Erik ten Hag | 2024/25 | Sacked

[Malons]

Will never understand this inertia. Why we must wait until seasons are completely wasted, often mathematically, before we act on what's been obvious for months.

No other organisation would behave like this. We see ourselves driving towards a cliff but think it's virtuous to refuse to step in until both front wheels are over the edge and the car has stated to tip.

We will get rid of Ten Hag only once we have assured ourselves that this season is a write off. It's the United way.

 

[crossy1686]

Strange comment considering how much time he spent last season using injuries as an excuse as to why we weren't winning games.

He said the same last season “we can’t make excuses, but we’re missing players”, literally the words out of his mouth

 

[CM]

If this is true, I'll be shocked if he's here at the start of next season. Could possibly be gone as early as Nov/Dec too IMO.

If the line about the club wanting to play in the way Klopp's Liverpool did is true, I'm slightly concerned we'll never get the level of control we need in central midfield, even after Ten Hag leaves.

Not to the extent of leaving the midfield empty as Ten Hag has, but there will probably be more of a push towards bringing in athletes rather than midfielders who help us look after the ball.

 

[AneRu]

Everyone and their mother has been crying that that's not an acceptable style of play for United

But you do it until you have solved the teething issues that are making it impossible to use a new style of play. Personally, I just think he is out of his depth in this league because he is too arrogant to introspect and take stock of his weaknesses.

 

[Robbie Boy]

If we lose next 4 games that means he lost the players and he will definitely be sacked. Even if I think he lost some players a while back, this isn't the case for the squad (especially considering we've brought even more Dutch / ex Ajax players in), so only poor results long term will get him sacked. I'd reckon if we continue mid table form he'll be gone by new year.

Of course he might get another "injuries" excuse that will extend this misery until the end of the season, but that would be unlikely imo.

I'm pretty confident he's going to get sacked at some point before Christmas. Our setup is just totally unsustainable.

 

[giggs-beckham]

I think he thinks he's making a point that Ronaldo said United can't win the league, not him, but he's also not saying that, he's actually saying Ronaldo lives in Saudi and it's okay to have opinions...

Did Ronaldo contradict himself and say this then or is ETH lying

 

[MadDogg]

I'm going to respond to this post in this thread, so as not to take the 'Club Ownership' thread off topic.

I do understand more now after reading through most of this thread why so many are for Ten Hag to get the sack. What baffled me the most is how the narrative changes when looking back. Last season, there was nothing about Ten Hag and his tactics - the narrative was The Glazers 20 years of neglect has truly caught up on the entire club. Now, the narrative looking back - it's all Ten Hag's fault for style of play but that that was with a severely injured squad. One could argue maybe that has something to do with the coaches and the training etc...

His first season there was nothing but praise but now the narrative there is 3 years of bad football even though it's only 3 games into his third year.

Did you just completely blank last season out of your mind entirely?

ETH's tactics and style of play last season got exposed and criticised more than any other manager we've had in modern history. And rightfully so, as it was blindingly obvious right from preseason that the tactics were never going to work. He effectively sacrificed the middle of the pitch entirely and expected one player to do everything in there, leading us to be constantly overrun all season and facing record amounts of shots on our goal. Hence the constant talk of 'chaos-ball' and 'suicidal tactics' by the fans. At a time where basically every top team (and most decent lower teams) are trying to compress the play and force the opposition into as small a space as possible when they have the ball, we did the exact opposite and had huge gaps all over the place that encouraged opposition teams to exploit.

Most fans started off last season by trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that while it was a bad sign that he tried playing that way it surely wouldn't take long for him to realise it wasn't working and move to a more suitable style. But the longer the season wore on, the longer he refused to change, and each passing month more fans joined the 'sack him' group. I personally held out until about February or so, although I'd been losing more and more hope the longer the season went on. It wasn't until the final four games of the season that ETH finally changed things up and compressed the play, and suddenly we started playing better and getting more results despite having arguably more injuries than we'd had at any other point of the season. Of course, there are other fans who constantly insisted it was just injuries, but the longer the season wore on the less people were in that group.

Even his first season, while starting well, we played fairly poorly for most of the second half of the season. There was enough there that people were hopeful though.

For this season, once the hierarchy decided to give him time I personally am letting him get a bit of a restart. Not a completely clean start as ETH's diabolical performance last season will always raise very serious questions over his judgement and ability, but I'll give him a bit of time. The start of the season hasn't been great, but I also don't think it's been as bad as last season. He's been playing a bit more compactly and not sacrificing the midfield as much, so it's enough that I'm not instantly on the 'sack him' wagon again. I'm certainly not confident about it, but there's a small chance he can turn it around.

