Erik ten Hag | 2024/25 | Sacked

Erik ten Hag


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From all the articles that said it, but the athletic summed up the timeline best.

Some people seem entrenched in this bullshit propaganda that ineos chose ETH. When actually they failed to negotiate with two choices they 100% preferred prior to negotiating the fine details with them, we don’t know why the negotiations failed but can safely assume it was due to money or disagreements over control or both.

So they were left with the next best option which was not sacking ETH and transparently propagandising that he was their favourite all along, meaning they needed to agree a brand new contract with him to sell the lie. But even that negotiation failed.

This is also the thrust of how Carragher keeps making Neville look like a loon on live television.
Not read any of those, might have look for later.

Carragher is incapable of outsmarting anyone, would be wary parroting the shite he spouts.

On Sunday he claimed INEOS “bottled it”, then completely failed to back it up.
 
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That requires an existing employee to be up to doing the job on a temporary basis. Otherwise the recruitment happens before the replacement.

So who's the existing employee who won't make things worse? And what makes you think so? If you can make a sensible case for why Ruud for example would make a good caretaker, I'm all ears.
No. That is never the requirement. RVN can have no achievements in management, but as long as it is not illegal for him to take up that job, it can be done. This is not a machine operator job that it risks bringing the whole line down
 
, I don't think a cup where you play the likes of Coventry in a semi final is better than a cup where you play the likes of Roma and Milan.
Was it Coventry City we played in that final? Weird how we were such underdogs then.
 
No. You can reread the thread if you want to see them again. They are there, despite your protestations that they exist, despite the fact that you have responded to many of them whilst ignoring their key points. I genuinely don’t believe you’re arguing in good faith, because I myself have put forward names and arguments and you have just dismissed them or ignored them.

I've gone through the entire first 2 pages of your recent postings, there's one post I've found with a list of names:

This is utter nonsense. There is never ever a guarantee that a new manager will be an improvement, but that doesn’t mean changing the manager is engaging in change for change sake. That’s just a meaningless cliche. Changing the manager when your current manager is underperforming is change for a very deliberate and specific purpose: trying to improve the performance of the team. I’m really not sure how you’re so confused by this concept. Football clubs have been changing managers in attempts to improve their teams since football began.

Demanding redcafe members name and justify replacements before they’re allowed to conclude that Ten Hag is the wrong man for the job is just a fatuous distraction tactic, because it doesn’t address the fundamental question of whether Ten Hag is the right man or not, you’ll pick holes in whoever is suggested, and no one knows whether any replacement would end up being an improvement anyway. We have installed very experienced and high calibre people to make such decisions, and given that any replacement will be the new personnel’s first appointment, it seems only sensible to see if they can do any better than the last lot who decided that Ten Hag was the right man.

Tuchel, McKenna, Emery, Nagelsmann, Frank, Amorim would all get a better tune out of current squad than Ten Hag is IMO, because Ten Hag’s system is failing to provide us with a sound defence, an effective midfield, or an attack that can score goals. Anyone who can improve us in any of those areas right now would be an improvement.

Do you really think there’s not a single manager out there that could outperform Ten Hag right now? Football is really devoid of a single person that could get more out of this team?

In bold is your list and " references to why their records are better", which is an extremely generous way of putting a single sentence that doesn't touch on any of their records. But I'm happy to go through the list.

Firstly, Nagelsmann I'd be over the moon with. But he's with the German national team. Do you genuinely expect us to be able to get him in now? The same goes for Emery, why would he leave Villa who are enjoying CL football? Frank is also in a position, and is much less enticing than the previous two mentioned. Do you honestly think they're immediately attainable? In the summer is much more feasible, which is what I've been advocating for.

Tuchel we've discussed already.

McKenna's managerial career is limited entirely to lower league experience, there's a huge gulf between the Ipswich job and the United one, surely you can acknowledge that? To me that would represent a humongous gamble, and I don't think that's worth it given we could go after much more accomplished candidates in the summer.

Amorim is an interesting one actually, I don't know too much about him but from what I read he has a style similar to what we're trying to achieve. Can you go into a bit more detail as to what makes him a good fit? And why he would be attainable immediately to replace Ten Hag?
 
McKenna's managerial career is limited entirely to lower league experience, there's a huge gulf between the Ipswich job and the United one, surely you can acknowledge that? To me that would represent a humongous gamble, and I don't think that's worth it given we could go after much more accomplished candidates in the summer.
Again I ask - who? Which accomplished candidate is likely to be available in the summer, who isn't right now?
 
