Erik ten Hag | 2024/25

[Teja]

All previous managers pre-ETH have had an ensalada of a squad. ETH has had the most help in getting in the players he has been comfortable with than any other manager prior to him.

Even last season, he was more blessed than any manager prior. This season is 100% ETH's squad. If he cant do it this season, then he has been an utter fraud. 100%

People here still won't accept it. Last season they complained that the lack of CBs makes it impossible for him to implement a high press or build play out the back. Now he has the defenders, it'll be the DM because we don't have Rodri or some such nonsense.

I absolutely hate the interim manager situation so I think he should get the season unless things are going horribly wrong but really need to sack at the end of the season if (when) he finishes outside the CL spots.

How much of this pressing improvement is down to starting a 4 man midfield and the intensity of Mount and how much is it to us becoming a better pressing team?

Mount is papering over the cracks the same way Fred used to for me. His workrate means even a somewhat ineffective press doesn't immediately lead to a threatening 3v3 or 4v4 situation. I'm curious if he keeps going with this against Liverpool or the experience in the friendly is enough to scare him and set up in a decent mid block and hit on the counter. I suspect the latter.

 

[Micky Targaryen]

This has to be the make or break season for ETH. INEOS knows what they're doing by backing him with all the players he wants bar Mbappe and should we fail to meet expectations once again, he's surely out of excuses.

 

[Shunty]

Keep coming back to it, ETH has been here two years already, he’s had the players he’s asked for and I watch other teams and in a fraction of the time it seems other managers have a clear identity of where they want to go, patterns of play, exciting football. Even my wife who knows nothing about football, saw Liverpool and Chelsea yesterday and said this is way more exciting. Ultimately make or break season, needs to drop the right players Rashford maguire casemiro need dropping. He needs to make the ballsy decisions otherwise hell be sacked. If Rashford has playing clause in his contract then let him sue the club, we cannot be afraid of this bs.

 

[stevoc]

He basically found that Ole's squad wasn't built on technical quality with the ball. Logic would have told him that this was one of the major reasons Ole failed here, and so should try take us down a different path. Instead of aiming to improve us so we're able to keep possession of a football, he basically abandoned it in favour of playing hot potato football, handing out contracts left and right to turnover machines who love nothing more than giving the ball away.

And many fans on here lapped it up because "the United way" or something.

So Ten Hag is failing because of the squad Solskjaer built?

 

[amolbhatia50k]

How much of this pressing improvement is down to starting a 4 man midfield and the intensity of Mount and how much is it to us becoming a better pressing team?

From what I see, the better pressing is due to us clogging the middle of park with 2 central and 2 attacking midfielders. The trade-off is that we look more toothless in attack and are sacrificing someone who should be there as a goal scorer (whether Rasmus or Zizkzee). Also, we started to look like we looked like last season as soon as Mount went off and it gave Brighton more spaces to exploit.

I wouldn't mind this formation in a couple of big games as we as we won't be anything other than an underdog under ETH but it being used against Fulham or a Brighton team with Milner in the midfield didn't impress me at all.

To be fair whatever it is down to, it’s been impressive. I’ve not seen a United team move collectively in the press like that very often - reminded me that first Rangnick game. Highly impressive.

But the listlessness on the ball was just as depressing. Brighton were so mediocre and we could barely lay a glove on them. It feels like we have to do so much to create / score, and for me that’s the big issue.

 

[Judas]

Still blaming Ole for this teams failing at this point just seems a bit desperate. They're all footballers, they're all of a decent level, and yet Ten Hag still has struggled to make them, with plenty of new signings, look like a team after over 2 years. Other managers come into to lesser teams and do more.

 

[crossy1686]

Chelsea won 5-2 away yesterday with a new manager, 45 players to choose from, batshit owners, and no actual forward.

But we need to replace Rashford and Bruno before we can beat Brighton apparently.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

So Ten Hag is failing because of the squad Solskjaer built?

Still blaming Ole for this teams failing at this point just seems a bit desperate. They're all footballers, they're all of a decent level, and yet Ten Hag still has struggled to make them, with plenty of new signings, look like a team after over 2 years. Other managers come into to lesser teams and do more.

That’s not what the poster was saying at all. He was saying that Ole’s team was built / coached on the wrong principals (for a big club) and instead of going down the hard but ambitious path of rectifying that, ETH has refused to do that and doubled down on this middling counter attacking vision.

