Erik ten Hag | 2024/25 | Sacked

Erik ten Hag

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The Hilton said:
I'm in the camp that it's best to wait until the summer, as the pool of attainable candidates will be much deeper then.
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I'm sorry, but this is laughable and sums up a portion of the fan base at the moment. Around 80% of this forum I'd say knew we were heading for trouble continuing with him after the FA Cup final, but you want to throw another season down the drain, and extend our misery until next summer. Do actually support the club, or despise it?
 
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NLunited said:
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.
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Please tell me what our attacking style of play is under Ten Hag when we are in the final third of the pitch on the ball?
 
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
Summer literally ended last week.

So you’d throw away a whole seasons worth of disjointed and low level football instead of acting proactively and rolling the dice? That is ludicrous.

Thankfully INEOS, Ashworth and Berrada won’t think the same. A few more losses with terrible on pitch performances within the next month and he’ll be gone.
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Funny thing is many said this exact same thing last winter. “No point in sacking him right now, no good alternatives better to see if he can turn it around and wait until summer!”
 
OverratedOpinion said:
Imagine if we get a pair of 1-0 wins against Southampton and Barnsley. This place will be awash with people proclaiming it's proof that we are "improving" and need to trust "the process".
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That's the sad truth.

I've seen enough at this point to know that this mess isn't going to be turned around. Thanks for the trophies and the relatively decent first season, but the rest has been a complete waste of time. Not sure how anyone can think he'll somehow stop with the nonsical tactics and turn this around.
 
Everyone who voted "No" should be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and chucked into a bin, like that cool lady did with that dickhead cat.
 
The idea that some are happy to grin and bear it till the summer, even though they don’t believe in Ten Hag is absolutely bonkers. What sort of loser mentality is that? It’s September 4th! Every single competition we’re in is technically still very much up for grabs.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Funny thing is many said this exact same thing last winter. “No point in sacking him right now, no good alternatives better to see if he can turn it around and wait until summer!”
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:lol: I saw that a few times last winter in our run of losses. It’s a really poor excuse. Just wasting more time, losing more money, losing our reputation. A season is a long time.
 
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
Please tell me what our attacking style of play is under Ten Hag when we are in the final third of the pitch on the ball?
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If playing against a settled defense: I’ve noticed that we create triangles on one side and overload it to create room in the center and far post.

Though, most of our chances come from transitions and balls down the channels from defence or midfield.
 
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
Please tell me what our attacking style of play is under Ten Hag when we are in the final third of the pitch on the ball?
Click to expand...

It *seems* like our actual final third style (not transition) is to hold the wingers ultra wide, have one fullback invert/underlap while the two CM’s stay central to cycle the ball and Bruno and the striker stay central ahead of them.

There’s not much in terms of set patterns from what I can tell, and much of it seems to involve circulating the ball on one side, switching it and trying to get a 1v1 opportunity on the otherwise between the winger and his man and trying to create from there. Strikers in this system seem borderline pointless in the final third with how little they see the ball (a part reason why our strikers don’t score much). It also seems like defenders/midfielders have license to run beyond the forwards if they see the opportunity (we’ve seen Dalot, Casemiro, Bruno, Mount do this pretty often).

I said it the other week but I actually sort of hate how we seem to play positional structured without banging in creative patterns that the players can fall back on. If it’s not going to be pattern based, then I’d rather have Amad/Garnacho/Rashford drifting more centrally and fullbacks holding width in the traditional sense while Bruno can float and do what he does best by freelancing creation. As of now it’s mostly relying on these wingers to pass their way out of double teams near the touchline in some intricate off the cuff way when very few players in our team fit that style (Amad, Mainoo, Maz, Zirkzee can prob do it but that’s mostly it)
 
VP89 said:
Worth noting that it appeard RvN has taken this part over so we should probably be calm on this.
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Fair enough, let’s see if there are any notable attacking patterns of play coached within the next month or so. Shouldn’t take that long, Ruud joined in July.

3 games in and I haven’t seen anything new attack wise apart from the super high press, disjointed counter attacks and long balls over the top.
 
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
Fair enough, let’s see if there are any notable attacking patterns of play coached within the next month or so. Shouldn’t take that long, Ruud joined in July.

3 games in and I haven’t seen anything new attack wise apart from the super high press, disjointed counter attacks and long balls over the top.
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Im going to stick my neck out and be optimistic about the next games :)
 
If there's one thing Ole got right with respects to his tenure, it's that his United team at least stormed the box in numbers on the break, which is what teams did under Sir Alex when Ole played for us.