No. That is never the requirement. RVN can have no achievements in management, but as long as it is not illegal for him to take up that job, it can be done. This is not a machine operator job that it risks bringing the whole line down

I obviously wasn't talking legally, but it is a requirement for the decision to be rational. Unless you're suggesting that it's impossible to a worse job than Ten Hag, which is objectively false.

Our last caretaker manager took over after we were performing too poorly but at least had the famous "vibes", and left us an openly insubordinate dressing room with problems that took until this transfer window to purge. There's plenty that could go more wrong.
 
Again I ask - who? Which accomplished candidate is likely to be available in the summer, who isn't right now?

Attainable, not available.

And I'd suggest we could make a pretty good case to most managers, given the project we can offer and the support of the new regime/structure. We won't get Pep or Ancelotti, but there's a really high upside in the United job for the person who can handle it, that's gonna be pretty hard to turn down. I imagine we could put together a very a good sales pitch to Nagelsmann (hopefully without the Woodward-esque reference to Disneyland that led to us missing out on Klopp!).
 
Nagelsmann might be even more available in November than in June. World Cup isn't until 2026.

I don't rate ETH as a coach but our main problem is our terrible transfer record. ETH is less involved as from this summer which is a good thing. But this group of players are not top4 material.

The transfer record isn't on Ten Hag, it's on Murtough and co. Casemiro's ludicrous wages are the reason we can't offload him for example, and the reason we wasted so much money on Antony is well documented.

If Nagelsmann is available early then I'd be happy for us to go after him, hopefully Ashworth is tapping him up as we speak.
 
The transfer record isn't on Ten Hag, it's on Murtough and co. Casemiro's ludicrous wages are the reason we can't offload him for example, and the reason we wasted so much money on Antony is well documented.

If Nagelsmann is available early then I'd be happy for us to go after him, hopefully Ashworth is tapping him up as we speak.
If Maguire and AWB was on Ole then the transfers are on Ten Hag, they both had a veto and final say
 
If Maguire and AWB was on Ole then the transfers are on Ten Hag, they both had a veto and final say

Neither of those were purely on Ole though, Maguire in particular we could have had much cheaper a season earlier but for Woodward being silly.

The managers aren't the ones spending the money, and the people who have been have contributed heavily to our problems.
 
Mate stop, he clearly wasn't good enough ffs. And "European Final"? Just say the EL Final. For me, winning the FA Cup is better than winning the EL. You can dress up ETH's reign too: 3rd place, 3 finals, 2 Cups.

We've appointed poorly since Fergie left, that's a fact. Not one of them deserves any sentinmanalty. Had Ole won the 2 cups that ETH did, you can guarantee the narrative among some would be that the 2 cup wins were brilliant.

People need to stop defending their favourite and just admit that all of them were poor to varying degrees. And Ole's only bad spell? I mean, that spell was particularly atrocious, but there were plenty of spells were we looked utter shite and were scraping through games. There was a reason in real-time why so many wanted him gone. This revisionism is crazy.
Winning a cup means very little if you have us playing piss poor football, no identity, no visible plan, stubborn/poor game management, zero charisma etc.

Should have been sacked before the summer and every day that is delayed, the hole we're digging for ourselves is getting deeper.
ETH has without any doubt managed us the worst since Fergie. Yes, even worse than Moyes.

That post match presser on Sunday is a new low when it comes to embarrassing and delusional moments in sports management.
 
If Ole buys a DM/#6 in his last season instead of Homelander, I'd wager it doesnt unravel for him like it did. Not to say he would have led us to PL/CL glory, but it wouldnt have been as bad as it was.
I do agree with this. We weren't going to challenge at the very top level but we were a stable top 4 team (Solskjaer's still the only United manager to record back-to-back top 4 finishes post-Ferguson). We just weren't quite able to get over the line with winning a trophy. It still hurts to think about that final against Villarreal now.

We were definitely a more fluent team up to that point than we've ever been under Ten Hag. As you point out, the Ronaldo signing was a huge mistake which threw off the entire balance of the team and everything we had been working towards. Predictably so actually. I wouldn't be pining to bring him back but I can definitely look back on the Ole days far more fondly than I will for these last two and a bit years with Ten Hag.
 
Neither of those were purely on Ole though, Maguire in particular we could have had much cheaper a season earlier but for Woodward being silly.

