ten Hag is part of a comittee that decide on transfer targets.
This was the committee last year that decided to go after Casemiro.
Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24
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This was the committee last year that decided to go after Casemiro.
I know, and that's fine. My point is he shouldn't unilaterally be the one to decide on targets.
I heavily agree with that as well.
Why is everyone citing Weghorst as an example of bad transfer decisions? Were there other strikers available in January for £3 million? List them here.
If only a certain you-know-who didn't basically throw his career away.
Imagine a scenario where he walks, he doesn't need this shit man
If he gets fecked over by slow decision making by the Glazers I actually hope he walks.
We’ve seen countless managers hung out to fry after CL qualification, it simply cannot happen again.
We’ve seen countless managers hung out to fry after CL qualification, it simply cannot happen again.
If this is true, I'm not sure what he expected? The club has operated this way for a long time. Did he just join blindly, without doing his homework, or was he lied to during the interview process?
Surely we can't throw him under the bus like we've done with many other managers, he deserves to be backed. We should get his players in nice and early, so he can set the tone in pre-season,
I'll imagine he wants to attack the season from day one, get as many wins as possible during the first half of the season, but for that to happen he needs his team ready before the start of season.
I'll imagine he wants to attack the season from day one, get as many wins as possible during the first half of the season, but for that to happen he needs his team ready before the start of season.
I mean I doubt they said they were going to string a sale out for 3/4 of the season, meaning no one could be bought in January and also have it overlap with the summer transfer window. I'd say it's odds on that he was heavily misled during the interview process.
Hopefully, once this Qatari bid is swatted away by the Glazer scum on Friday we at least get some closure on what is going on with the ownership. Then we can sign some players for ETH to at least strengthen a bit. All very depressing though, he could feasibly walk.
Same, I wouldn’t blame him at all for telling them to feck off and leaving.
At a certain point the cycle can’t keep repeating itself
Why does it matter what profile of players he wants though? The tail shouldn't wag the dog.
The club should have an overarching idea on the type of football it wants to play, the type of players that suit that brand of football and the type of head coach who's there to coach that. It should all come from above.
If the manager then suddenly has a different idea - surely you've just hired the wrong person anyway? And then if you then give in to his demands, your making the job way harder for the next guy who's then having to pick up even more shit that he didn't want - even if his ideas are more aligned with your own.
A manager having the final say in football is completely contradictory. ETH has a 3 year contract - that's as far as his remit goes. Nearly all of his signings have been made on a much longer term basis (Antony 5+1 etc), so the clubs going to have to live with that decision far longer than ETH.
He is very likely to stay beyond 3 years.
The managers way of football should line up with the clubs plan, but ultimately he is the one who manages the team and builds the system. So of course he should be deciding on profile of players he needs. The structure above then searches for the right players to fit inside that and should be able to find multiple options at good prices.
Planning for the scenario of it failing is a sure fire way for it to fail. You support and plan for success and continue supporting if they keep showing reasons for support.
You're out of your mind. Ten Hag is a quality manager for once. Moyes and Ole? Mourinho after Madrid? Come on.
I'm sure Moyes, Mourinho and Ole were also due for a 20 year tenure.
I can just imagine SAF's reaction if he'd been told this, actually I don't think we even need to imagine!
I've heard this story so many times.
Let's just wait and see.
I can't be arsed to have the same argument against the new managerial cult.
He is, and I hope he has a long, successful career with us. But that's never an assumption you can make with the manager when planning a squad for the long term, so I do think OP has a point there.
SAF was one of a kind. The way the club operated during his time is not really relevant to this discussion.
Why? It's not the job of random redcafe posters to be discovering players, that's what a scouting network is for. However, I (and a lot of other people) find it hard to believe that across all leagues in the entirety of the footballing world, Weghorst was the best option that was available for a cheap price.
Don't blame him. Any fool can see we need a GK,CM and a striker as an absolute minimum to built any sort of momentum from last season.
I wouldn't be surprised if he is left short like previous managers.
The point surely is that the Club hasn't had that idea, and one of the reasons they hired ETH was to give us one. If ETH is successful in this - I assume, embedding a kind of the Dutch School in our system, then yes, of course future coaches should follow that approach and buy players who fit with it. ETH has been operating at the moment as a quasi DOF because he's had to.
