Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[RickRudesDong]

A good first season and I think he met expectations.

However, small improvements to the squad in the summer will likely result in us falling outside the top 4 next season. Chelsea and Liverpool will come back strong, Arsenal will stay strong and Citeh are Citeh (Newcastle will likely drop given their new European commitments).

To challenge for the title it will take more than a CF and CM. We'll need new wingers and FBs for that.

 

[Revan]

City have 2 starting 11s. We barely have 1. No rest = fatigue.

Erik has worked miracles.

Why do people say this? Their second starting 11 is:

Ortega

Akanji Laporte ? Lewis

Philips Rodrigo

Mahrez Palmer? Foden

Alvarez​

Our second starting 11:

Butland

Dalot Maguire Lindelof Malacia

McTominay Fred

Sancho Sabitzer Garnacho

Weghorst​

There is hardly much difference between them. The keepers are meh, the defenses are quite comparable (one might argue that Akanji is a starter, but same can be said for Dalot), maybe United's is better. The midfield is pretty equal. Mahrez and Foden are better than Sancho and Garnacho. Sabitzer is better than Palmer. Alvarez is much better than Weghorst.

So an advantage to United in defense, and arguably in midfield. City has better attack. Neither squad is a starting XI though, if that was the starting eleven of City, they would be at best, at midtable.

 

[Shinjch]

Considering the squad that he has, and the mess around the club for most of the season, he has done a brilliant job for me.

 

[Kostov]

How has he “not worked” he has been an integral part of an amazing season playing nearly every game and has done ok - good his first season.

Amazing season?

What kind of a sorry ass assessment to a season in which we barely scrapped top 4 while scoring the least goals and on a goal difference of 14 you can rank that as amazing? Was that last night game an amazing game? Try and watch some City game or better of watch Arsenal play football you will see how far off we are from an amazing season.

 

[cyberman]

Amazing season?

What kind of a sorry ass assessment to a season in which we barely scrapped top 4 while scoring the least goals and on a goal difference of 14 you can rank that as amazing? Was that last night game an amazing game? Try and watch some City game or better of watch Arsenal play football you will see how far off we are from an amazing season.

We’ve been comfortable top 4 for months now. It’s only the hysterical bed wetters who shit themselves every time Spurs got a result that thought otherwise

 

[Revan]

We’ve been comfortable top 4 for months now. It’s only the hysterical bed wetters who shit themselves every time Spurs got a result that thought otherwise

It is not comfortable if it is secured on the 37th match.

In any case, I think this was a quite good season. Top 4, winning a (tiny) trophy after 6 years (maybe a second one but unlucky), I would have been happy with this at the beginning of the season.

 

[Kostov]

We’ve been comfortable top 4 for months now. It’s only the hysterical bed wetters who shit themselves every time Spurs got a result that thought otherwise

We have been anything but comfortable. Even last night we were a miss away from shitting the bed.

 

[cyberman]

It is not comfortable if it is secured on the 37th match.

In any case, I think this was a quite good season. Top 4, winning a (tiny) trophy after 6 years (maybe a second one but unlucky), I would have been happy with this at the beginning of the season.

Of course it was, we had a 12 point, sometimes more, gap to play with and Liverpool could only cut that in half despite 8 wins in a row.
We were never losing 4/5 games in a row and Liverpool were never winning all their games. That’s just how it is.

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

We have been anything but comfortable. Even last night we were a miss away from shitting the bed.

fecking hell, you're an absolute misery

All you've done this morning is shit on Utd.

 

[fallengt]

Top 4 is actually good job consider the team (minus Casemiro) is weaker than last year

 

[Drainy]

Think people got ahead of themselves when we hit a purple patch after the world cup and forgot how dysfunctional the side he inherited was.

 

[Kostov]

fecking hell, you're an absolute misery

All you've done this morning is shit on Utd.

I have, and it's my birthday too

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

I have, and it's my birthday too

Cheer up!

and also Happy Birthday!

 

[romufc]

Amazing season?

What kind of a sorry ass assessment to a season in which we barely scrapped top 4 while scoring the least goals and on a goal difference of 14 you can rank that as amazing? Was that last night game an amazing game? Try and watch some City game or better of watch Arsenal play football you will see how far off we are from an amazing season.

I dont get how people think its an amazing season, or miracle that we are where we are now. We have had a successful season but we cannot kid ourselves, we are quite lucky as well.

We concede chances against every team, clear cut chances as well, which shows the football we play is not sustainable. On the beach Chelsea carved out 5/6 clear cut chances against us, its worrying to see that happen.

