Erik ten Hag | 2024/25

[Shark]

No. You sack the manager if you have a better option. What's the point of sacking if you just leave it to someone crap?

Probably around 80% of managers in the PL alone are better options, nevermind other leagues. We're not talking about replacing somebody even like Mourinho or LVG who had incredibly more pedigree than ETH. What has he achieved that has fans like you so sure there's no better options in world football? It's just bizarre.

 

[Rojofiam]

I am 100% in agreement with you here.. But even if all these players was picked by ETH, where have all those posters been for the last 10 years.. I am sure the club told ETH to pick those players he wanted, because it was easier for them and he got to be the fall guy when everything came falling down. And even if thats not the case, no manager should have so much power over transfers, or anything else for that matter, at a club like United.. If he wanted that power, United should have looked elsewhere. Just show how bad we have been run..
I want him out, but i dont blame him for everything there is wrong with this club, there are lots of reasons to want him out, but transfers aint one of them, they might be bad, but he should never been given that power in the first place..

I don't even think they've been that bad. Apart from Antony, I'm pretty sure most managers would love to work with every other ex-Ajax player he signed: Onana, Mazraoui, Martínez, de Ligt. These players are all perfectly compatible with playing a modern, possession-based, high line, high pressing type of football, which most top managers' philosophies heavily revolve around anyway.

 

[Robbie Boy]

The football we've played under ten Hag almost makes me miss the Ole days

The football was messy and disjointed, but at least we actually scored some goals, especially during that period when Bruno, Greenwood, Martial and Rashford were all on fire. I've tried my best to understand what it is that ETH is trying to do, but I'm at a complete loss.

 

[Sarni]

No. You sack the manager if you have a better option. What's the point of sacking if you just leave it to someone crap?

There are dozens of managers that would at least have a chance at being a better option, and we know for certain that the current one is not only not good enough but he also actually makes us a lot worse than we should be.

 

[Sarni]

Probably around 80% of managers the PL alone are better options, nevermind other leagues. We're not talking about replacing somebody even like Mourinho or LVG who had incredibly more pedigree than ETH. What has he achieved that has fans like you so sure there's no better options in world football? It's just bizarre.

It's insane. You have a number of PL managers who are performing far better than him with far less resources, weaker teams, very little money to spend, playing much better football and improving their teams, yet apparently nobody in the entire world could deliver 8th place for Man Utd.

 

[Zumbi]

No. You sack the manager if you have a better option. What's the point of sacking if you just leave it to someone crap?

No. Because you never know if any option is “better” until you try them. And you only make the decision to try them when the status quo is so bad that you decide continuing with the same thing that isn’t working is not good enough.

There is never any guarantee that any replacement will be better, but that is not a sound justification for sticking with something that isn’t working.

 

[GaryLifo]

I'm one of those who has switched to 'get rid ASAP' from previously being ten hag in. I had my reservations after last season, but I felt. morally (if not ruthless and logically), the cup final win bought him one last shot at it. The pre-season was another money-making piss take and this didn't help, as did the summer tournaments and injuries (although many other clubs had the same things to deal with and dealt with them better).

Fulham game, I did see some very small signs of a better way of playing (low bar here but still), and we, for once, didn't look like conceding any time Fulham had the ball and should've won by 3 or 4 in the end (usual crap finishing though...)

Brighton - yeah... that's when it began to revert to last season 2.0 and Sunday showed this is more likely how it will be going forward.. still... after 2 full seasons. I guess the tipping point for me lies on the answer to the following question - If ten hag is given at least until xmas, how likely is it that it suddenly clicks and becomes good (and by good I just mean we might put a run of 6-8 games together without a defeat and play some half-decent football) in that time?

Even with such a low bar set, I am not convinced there is any chance this happens, let alone we actually look like a side who can get top 4 and finishs with a minimum +25 - 30GD

In summary - he needs to go ASAP as I think <5% chance we are any better than 7 points from the next 6 games

 

[WeePat]

Jim and co looked seething but they’ve only got themselves to blame. They had the perfect opportunity to get rid of ETH at the end of the season on a bit of a high but they buckled under the fan pressure to keep him off the back of winning a single game, instead of looking at the absolute dross that was served up on a weekly basis for the majority of the season. Fix your mistake early, while there’s still everything to play for!