 

[Steve 007]

ETH has odds of 9-1 to be the first PL manager sacked. The way things are going he’ll be gone on 7th of October.

I really want egg on my face but I am deflated now. We have been a bit better but why is a bit better considered good enough now.

 

[Beachryan]

Once De Ligt and Ugarte are in, I think that it's finally do or die time for ETH. The football better get good, and fast.

I've maintained on here for a whole season now that (particularly last season) no manager could play reliably good football with the actual XI players that ETH had to field each week. Modern football with Evans and Maguire in your back 2? Nope. Retention-based control with Casemiro and Bruno in midfield? Nope. Balance without a LB for an entire season? Unlikely. An actual fit CF to play CF? Nah. There were many games where the majority of the XI were players with known issues that were here before ETH arrived, and shouldn't be starting. Because a combination of an enormous clear out (no idea what the number is now, but last season ETH had shipped off 23 players that had strated for us. 23!) and outrageous injuries meant ETH still didn't have an XI that had an coherence to it to choose.

Now he does. Maguire's combination of lack of pace and composure should no longer be a problem. Lack of legs should be solved with Ugarte and Mount. CBs able to play through the lines? He has two of them. Reliance on an undisciplined, past-it Casemiro who can't play fro more than 65 mins? Sorted. Options when Rashford plays poorly? Yep.

And in theory he'll even a CF or two in the squad! Madness.

But this is it. A team broadly of Onana/De Ligt/Martinez/Mazza/Dalot/Ugarte/Mainoo/Bruno/Rash/Garnacho/Hojland is absolutely built to play this fabled ETH football. So. It has to happen, and immediately.

 

[Kostov]

I think INEOS strategy of keeping him was, we'll give you no space for excuses, here are the players promised. He will ultimately show that he is not good enough, often talks the talk but his football doesn't back it up. Football is played on the back of scoring and we are so so bad at that, no other way around it.

 

[Telsim]

Watching all other rival teams, with the exception of Newcastle, go out and win convincingly really set my teeth on edge. Not really anything new, but still deflating after everything.

He absolutely must deliver against Liverpool. No excuses.

 

[AlexUTD]

I wonder if ETH tells Casemiro to stay back to cover the defence or does he just see Casemiro go all gung ho even further ahead than Mainoo and just let it happen?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thing is, before we even scored, Brighton had one off the line and Welbeck hits the bar with a header. All the talk of being more solid, that's tiny margins from seeing ourselves 3-0 down before we scored our goal. Some of the play is better but the chances we give up is still nowhere near good enough. Seen a lot of talk about the disallowed goal and it was an anomaly, but Brighton still had far better and more clear cut chances in the game. Aside from the poor defending, I just can't see what we work on in trying to create opportunities to score. We don't create anywhere near enough.

 

[Ayush_reddevil]

Watching all other rival teams, with the exception of Newcastle, go out and win convincingly really set my teeth on edge. Not really anything new, but still deflating after everything.

He absolutely must deliver against Liverpool. No excuses.

For a long time post Ferguson it was accepted that City are in a different league and we aren’t even competing with them. Then Liverpool under Klopp got to that level & now Arsenal for the last 2 years is basically on a different planet to us. We have developed new rivals in Newcastle. I just saw a stat that in the last 10 away games Arsenal have 9 wins & a draw and they have conceded 3 goals in those 10 games. So basically now every weekend I skip both Arsenal & Man City

 

[Suv666]

Thing is, before we even scored, Brighton had one off the line and Welbeck hits the bar with a header. All the talk of being more solid, that's tiny margins from seeing ourselves 3-0 down before we scored our goal. Some of the play is better but the chances we give up is still nowhere near good enough. Seen a lot of talk about the disallowed goal and it was an anomaly, but Brighton still had far better and more clear cut chances in the game. Aside from the poor defending, I just can't see what we work on in trying to create opportunities to score. We don't create anywhere near enough.

Yup people will call us unlucky because of the zirkzee disallowed goal but turn a blind eye to the two Brighton goals that could have been in if we were really unlucky.

 

[Buster15]

I keep telling myself that it is only 2 games into the new season. And I do believe that Ten Hag and his management and coaching team understand most of the problems.
But it is his ability to fix them that keep giving me nagging doubts. Because he has been in charge for a longish time now.

 

[CM]

its hard to see how can he last, nothing much has changed.

