Erik ten Hag | 2024/25

Erik ten Hag

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He can't keep playing this type of football he has to bite the bullet and change it. Even when Ugarte comes in it may be slightly better as he has more energy however the same problems will occur again. He's trying to set up this team like his ajax side but that simply does not work in the Premier league, if he sticks with it he will be sacked. I do think if they sack him it will be van nistelrooy that takes over at least until the end of the season.
 
ROFLUTION said:
I'd say yes and no.

I think it's only fair to play devil's advocate if you are to sack a manager after 3 games in a new season. So let's take a look how he's done with coaching players.

How much can you coach Onana's personal errors away?

How much can you coach an insane amount of injuries away? Being pragmatic and having to play an Amrabat/McTominay is a big obstacle in achieving your goals.

Players who've evolved under EtH.
Dalot
Garnacho (might have anyways, but to be fair EtH chose to give him the chance and put faith in him)
Mainoo (might have anyways, but to be fair EtH chose to give him the chance and put faith in him)

Players who've generally been coached well:
Martinez
Shaw (no more lazyness problems)
Evans
McTominay (Can you really coach him better than he's been?)
Wan Bissaka (He can actually now play it out under pressure and has more directness about him. First games prove it too at West Ham. Did lose motivation quite a lot last season, so could be sideways too)
Maguire

Players who've gone sideways:
Højlund - I'll reserve judgement, but I wont say it's EtH's fault completely that he hasn't been a hit
Bruno
Eriksen (doesn't play much, so it's hard to judge him, but he's aging and EtH did managed that and took him out and used him when needed)
Lindelöf

Players who've declined:
Rashford (overall - he did have one brilliant season under EtH too)
Onana (Not sure if he's just gone sideways - could have been in that category too and just had one brilliant season/outlier-season at Inter)
Casemiro (It was his natural projection anyways)
Antony (big time)

The point is: The squad hasn't really had any great competition so EtH could pick between players. Last year was always at least 3-6 notable players out, so there wasn't any need to prove yourself as you'd just be handed the start anyways. At City and Arsenal there's always competition and you need to prove yourself every single game. Those mechanics are still not at work at United.

I'll let you other guys flog ETH and I probably will disagree with most saying we've been underperforming, but I think you need to see it all through devil's advocate lenses too to truly see why we've been underperforming. So much of it is actually on the recruitment side of things and by not having a competitive squad where there's quality and everyone knows their role. Also it was plain wrong from the previous regime to just leave Transfers with ETH. The blame should lie with them no matter how crap Antony has been.
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This is such arsewater excusism, ETH has been integral to the recruitment process, and the players we have are and had last season are better than he has set them up to be, not saying we have the players to challenge Man City, but the tactical errors that ETH has made and persisted with are beyond inept and have been what has hurt us, ignoring that is incredible....

There are a dozen teams in the prem that have worse squads than us, and did last season, and yet we were comfortably the worst footballing side in the league last season, and lets be honest here so far this season there is little change, other coaches seem to be able to get lesser players playing together in a way that maximises what they have, not ETH he makes us the easiest team to play against in any top league.

but yeah carry on blame everyone but Ten Hag, madness beyond madness
 
@pocco is bang on. He is the one manager post-SAF who will end up doing the most damage to the club, which is already underway.

INEOS need to pull the pin asap, nobody will care that they made the wrong call at the end of the season if they make this right soon.
 
Zed 101 said:
This is such arsewater excusism, ETH has been integral to the recruitment process, and the players we have are and had last season are better than he has set them up to be, not saying we have the players to challenge Man City, but the tactical errors that ETH has made and persisted with are beyond inept and have been what has hurt us, ignoring that is incredible....

There are a dozen teams in the prem that have worse squads than us, and did last season, and yet we were comfortably the worst footballing side in the league last season, and lets be honest here so far this season there is little change, other coaches seem to be able to get lesser players playing together in a way that maximises what they have, not ETH he makes us the easiest team to play against in any top league.

but yeah carry on blame everyone but Ten Hag, madness beyond madness
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Well I'm surely gonna listen if you call my post "arsewater excucism" aint I?

The whole point with the post is to play devil's advocate if you are to sack a manager - because what if things will stay the same under a new manager?