Was there actually loads of fan pressure to keep him? That was never the sentiment I felt from the outside looking in. I thought he was a goner, no matter the result in the final

 

[AarhusUnited]

I don't even think they've been that bad. Apart from Antony, I'm pretty sure most managers would love to work with every other ex-Ajax player he signed: Onana, Mazraoui, Martínez, de Ligt. These players are all perfectly compatible with playing a modern, possession-based, high line, high pressing type of football, which most top managers' philosophies heavily revolve around anyway.

I agree, and dont think everyone is bad, but you get the feeling when reading in here.. I agree with Antony and I also think Højlund is a very bad signing.. (I know you wont agree, but its for another time to discuss)

 

[Lentwood]

There are multiple theories for the best way to control games and the meta is constantly shifting.

United are attempting to get a system working that is one of the current 'meta' strategies. They aren't there yet for a few reasons

But EtH is not seeking control, he's seeking chaos.

It seems that what he wants to achieve is a side that draws in the press and then lumps it forward, whilst having our midfield, full backs and forwards all charge forward to either receive the ball or win the ball in transition.

This is madness to me. That's encouraging variance. You want to decrease variance when you're playing limited sides with inferior players.

Case in point, take a team like Fulham. They have the likes of Pereira, Iwobi, Traore and Smith-Rowe in attack. All of those players came up short in better teams (United, Arsenal, Barcelona, Arsenal) because they lacked the quality / nous to break down low-blocks...but they have all proven very solid players for a side that largely looks to soak up pressure and hit teams on the counter.

I'm not saying this is what we SHOULD do...but say United sat back vs Fulham, 10-men behind the ball and countered, how many chances / shots would Fulham have? I suspect very, very few. They don't have the quality to break that set-up down...but when you encourage chaos and leave huge gaps for the likes of Iwobi and Traore, you're playing right into their hands. I am only using Fulham as an example, but so many PL teams play this way.

If you put Bruno, Rashford, Garnacho and Hojlund in that Fulham team, with everything else being equal and Silva as the boss playing his solid low / middle block, those attacking players would really stand out and suddenly look like great players - provided teams still attacked Fulham and left the spaces for them.

 

[UnitedWA]

Erik Ten Hag: "It is a process. Yes we came 7th last season but we won the Carling Cup and only Man City have won more trophies than us the 3 last seasons. Trust the process."

Process was LvG's mantra. This baldinho fraudinho is using "stick to the plan". heeeeh?

 

[wolvored]

Arteta and Klopp in their 3rd full season were already showing improvement in their teams, yet we are going backwards. Why no striker who can score regularly wast bought in I don’t understand. You can buy all the defenders you want, but you need to score to win a game

 

[space]

I just do not understand the midfield tactics. It's suicide.

 

[Lentwood]

I find it hard to assess his squad because he basically makes almost every single player worse. It’s definitely better than the level it’s performing at, but whether it’s a good one we cannot be sure until we have a proper manager managing it.

I agree - but that reinforces my point really.

OGS regularly fielded the likes of Fred, McT, Dan James, AWB, Rashford, Martial etc...but his football was so simple it largely worked OK for us with a bit of star quality thrown in from Pogba (when he could be arsed) and Bruno.

This squad is miles better on paper for me, especially with Ugarte in it.

 

[ShinjiNinja26]

Was there actually loads of fan pressure to keep him? That was never the sentiment I felt from the outside looking in. I thought he was a goner, no matter the result in the final

Yes, well it certainly seemed that way to me anyway, I remember a lot of supporters got caught up in the moment after that final and wanted the manager to remain. It didn’t matter that we’d finished 8th, we’d just beaten Man City in the FA Cup final. It was my biggest fear at the time and unfortunately it became reality.

 

[Lentwood]

Arteta and Klopp in their 3rd full season were already showing improvement in their teams, yet we are going backwards. Why no striker who can score regularly wast bought in I don’t understand. You can buy all the defenders you want, but you need to score to win a game

Arteta and Klopp showed improvement from the outset, the results might not always have been there but they started looking well-drilled and stopped getting battered pretty much from the start of their tenures.

Remember Arsenal used to regularly get spanked 3, 4 or 5 when they would go away to top teams...all that ended immediately under Arteta, even though they did still drop plenty of points during the period they cleared out the dross and reshaped the squad.