The managers aren't the ones spending the money, and the people who have been have contributed heavily to our problems.
"Maguire was my no1 priority target" - Solskjaer.

I don't know was under Ineos the same this summer (who called the shots) but Ole and Erik (under Arnold) had full autonomy for transfers. It has been said many times and it is nothing new.
 
In my book thinking that any other PL manager could do a better job isn't close to rational - the vast majority wouldn't have the dressing room for more than a few minutes at best, and the pressure of the United job would crush them. Rangnick was highly respected, and he lasted 45 minutes before the squad discarded his approach.

But even if that were the case, those managers aren't gettable. Emery isn't gettable, at least not now (possibly at the end of the season, although there are lots of candidates I'd have above him for that). McKenna is probably feasible, if expensive, to get immediately, but he wouldn't come as a caretaker so it would have to be a permanent appointment, and I'd suggest there are huge question marks over whether he could cope with the United job. But I'm open to being convinced - what is it about his CV that suggests to you he's ready for the job?

As for the so what, I think you're underestimating the damage that a bad managerial appointment can do. Once we've sacked Ten Hag, will you see his tenure as no harm done? I highly doubt it, and if I'm right then by your own logic "so what, sack him and move on" is a dangerous approach. For sure it's one I don't agree with, I'd much rather us do some succession planning and bring in managers we expect to succeed, rather than setting the bar as low as "worth a shot".

The bit in bold is, once again, a deliberate misrepresentation of my point. It seems to be a common theme with posters who want the manager gone immediately, a rather tedious refusal to discern between "literally nobody better" and "nobody immediately attainable that is worth not waiting for the summer when we can bring in a top manager", which is much closer to my position.

As to your point that our knowledge base is limited in comparison to Dan Ashworth and the other execs, I agree. But those knowledgeable folks have opted to stick with Ten Hag. If you want to defer to their knowledge for choice of manager, well they've chosen the incumbent. Nobody is infallible of course, but you can't make the appeal to authority only when it lines up with your thoughts.
The issue here is how damaging would another wasted season be to the club's finances and progression? If we aim, as per SJR timeframe, to be fighting for the title within three years can we really afford to let Ten Hag see out the season no matter what because we are waiting for the theoretical top manager who will be the knight in shining armor? We need to take action if form doesn't improve by the next international window, Ineos get a pass for dithering in the summer but now they need to be more decisive. We also need INEOS to appreciate that pride and reputational cost of making a U-turn on a terrible decision isn't worth the cost of another terrible season wasted on a failed manager.
 
The issue here is how damaging would another wasted season be to the club's finances and progression?

I fully understand INEOS keeping him on at the time as much as I've been ETH out for 9 months or so. We had to sell a project to our incoming transfers, they needed some kind of assurance of the direction we're heading. But this can't be the same direction, and another season out of the CL is so detrimental to our finances and sponsorships. The ETH In crowd have to look at themselves in the mirror and say "ok, what's the line in the sand where I say it's time to part ways?".

If we get to December and we've lost the Carabao to some mid-table team Championship team, we somehow managed to place bottom half of our EL group, and we're languishing in 8th-12th in the table, do I still need to wait until the summer to get Tuchel on the phone?
 
That requires an existing employee to be up to doing the job on a temporary basis. Otherwise the recruitment happens before the replacement.

So who's the existing employee who won't make things worse? And what makes you think so? If you can make a sensible case for why Ruud for example would make a good caretaker, I'm all ears.
Zidane and Del Bosque would then be classified as highly unqualified according to your logic. Yet we know that football success doesn't follow the linear reasoning you are attempting to apply here - we will never know but hindsight suggests that if we had kept Carrick after Ole there is a big chance that he'd have done better than Ragnick but because we got burnt by another decision on a caretaker we didn't pursue it.

There is a new wave of managerial talent emerging who are very exciting but would get no chance in an organization under you. Football isn't about recruiting an HR staffer, many unheralded people get chances at the highest level and perform above expectations. Erik was once such a guy and he has failed to capitalize on his big break.
 
I fully understand INEOS keeping him on at the time as much as I've been ETH out for 9 months or so. We had to sell a project to our incoming transfers, they needed some kind of assurance of the direction we're heading. But this can't be the same direction, and another season out of the CL is so detrimental to our finances and sponsorships. The ETH In crowd have to look at themselves in the mirror and say "ok, what's the line in the sand where I say it's time to part ways?".