On the bolded parts: I don't disagree and I think he tactically could be way better. Only thing I'd say is you can't fault ETH for being part of the recruitment proces. The recruitments should be on the transfer-team / director of football and none should be up to ETH in the first place. His core skill is not to find players. Specialised people should be in specialised positions.

I'd still be fine with taking a chance with a new manager that fits our overall plan better. I'd just like to know who it is, before we sack ETH. Also: it's proven by stats that a new manager has a positive effect for 6 games before the effect fades out and you see the "normal" effect of a manager. (Pretty significant under Ole)

So who is that manager who coaches better and sets up the team better in the long run? (Alonso wont come, so I don't see him as an option - Just saying "Anyone else but ETH" is too childish)
 
I’m getting a feeling that our Exec team’s eyes are strongly baring down on ETH. It feels like an employee going through a competency process!

The pressure on him must be immense. I think they will start trying to dictate to him play styles and even players that need selecting which will ultimately lead to him falling out with them in an explosive way (and ultimately getting sacked). Thats how I think this will all end anyhow.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
Truth be told is he put in a straight up unproffesional performance. Its easy to say "the team didn't help him" or "the coach didnt play a set up that suits him" if one actually doesn't critically look at what mistakes he made and why. He was just sloppy. Not slow or caught out by brilliant pressing. Just utterly sloppy in decisions a player of his experience would NEVER make when being serious. That is why being substituted at half time for a rookie in Collyer was ideal public chastisement. He won't be in a hurry to be that sloppy again.
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If your #6 losing the ball means its instantly a 4v2 all the time, then you need to have technically secure 6s, not a player who has historically had a 80% passing rate, which means he will misplace one pass out of every 5. Casemiro had a mare, no doubting that, but the problems go deeper.

What exactly is the point of this high risk, low reward strategy?
 
Cheimoon said:
That wasn't me, I don't know who made that poll. I don't think it serves much purpose either: even if 100% of posters agreed that Ten hag should be sacked, there is no way Ten Hag will be sacked just after he was kept on and given half a new first XI. Club management will want to see more of how Ten Hag uses those players once they're fully bedded in before deciding either way.

I mean, people can have whatever opinion they want, of course; but I think it's unrealistic to expect a sacking before November. (Well, except if everything really goes only downhill from here on out.)
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Ah that makes sense, I would have been surprised if that was you. I agree with that.
The board decided to keep him and they are not going to sack him after a few games. It would be ridiculous leadership.
 
FortunaUtd said:
Ah that makes sense, I would have been surprised if that was you. I agree with that.
The board decided to keep him and they are not going to sack him after a few games. It would be ridiculous leadership.
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Whoever made that poll clearly wanted to stir some more toxicity.
 
glazed said:
I have to believe that INEOS claim that they are calling the shots on transfers is true.They would be insane to let ETH do it alone as he's obviously not able to. From what I heard he did not want Ugarte and had to be convinced. He still has a transfer veto in his contract from what I hear.
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That's because he wouldn't agree to signing a new contract and the club just extended his current deal instead. He still has all the powers that he had before Ineos arrived and while he does he is the one driving trasnfers not Ineos. You said it yourself of the 5 players we signed with one he didn't identify, they had to put a lot of effort into convincing him not to veto the deal. Where as with the 3 Dutch born and raised players, they were obviously identified by Ten Hag. So currently he's still the one driving recruitment.
 
stevoc said:
That's because he wouldn't agree to signing a new contract and the club just extended his current deal instead. He still has all the powers that he had before Ineos arrived and while he does he is the one driving trasnfers not Ineos. You said it yourself of the 5 players we signed with one he didn't identify, they had to put a lot of effort into convincing him not to veto the deal. Where as with the 3 Dutch born and raised players, they were obviously identified by Ten Hag. So currently he's still the one driving recruitment.
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De Ligt was an INEOS signing.
Zirkzee I assume you're only saying because he's Dutch. He was a 2nd choice behind Sesko and fits the bill for Ashworth and Wilcox typical signing. Lower fee higher potential for a young striker.
 
DRJosh said:
You could also make the argument that the managers have overachieved despite the level of performance put out by the team? I think ETH needs to leave but just playing devils advocate
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How would that even make sense?
 