We are so far off the better teams. I thought we would be better and further in our football progression than where we are right now.

 

[Erictheking7]

I am very happy with Ten Hag's first season. Top 4, 1 trophy minimum, 2 finals are the cold stats which look decent on paper.
I'm more impressed on the way he has imposed himself on the club and started to rebuild the foundations. The players clearly respect the man and he doesn't pull any punches when they are either not up to the job, or they don't fit in with his vision and expectations.
His handling of the Ronaldo situation was huge. That laid down a marker. Also his handling of Maguire not fitting into his system has been commendable. He won't be here stinking the place out next season but the situation has been well managed.
For the future, everything looks promising as long as the new owners support the manager in his vision. I don't expect a title or champions league next season but what I do expect is further progress.

 

[Kostov]

Cheer up!

and also Happy Birthday!

Thanks mate. Just can't get around cheering much of our "successes" while the noisy neighbors are about to win the CL. Anyway top 4 is a good start for ETH.

 

[Kag]

I dont get how people think its an amazing season, or miracle that we are where we are now. We have had a successful season but we cannot kid ourselves, we are quite lucky as well.

We concede chances against every team, clear cut chances as well, which shows the football we play is not sustainable. On the beach Chelsea carved out 5/6 clear cut chances against us, its worrying to see that happen.

We are so far off the better teams. I thought we would be better and further in our football progression than where we are right now.

Why? About half the first team and most of the bench struggle to trap the ball.

The more Casemiro’s and Martinez’ we bring in the more progression you will see.

 

[romufc]

Why? About half the first team and most of the bench struggle to trap the ball.

The more Casemiro’s and Martinez’ we bring in the more progression you will see.

Yes, I know its easy to blame players. Regardless of how poor we are on the ball, we are so bad of the ball too. Letting a piss poor Chelsea team dominate possession at home is so not ideal is it?

Newcastle dont have a better team than us, yet they look alot more solid defensively. Its more our set up allows for us to concede way too many chances.

If we played the way we did yesterday, City put 5 past us easy.

 

[youngrell]

Why do people say this? Their second starting 11 is:

Ortega

Akanji Laporte ? Lewis

Philips Rodrigo

Mahrez Palmer? Foden

Alvarez​

Our second starting 11:

Butland

Dalot Maguire Lindelof Malacia

McTominay Fred

Sancho Sabitzer Garnacho

Weghorst​

There is hardly much difference between them. The keepers are meh, the defenses are quite comparable (one might argue that Akanji is a starter, but same can be said for Dalot), maybe United's is better. The midfield is pretty equal. Mahrez and Foden are better than Sancho and Garnacho. Sabitzer is better than Palmer. Alvarez is much better than Weghorst.

So an advantage to United in defense, and arguably in midfield. City has better attack. Neither squad is a starting XI though, if that was the starting eleven of City, they would be at best, at midtable.

I think the point most people are getting it is that some of the second string City players, like Mahrez, Foden and Alvarez are on par or in some cases better than our first choice options. Their depth is quite clearly better than ours.

 

[horsechoker]

Why do people say this? Their second starting 11 is:

Ortega

Akanji Laporte ? Lewis

Philips Rodrigo

Mahrez Palmer? Foden

Alvarez​

Our second starting 11:

Butland

Dalot Maguire Lindelof Malacia

McTominay Fred

Sancho Sabitzer Garnacho

Weghorst​

There is hardly much difference between them. The keepers are meh, the defenses are quite comparable (one might argue that Akanji is a starter, but same can be said for Dalot), maybe United's is better. The midfield is pretty equal. Mahrez and Foden are better than Sancho and Garnacho. Sabitzer is better than Palmer. Alvarez is much better than Weghorst.

So an advantage to United in defense, and arguably in midfield. City has better attack. Neither squad is a starting XI though, if that was the starting eleven of City, they would be at best, at midtable.

No that City squad is mostly better, it helps not having a centre back who will concede goals. Mahrez and Foden Would probably be starters at United.

 

[Kag]

Yes, I know its easy to blame players. Regardless of how poor we are on the ball, we are so bad of the ball too. Letting a piss poor Chelsea team dominate possession at home is so not ideal is it?

Newcastle dont have a better team than us, yet they look alot more solid defensively. Its more our set up allows for us to concede way too many chances.

If we played the way we did yesterday, City put 5 past us easy.

Yesterday was particularly bad and not reflective of how we defend at home. I’m not denying that there’s work to do, but we are a lot more organised on the whole, and have one of the meanest defences in the league even with two or three 6/7 goal catastrophes along the way.