 

[Sarni]

He said the same last season “we can’t make excuses, but we’re missing players”, literally the words out of his mouth

I think the message he wants to send across is that it does not excuse his players not winning, but excuses himself for not being able to get results. Simply players are letting him down and you can't take them off the hook.

 

[Uncle Mainoo]

Wonder why we are waiting that long if he's already rejected certain suggestions by INEOS

Probably due to the fact the number 1 options rejected us

If the line about the club wanting to play in the way Klopp's Liverpool did is true, I'm slightly concerned we'll never get the level of control we need in central midfield, even after Ten Hag leaves.

Not to the extent of leaving the midfield empty as Ten Hag has, but there will probably be more of a push towards bringing in athletes rather than midfielders who help us look after the ball.

We experienced LVG football. Nobody and I mean nobody in this fanbase liked it.

Manchester United and passing the ball around in midfield or the sake of “control” should and hopefully will never happen again.

We control the game by keeping the opposition pegged back and we have to suck up pressure we do so with a well organised formation and the right mentality.

Klopp football is definitely Manchester United culture.

 

[AneRu]

Will never understand this inertia. Why we must wait until seasons are completely wasted, often mathematically, before we act on what's been obvious for months.

No other organisation would behave like this. We see ourselves driving towards a cliff but think it's virtuous to refuse to step in until both front wheels are over the edge and the car has stated to tip.

We will get rid of Ten Hag only once we have assured ourselves that this season is a write off. It's the United way.

The club and former players have lied to themselves that all that was needed for Fergie to be great was time to its anathema to see us becoming a sacking club. Maybe if we actually went over a cliff and had to properly rebuild would we assess how self-harming it was to failures in place for far too long. One the new manager doesn't have time to recover the season and secondly some players are far too damaged mentally by the losses and the accompanying noise that they just check out for the season.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

If this is true, I'll be shocked if he's here at the start of next season. Could possibly be gone as early as Nov/Dec too IMO.

Sounds like a crock of made up bullshit. Especially all that self-contradicting drivel about “style”. But what do you expect when it’s a repost of something’s said by someone who calls themselves “@muppetiers”?

 

[flameinthesun]

Having had a few weeks to let the feeling of the Liverpool loss simmer down, I'm in the position that if for the rest of the year we see similar performances from the team as we did vs Fulham and Brighton, although with less of those defensive brain farts and a bit more control then I'll be fine with EtH staying the whole season. When looking at the Fulham and Brighton matches, even the Pool match, the amount of chances that the players are missing is infuriating. So from a goals scored perspective I'm not sure what more Ten Hag can do as our chances created so far have been very good in all the games really (Pool aside but even then Zirkzee should have scored at least 1/2).

What I want to see (and there have been glimpses of it) is more control of matches, which result in less of those chaotic scenes we tend to see at points during matches. However, I don't think its beyond Ten Hags ability to sort that out. If he can tighten us up whilst maintaining the amount chances we create I'll be fine with that even if our finishing remains poor. It would be a base to build on with better recruitment of attacking players.

 

[Rojofiam]

If the line about the club wanting to play in the way Klopp's Liverpool did is true, I'm slightly concerned we'll never get the level of control we need in central midfield, even after Ten Hag leaves.

Not to the extent of leaving the midfield empty as Ten Hag has, but there will probably be more of a push towards bringing in athletes rather than midfielders who help us look after the ball.

You might be underselling Klopp's Liverpool a little bit. His best Liverpool sides absolutely dominated and controlled most of their games IMO, but in his last two seasons he didn't have the midfield to do it. Last season, they couldn't exert as much control over their games as in the past. I think I mentioned on here several times throughout last season that this will be one of the biggest reasons why they will slowly fall behind and out of the title race. Tbh, I didn't expect them to be in it by April/May, so they still exceeded my expectations.

 

[Rojofiam]

Sounds like a crock of made up bullshit. Especially all that self-contradicting drivel about “style”. But what do you expect when it’s a repost of something’s said by someone who calls themselves “@muppetiers”?

I'm honestly on the fence about the Muppetiers guy. I do think he had real sources on the takeover, but he might've lost them. I'm not saying you should believe everything he says, but I'm not completely dismissing him either.

 

[RedC]

People need to get over his comments on Ugarte. He's protecting a player that is coming in without a proper preseason, he clearly isn't going to have him on the sidelines for a month or more

 

[NLunited]

It feels a lot like Ruud was brought in just in case they needed to sack him early in the season.

