Erik ten Hag | 2024/25 | Sacked

[tomaldinho1]

I think the new manager bounce we’ll be getting soon will help us scrape our way out, especially with the change in format.

Even if it is Southgate?

 

[Sarni]

Zirkee stopped a defo goal that would have put United 2-1 up against Brighton. I don’t think I have ever seen a goal disallowed for that because it never happens.

You said XG after pool leading doesn’t matter, well United going 2-1 up at that time could of changed the ending and 95th minute winner.

Like I said, I don’t like XG, applying it game on game is not great, but you can’t Select games like pool and say “well that XG doesn’t really tell the full story” and ignore a massive issue with the Brighton one at the same time.

They were 3-0 ahead before we started to create anything. We had an xG of 0.08 going into half time break. Even if we scored one of these chances these would have just been a consolation goal at that point.

 

[Fanatic 00237]

Realistically the perceived improvement is that we are not conceding 20+ shots a game, when you start low improvements are easy to come by

That's what I was alluding to, yes, the bar was set so low last season that we could only do better, especially with the additions to the squad. I mean even Southgate *shudders* would be lauded today as having improved the team if he had come in.

 

[Sarni]

Vs Brighton, Garnachos disallowed goal wipes out the XG from that chance is that correct? If so it goes to show how shit XG is in analysing games.

I don't think it does, I think Garnacho's chance still counts. Zirkzee's doesn't (which would have had an xG of 0.95 or so).

It is imperfect for sure (like the Liverpool example) but gives you directional sense of the quality of chances being created.

 

[Someone]

Even if it is Southgate?

Still don't see it happening. Don't think the new regime would want so much negativity associated with their first appointment. I mean even if Southgate is actually a good manager, he'd be at an immediate disadvantage with almost all the fanbase not wanting him there. Would be a moronic decision.

 

[Jeffthered]

I think what people don't truly understand is, to justify his stay, Ten Hag would have needed to have a drastically improved start to the season, both in results and performance.
Our fans seem to think that we have an obligation to will managers to success. We don't. It's business, where the results and performance directly affect our operations and finances. It's not sentimental and it should not be, unless the figure in question has shown quality to deserve that consideration. Arsenal under Wenger owed him that. In addition, he was producing good football, but did not have the funds required to deserve that level of expectation.

Ten Hag has actually proven that he is not qualified for the job. His performance last season, FA Cup or no FA Cup, was the worst by any Man United manager. The dispiriting impact it had on the club, fans and players cannot truly be explained. No other big club with our status would have tolerated even half of what went on last season. He doesn't deserve the time and I personally don't think that was the point. I think people like to think that INEOS did not find the right manager; I don't actually think this is true. I think INEOS didn't find the right manager that would justify replacing Ten Hag at the time of winning the FA Cup and prior to setting up the senior management structure. I believe they would have changed course if they believed there was a truly exceptional manager like a Klopp or Pep, who could handle the blowback of the sacking and not having a structure temporarily. Essentially, I think time rather than quality was the main factor in their decision. I believe they've given Ten Hag the opportunity to impress, whilst using the lack of fanfare and pressure to place structures and showcase their abilities in the market without distraction. They're able to focus on planning the new stadium, bringing in new signings and bringing in new personnel without the instability of a new manager.

This means, Ten Hag was nobody's choice, but rather a short term stopgap of stability. In addition, poor results have decimated any hostility that would have arisen from sacking Ten Hag at the end of the summer. United fans and the media tend to have short memories in regard to these type of things, and would quickly have turned on INEOS for taking that decision without giving Ten Hag a chance to turn it around. Noone can say that they haven't given him time now. Noone can say it was injuries or lack of support or lack of signings. This is not to say that they callously planned this out, but made the decision hoping that Ten Hag really would turn things around, with the safeguard that if he didn't, a lot of positive things would have taken place and any potential blowback would have dissipated.

This is a really good post. ETH has had more than enough time to show his credentials as a manager at a club such as Manchester United. Next season will be his fourth in charge, consider that for a minute.

 

[Rolaholic]

So it begins...

 

[Blood Mage]

What did they think was going to happen? It was obvious by the end of last season he was never turning this around. He's simply not a good enough manager at this level.

Keeping him was a huge mistake and they need to own it and learn from it.

 

[Leethal]

So it begins...

Who are they? And how do they know?

 

[Michael T]

Look out! Ole's pulling his driving gloves on!


Just kidding.

 

[Top_Bins]

Yeah especially when you have Romano coming out with quotes about INEOS giving him time for Yoro to come back.

That true?
We're always one key player missing from this amazing transformation.
A system so good that just one part missing makes it look like utter rudderless shit.

