Sounds very liberating.
Erik ten Hag | 2024/25 | Votes can now be changed
- Thread starter Cheimoon
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
Sounds very liberating.
Ultimately you either accept injuries as an excuse for last season or you don't. First season was just fine in terms of performance / results. I think having negative GD in the league despite the injuries is cause for sacking but the consensus both here and by the management team was to not look too closely into last season because of the injury crisis.
I can begrudgingly accept that and move on and suggest you do the same. We add depth to deal with injuries, give him the new structure and see what happens. Once you arrive at that conclusion, it's hard to do the mental gymnastics to promptly turn around and sack him again after 3 games.
He's clearly on a short leash but the underlying data is one reason to wait a bit longer. He won't make it till the end of the season anyway if results stay this way - data or not.
It says "Here, Ten Hag's side would sit just three points adrift from table-topping local rivals Manchester City."
Just because someone somewhere took a sample size of 5 games and convinced you that our performances have been within 3 points of Man City's doesn't mean the article is "pretty detailed".
We should be reaching the quarters of the CL, nevermind the Europa league.
The fact you set the bar so low shows you have little faith in Ten Hag. But you can't definitively say that we should be winning the EL with ease considering how strong the squad is, because you know we won't, and that'd mean you wouldn't be able to defend your man.
Lowering expectations to unreasonable levels, ignoring results, cherry picking stats, and making excuses is all anyone resorts to when trying to argue his case.
Last season it was injuries, and now that excuse is gone it's xG and other bullshit
Im talking about the whole article and how on earth would they get more data from the current season? I’ll wait a while for an answer here I suppose.
It says "Here, Ten Hag's side would sit just three points adrift from table-topping local rivals Manchester City."
Just because someone somewhere took a sample size of 5 games and convinced you that our performances have been within 3 points of Man City's doesn't mean the article is "pretty detailed".
Temper those expectations- we haven’t made a QF in the CL since 18/19 and that was when we smash and grabbed PSG and then got thumped by Barca. The time before that was 10 years ago.
We are not a club used to being in the latter stages of the CL. Is my bar low - I expect 4/5th place and good performances in FA cup + EL?
Again, why are people talking about excuses. I’m pointing out the fact that we have played better, it’s a shame the results haven’t come but that will ultimately be what decides ETH’s fate. My point is that if you keep outplaying the opposition in important metrics, it stands to reason you will win more games over the course of the season. So far I’d say we have lost 1 we deserved, 1 that could have gone either way and then the draw with Palace was very frustrating but we played well enough to win comfortably.
Well, yeah you should. Till more than half of the season is done, if you want to compare season trajectories.
Like the article writer should have.
But they've got bills to pay and a job to do, so a half-baked article would have to do for now.
Not sure why it's so hard for him to understand. Any data set of 5 games should be disregarded or heavily scrutinized at a bare minimum. Trying to extrapolate would have everyone thinking every half decent forward going through purple patch is world class (hello 22/23 Rashford)
Sure, but we've all seen this movie and know how it ends. Our form both in the league and in Europe going back to last year is woeful and there is no sign of that changing. We have the sample size to draw conclusions. This year, Liverpool is the only real side we've had to face, and they battered us once again. ETH won't last past Christmas, so for me, I'd rather just end it now while, as you point out, there is a possibility to salvage something. I don't think that opportunity will exist if the club waits until the holidays to take action.
Which is exactly why the overreaction on here is comical. It’s 5 games in.
But re data, you use what you can. I take it from your last paragraph you don’t like the fact it shows we’ve improved, that’s fine, we will wait and see how it develops.
I agree with you. I'm just commenting on what I think will happen, not what would happen if it was my decision.
That's not how anything works. Were you equally giddy that we were on track for a 114 pt season after GW1?
Link the article?
Blind favoritism for some players is just nauseating.
Weak.
"But re data, you use what you can. "
Great quote, not like we were discussing an article or anything like that. Guess we were just hashing it out about data and it’s uses.
It was weak before, now it’s tragic.
We've only outplayed a team that's 7th in league 1,
45 minutes against a team bottom of the Premier League,
and a team that's 7th in the Dutch league. Let's not get carried away now.
Wasn’t Ruud brought in to coach the attackers? And some on here see him as the next interim boss if EtH is fired. We should have bought a natural goal scorer. We’ve basically got Rashford and kids up front, together with a mis-firing Bruno.