Nope, Ruud doesn‘t want that. He was brought in to help our attackers and to assist Ten Hag in general.

Hake would be a better bet.

 

[devilish]

INEOS came in and caught me red handed
Fecking their club for good
I have no clue on how to mend it
That is why they hired Ruud
How could I forget about tactics?
I had turned valid players
In a pack of silly minions

You don't fill the squad with your exes that's so vanilla
If Rashford doesn't run then bring him a pillow
Anthony is good if he plays against Manila
Remind them that you're wanted by Sevilla
To be a manager you haffi know how to play
Say alot of eh and hey every time and day
Do not care what others might say
And remind them that you're here to stay

Liverpool beat us on the counter. No silly!
Ronaldo spoke on the telly. He's in Saudi
Legends are adding more fire. Not Ollie
We ended up at eight place. A trophy
Onana's worth a pinch of chowder. Not sorry
I think everything is over

 

[Shinjch]

Has it been mentioned anywhere what this very specific "style of play" that INEOS need to see is? If it is more important than results then we might as well know what they are hoping to see.

 

[Adz_99]

So I was just looking at our post Fergie managers and Ten Hag is the best after Jose if you just look at win rates.

1. Jose 58%
2. Ten Hag 57%
3. Ole 54%
4. Moyes 52%
5. LVG 52%
6. Ralf 37%

I was really surprised by this actually. I would have guessed Van Gaal would be second and Ten Hag would be lower. Decided to tally up some other numbers:

Loss %

1. Jose 19%
2. LVG 23%
3. Ole 24%
4. Ten Hag 27%
5. Ralf 28%
6. Moyes 29%

Goals per game

1. Ole 1.92
2. Ten Hag 1.71
3. Jose 1.69
4. Moyes 1.69
5. LVG 1.53
6. Ralf 1.28

Goals conceded per game

1. Jose 0.84
2 . LvG 0.95
3. Ole 0.98
4. Moyes 1.06
5. Ralf 1.28
6. Ten Hag 1.28

Not surprised we're conceding more goals than ever but I'm amazed we're scoring that many too. Feels like we hardly ever score!

Basically looking at this we were best under Jose but have been fairly consistent in our shitness over the last 11 years.

 

[SparcMac]

There is no substitute for individual brilliance. The best teams have the best players it’s quite often that simple. The best players allow you to play better systems and play better football because of the consistency in their ability to execute the simple and their ability to execute the sublime.

A great example of this is Salah last game. He made a simple run, a perfect right footed cross to the back post and Liverpool scored. He executed the correct pass at the correct time. Decision and precision = goal.

We are actually doing tactically the right things, or at least the things other managers get lauded for. So I find it amusing this season at least when people say we have no plan, we do, or that we aren’t doing X Y Z. I think we’ve been on the wrong side of errors and variance. Over the season I expect this to balance out. Think about the Garnacho goal etc.

For example watch 13mins in. It’s a really lovely and honest critique and bit of analysis of the difference between us and Liverpool. It’s decision making not the principles themselves that are going wrong here:

MEDIA=youtube]xFxqqZZWXhs[/MEDIA]

Watching it atm. But seeing this thread I think 99% of the people commenting here will ignore this analysis, because they have a stupid agenda and doesn't care about reality.

Having watched countless analyses of the game and ETH tactics in general, it's obvious that we have already changed a lot by the end of last season not to be so "easy" to play through the middle. However individual quality and individual errors have heightened the tactical shortcomings. The tactics may be so complex that they don't "make players better" but bring out "their weaknesses" if they have them. But that's the harsh truth, if you want to play this complex football all Pep, ETH, Slot, RDZ, etc coaches do, you need to have high-quality players to fit into their system and follow coaching instructions over their "instincts".
You might always just sit deep a play a Dynce, Allardyce, or w/e ball, but I don't think nobody of you want to see it and that won't bring us to CL or even top of the Premier League either, does it?

 

[Crashoutcassius]

It feels a lot like Ruud was brought in just in case they needed to sack him early in the season.

Recent updates have said eth chose the coaches. Implies that he had a big hand in signings as well, which is obvious when you look at them I suppose. Makes you wonder if anything has changed at all. Ruud is an obvious possible interim though given his experience

 

[NLunited]

Has it been mentioned anywhere what this very specific "style of play" that INEOS need to see is? If it is more important than results then we might as well know what they are hoping to see.