 

[bosskeano]

a negative result this weekend against Spurs and he has to go

 

[VP89]

I don't think it does, I think Garnacho's chance still counts. Zirkzee's doesn't (which would have had an xG of 0.95 or so).

It is imperfect for sure (like the Liverpool example) but gives you directional sense of the quality of chances being created.

Do you have a link? I'm sure that XG excludes attacks that were offside.

In any case I think a draw at Brighton was more accurate reflection of chances and I think we really should have beaten palace if our strikers could finish (and I do not see this as a managerial problem as such).

That would probably have us 4 pts worse off than our performances may suggest, which is funnily enough 1pt off Arsenal.

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

But once that half time comes around, we come out as a completely different team and not a good one at that.

Think we need to be looking at whoever is in charge of the half-time brews.

Could foul play could be afoot!

 

[Top_Bins]

Think we need to be looking at whoever is in charge of the half-time brews. Could play could be afoot!

Fingers pointed at the tea-ladies:
Richard Richard and Eddie Hitler.
'It's the best tea in Manchester!'

 

[izec]

a negative result this weekend against Spurs and he has to go

He should, but there is no way he is going now.

At the earliest November or December. I dont think Ineos have it in them to sack him so early. They fecked up in the summer

 

[Sarni]

It'll be a mix as usual. We beat Spurs, draw to Porto and lose to Villa. The sort of run that makes you wonder whether to sack him or back him. Rinse and repeat.

Yeah it's a cycle. Then we will finish 7th, have another underwhelming but slightly improved season but come end of May we will be playing an EL final against Roma, we will win and he will get a new contract.

 

[Desert Eagle]

He should, but there is no way he is going now.

At the earliest November or December. I dont think Ineos have it in them to sack him so early. They fecked up in the summer

If he loses the next two games he will managing for his job against Villa.

 

[izec]

If he loses the next two games he will managing for his job against Villa.

We are usually not in a complete free fall. He still managed to win a game here and there and draws out the inevitable. That is why it is painful.

 

[Shark]

We are usually not in a complete free fall. He still managed to win a game here and there and draws out the inevitable. That is why it is painful.

He hasn't played anyone even half decent yet, aside from Liverpool and they tonked us 0-3 on our own turf. The next string of fixtures could easily send us into free fall.

 

[Ayoba]

What time is the presser?

 

[Desert Eagle]

We are usually not in a complete free fall. He still managed to win a game here and there and draws out the inevitable. That is why it is painful.

If he keeps starting Bruno and we keep getting these 0/10 performances, I can see it getting really bad.

 

[Teja]

It... really wasn't.

Our form dipped just before the League Cup final and has been in the gutter ever since.

We literally scraped to 4th place and almost threw it away in the end.

Don't forget we also got tanked 7-0 at Anfield.

But sure, I guess that's "fine".

The 7-0 at Anfield was us being over confident and attempting to press Liverpool up high at Anfield. They had a poor run of results, everyone believed they were there for the taking and we were in decent form.

But yeah I agree that we almost threw away the fourth place and the form was bad towards the end of the season.

 

[kundalini]

Do you have a link? I'm sure that XG excludes attacks that were offside.

In any case I think a draw at Brighton was more accurate reflection of chances and I think we really should have beaten palace if our strikers could finish (and I do not see this as a managerial problem as such).

That would probably have us 4 pts worse off than our performances may suggest, which is funnily enough 1pt off Arsenal.

Understat have Garnacho's chance against Brighton as being blocked, which is weird. 0.52 xG out of 1.29 total for United against Brighton. Amad's chance from Dalot's cross was assessed as being 0.30. Looking at the xG of respective chances, Brighton seem to have had more big chances in that game, though I'm not sure what the cut-off point is for big chances in terms of xG.

https://understat.com/match/26612

Arsenal's fixture schedule to date is somewhat different to United's so comparing points at this stage doesn't tell you a great deal.

The appropriate stages for assessing managers is at the end of the season and at the midway point, as all teams have played each other twice (end) or once (midway). Often a good or bad run is largely due to the difficulty of that set of fixtures.

 

[VP89]

Understat have Garnacho's chance against Brighton as being blocked, which is weird. 0.52 xG out of 1.29 total for United against Brighton. Amad's chance from Dalot's cross was assessed as being 0.30. Looking at the xG of respective chances, Brighton seem to have had more big chances in that game, though I'm not sure what the cut-off point is for big chances in terms of xG.

https://understat.com/match/26612

Arsenal's fixture schedule to date is somewhat different to United's so comparing points at this stage doesn't tell you a great deal.

As I say, a draw was probably a fair reflection of how the Brighton match went by way of performance. Even if Arsenal edge on a trickier fixture list it says something that we are unfortunate to not be right up behind them.

