Erik ten Hag | 2024/25 | Sacked

Erik ten Hag


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I like how you just ignored his post and wrote some exaggerated nonsense (again)
Yes, because it’s headbanging stuff.

It’s fun watching you fellas trot out the same lame arguments time and again. Your recent “it’s been 3 games” is a gem.

Have a great day mate! I don’t mean that sarcastically, we’re all here to have fun.
 
Watched Wales under Bellamy last night and it's night and day from what Page was doing. He's had 4 days with the squad with a number of big injuries and they already played better football than we are watching in ten Hag's third year.
Careful. Not worth the long posts of massive excuses you’ll cause.
 
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This is an extremely generous spin on a season in which RVN was criticised for failing to implement a coherent style of play, criticised for an overly reactive approach tactically, criticised for underperforming on the resources available to him, criticised for failing to win the title in a season in which Ajax were very poor, criticised for disappointing in Europe, and ultimately reported to have lost the dressing room by the end of his time there.

PSV fans were generally unhappy with the job he did as manager for them, so I have no idea why anyone would think he'd be a suitable manager at our much higher level.
Not to mention that we've seen time and time again that success in the Eredivise often doesn't translate to success in the PL, both for managers & players. It's simply a poor league. Before anyone mentions Slot, 3 games is way too small a sample to judge him.
 
I would say Kicker is quite reliable, Bild and their stepchild SportBild are just a toilet bowl.

The Norman Bates/sociopath stuff started during his tenure in Dortmund. His reaction to the bus bombing, his awkwardness, social ineptitude, press conferences, his venomous dead eyes...he just oozes hatred for all life.

The Conte incident. In that moment you saw the Ted Bundy in him, an explosion of uncontrollable anger, in the blink of an eye.

He looks like Ed Gein, too. Norman Bates is based on Ed Gein, so that's where that comes from.

I read on this forum that Peppy Pep is a bit deranged. I rather think that Pep is a poet, writing bizarre stuff to himself, sitting at home, trying to invoke the universe. He is harmless. Pep lives in a different world.

Tuchel lives in this world and wants to see it burned to the ground. The type of person that reads Wasp Factory, then cries and says "that's me...I am not alone". Madness.
what did I even just read?
 
Yes, because it’s headbanging stuff.

It’s fun watching you fellas trot out the same lame arguments time and again. Your recent “it’s been 3 games” is a gem.

Have a great day mate! I don’t mean that sarcastically, we’re all here to have fun.
Do you know what the 3 game point is actually in context to?

Also nothing he said was headbanging stuff. It just didn't fit a certain narrative and had facts to support it, and you replied with something completely unrelated and made up.
 
Watched Wales under Bellamy last night and it's night and day from what Page was doing. He's had 4 days with the squad with a number of big injuries and they already played better football than we are watching in ten Hag's third year.
You do realise how absolutely ridiculous you sound, right?
 
Why do some people here think that ETH didnt want Ugarte? Hes very similar to Edson Alvarez at Ajax: great at breaking attack, crap at anything else. The reason why Baldy didnt play him against Pool is because the club failed to register him for that match, nothing else. He'll play him against Soton from the start i'm convinced about it.
Because it was reported that INEOS had to convince him, show him why he was a player we needed, ETH supposedly preferred to keep McT instead.... That was the story
 
I saw these comments as Ten Hag's way of justifying not playing the lad. He wasn't wanting him so he'll be used like Amad - if he absolutely has to.

I think he's using it as some sort of delaying tactics: "You think Ugarte playing would suddenly upgrade us? Well, I'll introduce him slowly so that you'll keep thinking a big improvement is just around the corner, as soon as Ugarte is REALLY fit. It might take months, though, so be patient, but it's coming, really!".
 
To be fair, united does have a strong squad on paper that can easily make top 10.

The addition of new defenders make the whole squad much more like a defensive rock. Onana is also a proactive keeper compared to De Gea.

In midfield, there is the reliable Mainoo and hard tackling Ugarte. Casemiro adds enormous experience to the team.