One of the things I get anxious about is our inability to hold the ball and slow down, its one post to another nonstop. Surely this much be tiring and will eventually results in injury.

Injury but also our midfield being overrun, irrespective of personnel. I would've hoped he might've learned from the 30-40 odd matches where this happened last season.

 

[Malons]

The best thing he could do is start making players accountable for their own performances. Hardly anyone goes out onto the pitch with any sense that they're playing for their place. Injuries or occasional off-field issues, seem to be the only way anyone loses their spot. How they perform every week seems to have absolutely no bearing on whether or not they're back in the starting line-up for the next match. There's no competition for places, more a passive acceptance that until someone gets injured there's probably not going to be many/any changes to the structure of the team no matter how badly certain players are performing.

 

[ohhrooney]

https://www.manutd.com/en/news/deta...n-united-players-must-improve-game-management

Is he talking to himself? Does he know that he is the manager of Manutd? That he is allowed to manage the team to play the way he wants them to?

 

[VP89]

It's extremely relevant. If you wish to forget all of Ten Hag's poor performance upto this point and treat this as though he is a brand new appointment then that is absurd.

Every aspect of judging this season will of course include the context of it being his 3rd season. That isn't even an anti Ten Hag perspective it is simply the only logical way to look at it.

No one is forgetting anything - I suggest you follow what I've posted in the sub debate. I just said it's a poor take to claim Ten Hag hasn't addressed tactical issues from last season from a 1 gameweek sample szie this season, especially when the loss wasn't for a tactical reason.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

There is a lot of debate in here over the manager because our defence switched off and completely ignored the back post. I'm not convinced by him but I don't think Saturday was his fault. Let's see how Sunday goes.

 

[Borys]

I suspect he'll revert back to full Oleball against Liverpool, we'll have a decent game (because this is a good counter attacking team) and the cycle will repeat.

One good game/ result (coin flip heads)
One bad game/result (coin flip tails)
Unexpected good result that buys him more time
repeat

I don't think Fulham and Brighton games were particularly bad. But I also think this team has much more potential that it's showing now, so the real test will come after Liverpool game. No more excuses, even if the results are not great, the football must be much much better than last season.

 

[LARulz]

There is a lot of debate in here over the manager because our defence switched off and completely ignored the back post. I'm not convinced by him but I don't think Saturday was his fault. Let's see how Sunday goes.

The lack of system after the subs were though. Once we took Bruno off it seemed like the players were all over the place. If his subs aren't like for like then make sure there is a plan the whole team know how to implement

He either expected the last round of subs to be like for like which is dumb as the players aren't the same type, or he only told the subs the new system but the message wasn't given to the rest

We barely did anything after those subs

 

[VP89]

Have Arsenal been lucky these first two games? Yes. I'd say we've had tactical issues across the two games. However, we're generally well-drilled so our problems our likely to be ironed out soon.

United are not well-drilled. You're poorly coached and have been for some time. It's not "a frankly bizzare take to blame tactics on a goal that had 5 players in the box needing to mark 3 Brighton attackers", unless your idea of defensive tactics extends only as far as having a lot people at the back.

I think you might need to read the post again, or, to make it easier I'll explain here:

1) We had 5 players back in the box - i.e. we weren't tactically open
2) We had a player in a good position to deal with a standard cut-back, who failed to deal with it as part of his bread and butter job. I.E there wasn't a structural issue with how we were set out to defend.

I don't think Arsenal had tactical issues per say, I think you just need to get some continuity with the 2 new players coming in at the back. Much like we need continuity with Mazruaoui and De Ligt. We are also playing a RB at LB (which was the reason for us letting in the 2nd goal at Brighton, where Dalot vacated his LB position to join Maz at RB, something he is obviously not asked to do).

As I said, there's actually no more key moments vs us than the other top teams, but for some reason you've peddled a narrative that we havent defensively solved for anything. There's literally no team that hasn't looked open at the back for extended periods bar City in the 2 gameweeks.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether ETH is doing a good job. After all, Jim Radcliffe is clearly a more intelligent person than I am with far more information with which to make a decision and he offered ETH a new contract. I just think it's so obviously disingenuous to keep talking about it being too early to assess whether ETH is coaching United well. I'll pose these questions again, but I'm not hopeful of getting an answer...

How much time is needed before conclusions can be drawn? Or does the timer conveniently reset each season?