VP89 said:
De Ligt was an INEOS signing.
Zirkzee I assume you're only saying because he's Dutch. He was a 2nd choice behind Sesko and fits the bill for Ashworth and Wilcox typical signing. Lower fee higher potential for a young striker.
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They may have been players that fit the profile Inoes say they will be looking for but they were obviously identified by Ten Hag. Or do you think it's completely coincidental that Ineos independently identified 3 Dutch born and raised players, with 2 of them being former Ten Hag Ajax players?

Come on mate.
 
Insanity said:
I meant mediocre players. The "All the shit...." was an expression.

ETH has bought:

- 150m+ of defenders
- 150m+ CM's and AM's
- 100m+ strikers
- 80m+ wingers

With the resources already there, you'd think that kind of spend would form the basis of a team that is ready to challenge for bigger prizes. Do you think we are though?
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At this point I expect him to at least understand how the EPL works. Having 5-6 players bombing forward is crazy as it leaves the no 6 and the poor idiots playing as CBs exposed. Someone should sit him down and explain to him in a diplomatic and gentle way that there's a slight difference between playing against the likes of NEC and Go Ahead eagles and the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool
 
Insanity said:
I think that and the lack of rotation are majorly responsible for our injury issues too.
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Potentially, with regard the system, but it's hard to say because the likes of Martinez, Yoro and Mainoo all picked up long term. impact injuries - so could also just be bad luck.

I definitely agree on the rotation front. He's so desperate to claim any tinpot trophy as an example of progress that he fields his strongest team vs teams nobody can pronounce on a carpark of a pitch on a Thursday and then picks the same XI Sunday lunchtime.

If I were INEOS, I'd make it clear from hearout that the league is the bread and butter and winning a cup won't mean anything if we don't finish top four.
 
stevoc said:
They may have been players that fit the profile Inoes say they will be looking for but they were obviously identified by Ten Hag. Or do you think it's completely coincidental that Ineos independently identified 3 Dutch born and raised players, with 2 of them being former Ten Hag Ajax players?

Come on mate.
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These sort of posts really annoy me.

Crticisie Ten Hag's style of play, criticise his daft comments after matches and I totally understand. But burying your head in the stand when it's reported INEOS identified De Ligt and Ten Hag confirms the same just because your evidence is "mate he's from Ajax" is just frustrating to debate with.

As for Zirkzee, there's hardly any interaction between the two. Zirkzee has spent most his career at Bayern or Bologna (with a loan in between I think in Belgium). He's a 34m striker at 23 years of age fitting the Wilcox and Ashworth model and he wasn't even first choice. Sesko was.

But yeah sure let's bucket him in the same because you know, dutch born.
 
Lentwood said:
I remember when we were kids and we started playing competitive 5-a-side football - it didn't take six thirteen year old lads more than two or three games to work out that if you tried to play end-to-end attacking football, you'd almost always lose to the team that sat back in formation and picked you off.

EtH still hasn't figured this out three seasons in...that's the most frightening thing...the system he's trying (and failing) to implement won't work even when it's perfect. So we're striving for something that's flawed.
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We've found Sean Dyche's Caf account
 
Drainy said:
We've found Sean Dyche's Caf account
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It's the simplest truth in football though. Sitting back and being solid is boring but incredibly effective - look at Southgate. Couldn't coach a U12s team but managed to get England to two finals by playing negative, dull, low-risk boring football.

The problem is, it's quite hard to win league titles this way because you need to score 95pts+...and you'll draw too many games if you're too cautious.

You have to find a balance though. What EtH is trying to implement is suicidal.
 
Somehow, the INEOS group failed to read the room and let one result change the mind of a supposedly pragmatic group of people and retained a weak manager, who despite being supported in the transfer market has not evolved a decent game plan and has been consistently exploited into embarrassing defeats.

Nothing good will come of expecting things to turn around because loyalty doesn’t win games, it’s the EPL where there are no friends and no easy games.ETH has ample opportunities to change the minds of fans, and he hasn’t done so and the fact he is still peddling a poor structure and style is on the executive keeping him around.
 
Lentwood said:
It's the simplest truth in football though. Sitting back and being solid is boring but incredibly effective - look at Southgate. Couldn't coach a U12s team but managed to get England to two finals by playing negative, dull, low-risk boring football.

The problem is, it's quite hard to win league titles this way because you need to score 95pts+...and you'll draw too many games if you're too cautious.

You have to find a balance though. What EtH is trying to implement is suicidal.
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You can't get consistent results over a 38 game season with that style. Sitting back on teams doesn't work unless you have ruthless attackers, but I agree with your general sentiment that a solid foundation is necessary for consistency.
 
