Erik ten Hag | 2024/25

Erik ten Hag

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This team has had a goal scoring problem ever since Ten Hag became manager. This is the third season now and it’s not going to change no matter who’s playing. This is a managerial limitation.
Absolutely. It was just partly papered over by an insane Rashford streak in the first year, but there really is no consistent way of getting goals under ETH.
 
Because another manager will come in, and we'll repeat the same argument about how he just needs time to turn into the next Ferguson. So let's just see this one out. We've had the same split in the fanbase going back a decade now - those who believe that time is all it takes to make a great manager, and those who don't.

This is now proof by exhaustion on that argument. Let him see out his contract. Only way that should change is if Old Trafford vocally force him out.
Yes, all other concerns should be temporarily case aside, significant short term pain inflicted, in pursuit of improving consensus in our online fanbase. A thing that definitely matters a great deal.
 
It’s just times like tonight that genuinely make me angry at our supporters. Just thinking about the months on end many defended everything he did in the face of overwhelming evidence that hes shit.
He did a number on a lot of fans by blaming the media for hounding him out, with a bit of Mourinho-like posturing for good measure - the media were asking general and fair questions based on his completely mediocre performance as manager week to week the previous season. They were just saying what a lot of people thought - he’s not the right man for the job and nothing this season so far has suggested otherwise.
 
Yes, all other concerns should be temporarily case aside, significant short term pain inflicted, in pursuit of improving consensus in our online fanbase. A thing that definitely matters a great deal.

TBF the opinions of fans have seemed to matter a lot since Fergie retired, which is a problem because when fan opinion has been almost always wrong about United.

I'm genuinely scratching my head trying to think of a decision the club made that was actively unpopular at the time the club made it. Maybe Phil Jones and Jesse Lingard contract extensions and the Mount and Fellaini signings? But beyond that they've almost always gone for players fans were happy with and the overwhelming fan favourite for managers.
 
I don’t enjoy our games anymore. We play shit football even though we have very few injuries this season. He can no longer hide behind that excuse. He needs to go.
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least
 
TBF the opinions of fans have seemed to matter a lot since Fergie retired, which is a problem because when fan opinion has been almost always wrong about United.

I'm genuinely scratching my head trying to think of a decision the club made that was actively unpopular at the time the club made it. Maybe Phil Jones and Jesse Lingard contract extensions and the Mount and Fellaini signings? But beyond that they've almost always gone for players fans were happy with and the overwhelming fan favourite for managers.
People in desperate helpless situations take comfort in convincing themselves that they have more agency than they do. Meanwhile fan opinion is led by the decisions the club makes, or often the rumours that signal the decisions the club will soon make public, rather than the other way around.
 
We feel outdated tactically. There's so much emphasis on our wide players none of whom have either the ability or the consistency (or both) to deliver. The middle? Doesn't seem to matter. If we attack through the centre the only way that's going to end is with a 30 yard speculative effort.

The other issue there is no movement whenever anyone is looking for a pass. You see it all the time. The only person moving at all, will be the person with the ball. The rest? Mostly statuesque. We're among the worst teams I've ever seen for creating space and it produces such slow, laboured and blunt attacks.

Nothing we do up front looks deliberate. We just look to benefit from a series of fortunate ricochets and deflections.
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least

Because Sir Alex wasn't anyone special and given time any numbnuts can do the same?

Took four years to paint Sistine chapel, so letting a toddler loose with a can of paint in your living room just requires patience!
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least

Not me. I’ve seen enough.

Every game is pure torture, and a grind.

The question is, is he getting the best out of this group of player and the answer is 100% No.

Time to go.
 
I'm mostly bored about reading the same shite about him week after week on here by now. I'm rarely excited to watch us still, results need to improve very quickly or he needs to go. Win at Spurs is a must for me.
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least

Top trolling, you caught two already.
 
Not win again Spurs should be curtains. He keeps on making the same decisions that dont work. Set up, players, formation. Madness really
 
If SAF was the master of game management Ten Hag must be the extreme opposite of that. His original plan when it was on song was pretty enjoyable to watch but when opposition team made one or few changes he could hardly adapt. Hes Dutch's Arsene Wenger and just like Wenger's Arsenal we should be prepared for some big embarrasment losses.
That’s a huge disrespect to Wenger. ETH is nowhere near him.
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least
He's had plenty of time and plenty of backing, he's just not good enough - it's as simple as that.
 
Win vs Spurs won’t change anything besides sparking the creating of “a foundation has been built”/“turning the corner” type threads, and making the “back” percentile in this thread go up a bit - a few posts talking about “we’re improving” - only to then get fondled by Porto and Villa or something. Have you guys not seen this movie enough? Long-term we’re going nowhere with this guy
 
I really don't understand why/how we ended up with him in charge for this season.
With the very strong rumours he was getting the sack no matter what happened in the FA cup final, I was very surprised.
Is it because there were no other viable options to replace him?
 
«Keep» went from 10 % to 22 % after beating a promoted team and some farts from the 3rd tier. This fanbase never ceases to amaze me.
Its wild. It’s absolutely astonishing how flaky, indecisive, flippy floppy some people are. Like harsh reality is staring them in the face still they choose to ignore that.
 
What's his plan to score a goal against a low-block?

We know that part of his plan is to lure the press and hoof it forward to play off the transition, which is a shocking plan, but nonetheless is a plan.

What's his plan when teams have numbers behind the ball?

There's no overlap from the fullbacks and there appears to be no clear instruction to the players about what their base objective should be...is it pass and move, is it work it into Zirkzee and play off him, is it overlap / underlap and cross...? There's no repeatable patters and its unclear what is being discussed and coached on the training ground.