Now, our players don't even get in the box, and if they do, we're lucky if it's more than just one.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
It *seems* like our actual final third style (not transition) is to hold the wingers ultra wide, have one fullback invert/underlap while the two CM’s stay central to cycle the ball and Bruno and the striker stay central ahead of them.

There’s not much in terms of set patterns from what I can tell, and much of it seems to involve circulating the ball on one side, switching it and trying to get a 1v1 opportunity on the otherwise between the winger and his man and trying to create from there. Strikers in this system seem borderline pointless in the final third with how little they see the ball (a part reason why our strikers don’t score much). It also seems like defenders/midfielders have license to run beyond the forwards if they see the opportunity (we’ve seen Dalot, Casemiro, Bruno, Mount do this pretty often).
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Good breakdown.

I’ve definitely seen the switch of play often to the isolated winger and the defender/midfielder bombing past the ball through the middle. We see Dalot, Casemiro do it multiple times a game. The key thing is that the isolation doesn’t work as there isn’t a teammate for the winger to work with. Spot on with the isolated striker, too. It’s all disjointed.

I agree with you, there’s hardly anything there in terms of a set and repetitive pattern that we have seemed to work on 4/5 times a gameweek.
 
Hoof the ball said:
Now, our players don't even get in the box, and if they do, we're lucky if it's more than just one.
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I think it was in the Brighton game, at one point, Rashy and Bruno actively stayed back outside the box even when they had time to run into the box.
 
NLunited said:
If playing against a settled defense: I’ve noticed that we create triangles on one side and overload it to create room in the center and far post.

Though, most of our chances come from transitions and balls down the channels from defence or midfield.
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Unfortunately, I’ve hardly seen us make triangles on the flanks. This is what Arsenal, City and especially Spurs are very good at.

I agree, most of our chances are transitional.
 
VP89 said:
Worth noting that it appeard RvN has taken this part over so we should probably be calm on this.
Click to expand...
Oh look, it's the second Kees Vos agency rep.
You and NLunited are working overtime lately.

Worth noting that you have zero proof this is the case.

By all indications, Ruud is not the main man responsible for our attacking setup, but rather coaches individual players.

I bet you're setting this scenario up so that you can easily shift blame from Ten Hag to Van Nistelrooy when the inevitable happens, and Van Nistelrooy becomes interim after Ten Hag is deservedly sacked.
 
DJ_21 said:
You can mention the style of play or lack of but when you have players like Rashford it won’t work. Alls it takes is 1 bad egg and the system fails or doesn’t work consistently. When the style works though we look really good. We seen glimpses in the Final when we passed through city, played 1 long direct pass and we score a beautiful team goal. The players mentality is a big issue.
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Yey Rashford keeps getting picked to start, amazing really.
 
ifightdragons said:
Oh look, it's the second Kees Vos agency rep.
You and NLunited are working overtime lately.

Worth noting that you have zero proof this is the case.

By all indications, Ruud is not the main man responsible for our attacking setup, but rather coaches individual players.

I bet you're setting this scenario up so that you can easily shift blame from Ten Hag to Van Nistelrooy when the inevitable happens, and Van Nistelrooy becomes interim after Ten Hag is deservedly sacked.
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Melissa Reddy spend time in preseason watching training and sitting with the coaches.

She said RvN had taken over the "offensive automation" routines which was an interesting development in their coaching preparation into the season.

Next time you want to accuse people of making things up, try not to make things up yourself. And whether you agree or disagree with our broader views, try to keep track of what was being posted.
 
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
Good breakdown.

I’ve definitely seen the switch of play often to the isolated winger and the defender/midfielder bombing past the ball through the middle. We see Dalot, Casemiro do it multiple times a game. The key thing is that the isolation doesn’t work as there isn’t a teammate for the winger to work with. Spot on with the isolated striker, too. It’s all disjointed.

I agree with you, there’s hardly anything there in terms of a set and repetitive pattern that we have seemed to work on 4/5 times a gameweek.
Click to expand...
I’ve actually gone back and looked at Ajax under Ten Hag as well and the more I’ve watched the more the red flags are evident that what he was doing there wouldn’t translate well.

They’d play some breathtaking stuff, montage worthy at times, but a lot of what he set up relies on individual problem solving and a general technical superiority that his players had over almost everyone in that league. They also pretty consistently struggled defending transitions back then (sound familiar?) but it didn’t matter as much because they had brilliant players that could go score again.