Klopp ball at its best.

 

[Devil81]

The media the last week has been absolutely disgusting. They are obviously board of discussing Lee Carsley so they've turned their attention to United and have gone all out in the last two days on ETH.

If we lose tomorrow the pressure to sack him will be huge and I actually think they might actually do it.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

INEOS came in and caught me red handed
Fecking their club for good
I have no clue on how to mend it
That is why they hired Ruud
How could I forget about tactics?
I had turned valid players
In a pack of silly minions

You don't fill the squad with your exes that's so vanilla
If Rashford doesn't run then bring him a pillow
Anthony is good if he plays against Manila
Remind them that you're wanted by Sevilla
To be a manager you haffi know how to play
Say alot of eh and hey every time and day
Do not care what others might say
And remind them that you're here to stay

Liverpool beat us on the counter. No silly!
Ronaldo spoke on the telly. He's in Saudi
Legends are adding more fire. Not Ollie
We ended up at eight place. A trophy
Onana's worth a pinch of chowder. Not sorry
I think everything is over

Last paragraph is gold

 

[Zed 101]

Watching it atm. But seeing this thread I think 99% of the people commenting here will ignore this analysis, because they have a stupid agenda and doesn't care about reality.

Having watched countless analyses of the game and ETH tactics in general, it's obvious that we have already changed a lot by the end of last season not to be so "easy" to play through the middle. However individual quality and individual errors have heightened the tactical shortcomings. The tactics may be so complex that they don't "make players better" but bring out "their weaknesses" if they have them. But that's the harsh truth, if you want to play this complex football all Pep, ETH, Slot, RDZ, etc coaches do, you need to have high-quality players to fit into their system and follow coaching instructions over their "instincts".
You might always just sit deep a play a Dynce, Allardyce, or w/e ball, but I don't think nobody of you want to see it and that won't bring us to CL or even top of the Premier League either, does it?

Stop blaming players, the problem is ETH is not good enough.... are the players good enough to be playing Pep's god-damn-awful brand of boreball?.. probably not thank feck, but even if they were we would still have an inept manager at the helm.

Swap Pep and ETH, no new signings, and City would tank trying to implement ETHs ridiculous tactics, Pep would get the best out of our squad and would probably have us pushing 2-3 this season.

The issue is the difference between having the tools you want to do the job in the way you want to do it, or trying to do the exact same job in the exact same way with inappropriate tools, the ability to recognise you cannot do things exactly how you want and instead making the best of what you have..... ETH has proven he has no flexibility, he has not got the tactical intelligence to do what needs to be done not what he fantasises will happen!

 

[devilish]

Last paragraph is gold

Thanks

 

[Malone_Post]

The media the last week has been absolutely disgusting. They are obviously board of discussing Lee Carsley so they've turned their attention to United and have gone all out in the last two days on ETH.

If we lose tomorrow the pressure to sack him will be huge and I actually think they might actually do it.

We’re talking about a manager who led United to our worst ever league & CL campaigns last season. Finishing 8th in the PL with a minus GD & bottom of our CL group knocking us out of Europe all together. He has now started this campaign with 2 defeats in 3 games, including a drubbing at home by our biggest rivals, and we’re currently sat 14th with a minus 3 GD.

And you think he shouldn’t be under pressure??

 

[Sarni]

We’re talking about a manager who led United to our worst ever league & CL campaigns last season. Finishing 8th in the PL with a minus GD & bottom of our CL group knocking us out of Europe all together. He has now started this campaign with 2 defeats in 3 games, including a drubbing at home by our biggest rivals, and we’re currently sat 14th with a minus 3 GD.

And you think he shouldn’t be under pressure??

It's all the media, that hostile, evil media who are on his back despite him being so incredibly successful, winning those two trophies.

 

[Borys]

People need to get over his comments on Ugarte. He's protecting a player that is coming in without a proper preseason, he clearly isn't going to have him on the sidelines for a month or more

Yeah I'd chill about that as well. He's in such a weak position that anything he says sound bad to be fair. Guy can't win any other way than on the pitch. Not that he helps himself with those press conferences though.

 

[NLunited]

Yeah I'd chill about that as well. He's in such a weak position that anything he says sound bad to be fair. Guy can't win any other way than on the pitch. Not that he helps himself with those press conferences though.

So true.

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

Are these people in the room with us right now?

They could be!