United get embarrassed monthly under EtH. It's shameful that a team with our ability can be conceding 6 or 7 goals in a game and losing 3 or 4 goals to teams like Palace, Brentford and Bournemouth. Any one of those in isolation should push a manager to the brink

 

[JPRouve]

Was there actually loads of fan pressure to keep him? That was never the sentiment I felt from the outside looking in. I thought he was a goner, no matter the result in the final

I'm pretty sure that I saw one or two open letters from fan groups and outside of the caf he was somehow heavily supported in polls.

 

[Shark]

It's insane. You have a number of PL managers who are performing far better than him with far less resources, weaker teams, very little money to spend, playing much better football and improving their teams, yet apparently nobody in the entire world could deliver 8th place for Man Utd.

Maddening. As I said we've had managers with much higher pedigree since SAF stepped down. Excluding Moyes and Ole of course. The way some fans are going on, you'd swear ETH had won multiple CL and league titles in major leagues. If you've no options to replace this manager you've got to be shopping at pound-land.

 

[JBG]

I just do not understand the midfield tactics. It's suicide.

I do not understand the tactics in general. They do not seem to fit our players at all :/. Sure we have been better at controlling games(at times) this season. But our best attacks still consists of players doing something "magical"/on their own and not really anything that seems worked on from the training field.

 

[Werd.]

I just do not understand the midfield tactics. It's suicide.

"I'm sorry for you. We have won more trophies after City in English football" - the true Pep Guardiola is my idol, 2024.

 

[red_de_pologne]

I agree - but that reinforces my point really.

OGS regularly fielded the likes of Fred, McT, Dan James, AWB, Rashford, Martial etc...but his football was so simple it largely worked OK for us with a bit of star quality thrown in from Pogba (when he could be arsed) and Bruno.

This squad is miles better on paper for me, especially with Ugarte in it.

That almost sounded like you were judging ETH for not getting the best out of Ugarte

 

[Blood Mage]

The football we've played under ten Hag almost makes me miss the Ole days

Honestly if hadn't been for those humiliating scorelines against Spurs, Liverpool and Watford the Ole era was almost decent compared to this.

 

[tjb]

For me, it's not the even the games that are making this a set conclusion. It's the arrogance. The use of trophies to gaslight everyone. The defensiveness. The need to shut down any criticism towards him. That's what's really putting me off.

 

[Werd.]

He is a smug cnut with a dry personality. Would be an absolute pain to work with.

 

[DRJosh]

For me, it's not the even the games that are making this a set conclusion. It's the arrogance. The use of trophies to gaslight everyone. The defensiveness. The need to shut down any criticism towards him. That's what's really putting me off.

That’s the instinct for self-preservation. He knows his days at the club are numbered despite the board’s backing

 

[Drainy]

But EtH is not seeking control, he's seeking chaos.

It seems that what he wants to achieve is a side that draws in the press and then lumps it forward, whilst having our midfield, full backs and forwards all charge forward to either receive the ball or win the ball in transition.

This is madness to me. That's encouraging variance. You want to decrease variance when you're playing limited sides with inferior players.

Case in point, take a team like Fulham. They have the likes of Pereira, Iwobi, Traore and Smith-Rowe in attack. All of those players came up short in better teams (United, Arsenal, Barcelona, Arsenal) because they lacked the quality / nous to break down low-blocks...but they have all proven very solid players for a side that largely looks to soak up pressure and hit teams on the counter.

I'm not saying this is what we SHOULD do...but say United sat back vs Fulham, 10-men behind the ball and countered, how many chances / shots would Fulham have? I suspect very, very few. They don't have the quality to break that set-up down...but when you encourage chaos and leave huge gaps for the likes of Iwobi and Traore, you're playing right into their hands. I am only using Fulham as an example, but so many PL teams play this way.

If you put Bruno, Rashford, Garnacho and Hojlund in that Fulham team, with everything else being equal and Silva as the boss playing his solid low / middle block, those attacking players would really stand out and suddenly look like great players - provided teams still attacked Fulham and left the spaces for them.

Come back Mourinho, all is forgiven

 

[Sarni]

He is a smug cnut with a dry personality. Would be an absolute pain to work with.

Yeah he has the type of personality I dislike the most. Very patronizing and arrogant without actually having any meaningful success to back it up with. At least with Mourinho he could be humble (at times) and had the trophies to support his arrogance, ETH is never ever humble, thinks extremely highly of himself but hasn’t actually done much in his career to put substance behind it.