VP89 said:
You can't get consistent results over a 38 game season with that style. Sitting back on teams doesn't work unless you have ruthless attackers, but I agree with your general sentiment that a solid foundation is necessary for consistency.
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Well that's exactly what I say though. You won't win a title playing that way but this squad would almost certainly finish top four if we sat in and played safe.

What we're doing at the moment won't get us top four and is taking us in completely the wrong direction.
 
Lentwood said:
Well that's exactly what I say though. You won't win a title playing that way but this squad would almost certainly finish top four if we sat in and played safe.

What we're doing at the moment won't get us top four and is taking us in completely the wrong direction.
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I don't think you get top 4 that way. Our attack is not nearly good enough to take whatever few chances come in that style. Theyl need to be fed a lot more with room for their own error.
 
Jules_T said:
Latest news is that he has the board's backing. Berrada and Ashworth back him according to an interview with Simon Stone.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/ckg2pm22lz1o
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These comments were made before the Liverpool game, but they also can't say anything else.

If you're asked the question, you have no choice but back him after only 2 games.

VP89 said:
I don't think you get top 4 that way. Our attack is not nearly good enough to take whatever few chances come in that style. Theyl need to be fed a lot more with room for their own error.
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We did it in 22/23, but it did require Rashford to play out of his mind. We likely won't get that Rashford back.
 
VP89 said:
These sort of posts really annoy me.

Crticisie Ten Hag's style of play, criticise his daft comments after matches and I totally understand. But burying your head in the stand when it's reported INEOS identified De Ligt and Ten Hag confirms the same just because your evidence is "mate he's from Ajax" is just frustrating to debate with.

As for Zirkzee, there's hardly any interaction between the two. Zirkzee has spent most his career at Bayern or Bologna (with a loan in between I think in Belgium). He's a 34m striker at 23 years of age fitting the Wilcox and Ashworth model and he wasn't even first choice. Sesko was.

But yeah sure let's bucket him in the same because you know, dutch born.
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You’re 100% right and these posts are really tiring. Some posters go to incredible lengths to justify Zirkzee as a ten Hag signing just because of his passport. There’s enough to bash ETH with, but some people love to make up stuff, and say the weirdest things, just to push their agendas, like taking Sancho’s side over ten Hag, or claiming that he’s still the one identifying players and giving their names to Ineos, etc. They are doing exactly what you said: burying their heads in the sand.
 
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VP89 said:
I don't think you get top 4 that way. Our attack is not nearly good enough to take whatever few chances come in that style. Theyl need to be fed a lot more with room for their own error.
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I'm not talking about some kind of extreme 10-man block with counter attack, I'm talking about some kind of "normal" 4-2-3-1 with a middle block, similar to OGS.

We have a better squad now than we did under Ole, in my opinion.

Getting top four really isn't that hard. There's 114 points up for grabs and you need about 70 points. Technically you can drop points in 22 games and STILL make top four!

Being hard to beat should be priority number one, scoring tonnes of goals, playing dominant attacking football and beating the elite sides should be the long term objective, once you've achieved that.
 
Lentwood said:
It's the simplest truth in football though. Sitting back and being solid is boring but incredibly effective - look at Southgate. Couldn't coach a U12s team but managed to get England to two finals by playing negative, dull, low-risk boring football.

The problem is, it's quite hard to win league titles this way because you need to score 95pts+...and you'll draw too many games if you're too cautious.

You have to find a balance though. What EtH is trying to implement is suicidal.
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It's not true that every successful team at the professional level is defensive and sits back and hits people on the counter.

ETH doesn't want his team taking unnecessary risks of the ball when playing out of the back precisely because of the risk of counter attack.

You draw the opposition on to you to create an artificial transition and work it around them or play it back if the pass isn't on. Liverpool did that well on Sunday, we didn't because they were more physical and we made bad decisions with the ball
 
It will be hard to outdo Moyes in the damaging the club department, but philosopher Ten Hag is well on his way.

The club statement is hard to swallow. INEOS just started, but despite the many positive things, the manager problem remains unsolved.

We don't need Harry Potter, we don't need a demolition man, we need a proper manager. We don't have one.

I salute the apologists. The spirit of Jim Jones and Baghdad Bob is still alive.
 