You make a plan on the assumption that they are the guy who will follow through the plan. Of course you do. We don't know what will happen, but planning on the basis of "he'll feck off in a year" is a sure fire way for things to never actually work out. The club has an overarching goal in mind of how they should play - and they get a manager to implement that. There are multiple different ways to achieve the same target though. There's not just 1 profile of player that fits. One manager might prefer a specific profile more than a different one but it would achieve the same thing through their systems. That should come from the manager, a list of needs, squad plans, if one profile isn't possible then he switched plans to still get the same overall goal.
At Ajax he lost De Ligt, Frenkie, Van de Beek, ziyech etc etc. He lost key players every summer and had to change his systems while still playing a similar attacking style of football and still being successful. You can't make the same plan with Frenkie as you can with Gravenberch. So of course it's not always 1 profile and that's it - up to Ten Hag to pivot and make it work even if some profiles aren't available.
I don't think that's a risk just yet. But I'm glad he's putting pressure on the club early on.
That's not an excuse. We are looking for a loan striker . If we were signing permanently, then your point makes sense. We needed someone proven, cheap, stop gap, can be a backup and is available.
Now you list the options please.
Or name a decent striker who has been loaned out in January for 6 months in the last 5 years.
Fact is, it doesn't happen always and Jan is a tougher window.
At the end of the day, he didn't work out as a goalscorer but he did contribute to the system that got us back into the CL and that was one of the reasons he was hired. So not an ideal signing but not a disastrous one.
I'm sure Moyes, Mourinho and Ole were also due for a 20 year tenure.
He’s the best manager we’ve had since Ferguson and not at all comparable to Moyes (who had zero credibility at this level and whose first season was a disaster), Mourinho (who has not been a long term solution for anybody, ever) and Ole (who simply lacked experience and skills to perform in the job over longer period of time).
Of course there’s still a chance things will go wrong but based on his first season wit us it seems very likely that he will be able to sustain success over the long term (thinking 6-7 years here, anything beyond that is always a bonus with managers, even the best of them).
6-7 years really isn't a realistic assumption to make with any manager. Very few of them stick around for that long, even at top clubs.
But SAF wasn't one of a kind in the regard he was a manager that decided pretty much everything, until about 10 years or so that was pretty much the norm in English football
Even 10 years ago, most clubs had already moved to a DOF model.
Regardless, as you say, it was over 10 years ago - not relevant to how clubs should operate today.
People were moving away from that model around that time, I would say the majority of clubs in the Premier League were just beginning too or had a few years experience with the modern football structure as we know it in this country. We have been very late to the party in that regard because we have persisted with the "cult of the manager".
Wouldn't blame him one bit,he is being absolutely fecked around by this utter farce of a takeover
Lied to most likely
Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
A new owner will almost certainly be better than the leeches we've had for 20 years.
There’s a good chance he leaves next season if he feels he isn’t backed and left hung out to dry.
From what the likes of Mitten and Whitwell have said recently, he knows his worth. He seems impatient and recognises the chance to progress is quicker than many say it should take for a rebuild.
From what the likes of Mitten and Whitwell have said recently, he knows his worth. He seems impatient and recognises the chance to progress is quicker than many say it should take for a rebuild.
Fergie created a structure at the club which he relied on to sign players hence he trusted the judgement of the scouts. Fergie wasn't identifying the players to sign but he was rather overseeing the staffing and strategy on the football side of the club and hence he set the direction for the football structure to follow. Wenger did the same at Arsenal when arrived in 1996 and created a recruitment structure which was led by Damien Comolli.
All the top teams sign players by working with their head coach. Rangnick has even gone on record and said he didn't sign a first team player if the head coach didn't agree.
Mourinho and Solskjaer went against the grain and utilised people independently from the club's recruitment structure to sign players. It was reported that the scouts told Woodward about Maguire not being any better than the options that the club already had it's disposal and he shouldn't be signed under Mourinho. Mourinho then went to war with the club's recruitment structure and started maligning them in public by stating how good West Ham's scouts were due to them identifying talents like Issa Diop. Solskjaer comes in with Phelan as his advisor and Woodward seemingly ignores the head scouts and allows Maguire to be signed with Maguire's former manager at Hull, Mike Phelan likely playing a key role.
Both Solskjaer and Mourinho were reportedly relying on their personal scouts and David Ornstein reported about Solskjaer not having communication with the club's recruitment department and Sokskjaer and Phelan were seen scouting players in several stadiums around Europe. Fergie and Wenger didn't operate like this and they developed their club's football structure and utilised the resources of their club's which benefited both the club and manager.