That’s not true though. We’ve outplayed by basically every metric all but Brighton and Pool. It’s a small sample size but Pool are a better team than us and Brighton away was pretty tight. Even the dross last night we were comfortably better over the 90mins.
He won’t be here in 4 years!
Rasmus is the same age as Bellingham, I don't see anyone excusing him for anything because he is a just a "kid"
But Rasmus is not a natural proven goal scorer - was the point.
Better but still shit which is the problem
That's what I'm saying. We have outplayed rubbish teams. Southampton, Barnsley, Twente and Palace for 45 minutes. Let's see how good we are against a team with a remotely decent midfield, and then talk about metrics.
I remember the old LVG days when we passed , passed , passed .. were good in every metric and get 1-0 loss or 1-1 draw against Swansea ..
Ok but "kids" has nothing to do with it, Owen Rooney Benzema Aguero Tevez for example were all banging them in at 21.
The overreaction is not because of the 5 games but, 5 shite games coming after our worse season ever!
I'm at that stage I was with Ole, I no longer can be bothered to take aim at ETH. This is all on INEOS now. I don't care what sort of mental gymnastics anyone wants to play, he could and probably should have been sacked 5x over in the last 12 months. Those that are defending him would be having a field day if this was an opposition manager. Anywhere else and he'd be a distant memory now. Hell even Woodward probably would have pulled the trigger long ago.
But those defending him are living by double standards. They'll criticise and laugh at other managers like Brendan Rodgers when he was probably about the same level. Hell, in reality he was incredibly unlucky not to win the scousers their first PL title. Yet he's a joke, whilst the jury is still out on Ten Hag somehow. Arteta is another, they criticised him, yet now they hold him up as the poster boy for what they're hoping Ten Hag can be. Laughable.
Like I said, the jury is in. We know what we've got. Either INEOS do something about it or they don't, whatever. But this is a defining time for them and soon I think everyone will be casting their gaze on them and not the manager. Ten Hag is what he is. Probably not even a top 10 manager in the PL. It's like blaming Lukaku for being shit, but really the issue was the manager choosing to play him. The longer they keep him on, the more they look like they're just out of ideas at the first decisive moment. It's all well and good talking about a new stadium or sacking some fecking office staff, whilst you avoid the biggest decision like the plague.
But those defending him are living by double standards. They'll criticise and laugh at other managers like Brendan Rodgers when he was probably about the same level. Hell, in reality he was incredibly unlucky not to win the scousers their first PL title. Yet he's a joke, whilst the jury is still out on Ten Hag somehow. Arteta is another, they criticised him, yet now they hold him up as the poster boy for what they're hoping Ten Hag can be. Laughable.
Like I said, the jury is in. We know what we've got. Either INEOS do something about it or they don't, whatever. But this is a defining time for them and soon I think everyone will be casting their gaze on them and not the manager. Ten Hag is what he is. Probably not even a top 10 manager in the PL. It's like blaming Lukaku for being shit, but really the issue was the manager choosing to play him. The longer they keep him on, the more they look like they're just out of ideas at the first decisive moment. It's all well and good talking about a new stadium or sacking some fecking office staff, whilst you avoid the biggest decision like the plague.
It’s not even like we’ve been amazing in these 5 games or anything. We were OK against Fulham and Southampton, decent in patches against Brighton and Palace but ultimately came out with underwhelming scorelines anyway, embarrassing against Liverpool. We may brag about having high xG but games like v Liverpool add up to that as we contributed almost 1.5 xG there but all of it came after the game was over and they didn’t care much. Remove that from the equation (which would have been the case had we not allowed them to score 3 before second half barely began - at that point our xG was literally nothing) and we would be down the list already.
This is his 3rd season now. Besides all the nice looking stats, where I'll agree have improved, his biggest problem is that he fails to find goals in the team.
3 seasons now and we still have trouble finding the back of the net. We got away with it in his first season, last season we didn't, and it seems we are just continuing the trend this season.
So his attacking setup doesn't work. I'm still not sure how he's even trying to find goals. If he can't get goals, he'll never win games which keeps the door open for opposition to come at us because we have no secir
Sure, but we aren’t attacking exactly the same way for three seasons. There has been a marked improvement from last year in terms of the chances being made.
At this point it’s on the players missing those chances and we are stuck with them until January. If you want to blame Ten Hag for hitching his success to these players then that’s fair. But it’s not tactics that are the problem in attack right now. We are missing clear chances.