If we get to December and we've lost the Carabao to some mid-table team Championship team, we somehow managed to place bottom half of our EL group, and we're languishing in 8th-12th in the table, do I still need to wait until the summer to get Tuchel on the phone?
December is too far, imo, to wait to make a change. We need to give the new guy ample time to put his methods across and get the team going, top four is usually reachable if we can put a run together and there is still the EL where we can challenge for a major trophy that earns us CL football. If we wait till Christmas the situation will be too far gone, a reasonable take is to see how he does in September and October but a more decisive one would be INEOS taking into consideration our form from the Carabao Cup, our performances in the Cup which showed that Erik has it in him to play compact, tactically flexible football but is too dogmatic to almost unprofessional levels in his methods that he'd risk morale damaging defeats against Liverpool just to force through a failing tactic, and sack him right now.
 
December is too far, imo, to wait to make a change. We need to give the new guy ample time to put his methods across and get the team going, top four is usually reachable if we can put a run together and there is still the EL where we can challenge for a major trophy that earns us CL football. If we wait till Christmas the situation will be too far gone, a reasonable take is to see how he does in September and October but a more decisive one would be INEOS taking into consideration our form from the Carabao Cup, our performances in the Cup which showed that Erik has it in him to play compact, tactically flexible football but is too dogmatic to almost unprofessional levels in his methods that he'd risk morale damaging defeats against Liverpool just to force through a failing tactic, and sack him right now.


Make no mistake, I was ready for him to go Monday at the open of business. His post-match comments show he has lost the plot. He is placing his entire career on Ugarte saving the day---once he's up to match fitness. When will that be? By December, I could easily see us being 15 points off the top.

I think the international break is a perfect time to part ways. Gives a new manager plenty of time to get his desk organized while the team is gone.
 
I obviously wasn't talking legally, but it is a requirement for the decision to be rational. Unless you're suggesting that it's impossible to a worse job than Ten Hag, which is objectively false.

Our last caretaker manager took over after we were performing too poorly but at least had the famous "vibes", and left us an openly insubordinate dressing room with problems that took until this transfer window to purge. There's plenty that could go more wrong.
Again you are assuming that the next manager has to be perfect, which is not the case or criteria.

Ineos (not me) can fire ETH, put RVN in place, remove him and get another manager, remove him and get another, until they are satisfied.
As long as Ineos (not me again) are confident of how they want the team to play and perform, what kind of players they want in the team, what kind of managers they want, they can fire managers who are not doing their jobs.
 
The transfer record isn't on Ten Hag, it's on Murtough and co. Casemiro's ludicrous wages are the reason we can't offload him for example, and the reason we wasted so much money on Antony is well documented.

If Nagelsmann is available early then I'd be happy for us to go after him, hopefully Ashworth is tapping him up as we speak.
Brings in a bunch of ex ajax/dutch players…

Ten hag isn’t the
I do agree with this. We weren't going to challenge at the very top level but we were a stable top 4 team (Solskjaer's still the only United manager to record back-to-back top 4 finishes post-Ferguson). We just weren't quite able to get over the line with winning a trophy. It still hurts to think about that final against Villarreal now.

We were definitely a more fluent team up to that point than we've ever been under Ten Hag. As you point out, the Ronaldo signing was a huge mistake which threw off the entire balance of the team and everything we had been working towards. Predictably so actually. I wouldn't be pining to bring him back but I can definitely look back on the Ole days far more fondly than I will for these last two and a bit years with Ten Hag.
People like this have short memories. We were awful under Ole and we weren’t a stable team, it was always going to unravel and it did in spectacular style. Ole was one of the worst things to happen to this club in terms of management, arguably the worst manager we’ve ever had.
 
Again you are assuming that the next manager has to be perfect, which is not the case or criteria.

Ineos (not me) can fire ETH, put RVN in place, remove him and get another manager, remove him and get another, until they are satisfied.
As long as Ineos (not me again) are confident of how they want the team to play and perform, what kind of players they want in the team, what kind of managers they want, they can fire managers who are not doing their jobs.

Yeah exactly, it's a case of finding who is going to be the best fit but like you say we may have to go through a few in order to solve problem. Why not just give Ruud a chance as interim until the end of the season, gotta be better than the current situation surely
 
Again you are assuming that the next manager has to be perfect, which is not the case or criteria.