Moving goalposts somewhat. I'm not here to talk about whether Ten Hag has done a good job or not. I'm calling out the poor take to suggest we havent defensively solved for anything from 1 sample gameweek, where we have clearly changed our tactics since last season for the better.

 

[ThanksBoss26]

I keep telling myself that it is only 2 games into the new season. And I do believe that Ten Hag and his management and coaching team understand most of the problems.
But it is his ability to fix them that keep giving me nagging doubts. Because he has been in charge for a longish time now.

I think that's very fair. I generally feel the same. I'm rooting for him to take us on but he got the extra crack at it by the skin of his teeth and this one step forward followed by two steps back can only go on for so long. He needs results and a decent period of them.

 

[mav_9me]

I think first half Utd were very good and despite being one nil down, there were plenty of positive plays such as Dalot cross for Amad, Mount chance after lay off from Bruno, Amad 3 vs 2 break where any half decent pass to Bruno or Rashford should have resulted in goal, then there was disallowed goal from Rashford etc. Defensively, we barely allowed Brighton to create anything and their goal was their first chance, which was also down to individual mistake by Maguire and was very avoidable, if he had cleared it from the left foot instead of letting it run across the goal.

Second half we reverted to tennis football from last season, which is becoming a recurring them as same occurred against Fulham as well. They also had a few chances but didn't convert them.

Now there are a few observations and questions i have in my mind, In both matches the common element was Mount taken off and after that our press went to shit. Is it because Mount is just a better presser than Zhirkee, ideally somebody coming on should be fresher and improve our pressing, however it tends to have a negative impact on us, or is it overall our team gets tired after an hour. Or our players are just thick, the best example is Mainoo pressing the keeper at 95th min and their keeper just pinging the ball on the side and they attack their final attack which led to corner and subsequent goal.

Biggest question is, what's our best eleven (assuming Ugarte also signs). Do we play Ugarte and Casemiro as double Pivot, then what happens with Mainoo or we change it to 3 in middle. Then assuming Bruno will take false 9 role, what happens with Hojlund or Zhirkee.

A lot of these questions will be answered in coming weeks. But one thing is for sure, the forks are already out for ETH, and it was expected as well, considering last season, therefore making the decision to continue with him questionable in hindsight.

Biggest concern for me. If the only way we can control games is play Bruno/Mount together ahead of Mainoo/Casemiro then we are fecked.

 

[mav_9me]

It's tough to say tbh. I really thought we'd start the season strong, given how obviously important it is to the manager given last year.

And we've been alright. Not near where I hoped we'd be though.

At some stage it's not bad luck, and given the next few matches, I don't see how ETH turns this around.

Good news is I do think this has been an awesome summer for ins and outs. The squad is utterly transformed from 3 years ago, and Antony and Casemiro aside, it's well setup for the next manager.

Except for the central midfield and Bruno.

 

[Insanity]

To be fair whatever it is down to, it’s been impressive. I’ve not seen a United team move collectively in the press like that very often - reminded me that first Rangnick game. Highly impressive.

But the listlessness on the ball was just as depressing. Brighton were so mediocre and we could barely lay a glove on them. It feels like we have to do so much to create / score, and for me that’s the big issue.

I don't think it has been very impressive. Neither has it led to many situations where we have won the ball back high up the pitch and made it count. It crumbled as soon we took the extra midfielder in Mount off, which to me suggests that the major reason for it was that extra body in the midfield. Mount looks like a good player in pressing, however he really can't make it count with incisive passing or otherwise. Which ultimately makes us more toothless in attack.

 

[mav_9me]

It's interesting cos I actually watched an Ajax home match while he was Manager in 2019. They absolutely dominated the ball... but Ajax are the big fish in a small pond (or at least they were at the time). Beyond the level of opposition, the technical level was very high. de Ligt and Blind were playing CB and literally every member of the team were comfortable on the ball. It seems he quickly figured out that he wouldn’t be able to recreate that at United, so now is implementing tactics he doesn't really believe in and can't thus cant communicate to his players well.

Can't ever imagine a scenario such as this at this high level of sport.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Brighton came in with a high line and firm expectation to pin Rashford back running towards his own goal. It’s a high risk high reward proposition for them and they almost paid the risk with two goals coming from us beating the offside trap. The goals we conceded were inexcusable individual errors by Maguire and Mazraoui but if we weren’t completely unlucky or Brighton weren’t shooting rainbows out of their backsides or the referee was a little less of an imbecile, this would be a 2-1 away win.