It’s seemingly this hybrid of structured “principles” and off the cuff trust in players finding solutions within the game. That’s an incredibly difficult balance and style to play if you don’t have a huge advantage in overall talent. It’s why I think even if you gave us Madrids squad we wouldn’t be some unbeatable team. And add to that the fact that he clearly underestimated the physical jump in the PL and it’s been a disaster. It’s simply not really possible to play this setup where you are pressing high and going man to man with your two midfielders, and THEN also trying to counter at pace and playing hyper direct. With how fast the PL is already , even the best athletes in your squad will be dead tired in the final 30 minutes of the game. I also think it’s indicative of how many non contact muscular injuries we’ve seen in the past year+.

Again, this failure of his initial style wouldn’t completely be an issue if he’d have recognized that what he’s doing isnt going to work, but he didn’t. Instead he stupidly believed it was strictly personnel based and some rotten injury luck that had his sides getting battered by relegation level teams consistently. Even this year, the “improvement” was pretty much solely based on the high pressing success due to playing Mount (who when fit is one of the better pressing players in the world) while sacrificing attacking threat to do so. It was a gimmick of a solution that would never consistently see results, and even then we saw that the rest of the side STILL reverted into having to play a transitional basketball game in the final 20 minutes of both Fulham and Brighton.

A great manager would have adjusted his system and style to the new league and tweaked it to allow his players to flourish initially. But even a half decent manager would have realized a month or two into last season that what he’s built his “system” on is untenable and would drastically need to be adjusted and quickly (Van Gaal is a good example). Ten Hag did neither.
 
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RedDevil@84 said:
I think it was in the Brighton game, at one point, Rashy and Bruno actively stayed back outside the box even when they had time to run into the box.
Click to expand...

They all do it, except for Hojlund, who is the only one who repeatedly makes runs into the box to receive. It's infuriating. Rashford, in particular, is so passive in and around the box. In that 30 goal season he had a few good headers, and has since abandoned ever making those same runs. But in general, even though we're transitional, we're paradoxically the least vertical team in the world. We're like Subbuteo where only one person can move at any given time.
 
mintyred said:
You clearly have forgotten all context within those seasons. We had many dark moments and you’re living in denial. League finishes didn’t tell the full story like how we were 14 points behind city at the end of the season we finished second after being top around Christmas…

Sounds like you’re trying to shift the blame on Ronaldo to block out the reality Ole is a shit manager.

He couldn’t coach so he played a low block and counter and hoped no one noticed. He also destroyed the dressing room by promoting a toxic atmosphere and empowering losers. He lied to players and selected out of form players with injuries over superior players.

I could go on but a simple google search could remind you. Our rivals loved Ole.
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I'm well aware of the context, I already acknowledged in the first post we weren't going to win the very top prizes under Solskjaer. There is such a thing as nuance.

You're pushing the idea that he's a shit manager who couldn't coach and destroyed the dressing room, yet his teams scored more goals, played better football and produced better league finishes across multiple seasons than all of his contemporaries as United manager. We actually looked competitive against Pep's City team and won half of our league encounters against them during that spell, who else has managed that?

That's the context you've forgotten. It wasn't faultless, the final season was disastrous even, but Solskjaer was only a couple of trophies away from a very respectable run as United manager. Too many people make out he was a blabbering idiot when nobody else produced better in the last decade.
 
Revan said:
Carrick hasn’t been particularly successful in championship. If we want to hire some unqualified manager cause he has United roots, than hopefully we hire some talented one like McKenna (whom to be fair will be damaged goods by the end of season).
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Carrick will do OK at Boro, the guy will get a top job in a few years . He will do better with better players and better facilities, the trouble is he English and won't get a fair crack at a top job.

A guy with a name like Carlos kickaball from deepest Peru will get a better chance . The likeliest candidate it ETH goes .. is RVN .. and imo thats why he's there.
 
hobbers said:
He backed it up fine. Neville was the one putting a position out he clearly doesnt believe in for the cameras. As he always does whenever it comes to the matter of United's manager.
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At 4:05 he says they lost their nerve, at 4:56 he pivots to a completely different logic, jumping on Neville saying they were looking to prove his point. It doesn’t, not even remotely.

That’s not backing anything up fine, it’s classic Carragher and people swallowing that need to be a bit smarter
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
I’ve actually gone back and looked at Ajax under Ten Hag as well and the more I’ve watched the more the red flags are evident that what he was doing there wouldn’t translate well.

They’d play some breathtaking stuff, montage worthy at times, but a lot of what he set up relies on individual problem solving and a general technical superiority that his players had over almost everyone in that league. They also pretty consistently struggled defending transitions back then (sound familiar?) but it didn’t matter as much because they had brilliant players that could go score again.