 

[sparx99]

I just dispute that the tactical failings in attack have been adequately eradicated. I still think we have lots of tactical issues in attack. Despite creating more chances this season, we still often look slow, imbalanced and lacking in ideas when trying to break teams down. Especially later in matches once our opponents to have made adjustments. Ten Hag hasn’t yet demonstrated an ability to himself respond with changes which can force a break through, despite now having much better options off the bench.

So no, I just don’t accept our consistent lack of goals is simply and only down to poor finishing. All teams miss chances. Palace also missed chances.I think Ten Hag’s coaching, set up and tactics are still a limiting factor in our attack. I still have no doubt that other managers could get a better attacking tune out of this set of players.

I still don’t feel as if sufficient goals are an inevitability with this team set up in this way, especially when we have much tougher opponents coming up. And I still don’t feel it’s an inevitability that our results will improve just because we m’re creating more chances and had a good half against a poor Palace team and a good result against a poor Southampton team. We’ve seen so many false dawns and many of our previous failings which have regularly cost us results are still there.

Is that a reactionary take? Or are there some legitimate justifications for being underwhelmed by a slight increase in chances created during a fairly gentle start to the season?

I guess I don’t think there is any tactical setup in which this group of players score loads of goals regularly. Would Pep or Klopp do better, probably. But I still think our group of attackers will struggle regardless of how good the system is.

 

[sparx99]

We have the 6th best xg in the league so far.
We are 10th for xga, and our expected points has us 7th and we are actually 11th.

The stats suggest we should be mid-table and we are. 3 years and 600million to take us from just outside the top 4 to mid table is frankly appalling.

It is a small sample size this season so it could improve, but it doesn't look that likely.

It is an improvement on last season's stats that had us 14th though, so well done ETH I guess.

Excluding the Liverpool games where we conceded loads of xG and the actual 3 goals our defence has been pretty decent. We’ve already had 3 clean sheets in the Premier League.

Every team concedes some chances but shots on our goal are way down from last season and way up in attack.

 

[sparx99]

So the solution is to buy even more players?

Or to hope that that Amad, Hojlund, Zirkzee and Garnacho improve and develop. They are young enough still.

Bruno and Rashford we need to hope hit a purple patch because their inconsistency is baked in at this point of their careers.

 

[sglowrider]

Tbf he didn't set the stupidly high price.

But when he found out that Antony was going to eat up a big fraction of his transfer funds, he didn't veto it either. That part's on him.

It was reported that the United transfer team valued Antony only at around 20-30million. So who insisted on getting him regardless of price ie at 80million quid? It only points to one person.

 

[Judas]

It was reported that the United transfer team valued Antony only at around 20-30million. So who insisted on getting him regardless of price ie at 80million quid? It only points to one person.

Rebekah Vardy?

 

[sparx99]

We created feck all against Twente

Sure and it was by far our worst attacking performance of the season. Even good teams have lacklustre performances here and there.

If we had beaten Palace as we deserved too I don’t think the anger would be as dramatic after Twente. It would have just been a run of the mill midweek game where the team had a poor game. Similar to how Slot didn’t get butchered for losing to Forest because the prior results give him cover.

Ten Hag doesn’t have the cover of a good start to the season to protect him from a let down. He was starting the season on the back foot because of last year and the end of season review. Had we got 10pts on the board in the league we’d shrug our shoulders and say that was shit and move on quickly.

When City or Liverpool have a flat 45mins they have Salah or Haaland bail them out. Van Dijk rocks up with a set piece header etc and everyone forgets that the first half or whatever was crap.

 

[Rolaholic]

Watching it back, Palmer told the Premier League show Uncut: “This is my favourite goal. I just couldn’t believe how much time and space I had. When I got the ball, I took a touch and then I took another one and I thought ‘where is everyone?’”

He continued: “Then there was just loads of players there so I thought ‘if I shoot on target, hard, I’ve got a chance’. When I got it, they were all pointing saying ‘mark him’, and none of them came out.”

Palmer was then asked if he was surprised by the space given to him with only seconds on the clock, to which Palmer replied: “Yeah, I was thinking, ‘what?’”

 

[RedRover]

Sure and it was by far our worst attacking performance of the season. Even good teams have lacklustre performances here and there.

If we had beaten Palace as we deserved too I don’t think the anger would be as dramatic after Twente. It would have just been a run of the mill midweek game where the team had a poor game. Similar to how Slot didn’t get butchered for losing to Forest because the prior results give him cover.

Ten Hag doesn’t have the cover of a good start to the season to protect him from a let down. He was starting the season on the back foot because of last year and the end of season review. Had we got 10pts on the board in the league we’d shrug our shoulders and say that was shit and move on quickly.