Rashford isn't that bad if you considered the fact that he's playing as a winger and he has higher goals to match ratio than most wingers. Garnacho is also extremely enthusiastic and wants to get on the scoring sheet on every match.

Bruno has high level of work ethic and is still one of the most lethal attacking midfielder around.

Hojlund and Zirkzee are extremely promising upfront, not to forget there's still Amad and Antony. Top 7 is an achieveable reach.
 
To be fair, united does have a strong squad on paper that can easily make top 10.

The addition of new defenders make the whole squad much more like a defensive rock. Onana is also a proactive keeper compared to De Gea.

In midfield, there is the reliable Mainoo and hard tackling Ugarte. Casemiro adds enormous experience to the team.

Rashford isn't that bad if you considered the fact that he's playing as a winger and he has higher goals to match ratio than most wingers. Garnacho is also extremely enthusiastic and wants to get on the scoring sheet on every match.

Bruno has high level of work ethic and is still one of the most lethal attacking midfielder around.

Hojlund and Zirkzee are extremely promising upfront, not to forget there's still Amad and Antony. Top 7 is an achieveable reach.
Yeah, it's hard not to get excited with such high aspirations for a manager in their third season after spending half a billion. Worst part is I'm sure a lot of the people backing him would consider 10th and a carabao cup this season a success. Trophies, heh
 
I think what hurting us most is that we aren't really committing in full to the principles of what he is trying to build. That's why he is failing because;
  • You need keen presses up front, he is not demanding this and the half hearted efforts expose the whole team.
  • The inverting fullback isn't really staying in midfield to help the DM with a short passing option.
  • The DM is not a good passer, he can't consistently make the forward passes his quick transitions require. We would be better served having a passer in there than an off the ball monster, don't know how he is going to work it out with Ugarte and Mainoo. This system demands a Scholes type as the DM.
  • The defense is not pushing up to compress the space, I think its better to concede from break away goals than to have a swam of opposition players overrunning your midfield and outnumbering the defense.

Maybe Zubimendi could be that Scholes type after all he was personally endorsed by the man himself
 
The sooner ETH leaves the better are chances of making top 4.

Yeah just hope INEOS don't leave it too late, would rather not wait until top 4 mathematically impossible
 
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So are we writing off top 4? Seems so from the posts on here

The owners are the ones writing it off by keeping this manager. United are not making Top 4 as long as he is in charge. The competition is fierce for another fluke.
 
To be fair, united does have a strong squad on paper that can easily make top 10.

The addition of new defenders make the whole squad much more like a defensive rock. Onana is also a proactive keeper compared to De Gea.

In midfield, there is the reliable Mainoo and hard tackling Ugarte. Casemiro adds enormous experience to the team.

Rashford isn't that bad if you considered the fact that he's playing as a winger and he has higher goals to match ratio than most wingers. Garnacho is also extremely enthusiastic and wants to get on the scoring sheet on every match.

Bruno has high level of work ethic and is still one of the most lethal attacking midfielder around.

Hojlund and Zirkzee are extremely promising upfront, not to forget there's still Amad and Antony. Top 7 is an achieveable reach.

Here's hoping, 7th would also be progress on last year. If we continue on that upward trajectory then 5-6 years from now we'd have a 2nd place finish to look forward to.
 
Here's hoping, 7th would also be progress on last year. If we continue on that upward trajectory then 5-6 years from now we'd have a 2nd place finish to look forward to.
The sad thing is that finishing 8th and deserving to finish there would be an improvement. Last season we deserved to finish significantly lower but over the course of the season we had a lot of luck in terms of getting wins or draws that we shouldn't have. Mostly in the first half of the season and plenty of people said it wasn't sustainable, and that's what we saw in the second half of the season where the results started reflecting the performances. From memory most stats said we deserved to finish about 14th, which does seem to agree with the eye test.
 