It’s seemingly this hybrid of structured “principles” and off the cuff trust in players finding solutions within the game. That’s an incredibly difficult balance and style to play if you don’t have a huge advantage in overall talent. It’s why I think even if you gave us Madrids squad we wouldn’t be some unbeatable team. And add to that the fact that he clearly underestimated the physical jump in the PL and it’s been a disaster. It’s simply not really possible to play this setup where you are pressing high and going man to man with your two midfielders, and THEN also trying to counter at pace and playing hyper direct. With how fast the PL is already , even the best athletes in your squad will be dead tired in the final 30 minutes of the game. I also think it’s indicative of how many non contact muscular injuries we’ve seen in the past year+.

Again, this failure of his initial style wouldn’t completely be an issue if he’d have recognized that what he’s doing isnt going to work, but he didn’t. Instead he stupidly believed it was strictly personnel based and some rotten injury luck that had his sides getting battered by relegation level teams consistently. Even this year, the “improvement” was pretty much solely based on the high pressing success due to playing Mount (who when fit is one of the better pressing players in the world) while sacrificing attacking threat to do so. It was a gimmick of a solution that would never consistently see results, and even then we saw that the rest of the side STILL reverted into having to play a transitional basketball game in the final 20 minutes of both Fulham and Brighton.

A great manager would have adjusted his system and style to the new league and tweaked it to allow his players to flourish initially. But even a half decent manager would have realized a month or two into last season that what he’s built his “system” on is untenable and would drastically need to be adjusted and quickly (Van Gaal is a good example). Ten Hag did neither.
Click to expand...
Spot on post.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
I’ve actually gone back and looked at Ajax under Ten Hag as well and the more I’ve watched the more the red flags are evident that what he was doing there wouldn’t translate well.

They’d play some breathtaking stuff, montage worthy at times, but a lot of what he set up relies on individual problem solving and a general technical superiority that his players had over almost everyone in that league. They also pretty consistently struggled defending transitions back then (sound familiar?) but it didn’t matter as much because they had brilliant players that could go score again.

It’s seemingly this hybrid of structured “principles” and off the cuff trust in players finding solutions within the game. That’s an incredibly difficult balance and style to play if you don’t have a huge advantage in overall talent. It’s why I think even if you gave us Madrids squad we wouldn’t be some unbeatable team. And add to that the fact that he clearly underestimated the physical jump in the PL and it’s been a disaster. It’s simply not really possible to play this setup where you are pressing high and going man to man with your two midfielders, and THEN also trying to counter at pace and playing hyper direct. With how fast the PL is already , even the best athletes in your squad will be dead tired in the final 30 minutes of the game. I also think it’s indicative of how many non contact muscular injuries we’ve seen in the past year+.

Again, this failure of his initial style wouldn’t completely be an issue if he’d have recognized that what he’s doing isnt going to work, but he didn’t. Instead he stupidly believed it was strictly personnel based and some rotten injury luck that had his sides getting battered by relegation level teams consistently. Even this year, the “improvement” was pretty much solely based on the high pressing success due to playing Mount (who when fit is one of the better pressing players in the world) while sacrificing attacking threat to do so. It was a gimmick of a solution that would never consistently see results, and even then we saw that the rest of the side STILL reverted into having to play a transitional basketball game in the final 20 minutes of both Fulham and Brighton.

A great manager would have adjusted his system and style to the new league and tweaked it to allow his players to flourish initially. But even a half decent manager would have realized a month or two into last season that what he’s built his “system” on is untenable and would drastically need to be adjusted and quickly (Van Gaal is a good example). Ten Hag did neither.
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Well done. Agree with everything you said.
 
Rolaholic said:
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Pos​
Club​
Games​
W​
D​
L​
GF​
GA​
GD​
Pts​
1st​
Man City​
17​
15​
2​
0​
48​
10​
38​
47​
2nd​
Arsenal​
17​
14​
2​
1​
43​
8​
35​
44​
3rd​
Liverpool​
17​
11​
4​
2​
38​
18​
20​
37​
4th​
Chelsea​
17​
9​
6​
2​
43​
28​
15​
33​
5th​
Newcastle​
17​
9​
4​
4​
38​
25​
13​
31​
6th​
Aston Villa​
17​
8​
4​
5​
30​
33​
-3​
28​
7th​
Crystal Palace​
17​
7​
5​
5​
32​
20​
12​
26​
8th​
Bournemouth​
17​
7​
4​
6​
26​
25​
1​
25​
9th​
Tottenham​
17​
7​
2​
8​
29​
28​
1​
23​
10th​
Fulham​
17​
6​
4​
7​
25​
25​
0​
22​
11th​
Man Utd​
17​
6​
4​
7​
26​
30​
-4​
22​
12th​
Brentford​
17​
5​
5​
7​
26​
26​
0​
20​
13th​
Nottm Forest​
17​
5​
5​
7​
22​
25​
-3​
20​
14th​
Brighton​
17​
5​
5​
7​
18​
24​
-6​
20​
15th​
West Ham​
17​
5​
4​
8​
28​
37​
-9​
19​
16th​
Everton​
17​
5​
4​
8​
16​
29​
-13​
19​
17th​
Wolves​
17​
4​
3​
10​
16​
35​
-19​
15​