The one thing we do see is Dalot popping up in strange attacking positions....but why? There's a reason he's a full-back. Whenever he does get forward he usually runs out of ideas or does have the nuances in his game to pick the right pass or make the right choice. He's a decent footballer "for a fullback", but you wouldn't want him at #10!
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least

ಠ_ಠ Not sure if meme
 
I really don't understand why/how we ended up with him in charge for this season.
With the very strong rumours he was getting the sack no matter what happened in the FA cup final, I was very surprised.
Is it because there were no other viable options to replace him?
Fans pressure and INEOS unable to secure Tuchel / de Zerbi, but I think it’s mostly the former. Believe it or not I still expect fans to put pressure on them to keep him now because for some reason we have developed a collective sense of superiority over other fan groups which is heavily predicated on us ‘standing behind manager’. You still have people appearing here and saying we need to give him more years because Fergie only started winning after 5-6. It’s complete lunacy, levels of delusion unfathomable to a normal football follower.
 
I turned it off at 1-0 as I had to get up early. When I looked up the result it didn't surprise me at all. Unfortunately.
 
One of the more frustrating points I've tried to nail in to people's heads around here is that you don't just magically score more goals "by bringing in better goalscorers". Especially in 2024 when chance creation is so systemic for many teams. Just because you stick Haaland up top instead of Zirkzee wouldn't mean we are magically contending for the league. Sure it would help but he certainly wouldn't hit his City numbers here and the attack would still be disjointed because we simply don't create any "easy" chances that are repeatable. Most of our creation comes from one of Bruno's 50 tries, or pure individual quality from a winger. But you rarely see the type of goal scored by Garnacho against Soton from our side.

It's also why I've constantly pushed back on the notion that Bruno is required for us to ever score/create as a team when people cite his huge creation metrics. There are hardly any other teams in the world that rely on a singular creator, much less a flawed one, yet a team like Arsenal scores plenty of goals because their team and system result in numerous opportunites and aren't just reliant on a few moments where if the player on the end of a random cross/pass doesn't ruthlessly finish it we lose and people lament our forwards.
Excellent post. Sums up my feelings perfectly. Agree with everything.
 
This team has had a goal scoring problem ever since Ten Hag became manager. This is the third season now and it’s not going to change no matter who’s playing. This is a managerial limitation.
It’s gone on a lot longer than ETH has been here. We’ve hit 70+ once I think and that’s purely because we played an entire game against 10 man Southampton. It would be interesting if someone can be bothered to work out the standard deviation of goals from each season, I’d assume the Mou 2nd season would be when we were the best.
 
No point in getting in the best of the class elsewhere when we've got this fool in charge of the playing squad.
 
That means very little - and I believe you're wrong if you don't think it was a factor. I mean, reports around the time came out outright stating Ineos were aware of a groundswell of support among fans for Ten Hag. It was evidently a consideration.

Each to their own, but I absolutely don't believe it was a factor whatsoever.
 
Carry on like this and he’ll probably be gone by the end of the next international break.
 
Let's give him a bit of time, folks. Fergie took 5-6 years before he started churning out nice football. if you can't support us when we're shite, you can't support us when we're good. I will reserve my judgement until the end of this year at the very least
We can't just keep holding out and give every manager 5-6 years in case they turn into the next Fergie. It's not going to happen - Fergie was a one off. We need to move away from this fantasy. That being said I'm all for giving the manager adequate time - which I think Ten Hag has had now to start 'churning out nice football' or at the very least an improvement on the last two years.
 
We're at the point where even scraping a win at Tottenham or Villa would mean we're just delaying the inevitable, like when Ole beat Spurs in the middle of that terrible run that got him sacked. You would think that if we don't see some massive improvements, and I mean massive, in the next two games he'll be gone in the next international break.
 
Big game v Spurs needed or else this ice will start cracking. This is where EtH needs to take the reigns and deliver some statement results. It's down to him and the team now, big results needed effectively 3 wins.
 
Fans pressure and INEOS unable to secure Tuchel / de Zerbi, but I think it’s mostly the former. Believe it or not I still expect fans to put pressure on them to keep him now because for some reason we have developed a collective sense of superiority over other fan groups which is heavily predicated on us ‘standing behind manager’. You still have people appearing here and saying we need to give him more years because Fergie only started winning after 5-6. It’s complete lunacy, levels of delusion unfathomable to a normal football follower.

Thomas Tuchel is still out of a job, and De Zerbi signed for Marseille in late june. I'm sure INEOS could've gotten one of them if they really tried. Not buying that explanation at all.
The Tammy Wynettes on the other hand... It is indeed surprising how parts of our fan base took the words of SAF a bit to literally.
 
Big game v Spurs needed or else this ice will start cracking. This is where EtH needs to take the reigns and deliver some statement results. It's down to him and the team now, big results needed effectively 3 wins.
The ice has already cracked and he's fell through. Look at the poll, listen to the sentiment in here and online, look at our results and performances, listen to the likes of Andy Mitten and Laurie Whitwell try to spin positives while clearly referencing decent from match going fans. Many managers better than Ten Hag haven't been able to recover from this position.
 
Thomas Tuchel is still out of a job, and De Zerbi signed for Marseille in late june. I'm sure INEOS could've gotten one of them if they really tried. Not buying that explanation at all.
The Tammy Wynettes on the other hand... It is indeed surprising how parts of our fan base took the words of SAF a bit to literally.
Suspect they'll go back to Tuchel when Ten Hag gets booted.