 

[Micky Targaryen]

Three years from now he will still be 2-3 games in since X (just input whatever happened those 3 games prior, e.g. you have moved from a player A to player B in a certain position) and you won't be able to assess him. He will slowly reach his retirement age and we still won't be able to judge

Erik Ten Hag: "It is a process. Yes we came 7th last season but we won the Carling Cup and only Man City have won more trophies than us the 3 last seasons. Trust the process."

Redcafe: Well yes, even though we finally got FdJ and Mbappe , it’s only been 3 games…

*proceeds to upload the Tara Fergie photo*

 

[Werd.]

Yeah he has the type of personality I dislike the most. Very patronizing and arrogant without actually having any meaningful success to back it up with. At least with Mourinho he could be humble (at times) and had the trophies to support his arrogance, ETH is never ever humble, thinks extremely highly of himself but hasn’t actually done much in his career to put substance behind it.

I'm guessing we've both had to deal with such type of managers in the corporate world.

 

[Idxomer]

I don't buy it. I think our squad now is borderline very good, but the manager is an abject failure.

You only need to go back to OGS squad and see where they are now to know it was a very average squad.

Jose's "where they play...IF they play" comments spring to mind.

Remember, the likes of Rashford (still here and derided as terrible), Pereira (Fulham), Dan James (Leeds), AWB (West Ham) Martial (free agent), Pogba (banned), De Gea (Fiorentina), Lindelof (5th choice), Bailly (Villarreal), Maguire (4th choice), Telles (Saudi Arabia), DvdB (Girona), Fred (Fenerbache) etc...all played pretty regularly under OGS, if not every week!

Martial was having his best season in 19/20 and so was Rashford, both fitter and better physically back then than they've been for the last 2 or 3 years. James and Pereira weren't good but sometimes servicable, the fomer was only a squad player anyway and the latter was replaced quickly by Bruno. Pogba when fit was better than Casemiro and Eriken. Matic and Fred were also better, especially the latter. Maguire didn't turn out to be joke till Ole's third season. I do believe as I said before that the defence when all players are fit is now better though no one is at the level of Shaw back in 20/21.

We're 4 years later, that's a long time in football. Mentioning these players' current situation doesn't make much sense. Let's see where some of the players we have now will be in 4 years. I don't expect any of the midfielders or forwards who played here for Ten Hag to be starters at the club in 4 years with the exception of Mainoo and at a push one of Garnacho and Amad.

 

[NLunited]

We have a good squad now, but the young players aren‘t consistent yet and our old players are declining. Despite that, we should do much better.

We could adjust tactics and be more conservative, but that could blunt our attack more.

I‘m baffled by the form of Martinez and Onana. Casemiro makes terrible mistakes like he did last season.

Pool played about the same tactics that we did, only performed way better and were frightfully clinical.

We could have played deep and compact, but we would have been criticized heavily for that. I don‘t see an easy solution, unless you want to rip up everything and start over once again.

 

[ShinjiNinja26]

The football we've played under ten Hag almost makes me miss the Ole days

Yep. I was quite critical of Ole but at least we had no issues scoring goals under him. Watching us in the final third under ETH is brutal! I’m not even going to get into how easily we get sliced open defensively because that’s glaringly obvious.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

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?

The problems actually don't go any deeper than he 6 being sloppy. The 6 simply has to keep it simple on the ball and next to never cede possession unless its a forced error. . Casemiro instead of keeping it simple tried to be needlessly ambitious with his passes. Plus tried to play for an easy fouls when not in control of possesion. With the team paying a heavy price with players being resultantly caught out of position being ruthlessly exploited

The strategy is not remotely high risk and low reward. Its infact the opposite. Liverpool literally set up the exact same way as we did and ironically got all the joy we failed to!. Difference is: hey didn't have the players operating in the Casemiro role ceding possession with needless unforced errors. Furthermore, the times we did force them to lose the ball. Our lack of clinical edge in such attacks, unlike Liverpool gave this false perception they actually defended those situations well. The truth is as City have shown for the last 2 years. A 3-1-2-4 build up if you hardly ever cede possession stupidly mid build up will get your to murder 90 percent of teams. Because you ill constantly over loaded them in attack, and be able to pin them in one the ball is deep in their half is you presses consistently. For when the formation is that high up, with your side in posesssion, you literally have 5 guys behind the ball at all times. namely the keeper, 2 cbs a 6 and a midfielder and fullback slightly ahead of them. Who if positioned narrow allow you to quell next to all counter attacks possible with ease.

