Well if you are happy with those league finishes then I can see why you'd not consider these guys duds."a squad of duds" who finished 2nd and 6th before EtH, then 3rd and 8th under EtH after over half a billion spend and several real duds recruited only because ten Hag knew them
Erik Ten Hag appreciation thread
- Thread starter Andycoleno9
- Start date
I'm not particularly happy with those finishes (apart from Ole's 2nd place), but I find it quite hilarious to suggest we should've given "time to build" to a guy who had two full years, almost unlimited money and still managed to get us to our worst league finish in decades
Not sure he got many of the guys in he wanted. Definitely not his first choice strikers or midfielders. Ie Kane, Nunez, Gakpo, Szeko.
Nothing will change for Amorim if we don't get rid or diminish the importance of Rashford, Casemiro and Garnacho to our success.
Or drop the impatience and entitlement of the fans. He won't win two trophies in two years nor a league. Set up to fail just like Ten Hag.
One thing that was rarely appreciated in his time with United was overseeing a huge clear out of players that included a lot of dead wood or squad players that would be little or no use to the next manager.
Not counting loan deals I think I count over 30 players who featured under previous managers that was released or sold under his watch.
Not counting loan deals I think I count over 30 players who featured under previous managers that was released or sold under his watch.
Really? I see that mentioned very often. That's one of the main reasons why this summer window was looked upon as a success.
looked upon as a success with the signings made and most of them signed early. Ole,Jose,LVG didn't do the same with the amount of players sold or released
Unfortunately, most of their replacements haven't been much better.
De Gea
Henderson
Grant
Telles
Williams
Carreras
AWB
Bailly
Tuanzebe
Jones
Kambwala
Mengi
Matic
Garner
Fred
Pogba
McTominay
vdB
Hannibal
Mata
Andreas
Lingard
Chong
Pellistri
Forson
Elanga
Ronaldo
Greenwood
Martial
Cavani
Some of these exits were already in place by the end of the Rangnick interim period. It really has been a mass exodus over the past 5 transfer windows. Yet some people were still arguing that it's the same players throwing a manager under the bus or that it's not ten Hag's squad!
Don't understand your point here? Do you not think Pep has spent at least a Billion building his squad?
And no I'm not saying ETH shouldn't have been sacked.
Takes money to win.
Give it up mate, Ten Hag was the dud and that's why he is gone. He had one good season here and that season went well largely to Rashfords insane form.
Insane form that lasted only a couple months.
The point is that despite spending over 600 million on transfers, our squad is poor. Little value for money. No amount of money was going to save ten Hag from himself.
I know/suspect you are on a wind up but he'd have relegated us eventually. We've been in relegation form for months.
And replaced them with?
Literally anyone could have came in and sold a load of players, you or I could have done that.
I believe LVG sold/released around 25-30 players as well during this time. That worked out well.
Do you think if he'd been allowed to spend another £400m Ten Hag would have constructed a title winning squad with 2 top players in every position?
He gets a lot of stick for it, but moving on a lot of those players was the right thing to do.
Lindegaard - No complaints
Amos - No complaints
Büttner - No arguments there
Rio - He retired a year later after a difficult season at QPR
Vidić - Struggled with injuries and basically retired after 1 poor season at Inter
Evra - He could maybe have stayed on as a squad player. The club had just signed Shaw.
M.Keane - He went on to have a decent career, but wasn't United standard
Rafael - Loved him and thought he would go on to become a top RB under SAF. But based on his career post United, we didn't miss out on much.
Evans - He's one of the main errors people mention. He was so bad during LvG's 1st season, I can understand why he was sold. He did rebuild his career at WBA and earn a move to Leicester where he won an FA Cup.
Kagawa - He just wasn't cut out for The PL. Apart from a good 15/16 season back at BVB, he never really found the form he showed prior to United.
Fletcher - Having been troubled by colitis and injuries, this was for the best. He was able to find some joy at WBA.
Anderson - A fan favourite in some ways, but it was time for him to move on
Zaha - This is one we should have handled better. Between Moyes and LvG. He might not have made the cut, but never really got the opportunity to develop.
Cleverley - No complaints, he didn't go on to do much after leaving.
Nani - I really liked Nani between 2009-2012, but he became injury prone by the time SAF announced his retirement.
Di María - Such a shame that this didn't work out. It does seem that his heart was never set on the move though
Welbeck - I was gutted at the time. In hindsight, it wasn't a bad fee for a player who would be plagued by injuries after leaving
Henríquez - Never went on to do much after a prolific loan spell in Croatia
Chicharito - Another fan favourite. He was very good for Leverkusen. We could maybe have found a squad player role for him.
van Persie - We could probably have held onto him for 1 more season, even if he wasn't the same player as during the 12/13 season.
The bolded are the only real what if or what could have been scenarios for me. The problem, as it is now, is that the players that replaced them were questionable.
If he was winning, or even building a team that looks like is going to compete after spending 500-600million I don't think anyone would've complained.
He was sacked because despite spending so much money we were almost in relegation battle, and that's few months after we had our worst season in years, finished 8th what looked like overperformance.
As Fallon D'Floor said around 18. I don't count players that didn't feature much or at all for the first team, if I did it would be 50 players sold/released under Ten Hag.Other than Anthony I think most of Ten Hag signings can be useful for Ruben Amorim. LVG brought in some amount of dead wood/misfits or players that never wanted to play for the club
I think that summarises ETH's tenure perfectly.
He did win 2 Cups - which I am grateful for.