It's actually 6 wins.
 
Having calmed down after the game and after rewatching the match. I feel sorry for our midfield. The setup, tactics were soo wrong. Bruno was no where near the midfield all game, it was basically 3 vs 2 all match in the middle. I agree that Casemiro made poor passes which led to chances, but even then we were too easy to play all game and in second half Liverpool basically took it easy but still had a Sobozli chance where he messed up in front of goal by taking too many touches and then Salah put it above the bar from 10 yards out.

Casemiro's mistakes has kind of given him a way out, but he needs to realize and change his suicidal tactics of allowing both FBs to go forward same time and leaving two CBs and Cas as three players with no one close by, playing midfielders so far away from each other with Bruno basically playing as a second striker.

He should be playing three midfielders all close to each other, giving them passing options, plus as Pep once said he prefers midfielders passing 5 yards instead of 15, because with 5 yards, even if you mess up a pass, the players can quickly swamp you and take the ball away, whereas for longer passes the recipient is taken out of the play completely. He does not have the tactical nous to understand this simple fact.

Lastly taking Amad out and Garnacho was also another blunder, which also made Mazouri toothless and Garnacho could not even control the ball and was bullied all game, let alone combine with FB.

I was ETH out last season, but sort of continued with backed him this season with new coaching team and new players, it appears to have no impact whatsoever. The slight silver lining is our team has improved overall and has good depth in defense and attack. Could do with another CM for replacement with Mainoo, except that we are in very good shape, so whoever we choose as a new manager will have a good squad to mould into his style of play and could get far better results.
 
RedSky said:
Pos​
Club​
Games​
W​
D​
L​
GF​
GA​
GD​
Pts​
1st​
Man City​
17​
15​
2​
0​
48​
10​
38​
47​
2nd​
Arsenal​
17​
14​
2​
1​
43​
8​
35​
44​
3rd​
Liverpool​
17​
11​
4​
2​
38​
18​
20​
37​
4th​
Chelsea​
17​
9​
6​
2​
43​
28​
15​
33​
5th​
Newcastle​
17​
9​
4​
4​
38​
25​
13​
31​
6th​
Aston Villa​
17​
8​
4​
5​
30​
33​
-3​
28​
7th​
Crystal Palace​
17​
7​
5​
5​
32​
20​
12​
26​
8th​
Bournemouth​
17​
7​
4​
6​
26​
25​
1​
25​
9th​
Tottenham​
17​
7​
2​
8​
29​
28​
1​
23​
10th​
Fulham​
17​
6​
4​
7​
25​
25​
0​
22​
11th​
Man Utd​
17​
6​
4​
7​
26​
30​
-4​
22​
12th​
Brentford​
17​
5​
5​
7​
26​
26​
0​
20​
13th​
Nottm Forest​
17​
5​
5​
7​
22​
25​
-3​
20​
14th​
Brighton​
17​
5​
5​
7​
18​
24​
-6​
20​
15th​
West Ham​
17​
5​
4​
8​
28​
37​
-9​
19​
16th​
Everton​
17​
5​
4​
8​
16​
29​
-13​
19​
17th​
Wolves​
17​
4​
3​
10​
16​
35​
-19​
15​

It's actually 6 wins.
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It still doesn’t change the narrative. Only scoring 22 points out of a total of 51 points isn’t good.
 
He's ruining my football club that I've supported for 27 years. I absolutely despise the man. Please sack him.
 
He has shown no system, no consistency and is in his 3rd season. He gotten every player hes asked for including a 80 million pound fidget spinner.

I have no faith in him to turn this around as he continuously fails to see the issues and repeatedly tries the same things even when failing at them rather spectacularly.

I just hope that the new board keeps him on a shirt leash and sacks him preferably before Christmas
 
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