It’s clear we need a more solid player alongside Casemiro going into next season. It’s up to the club to sort themselves in the window (not that I have any hope of this happening).

 

[cyberman]

Yes, I know its easy to blame players. Regardless of how poor we are on the ball, we are so bad of the ball too. Letting a piss poor Chelsea team dominate possession at home is so not ideal is it?

Newcastle dont have a better team than us, yet they look alot more solid defensively. Its more our set up allows for us to concede way too many chances.

If we played the way we did yesterday, City put 5 past us easy.

If we play like we did yesterday we score 5 ourselves.
I just went through Newcastles results, they have 2 clean sheets in last 18 odd games.
It’s an odd point to make this, I’ll be honest with you.

 

[romufc]

Yesterday was particularly bad and not reflective of how we defend at home. I’m not denying that there’s work to do, but we are a lot more organised on the whole, and have one of the meanest defences in the league even with two or three 6/7 goal catastrophes along the way.

It’s clear we need a more solid player alongside Casemiro going into next season. It’s up to the club to sort themselves in the window (not that I have any hope of this happening).

In alot of games this season, we have conceded chances to teams and let them play through us very easily. Our midfield is poor.

I dont think its as easy as signing players, the set up of how we defend of the ball is not great. Bruno and Eriksen in midfield are too weak and get bypassed all the time. It just seems that we dont really win our duels off the ball in midfield.

I hope Ten Hag can sort this in the summer because if we play like this next season, we are back to square 1.

 

[romufc]

If we play like we did yesterday we score 5 ourselves.
I just went through Newcastles results, they have 2 clean sheets in last 18 odd games.
It’s an odd point to make this, I’ll be honest with you.

Yes, and also concede 5 goals. So you think we are solid defensively? Lets see how many City put past us in the final then.

 

[gajender]

Yes, and also concede 5 goals. So you think we are solid defensively? Lets see how many City put past us in the final then.

What do you reckon how many City would put past United .
Make a prediction and let's find out how close were you once it's over .

 

[cyberman]

Yes, and also concede 5 goals. So you think we are solid defensively? Lets see how many City put past us in the final then.

Yes. The vast majority of our goals conceded have come in 4 games. We have been fantastically consistent hence the GG award for David.
Did we concede 5 the last time we played them?
Nobody is saying we have a perfect defence but you’re being over the top here. Top teams concede chances. Fun fact, we conceded less than Arsenal and the main difference between ours and Citys defensive record is basically the freak 7-0 at Anfield. I think that’s 9 goals conceded at home all season after conceding 2 in the opening game.
If you look closely at our defensive record and dissect it then it’s not as “omg we concede many chances to everybody we face ” bad as it’s made out.

 

[Judas]

Same people trotting out the same miserable crap. What’s the point of watching football if you’re going to take so little pleasure out of it? Seems really odd.

 

[romufc]

Yes. The vast majority of our goals conceded have come in 4 games. We have been fantastically consistent hence the GG award for David.
Did we concede 5 the last time we played them?
Nobody is saying we have a perfect defence but you’re being over the top here. Top teams concede chances. Fun fact, we conceded less than Arsenal and the main difference between ours and Citys defensive record is basically the freak 7-0 at Anfield. I think that’s 9 goals conceded at home all season after conceding 2 in the opening game.
If you look closely at our defensive record and dissect it then it’s not as “omg we concede many chances to everybody we face ” bad as it’s made out.

We have conceded 7 goals to City this season btw.

The thing is, its not the defence that worries me, its the midfield and the ease that teams can cut through us. I am satisfied with our defence and they bail out our poor midfield.

We need to somehow stop teams from playing against us. If you ever watch the top teams, right now City and Arsenal, you will see that they are in control of games.

For example: We concede 12.7 shots per game compare to Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Newcastle who concede less than 10 shots a game. Even poor chelsea concede less shots than us.

What I am saying is, this area of being solid defensively is something we need to work on next season if we want to challenge for PL or CL.

 

[cyberman]

We have conceded 7 goals to City this season btw.

The thing is, its not the defence that worries me, its the midfield and the ease that teams can cut through us. I am satisfied with our defence and they bail out our poor midfield.

We need to somehow stop teams from playing against us. If you ever watch the top teams, right now City and Arsenal, you will see that they are in control of games.

For example: We concede 12.7 shots per game compare to Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Newcastle who concede less than 10 shots a game. Even poor chelsea concede less shots than us.

What I am saying is, this area of being solid defensively is something we need to work on next season if we want to challenge for PL or CL.