Ineos (not me) can fire ETH, put RVN in place, remove him and get another manager, remove him and get another, until they are satisfied.
As long as Ineos (not me again) are confident of how they want the team to play and perform, what kind of players they want in the team, what kind of managers they want, they can fire managers who are not doing their jobs.
Precisely, with the New structure in place above the manager, that structure largely being responsible for transfers and playing philosophy, makes the roll of the manager quite different to years gone bye. The manager has far less responsibility and far less impact on the process if/when they need to be replaced. It'll be far less disruptive to replace managers quickly, until the right one is found.
The United structure also now makes the potential pool of managers significantly smaller, managers will have to accept diminished say in transfers and will have to suit the playing style demanded.
 
5 wins 4 draws 7 defeats in the last 16 prem games. -5 goal difference.

No other top half club in any league in Europe would tolerate that form. Let alone one pretending to care about success.

I was firmly ETH out even after we won the FA Cup. But many changed their opinion after the cup win. Unfortunately that includes Ineos Team.

I was in the opinion that last year injuries were excuses. After 2 years he can't even implement any style of play at all, injuries or not.
 
Neither of those were purely on Ole though, Maguire in particular we could have had much cheaper a season earlier but for Woodward being silly.

The managers aren't the ones spending the money, and the people who have been have contributed heavily to our problems.

A season earlier was his highest point when it comes to hype, he was coming off a good World Cup and reports stated that Leicester wanted at least 75m£.
 
Why do these polls always gradually soften over the days?

Obviously it’s still a huge majority who would sack but every day it gets a few percent smaller

Do people wait a couple of days and then realise that they like the pain and want it again?
 
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Why do these polls always gradually soften over the days?

Obviously it’s still a huge majority who would back but every day it gets a few percent smaller

So people wait a couple of days and then realise that they like the pain and want it again?
This time around it doesn't let you change your vote, so the swing this time is fully from new voters
 
The ‚no style of play‘ trope is tiring, we have a clear style of play.

We do absolutely have a squad that can get top four. But it is not a given. First we have to turn our form around, score goals, get confidence.
 
Precisely, with the New structure in place above the manager, that structure largely being responsible for transfers and playing philosophy, makes the roll of the manager quite different to years gone bye. The manager has far less responsibility and far less impact on the process if/when they need to be replaced. It'll be far less disruptive to replace managers quickly, until the right one is found.
The United structure also now makes the potential pool of managers significantly smaller, managers will have to accept diminished say in transfers and will have to suit the playing style demanded.

Just hope we can find someone from that pool of managers very soon who suits the playing style that INEOS are looking to implement
 
The ‚no style of play‘ trope is tiring, we have a clear style of play.

We do absolutely have a squad that can get top four. But it is not a given. First we have to turn our form around, score goals, get confidence.
Yeah people are confusing 'no style of play' with what is simply a bad plan. A crap plan is still a plan.

EtH could be doing much better if he reverted to the pragmatism of his first season but he's stubborn and doesn't want to do that. It will cost him his job.
 
Neither of those were purely on Ole though, Maguire in particular we could have had much cheaper a season earlier but for Woodward being silly.

The managers aren't the ones spending the money, and the people who have been have contributed heavily to our problems.
Yet if whoever is in charge say sorry TH/Ole etc the players you want are too much, then everyone says it’s not the managers fault they are not being backed. The managers can’t keep hiding behind it’s not my fault that …. happened
 
The ‚no style of play‘ trope is tiring, we have a clear style of play.
Which is not working or is being dismantled easily. But we are trying to do the same thing again and see if it works in the next game.
Reminds me of a quote about the definition of insanity.
 
The ‚no style of play‘ trope is tiring, we have a clear style of play.

We do absolutely have a squad that can get top four. But it is not a given. First we have to turn our form around, score goals, get confidence.
What is the style of play? I can’t personally see one
 
Why do these polls always gradually soften over the days?

Obviously it’s still a huge majority who would back but every day it gets a few percent smaller

So people wait a couple of days and then realise that they like the pain and want it again?
At least some will be opposition fans.
 
I never said they're fact. I said they are way more credible than you and they're not the only ones who said this

More credible than someone who isn't claiming to know anything as fact, well obviously. :confused:

Il ask again, multiple tier one sources have explained how INEOS work and not just Athletic, but Teg Hag and other journalists have corroborated each other.


Are you saying they're all wrong? And you're right because of your wonderful analysis that a couple of them are Dutch so there's no way INEOS could have endorsed them?

Here we go again, you definitely need to work on your comnprehension mate. I've said on multiple occasions that I don't know for certain what's going on behind the scenes and I only have suspicions.

Move on.
 
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