He replaced Hernandez, Nani, Evans and Rafael with Falcao, Depay, Darmian and Rojo.
Moving on players was fine, but we moved on too many in too short a space of time and replaced virtually all of them with inferior players on stupid contracts. Stupid contracts that meant it took years to shift them on and which hampered Jose and Ole for years. Ole was only getting rid of the likes of Rojo, Darmian etc. in 2020-2021, 5-6 years after they were signed.
Yean but for £600m+ the next manager should be inheriting more than just a handful of useful players.
Mazraoui, Martinez, Ugarte, Yorro, Hojlund, Onana, De Ligt. That's over half a team. Then you consider Dalot, Rashford etc. Who he should be able to work with.
Before considering Mount if fit and Zirkzee being an unknown quantity.
Mazraoui has looked good but historically has been injury prone. Yorro has great potential. The rest sort of prove my point a lot of them could be useful but perhaps nothing more. For the investment we've made over the last 5 windows the squad really should be in better shape.
I'd say we can safely write off Mount at this stage, I don't see him overcoming his injury problems. Zirkzee is young and adapting but I wouldn't bet on him ever pulling up much trees for us.
That 2014 summer window is largely down to Woodward, in my opinion.
Because he dropped the ball so badly with Moyes (1 summer signing), he felt like he needed to make a statement. He hires a high profile coach in LvG and then starts throwing money around. I'm not even sure how many of them were actually wanted by LvG who (allegedly) isn't keen South Americans. We signed Rojo and Falcao.
Memphis was an interesting one. I wonder if LvG would have moved Memphis to a central role has he stayed on another season. He found joy in that position at Lyon and then grew into a prolific SS/CF for The Netherlands. He only needs 4 more goals to match van Persie's record.
Rojo actually started to look decent under Mourinho until that cruciate injury before The Europa League final. 7 months out.
But yes, recruitment was a problem then and still is now.
I think we are in decent to good shape for defence and full backs (can do with depth in full back). I also like our midfield options.
We have a serious issue with the forward line.
That 2014 summer window is largely down to Woodward, in my opinion.
Because he dropped the ball so badly with Moyes (1 summer signing), he felt like he needed to make a statement. He hires a high profile coach in LvG and then starts throwing money around. I'm not even sure how many of them were actually wanted by LvG who (allegedly) isn't keen South Americans. We signed Rojo and Falcao.
Memphis was an interesting one. I wonder if LvG would have moved Memphis to a central role has he stayed on another season. He found joy in that position at Lyon and then grew into a prolific SS/CF for The Netherlands. He only needs 4 more goals to match van Persie's record.
Rojo actually started to look decent under Mourinho until that cruciate injury before The Europa League final. 7 months out.
But yes, recruitment was a problem then and still is now.
The 2013 windows was largely down to Moyes dithering. Don't know about Falcao but Van Gaal definitely wanted Rojo. I don't think he had a problem with South Americans it was Brazilians he didn't like.
We need 1 and possibly 2 new left backs. Midfield is ok but nothing special.
We have bought a guy who worked very well under Amorim, and can then offer a very talented 8 from the academy. I'd reckon Casemiro adds some value yet too.
I agree on the left backs. But the previous regime has spent under 40m eur or so in this area in the past few windows. Both Malacia and Maz were bargain basement type signings and the former being injured is just bad luck.
To be fair money spent was on those that agreed the fees. We had Woodward and Matt Judge overseeing that before Jim Radcliffe brought in his own people.
Everyone involved from Ten Hag right up to Arnold deserves criticism for wasting hundreds of millions and not getting much value for it.
Managers over the last decade be it Jose,LVG,Ole and Ten Hag didn't have a say in the actual fees that was paid out on transfers. The fees was due mainly to the pure incompetence by those I've already named and played out inflated fees as other clubs exploited United because they knew United was so such a poorly ran club.
Jose vetoed the Harry Maguire transfer because we were going to pay £50m for him.
Ten Hag had a veto. No transfer could happen without his approval.
The Antony transfer is an example of what I mean everyone from Ten Hag to Murtagh to Arnold played their part in that fee being so high. If right wing and signing Antony specifically was a priority then it should have been done much earlier in the window. Leaving it so late is largely what inflated the fee, if Ten Hag wasn't ok with that he would have said so. You can apportion blame however you like but none of them can be free from criticism on the money that's been spent or in some cases wasted since 2022 building what now amounts to 80% of the current squad.
Beg to differ, Anthony was one prime example of how poor those over transfers was and United was taken to the cleaners by Ajax. Only now with Jim and co are we seeing improvements in that regard and even getting a bargain in the transfer window as seen with Mazraoui (touch wood his current consistent form keeps long term)
Every United manager post SAF has been destroyed eventually, just be grateful for the 2 cups after a 6 year mini drought.
All the talk of the manager spent 500-600 etc...Chelsea spent billions in the last 2 seasons, Brighton spent over 200 million in the summer just gone...the entire league have been splashing cash for years.
All the talk of the manager spent 500-600 etc...Chelsea spent billions in the last 2 seasons, Brighton spent over 200 million in the summer just gone...the entire league have been splashing cash for years.
This is now becoming any old Ten Hag/United thread. That stops here please, we already have plenty of those. Thanks.
Fair enough, but for me the mangers don't live in a vacuum where they escape responsibility for the poor recruitment when they're the ones primarily identifying the players.
But anyway I'll leave it there.
Will forever be the last manager who had Phil Jones on the payroll.
Yes but they are teams on an upwards trajectory we're going the other way down the table.