At the same time. City have shown it has made them easier to get at if you successfully nick the ball from them mid build up. Our goals in the fa cup final last season and even the one in the community shield are proof. Because as a set up one careless loss of possession is likely to leave you heavily outnumbered vs the opposing attacking line. Is basically all the weaknesses and strengths of the WM strategy recycled from the past.

 

[sammyhol]

Without doubt my biggest frustration with ETH is his single mindedness tactically. I appreciate that this seasons 424 is a slight variation on the last years suicidal 4141, but the style he is trying implement is the same. High press. High energy, Wide forwards holding width. Often underlapping, inside FBs

I get that it’s the done thing these days. But despite his control over the squad build, we simply don’t have the team for it. It plays to all of our weaknesses and none of our strengths.

Like it or not, we are far better suited to playing deep set, counter attacking football. Our midfielders lack the athleticism to cover the ground needed for any pressing system. We have completely nullified our only real goal threat (Rashford) by having him too wide, and too involved in building through phases of play rather than counter attack. Our best results (eg cup final) are always when ETH goes against his instincts.

This squad screams deep set 4231. A deep double pivot sat in front of the back four, providing cover for flying wide FBs. Inside pacey forwards (Rashford and Garnacho) attacking the space in behind, and Bruno springing attacks as a free 10, with his main concern being finding space to get on the ball, rather than frantically pressing off it.

Sit in. Spring counter attacks. Simple as that. There isn’t a single player in our squad (maybe Mount?) who isn’t better suited to it.

 

[Syphon Wallet]

It's was much better than this in the Ole days, and that wasn't even good enough.

Replace this fraud now, during the international break.
Everything is pointing to a huge mistake of we don't.

If we keep him we are going with pure hope that he comes good.

 

[AlexUTD]

Process was LvG's mantra. This baldinho fraudinho is using "stick to the plan". heeeeh?

It gets old really quick in his third year after getting demolished by our rivals at Old Trafford. Fed up with his excuses and he refuses to take any blame even if he sets up the tactics and team.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

Yep. I was quite critical of Ole but at least we had no issues scoring goals under him. Watching us in the final third under ETH is brutal! I’m not even going to get into how easily we get sliced open defensively because that’s glaringly obvious.

we had a vastly superior attacking line under him. Plus two world class creators in Pogba and Bruno

 

[GoodTimes]

He comes across as utterly dislikeable.

We win? It’s because we stuck to his plan. Lose? It’s down to individuals errors. I’ve never known a manager to absolve themselves of so much blame, especially in the face of so much evidence.

I’m not surprised the players are fed up to the back teeth of playing under him. Imagine being told to play the same kamikaze tactics week in week out, and the grief you’re about to take when it all inevitably goes tits up!

 

[The Hilton]

But that’s still not change for change sake. It’s change because our manager is a bit shit, and people would like to try someone else in the hope whoever it is is a bit less shit. It’s not like people are randomly calling for a change in manager despite things going swimmingly. People want change precisely because the status quo is not good enough.

You claimed that because they haven’t changed the manager yet “they don't believe there is an available alternative that will improve things for us”. That is baseless speculation because you have zero clue what they’re discussing and deciding behind the scenes. None of us do. They may well have already concluded that there are better people out there for the job, and are putting things in notion ready for when they make the move.

As for him lasting to the end of the season, that feels more like a fantasy than speculation at the moment. He won’t make it to Halloween at this rate.

It isn't baseless speculation, it's a fact. They can be discussing whatever behind the scenes, but until they pull the trigger, they haven't decided that someone else is better. On top of that, they've publicly supported him.

Your first paragraph is contradictory, if we're replacing him based on hope, rather than expectation, then that's change for changes sake. In order to have expectation, rather than hope, you should be able to articulate why.

It really shouldn't be that difficult, if you think you know of someone who will do a better job, name them and explain why. If you can't think of a single available manager who will improve us, then you can't make a rational argument for sacking.

 

[Cheimoon]

He comes across as utterly dislikeable.

We win? It’s because we stuck to his plan. Lose? It’s down to individuals errors. I’ve never known a manager to absolve themselves of so much blame, especially in the face of so much evidence.

I’m not surprised the players are fed up to the back teeth of playing under him. Imagine being told to play the same kamikaze tactics week in week out, and the grief you’re about to take when it all inevitably goes tits up!

Are you making that last paragraph up, or are there reports that players are unhappy this season?