 

[The Urban Goose]

Biggest concern for me. If the only way we can control games is play Bruno/Mount together ahead of Mainoo/Casemiro then we are fecked.

Biggest concern for me is the continuing insistence on playing Maguire, Casemiro and Rashford, and the lack of signing a left back.

He has an excuse for Casemiro due to the lack of options, but de Ligt should've been given a half v Fulham and the full match v Brighton to be ready for Liverpool, and there is no excuse to keep starting Rashford.

As for the lack of a left back, that's on both ETH and Ineos, and it's already costing points.

Bruno and Mount is a secondary issue, they have no chance of succeeding if Maguire is dragging the defensive line back to the box, there's no CM control due to Casemiro and there's no effective press due to the half-arsed efforts of Rashford.

 

[GreatDane]

Chelsea won 5-2 away yesterday with a new manager, 45 players to choose from, batshit owners, and no actual forward.

But we need to replace Rashford and Bruno before we can beat Brighton apparently.

And there's no manager good enough out there who can take over apparently.

 

[giggs-beckham]

The amount of hate Antony gets on here from his own fans is unjustified, Pogba was arguably a much worse signing as well.

Oh, hell no.

 

[Marwood]

Once De Ligt and Ugarte are in, I think that it's finally do or die time for ETH. The football better get good, and fast.

I've maintained on here for a whole season now that (particularly last season) no manager could play reliably good football with the actual XI players that ETH had to field each week. Modern football with Evans and Maguire in your back 2? Nope. Retention-based control with Casemiro and Bruno in midfield? Nope. Balance without a LB for an entire season? Unlikely. An actual fit CF to play CF? Nah. There were many games where the majority of the XI were players with known issues that were here before ETH arrived, and shouldn't be starting. Because a combination of an enormous clear out (no idea what the number is now, but last season ETH had shipped off 23 players that had strated for us. 23!) and outrageous injuries meant ETH still didn't have an XI that had an coherence to it to choose.

Now he does. Maguire's combination of lack of pace and composure should no longer be a problem. Lack of legs should be solved with Ugarte and Mount. CBs able to play through the lines? He has two of them. Reliance on an undisciplined, past-it Casemiro who can't play fro more than 65 mins? Sorted. Options when Rashford plays poorly? Yep.

And in theory he'll even a CF or two in the squad! Madness.

But this is it. A team broadly of Onana/De Ligt/Martinez/Mazza/Dalot/Ugarte/Mainoo/Bruno/Rash/Garnacho/Hojland is absolutely built to play this fabled ETH football. So. It has to happen, and immediately.

But De Ligt is in. He's here, ready to play but Maguire is still being picked.

He has a forward in Zirkzee but he's benched.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Ugarte arrives and is benched.

I've had sympathy for ETH at times but if Maguire starts against Liverpool, if we play two false 9's again, if Rashford starts, what can you say?

 

[mav_9me]

But De Ligt is in. He's here, ready to play but Maguire is still being picked.

He has a forward in Zirkzee but he's benched.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Ugarte arrives and is benched.

I've had sympathy for ETH at times but if Maguire starts against Liverpool, if we play two false 9's again, if Rashford starts, what can you say?

I would be shocked if Ugarte plays any time soon.

 

[NZT-One]

Ole ball has never left as our best strategy. Ole was just much, much better at it. Ten Hag no matter how much he has tried has always failed horrendously when trying to move away from it then reverted back.

Yeah but there are a few plausible and possible reasons he failed so horribly with it last season. But I'll give you that. Oleball is a simple but effective game plan, it can work well for a period of time and especially for specific games. It is a prerequisite of every great team out there - the thing is, at a certain time it isn't sustainable anymore and when you don't manage to reach the next level by then, you hit the wall just like Ole did.

Ole did well because he realised the limitations of himself as a manager and also the squad he had.

It's the same reason he never would have touched Pep or Klopp. Ten Hag I think is equally limited at the top, top level but doesn't accept it as much so we have to suffer more miserable attempts to do something he just isn't capable of.