By the same token saying we deserved to finish 14th last year but also don’t deserve to be higher this season is doing the same thing.
I’m not happy but we’ve definitely been easier on the eye this year. We don’t have the same gaping hole in midfield (for the most part).
We actually look like a team that is developing. If we weren’t year 3 then I’d be reasonably content at the green shoots we are seeing.
The problem is that Ten Hag used a lot of his rope last season so patience is running thin. He may well end up being undone by relying on Bruno & Rashford and the potential of Mainoo, Garnacho, Hojlund and now Amad.
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".
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Why are you deflecting from the point I made?
Is drawing with Twente a one off result or is it part of a pattern of failure under Ten Hag with only 1 win in 9 in Europe?
A relative improvement from last year is not an impressive feat in itself, and should not be the barometer of whether Ten Hag is succeeding or not.
Despite some improvements in our attacking play, we’re still left with long stretches where we look pretty clueless in how to break a team down, especially in the second halves after the opponents have typically made adjustments. It’s not like we’re cutting teams to shreds - we’re just creating some chances that you’d expect a set of players like ours to create no matter who was in charge.
And noone’s blaming Ten Hag for “hitching his success to these players”. That’s just a nonsense term you’ve made up to deflect responsibility from him. Most people are blaming Ten Hag for a very extended period of poor performances and poor results, along with consistently baffling decisions. He consistently gets less from the team than is reasonable to expect given its personnel, and a lot of that does come down to his tactical failings. Until his tactics show an ability to consistently achieve both performances and results then they will rightly be under scrutiny - he’s yet to prove they work in the PL or in Europe.
I’m not deflecting from Ten Hag’s failures. However, it was a lack of creativity that was the issue last season. We literally weren’t even having shots. Compared to this season where we are right up at the top in terms of chance creation and it’s night and day. It’s a fact that we have missed loads of chances.
The other thing is that if you take an early chance you get even more later in games. If you have a lead you tend to get opportunities as the other team chases the game. Look at the missed chances late against Fulham for example.
When I talk about Ten Hag ‘hitching his success to these players’ I’m the one blaming him. I think he made a horrible mistake building around Rashford and Bruno. Two extremely unreliable players. I think he has then compounded that mistake by betting on youth around them. Choosing the promise of Hojlund over a more senior striker.
Many on here have demanded the end to signings like Varane, Casemiro, Falcao or Cavani. Well the flip side is that potential is only that until it develops. I’m glad that we are building on youth but I’m not sure our fan base has the patience for it whether it’s Ten Hag or whoever replaces him.
Signing of potential is good-and-all, but I’m not so sure you can go that route with your main striker for a multitude of reasons.
Signing an older and more experienced centre forward (think Cavani at the time), would do wonders while Zirkzee and Hojlund learn the craft required to succeed against the best centre backs in the world.
Signing an older and more experienced centre forward (think Cavani at the time), would do wonders while Zirkzee and Hojlund learn the craft required to succeed against the best centre backs in the world.
No, that was just one of the issues that we had last season. Another was failing to finish chances (still a problem). Another was conceding soft chances and goals at key moments, especially later in games, costing us valuable points in winnable games (still a problem). Another was opposition managers making tactical changes during matches that took the initiative back, with Ten Hag failing to respond adequately (still a problem).
So yes, we’ve slightly improved in one area with zero improvement in results to show for it. But it’s still only an improvement when compared with one of the very worst periods under Ten Hag’s tenure, which itself is one of the very worst periods we’ve seen post-Fergie. And that’s my point: the yardstick we should be using for “improvement” is not a historically poor period under the current failing manager. It’s a sign of how far our standards have dropped when that’s what’s being used as a comparative point in order to spin “positives”.
Yes, I was specifically discussing our attacking form though. You can’t make the players better finishers. You can create more chances and that’s what we’re doing.
Last season is last season. The disaster was a combination of Ten Hags tactics and the injuries coupled with poor form of key players.
The only yardstick that matters is how we are compared to the teams we are competing against this season. Outside of the Liverpool game we deservedly beat Fulham & Southampton and should have beaten Palace. We wouldn’t be the first team to not be able to win a game we deserved to win. The Brighton game was more even but most would say we deserved a point if not more especially with the freak offside goal.
It feels like to me that people are being extremely reactionary to any and everything this season because they have already made their minds up. Results need to improve but the unlike last season our underlying performance suggests that should happen.