Erik ten Hag from the evidence at hand is working with John Murtough and the scouts, data and video analytics teams. He doesn't have independent scouts from what I've heard and read, and he's part of a football structure that is looking to streamline the process, which has only started happening now since Fergie retired. So if ten Hag is interested in signing someone he's familiar with, he has to inform the heads of scouting who will run the rule over said players. And it has been reported about ten Hag asking the scouts to compile reports on players he knows about. And that is normal at clubs who have a streamlined approach to their football structure.
Paranoia is deep among many fans on here, which is understandable. But the only issue I see right now are the owners who need to back the team below. And this is a team of people who need the backing on the football side of the club.
John Murtough: Head of football
Erik ten Hag: Head coach
Andy O'Boyle (deputy head of football)
Matt Hargreaves: (transfer/contract negotiations)
Jose Mayorga/Simon Wells (head scouts)
Dominic Jordan (head of data science)
And the article below from the people at the transfer ground guru from January 2017, goes into more detail about the scouts that were brought in and how no stone was left unturned in bringing the best in class recruiters.
https://trainingground.guru/articles/man-utd-scouts-summoned-for-meeting-after-huge-overhaul
Woodward put Lawlor and Bout in charge of the scouts at first team level and allowed Solskjaer and Mourinho to operate independently from the scouts. And that there is Man Utd's problem and why we couldn't develop the football structure to a high level. Liverpool had the same issues under Rodgers until they hired a head coach in Klopp who came in and revived a much ridiculed football structure that was led by Michael Edwards.
All the top teams sign players by working with their head coach. Rangnick has even gone on record and said he didn't sign a first team player if the head coach didn't agree.
Mourinho and Solskjaer went against the grain and utilised people independently from the club's recruitment structure to sign players. It was reported that the scouts told Woodward about Maguire not being any better than the options that the club already had it's disposal and he shouldn't be signed under Mourinho. Mourinho then went to war with the club's recruitment structure and started maligning them in public by stating how good West Ham's scouts were due to them identifying talents like Issa Diop. Solskjaer comes in with Phelan as his advisor and Woodward seemingly ignores the head scouts and allows Maguire to be signed with Maguire's former manager at Hull, Mike Phelan likely playing a key role.
Both Solskjaer and Mourinho were reportedly relying on their personal scouts and David Ornstein reported about Solskjaer not having communication with the club's recruitment department and Sokskjaer and Phelan were seen scouting players in several stadiums around Europe. Fergie and Wenger didn't operate like this and they developed their club's football structure and utilised the resources of their club's which benefited both the club and manager.
Erik ten Hag from the evidence at hand is working with John Murtough and the scouts, data and video analytics teams. He doesn't have independent scouts from what I've heard and read, and he's part of a football structure that is looking to streamline the process, which has only started happening now since Fergie retired. So if ten Hag is interested in signing someone he's familiar with, he has to inform the heads of scouting who will run the rule over said players. And it has been reported about ten Hag asking the scouts to compile reports on players he knows about. And that is normal at clubs who have a streamlined approach to their football structure.
Paranoia is deep among many fans on here, which is understandable. But the only issue I see right now are the owners who need to back the team below. And this is a team of people who need the backing on the football side of the club.
John Murtough: Head of football
Erik ten Hag: Head coach
Andy O'Boyle (deputy head of football)
Matt Hargreaves: (transfer/contract negotiations)
Jose Mayorga/Simon Wells (head scouts)
Dominic Jordan (head of data science)
And the article below from the people at the transfer ground guru from January 2017, goes into more detail about the scouts that were brought in and how no stone was left unturned in bringing the best in class recruiters.
https://trainingground.guru/articles/man-utd-scouts-summoned-for-meeting-after-huge-overhaul
Woodward put Lawlor and Bout in charge of the scouts at first team level and allowed Solskjaer and Mourinho to operate independently from the scouts. And that there is Man Utd's problem and why we couldn't develop the football structure to a high level. Liverpool had the same issues under Rodgers until they hired a head coach in Klopp who came in and revived a much ridiculed football structure that was led by Michael Edwards.
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I'd guess it depends on what he was told/promised when he took the job, none of us know what that is or was
Excellent post.
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