The sad thing is that finishing 8th and deserving to finish there would be an improvement. Last season we deserved to finish significantly lower but over the course of the season we had a lot of luck in terms of getting wins or draws that we shouldn't have. Mostly in the first half of the season and plenty of people said it wasn't sustainable, and that's what we saw in the second half of the season where the results started reflecting the performances. From memory most stats said we deserved to finish about 14th, which does seem to agree with the eye test.

Indeed mate 8th did flatter us. I think a lot of people didn't recognise just how bad performance levels were last season and put it all down to injuries.

We were playing like a mid table side and individual quality was getting us points. Post Xmas we were practically in relegation form for a few months.
 
So are we writing off top 4? Seems so from the posts on here

I think our squad is nowhere near as bad as people make out. Other than Arsenal, Liverpool and City who's squad would you swap for ours. Chelsea maybe? Spurs, Newcastle, Villa? No chance.

So on paper top 4 really shouldn't be that difficult. But Ten Hag so far has shown he's not capable of getting the team to play equal to the sum of its parts while the other clubs managers seem to elevate the players they have.
 
Manchester United had been a counter attacking side since the last years of SAF. That was by design. Flair players with the skillset needed to dominate games for 70-80 mins and constantly break low blocks cost money. Think of Pep's Barca and City or Milan of the 3 dutchmen. SAF squeezed the last drop of energy out of his winning side. His successors had to keep with the script which limited United to a top 4-6 EPL club without winning the title. Those who tried to switch things around (Ole last season, Rangnick and ETH season 2) failed miserably as it required a level of investment that the club can't sustain.

ETH had tried to introduce a new style of football (high press etc) while concurrently stressing on the only quality our forward line has (ie pace). Hence were the 3-1-6 system enters the scene. Once in possession, United commit as many players forward as possible and try to pass the ball quickly for them to score before the opposition can react. Unfortunately for him it lead to the worst of both worlds. Our side lack the football intelligence to switch at such quick tempo and when they do lose the ball they lack the quality, positioning, workrate and anticipation skills to quickly drop deep and the seriously undermanned defense. The pressure placed on the base 2 is ridiculous. The 6 and the 8 need to be perfect on everything and be at every place at every time. That's prime Ince-Prime Keane level of expectation.

In my opinion ETH needs to relieve such pressure over his CM. Bruno needs to drop deeper and our wingers must help out in defense. If after that we can't score goals then maybe its time to admit that maybe our forward line (wingers, FBs etc) aren't as good as we portray them to be. Let's be honest, Sterling had a better season in terms of goals/stats then all our wingers and that despite everyone know that he wasn't at his finest
 
Chelsea maybe? Spurs, Newcastle, Villa? No chance.

We have a better squad than all of those teams. And Liverpool is carried by the quartet of Alisson, Trent, Salah and van Dijk. As soon as one or more of those leave or start declining, they're in for some difficult times.
 
We have a better squad than all of those teams. And Liverpool is carried by the quartet of Alisson, Trent, Salah and van Dijk. As soon as one or more of those leave or start declining, they're in for some difficult times.
Ive heard a few on here now say we have a better squad on paper than XYZ.

I don't believe we do though. If we can't string two passes together, play at a high tempo, play quick accurate passes, play cohesive football, press consistently, defend competently, attack with menace and purpose, ruthlessly punish teams mistakes, put teams on the back foot consistently, RUN MORE!

Then how is it a better squad?? It really isn't im afraid. We make lesser teams look like Real Madrid all the time. And they generally don't seem to care, which is a mentality issue.

We do not have a better squad than XYZ.
 
So are we writing off top 4? Seems so from the posts on here

I'm extremely confident that EtH isn't getting anywhere near top 4. It doesn't matter what players we have at our disposal, his tactics and attitude make it extremely difficult for the players to perform consistently.
 
I really question whether he has a clue what he’s doing.

We’ve started the season exactly as I expected. The blame for this lies solely with INEOS. After the shit show of last season he should have been sacked. Sticking with him will probably see the league season over for us by Christmas again.
 