 

[Devil81]

We’re talking about a manager who led United to our worst ever league & CL campaigns last season. Finishing 8th in the PL with a minus GD & bottom of our CL group knocking us out of Europe all together. He has now started this campaign with 2 defeats in 3 games, including a drubbing at home by our biggest rivals, and we’re currently sat 14th with a minus 3 GD.

And you think he shouldn’t be under pressure??

Where did I say that?

The media being short of newsworthy stories and just generally trying to unsettle our prep for Southampton is a total pisstake though. It adds more pressure on the players.

 

[SparcMac]

Stop blaming players, the problem is ETH is not good enough.... are the players good enough to be playing Pep's god-damn-awful brand of boreball?.. probably not thank feck, but even if they were we would still have an inept manager at the helm.

Swap Pep and ETH, no new signings, and City would tank trying to implement ETHs ridiculous tactics, Pep would get the best out of our squad and would probably have us pushing 2-3 this season.

The issue is the difference between having the tools you want to do the job in the way you want to do it, or trying to do the exact same job in the exact same way with inappropriate tools, the ability to recognise you cannot do things exactly how you want and instead making the best of what you have..... ETH has proven he has no flexibility, he has not got the tactical intelligence to do what needs to be done not what he fantasises will happen!

You didn't watch The Athletic analysis.

 

[CM]

We experienced LVG football. Nobody and I mean nobody in this fanbase liked it.

Manchester United and passing the ball around in midfield or the sake of “control” should and hopefully will never happen again.

We control the game by keeping the opposition pegged back and we have to suck up pressure we do so with a well organised formation and the right mentality.

Klopp football is definitely Manchester United culture.

Playing with control doesn't equate to the football Louis van Gaal produced here.

It means having midfielders who are capable of dictating the tempo and taking the sting out of games when the time is right. The absence of any kind of control in midfield is part of the reason why we've been so poor in the last couple of years.

You might be underselling Klopp's Liverpool a little bit. His best Liverpool sides absolutely dominated and controlled most of their games IMO, but in his last two seasons he didn't have the midfield to do it. Last season, they couldn't exert as much control over their games as in the past. I think I mentioned on here several times throughout last season that this will be one of the biggest reasons why they will slowly fall behind and out of the title race. Tbh, I didn't expect them to be in it by April/May, so they still exceeded my expectations.

I don't think Klopp's Liverpool midfield were necessarily just athletes but I'd worry that would be our interpretation of it. Even if their midfielders weren't always as talented as ours, the balance was always better. I don't think we've done anything much to remedy that and I think it will be a while before we do.

I'd also be surprised if we were able to execute that style of football than Klopp himself.

 

[croadyman]

Southampton away historically has been a tricky game for us, even when we were good, and even SAF made excuses, the grey shirts was a classic one!

Yeah we failed to beat them at The Dell from August 93 to August 98 which was some run. Ironically both of those games involved us wearing a black kit, lucky colour I guess

 

[Red in STL]

Yeah we failed to beat them at The Dell from August 93 to August 98 which was some run. Ironically both of those games involved us wearing a black kit, lucky colour I guess

I fecking hated that ground, packed like sardines in the away end, got half a sun tan there once, opening day, late 80's, you couldn't move so one side was tanned and the other side was in shade so pale, I must have looked mental!

 

[Zed 101]

You didn't watch The Athletic analysis.

Yeah apart from I did

Apart from being boring as all hell, as the athletic nerds always are, if you read between the lines they conclude by basically saying feck all (again not unusual)

I am curious as to your actual take on it, why you think it is so insightful?

BTW I do have an agenda.... it is that ETH is a shite manager, until he actually puts a team out that is set up to play properly and executes it reliably then all your analysis is so much noise, 3 seasons same shite, just a bad manager trying to work way above his level

 

[LawCharltonBest]

How we reacting if United don’t win tomorrow?

 

[BenitoSTARR]

Yeah apart from I did

Apart from being boring as all hell, as the athletic nerds always are, if you read between the lines they conclude by basically saying feck all (again not unusual)

I am curious as to your actual take on it, why you think it is so insightful?

BTW I do have an agenda.... it is that ETH is a shite manager, until he actually puts a team out that is set up to play properly and executes it reliably then all your analysis is so much noise, 3 seasons same shite, just a bad manager trying to work way above his level

Complex things are sometimes boring.

They do make cases for individual responsibility and also point out that clearly players who made the mistakes were not instructed to make those errors and were corrected during the game by the manager.

They also point out that the tactics have clearly changed from last season. Some might call that flexibility.

 

[freddie the red]

How we reacting if United don’t win tomorrow?

She cannae take the strain cap'n