Sigh. Another season of this. Does anyone actually think he'll still be there at Christmas?

All this analysis about our formation has started again but it's still missing the main point. I wouldn't mind as much this strategy of leaving ourselves wide open in the middle and bombing forward.... but the thing is evening throwing these bodies forward we never really look like scoring. We are still Moments FC.

This might change when Rasmus comes back but with Rashford, Garnacho and Anthony not trying to pass to him last season, who's going to believe ETH has fixed this since.

Zirkzee looks a bit ropey, but to be honest so does Rasmus when he is there, but you could also say that about Bruno, Rashford, Garnacho, Amad, Anthony.

We've got better options at the back but I can't see how you could take six of the above players and slot them into the four slots available (CF, LW, RW, 10) and come up with a coherent attack that actually carries a threat.
 
ROFLUTION said:
The whole point with the post is to play devil's advocate if you are to sack a manager - because what if things will stay the same under a new manager?
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You sack the new manager if things stay the same. Same as every other club. I don't get what's crazy about that. It's the standard practically everyone employs. It doesn't permanently make United worse if that is done. I don't get the hesitancy to doing that.
 
I had so much hope for him when he came in and put Ronaldo in his place, and then demoted Maguire. There was hope that he could be the one to start playing a team on merit, only for him to join the Bruno cult and has now put himself in a right mess.

He's a terrible judge of talent, his in-game management is either reactionary or non-existent at all and he obviously lacks a lot in his man-management despite those early good signs.
 
Lentwood said:
I'm not talking about some kind of extreme 10-man block with counter attack, I'm talking about some kind of "normal" 4-2-3-1 with a middle block, similar to OGS.

We have a better squad now than we did under Ole, in my opinion.

Getting top four really isn't that hard. There's 114 points up for grabs and you need about 70 points. Technically you can drop points in 22 games and STILL make top four!

Being hard to beat should be priority number one, scoring tonnes of goals, playing dominant attacking football and beating the elite sides should be the long term objective, once you've achieved that.
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Ole bewteen January 2020 to when he was sacked had the better squad. Defense was worse but he had better midfield and more importantly forwards who can actually score. Ten Hag is the one most to blame for the state of the squad currently because of his signings.
 
He will need to win every game from now till Xmas to save his job.

Can it be done?
 
Xaviboy said:
He will need to win every game from now till Xmas to save his job.

Can it be done?
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I don't think he needs to win every game. Nobody is daft enough to make that the standard in our current situation.

That said, I'm not confident of him achieving enough to last the season.
 
He will struggle to get another PL job after this mess. People crucified me and others who claimed the same about Solksjaer, saying that United on the CV is enough to secure a job in the league, but no one likes naive managers who make their teams very beatable - no mid table and no relegation fodder can afford such risk. Add to that how unlikeable he comes across and plain disrespectful/classless he is in his interviews and I really think it’s Go Ahead Eagles for him next. At best.
 
Werd. said:
@pocco is bang on. He is the one manager post-SAF who will end up doing the most damage to the club, which is already underway.

INEOS need to pull the pin asap, nobody will care that they made the wrong call at the end of the season if they make this right soon.
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Ineos will be blanch about making the wrong call, being lumbered with another misfiring manager and therefore keeping the club in flux. This is exacerbated with PSR concerns. We cannot afford to chop and change willy-nilly.

Let's be honest. United will not be replacing Erik ten Hag, just as they did not replace Ole, Jose, LvG or Moyes. We're (still) looking to replace Alex Ferguson.

That's the standard which will take all this pain away, and, yes, it's feasible. Our club's resources and assets put us in a remarkable position, one which failure really is exactly so.

Red Star One said:
He will struggle to get another PL job after this mess. People crucified me and others who claimed the same about Solksjaer, saying that United on the CV is enough to secure a job in the league, but no one likes naive managers who make their teams very beatable - no mid table and no relegation fodder can afford such risk. Add to that how unlikeable he comes across and plain disrespectful/classless he is in his interviews and I really think it’s Go Ahead Eagles for him next. At best.
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Sorry, but this nonsense.

David Moyes and Jose managed to swing Premier League jobs after their decline at United.

EtH likely would, also, considering he's won trophies in spite of injury crises and shown he can make hard decisions (removing Ronaldo et al).

This will be vindicated if (and when (sigh)) his successor fails at United, also.
 
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