Well, makes sense, but what is your recommendation? Just accept, that we suck and stick with on a level below other teams? I don't think, that makes sense at all. I had high hopes for ETH and I can totally see people losing patience with him but there is no point in just getting rid of him as long as we don't have a short list of suitable successors lined up. I think, ETH "wasted" his first year stabilizing himself at a big club but continueing a gameplan he didn't really like. And last season, when he made the changes, he was punished for it for many reasons. But I guess coming from where we where - having no clue at all about the modern game was always going to be painful. Because attempting it exposes our shortcomings. But without it, we get stuck somewhere we don't want to be - and for what? For the occasional 3rd or 4th or 5th place? For occasionally giving a great performance against the best teams in the league without ever really competing for it? Ole's 2nd (with what, 14 points difference to City?) place is a great metaphor in my eyes... This is, what will happen, if we put results first forever without adapting to modern tactics: we'll be able to get results without ever really challenging, relying on our rivals to stumble to move up the ladder.

Ole was not the top class manager Utd need but he provided far more enjoyment week to week whilst waiting than Ten Hag who also isn't the manager we need. Imo of course.

Thats highly subjective. I can tell you there were many fans that didn't like what we offered every week. Sleeping for the first 45minutes only to wake up in the 2nd and grind out a result. Playing for goalless draws against shitty teams because they parked the bus. This was the time of the "awfully coached"-thread, so lets not romantisize those times.

The worst thing about watching us these days is how utterly boring we are.

I can handle the results being now what we want, but usually United games are that thing I will mentally circle for the week ahead and genuinely look forward to.

This current version of United suck all the fun out of watching football. I genuinely only ever lost interest for a while under LvG, but EtH is in danger of bringing us there too.

That seems very harsh. I mean, I can see where you coming from but I still think, it is harsh. Out of interest, what did you think about the first half against Brighton? I thought, we played really well.

How much of this pressing improvement is down to starting a 4 man midfield and the intensity of Mount and how much is it to us becoming a better pressing team?

From what I see, the better pressing is due to us clogging the middle of park with 2 central and 2 attacking midfielders. The trade-off is that we look more toothless in attack and are sacrificing someone who should be there as a goal scorer (whether Rasmus or Zizkzee). Also, we started to look like we looked like last season as soon as Mount went off and it gave Brighton more spaces to exploit.

I wouldn't mind this formation in a couple of big games as we as we won't be anything other than an underdog under ETH but it being used against Fulham or a Brighton team with Milner in the midfield didn't impress me at all.

Thats the main question for me too. Against Fulham we stopped the pressing even though he was still on the pitch. Against Brighton it fell off with him being subbed. I can't believe, it is only the player - but I am genuinely curious why there was such a break in our play in both games.

Still blaming Ole for this teams failing at this point just seems a bit desperate. They're all footballers, they're all of a decent level, and yet Ten Hag still has struggled to make them, with plenty of new signings, look like a team after over 2 years. Other managers come into to lesser teams and do more.

Not sure anybody blamed him for stuff that is happening these days but when his name is used to paint a past that was supposedly more entertaining or better, then people will react to it. The Ole years did nothing in terms of us moving forward. On the contrary, we wasted time and money, which was always going to bite us at some point. It would have even if we had appointed Klopp after him and not ETH. Don't get me wrong, Mourinho era was also not helping at all but this is well acknowledged around here, while Oles reign may not be fully processed by some fans. He was a great great interim manager, the right man at the right time. But everything that happened after those initial 3-5 month was just bad.

 

[afrocentricity]

Thanks lads, appreciated. Seems we were well worth a point or 3, until we lost all momentum with the subs. Damn.

Afro - we play 4th division local football over here and we’re joint top of the log and ended up with a 1-0 win with an injury time winner. Frustrating match but got the 3 points to keep us on top (GD) with 10 matches left.

Good to hear, somewhat tempers the misery of yesterdays loss. For you that is, obviously I'm still pissed (but mildly happy for you)

 

[giggs-beckham]

You did well to make so many bad points in 1 sentence.

How so?

 

[Ish]

Good to hear, somewhat tempers the misery of yesterdays loss. For you that is, obviously I'm still pissed (but mildly happy for you)

Yeah, tbf, our malaise post SAF have almost dampened my expectations somewhat, so i take our defeats much better then i used to - or maybe im just mellowing a bit more with age

Thanks bud. Yeah, not sure when i am going to stop playing full field 11 a side footy (I just turned 40 in April), but love the game and it's a massive bonus staying in shape doing something you love - whilst still being quite competitive in our 4th division amateur league. Injuries are starting to become an issue in fairness and recovery after a full match is now minumum of 2-3 days!

Getting old is no fun!