but beat all those away except draw away to Newcastle - we still have the same points we do now, but now people are saying - our home form is awful versus the top 6, if you want ot be winning the league you have to be winning at home against your main rivals....
 
Too much being made of the away form, especially as a lot of it is couched in against 'top 8, top 9, top 12' caveats so as to not include that we tend to beat all the rest of the league away.

Swap out some home wins for away wins - i.e. we lose at home to Arsenal, Spurs, City, Newcastle and Liverpool, but beat all those away except draw away to Newcastle - we still have the same points we do now, but now people are saying - our home form is awful versus the top 6, if you want ot be winning the league you have to be winning at home against your main rivals....

This away form is rightly being hammered
 
Gee, if only we had an entire department dedicated to scouting and recruitment...

I'm no scout or professional recruiter, but it seems to me it would have been every penny to bring in Felix on loan rather than Wout. We're still a good bet to qualify for top four but we're now shitting bricks. Why? Several reasons, but the main reason because we've had to rely on Martial and Weghorst, neither of whom is up to the job. Management decided the loan fee wasn't worth it but if we do miss out on top four we can go straight back to the decision to bring in Weghorst and not Felix to fill the hole in the squad that Martial -- who hoovers in 250/week -- has created with his "I don't give a fukk attitude" toward the club or the sport.
 
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