Every time I open this thread up I'm amazed at how much support this guy still has.
It’s absolutely mind boggling that this guy has any support at all. Mind boggling. Last season was our worst PL season in our history, and yet some people were bending over backwards to come up with every excuse in the book. Injuries being the most common. Yea, there were loads of injuries but the underlying data clearly showed that tactically we were set up in the equivalent of a shotgun in our own mouth type set up.
The new season has started and absolutely nothing about our approach has changed. There are just so many fundamental problems with how we use the ball when we have it, the movement of players, and the tactical positioning of nearly every player, that it beggars belief that anyone at all can think this man has even the faintest clue how to coach in the premier league.
It’s so bad, the set up, the resources at his disposal, the money spent, that I can confidently say - without any hyperbole - that pound for pound, he is the worst manager in the premier league. All 19 other managers would do better with this squad than he is. Some of them would do A LOT better. We are fundamentally not set up to be good at anything. We can’t defend, we can’t press properly, we can’t retain possession effectively, and we definitely have no idea at all how to attack. We are absolutely appalling from top to bottom. And in his third season at the club, it’s just beyond unacceptable; it’s downright disgraceful.
I would definitively rank Solksjaer as being a better manager than this clown. The ONLY thing he has going for him is the league cup win, and the FA cup win at the end of last season. But our league and European form, ever since the league cup win, has barely been above relegation standards. Over the last 18 months, he has a negative goal difference. Which is a stat that simply boggles the mind. It’s one thing to not be able to score because you have a defensive approach, it’s another when you can’t score despite over committing forward and leaking goals for fun at the back.
People keep pointing to the players over and over again, but their positions on the field, the organisation of the team, the patterns of play, are all on the manager, and they are all at all-time worst levels. He’s an absolute shambles and embarrassment of a manager. Literally (and I mean that in the correct dictionary definition) opposition fan I know is laughing and celebrating that we’ve kept him on. They all love playing United because not only do they expect to win, but they see the opportunity to rack up a cricket score.
Yesterday Liverpool won by 3, with absolute ease. And they let up way before the game ended. If they’d gone for the jugular all game, we’d have been on the receiving end of another 5, 6 or 7 goal mauling.
What we are currently witnessing in the dugout is an ineptitude of never before seen proportions, and there will be more humiliations on the horizon until he leaves. He’s the biggest fraud of a manager I think I ever ever seen. His tactics and instructions are amateurish, and that’s putting it kindly. He’s so far out of his depth, and so far up his own arse, that he’s a genuine danger to this club. Too inept and, dare I say it, stupid to be able to set up team up competently at this level, and too arrogant to recognise how wrong he is, nor take any accountability for it.
He has the conviction of Pep Guardiola, but the tactical and coaching expertise of Gregg Berhalter. Keeping him even a minute more is a minute too long. I cannot see any path to redemption unless someone from above forces him to play another way, and if you have to do that, then just get another coach in any way.
This would not be tolerated at any other elite club. I’ll give Ineos the benefit of the doubt because they have only truly been running things since the summer - with all their people in place - so would essentially be firing a coach three games into their tenure. But they can look back and see what happened last season, see the writing on the wall this season - because we are playing the exact same way - and get literally anyone else in.
My hope, and in the short term it’s my only hope - they have spent the tail end of last season, and the summer, putting several contingency plans in place so they are ready to move and bring a new coach in quickly. Either that or hand the reigns to RVN. Either will do. I don’t even need us to achieve great things this season under a caretaker or replacement, I just need us to reestablish a sense of orthodoxy into our approach and start getting the fundamentals right.
I can only imagine the players hate playing for Ten Hag. What player would want to play for a manager whose tactics and instructions essentially make them look like clowns. Yes, they are the ones often making mistakes, but when your coach is creating a system where you regularly receive the ball and have little to no reasonable passing options, you are on a hiding to nothing.
I can’t watch a Ten Hag coached United any longer, nor can I bear to hear him speak or read what he says. The things that come out of his mouth are so detached from the reality of the things we see on the field, and he is so sure of his suitability for the role, that I can only conclude he is completely delusional.
I would fecking LOVE for him to have to give a seminar on the detailed thinking behind his tactics and instructions, because for the life of me I see no sense nor reason to any of them. With the exception of one or two games, I have seen him out coached by every manager in the Premier League, several times over, in the last 18-19 months.
He is beyond clueless. He’s a dangerous and arrogant clown of the highest order.