I’d argue that stat boils down to our attack not scoring enough goals. More of our games are live to the 90th minute so the opposition haven’t given up the ghost and keep pushing to the end.
I honestly don’t see teams playing through the midfield like you do.

 

[redcafe_reader]

How can you both acknowledge that city have a much deeper squad than us and still say that the number of fixtures we've played aren't an issue?

It's easier to play 60 games if you have a squad where you can rest members of your first team and not miss a beat.

We've been forced to run the likes of Bruno, martinez, cas and rashford into the ground.

It shouldn't be an excuse come Cup final day, because if you can't get up for that game then you shouldn't be playing for this club, but to deny it's been a factor in our form would be a little silly.

Because, as you said it yourself "It shouldn't be an excuse", and in my first post regarding this "I hate premade excuse".

It's just that simple.

 

[romufc]

I’d argue that stat boils down to our attack not scoring enough goals. More of our games are live to the 90th minute so the opposition haven’t given up the ghost and keep pushing to the end.
I honestly don’t see teams playing through the midfield like you do.

I agree, I dont think our troubles in midfield are solely down to defence, if our players kept the ball better and made more of the chances, we would be more comfortable in games.

Like yesterday, I think alot of Chelsea's chances came from our attacks and us giving the ball away in silly positions.

 

[SuperMario]

Quick question (from Amsterdam).
Can we have him back now please?
I know you paid 100M for him, but also got Antony for free in that deal.
Thank you..?

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Thanks mate. Just can't get around cheering much of our "successes" while the noisy neighbors are about to win the CL. Anyway top 4 is a good start for ETH.

Because context matters. ten Hag inherited an absolute mess. Most people had us finishing outside the top four hell some people on here were predicting us to finish midtable or worse at the start of the season. To finish the season in 3rd with a trophy and a chance of winning another is a great achievement for ten Hag. He's doing a brilliant job.

 

[Bilbo]

The differences in opinion on how well he's done this season are staggering.

This time last year we all knew exactly what a mess this squad was in. Then we lost to Brighton and 4-0 at Brentford. Since then we've won 40 out of 58 football matches, securing CL football and a trophy, and are in another final.

For me it's a fantastic achievement. I can't really understand how anyone could think otherwise

 

[Tom Van Persie]

 

[Gycraig]

Amazing season?

What kind of a sorry ass assessment to a season in which we barely scrapped top 4 while scoring the least goals and on a goal difference of 14 you can rank that as amazing? Was that last night game an amazing game? Try and watch some City game or better of watch Arsenal play football you will see how far off we are from an amazing season.

Top 4 first season won a trophy and in the final of another.

Yes it is an amazing season I would have bitten your hand off if you offered me it the day ten hag came in as would every realistic fan.

I would take our season over arsenals all day there isn’t a “finished second” trophy.

Considering the circumstances he has had to deal with ten hag has done brilliantly, who would have thought a team with no decent strikers wouldn’t score many goals, strange.

 

[RyRy11]

The differences in opinion on how well he's done this season are staggering.

This time last year we all knew exactly what a mess this squad was in. Then we lost to Brighton and 4-0 at Brentford. Since then we've won 40 out of 58 football matches, securing CL football and a trophy, and are in another final.

For me it's a fantastic achievement. I can't really understand how anyone could think otherwise

All this with massive fixture congestion and our best players missing to injuries at different points on the season. Great job so far and it's actually still quite easy to see where improvements can be made.

 

[Mike Smalling]

So, what should we aim for next season? Assuming a good transfer window that addresses the striker and midfield issues, I would hope for:

League - 80+ points. Comfortable top four position. Maybe in the mix for the title.
Champions League - Quarter-final / Semi-final, depending on our luck with the draws.
Domestic cups - Hopefully one final reached, but not overly important.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but really looking forward to seeing how we can do next year.

 

[Rightnr]

Him coming out and saying we need better players immediately after clinching CL football is a massive, massive green flag.

First, it's smart timing to do it now before he's given scrubs and then it looks like he's making excuses for his incompetence.

Second, it shows he knows we've massive work ahead of us if we're to really challenge Cheat code FC.

Third, it puts the pressure firmly on the Glazers to get moving with the sale because certainty is essential.

 

[Rockets Redglare]

We have conceded 7 goals to City this season btw

And what score was the last match we played against them?

It’s really weird how much of a hard on some of you have for City. Yes they’re currently a better team than us but why bother even supporting the club if you’ve already given up on the final?

I’m assuming you won’t be watching seen as how you already know the result.