So are we writing off top 4? Seems so from the posts on here
Don’t think it’s a case of writing it off. It’s a case of not being confident of getting anywhere near top 4. We was all confident at the start of the season with the signings we’ve made but it looks likes nothings changed. We got battered at home against our rivals and lost to Brighton. Already 6pts behind everyone.
 
I really question whether he has a clue what he’s doing.

We’ve started the season exactly as I expected. The blame for this lies solely with INEOS. After the shit show of last season he should have been sacked. Sticking with him will probably see the league season over for us by Christmas again.
Harsh to blame INEOS. I think they was in their right to give him a chance under a proper structure with the correct signings. They do have a chance to make us believe in them though by not waiting until it’s too late to save our season. If we don’t get at least 7 pts from Southampton, palace and spurs then he needs replacing.
 
For me, Ugarte is his last chance. If he can’t make his tactic work with him in midfield then I think we have to call it. I suspect it will be a typical November sacking, and hope then we make a move for Amorim.

A fresh start with a charismatic manager and a new tactical approach I think will do this group some good. Our 4231 has become stale and ineffective, and I think we have the players to move to a 343 quite easily.
 
For me, Ugarte is his last chance. If he can’t make his tactic work with him in midfield then I think we have to call it. I suspect it will be a typical November sacking, and hope then we make a move for Amorim.

A fresh start with a charismatic manager and a new tactical approach I think will do this group some good. Our 4231 has become stale and ineffective, and I think we have the players to move to a 343 quite easily.
Thats nonsense! Last year it was martinez (as he was injured), now its ugarte, whats next??
 
The club has hit a very low ceiling under the current manager.

Bringing in a new coach will reinvigorate the performances pending INEOS do their due diligence on the type of identity they intend the team to have.

Additionally United won't get top four on the premise of the team alone, the quality is there from the players but the manager is too incompetent tactically which causes inconsistency.

9 points separated Villa from the club for top four despite losing over 14 games in the season, so I can only see top four as an option pending a colossal loss of form among Spurs, Newcastle, Villa and Chelsea.
 
The club has hit a very low ceiling under the current manager.

Bringing in a new coach will reinvigorate the performances pending INEOS do their due diligence on the type of identity they intend the team to have.

Additionally United won't get top four on the premise of the team alone, the quality is there from the players but the manager is too incompetent tactically which causes inconsistency.

9 points separated Villa from the club for top four despite losing over 14 games in the season, so I can only see top four as an option pending a colossal loss of form among Spurs, Newcastle, Villa and Chelsea.

Yeah we need to bring in a new coach for some fresh ideas, whole thing is stale with Erik
 
Ive heard a few on here now say we have a better squad on paper than XYZ.

I don't believe we do though. If we can't string two passes together, play at a high tempo, play quick accurate passes, play cohesive football, press consistently, defend competently, attack with menace and purpose, ruthlessly punish teams mistakes, put teams on the back foot consistently, RUN MORE!

Then how is it a better squad?? It really isn't im afraid. We make lesser teams look like Real Madrid all the time. And they generally don't seem to care, which is a mentality issue.

We do not have a better squad than XYZ.

The squad is underperforming. Our players have shown in the past, that they are better than what they showed last year, whether at United or at previous clubs. Do you think they just all forgot how to play football overnight, or is it down to the tactical system being subpar, when most players of a team look like shadows of their past selves?
 
The squad is underperforming. Our players have shown in the past, that they are better than what they showed last year, whether at United or at previous clubs. Do you think they just all forgot how to play football overnight, or is it down to the tactical system being subpar, when most players of a team look like shadows of their past selves?

Not to pick on you specifically, but a common argument to bin Ten Hag is the freedom he has (supposedly) had to overhaul the squad to his liking.

A significant number of the players we used in 22/23 have since left the club, and at least a couple of those that remain are not the players they were two seasons ago, simply because of their age.

You say we're underperforming because we've seen these players perform better, but is it not possible that our squad is simply not as strong as it once was?

We've a lot of youth in the side that bodes well for the future, but not necessarily for the here and now.
 
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