When City or Liverpool have a flat 45mins they have Salah or Haaland bail them out. Van Dijk rocks up with a set piece header etc and everyone forgets that the first half or whatever was crap.

We didn't and we haven't. Buck stops with the manager.

He narrowly avoided the sack last year and unless he started well, he was a dead man walking.

I thought he'd be gone by Christmas and I still think that.

 

[RedRover]

Tbf he didn't set the stupidly high price.

But when he found out that Antony was going to eat up a big fraction of his transfer funds, he didn't veto it either. That part's on him.

Doesn't he have a veto? Seems to me he wanted him, regardless of the cost.

 

[erikcred]

Sure and it was by far our worst attacking performance of the season. Even good teams have lacklustre performances here and there.

If we had beaten Palace as we deserved too I don’t think the anger would be as dramatic after Twente. It would have just been a run of the mill midweek game where the team had a poor game. Similar to how Slot didn’t get butchered for losing to Forest because the prior results give him cover.

Ten Hag doesn’t have the cover of a good start to the season to protect him from a let down. He was starting the season on the back foot because of last year and the end of season review. Had we got 10pts on the board in the league we’d shrug our shoulders and say that was shit and move on quickly.

When City or Liverpool have a flat 45mins they have Salah or Haaland bail them out. Van Dijk rocks up with a set piece header etc and everyone forgets that the first half or whatever was crap.

He's in his first season in a new league taking over from Liverpool's best manager in decades and got turned down by their main transfer target before the last min Chiesa signing. Other than opposition fans happy to see him fail, who was going to butcher him for a bad start?

Based on ETH's survival skills, if he'd joined them, there are enough excuses there to get him through the next 5 years regardless of results.

 

[erikcred]

Doesn't he have a veto? Seems to me he wanted him, regardless of the cost.

I agree. That's why I said that part's on him. He didn't set the price, but he had to give his approval for it to go through.

 

[HookedOnAPhelan]

Yeah, clearly an instruction from Ten Hag that.

 

[tjb]

I guess I don’t think there is any tactical setup in which this group of players score loads of goals regularly. Would Pep or Klopp do better, probably. But I still think our group of attackers will struggle regardless of how good the system is.

I think the opposite. I think our attackers are fine. Remember that we struggled to score with Ronaldo whilst he was here. I think we would struggle offensively with any attackers due to our system. I think objectively, Bruno, Mount, Amad and Zirkzee should have the creative juice to have chances created. I also think Rashford, Hojlund and Garnacho should have more scoring capabilities than any of Spurs, Newcastle, Chelsea or Aston Villa.

In possession we play a slow indirect brand of football. This means that the system, rather than individuals, should create the space and movements that lead to chances and simple goals. Regardless of their abilities, I genuinely believe Grealish, Doku, Foden, Debruyne, Bernardo Silva and Haaland would struggle here. We move the ball slowly, we don't overlap and we don't have much attacking movement.

A lousy system is one in which players are constantly forced to perform remarkable things in order to obtain minor victories. How many wonderful plays have we seen from Dalot this season, merely to move the ball slightly forward? Amad and Rashford essentially need to beat three guys before they have a shot at goal; how many amazing stops has Onana had to make this season? Mainoo must perform remarkable dribbles just to keep possession of the ball. Mazraoui actually has to play like a midfielder to keep us in possession in the back. Last season, several of Hojlund's goals came out of nowhere. To have been successful last season, Casemiro would have needed to cover the entire midfield.Good systems should not require that much effort and skills to make it operational. Yet some of our fans can still not identify that tactics are the cause of this. We can spend as much money as we like, and some of our fans will always believe that lack of ability is the cause of our lack of effectiveness in front of goal. LVG was the biggest case of this. Under him, our fans literally believed that Di Maria turned average because his system was so flawed that we could not get one of the most creative players in Europe to function effectively. Yet we blamed the player, as that is what United always do.

 

[tomaldinho1]

It was reported that the United transfer team valued Antony only at around 20-30million. So who insisted on getting him regardless of price ie at 80million quid? It only points to one person.

Isn’t the story worse than that? Ajax agreed to sell him for much cheaper early in the summer but then we stalled obviously trying for other players, only to return cap in hand and get absolutely cleaned out.

It’s not only poor talent identification, it’s horrendous from the negotiators. Really sums up how we have recruited these last 10 years.

 

[Redstain]

More rumours circulating

Hopefully this is true and good riddance at that.

He's not good enough, the improvements many acclaim the team has achieved a competent manager does in his first season after a few training sessions.

The minimalist progress isn't substantive, he's won 1 game in 9 in European competitions and his accumulative league form over two seasons is diabolical.

Hands down one of the worst managers at a club with vast resources.