I watched the first and I really liked Ajax's style of play. It was a bit too frantic at times but it's a cup final. Hope they win the league. Understand they have to play PSV still.
Erik ten Hag | Currently unemployed
- Thread starter Panther
- Start date
Big Day today.
This place has honestly gone insane
Loses a cup final to their biggest rivals in a very controversial fashion and suddenly he's not fit for purpose?
Some of you may need to go get a check in with the doctor, some brains aren't firing properly in here
Some people are obviously joking, but there are a fair few knee jerk, reactionary morons around here and they make their voices heard. It lurches from grossly over rating youngsters, tearing down players after a couple of bad games, to just completely writing people off when something doesn’t turn out the way they expect it to.
Frankly that’s pretty much the internet these days. It makes you realise how unbelievably thick and impetuous the general populous is. This is is the only form of social media I engage in or have an account on, and half the time it’s still one too many.
Then there are those days that the bright and sharp minds on here shine, with brilliant insights and witty banter, and it sucks you right back in. It’s just a shame that the ratio of numpties to good posters is so poor. It’s truly become unbearable the worse United have become.
Social media has created a vortex of a meeting of two forces:
1) Cultural perspective of time.
Western cultures tend to view time as linear, with a definitive beginning and end. Time is viewed as limited in supply, so Western people structure their lives, especially business operations, by milestones and deadlines. Failure to meet them could be interpreted as having a poor work ethic or being incompetent.
Other cultures perceive time as cyclical and endless. More importance is placed on doing things right and maintaining harmony, rather than worrying about getting things done “on time.”
Its not just a western v eastern cultural clash but a generational one. I find the older United fans are less critical as they see it as a cyclical process. There is a higher value on the culture, people etc too.
2) Life passages
The general passage of life is to discover your identity, community and then purpose in life. When you are developing or growing up as a person, the stimuli for that process tend to be externalised factors. Chruch, school, ethnic origins or football club identifies you.
But as you mature (ie middle age) you ought to be internalising that passage of life and not be identified by external factors ie finding out who you really are and then that community and your purpose/meaning of life etc. Many people don't ie arrest development and are still hung up by their external identifiers and thus the frustration (basically of themselves) and the over-compensation, re-directions/scapegoating or over-reactions to these external identifiers despite being relatively mature in age.
We have the coming of those two factors here in the forum accelerated/ignited by social media's warped perspective of time and the current down cycle of our beloved club.
Last edited:
In before the dutch media asking him if his head was at United hence why they lost.
Some of the criticisms of Ajax fans of ETH have been:
a) ETH can be seen as not having a Plan B. I think we said the same thing about LVG in the past.
b) Can be perceived as slow in making his substitutions.
He will be on a learning curve and hopefully, he will learn to make adjustments faster. This is where ex-United coaches will help. Or the pressure on ETH considering his expectations in Season 2 will be enormous.
No they don't. Only difficult game remaining for them is AZ away. PSV have to go away to Feyenoord. League will be won on 8th May.
Thank you. That’s a very interesting post. It has been posited that identity construction is essentially social in nature, which feeds into your theory about the self reinforcing vortex of forces at work.
It's a running joke here as you say but it flies over some heads. It's a jibe against instant gratification culture. Granted a more common occurrence at Boom-Bust Cycle clubs like Chelsea, Real, Serie A clubs its pretty much their businessplan and some undeniable success come from it to them. We like to let coaches ruin us a bit longer and utilise Bust-Bust cycles before cutting ties and generally also renew them prematurely prior to sack as an Gentlemans handout act.
ETH lost that cup to at least one, to my eyes, dodgy but probably correct VAR and to an fairly even odds opponent. Football and particularly one offs are cruel like that. Eredivisie seem to be an even odds league also at the top end in one offs.
As evident by polls, some 85%+ want him here, and rightly so as he is not in decline mode and has an attractive style with a good upside potential. So some posters championing him by force to 100% could do well to relax a bit since thats the real toxicity right there to focibly push opinions against the grain.
1. He is yet to be officially announced.
2. ETH is by all unbiased metrics a high-risk high-reward appointment coming in to an environment that's immensely toxic, with gutter level media spotlight on him even before starting and with a mammoth task on his shoulders to reform it all with a broken and illoyal squad at disposal. All while bossed by a historically schizophrenic but monetarily stacked (and focused) board behind him, and a fierce competition. He will always also be measured against glory days by the fans expectations. There is an ever present likelihood of failure with this mix. "Here be dragon's"
3. The golden era of 20year manager cycles are broadly over in European top flight (maybe not Atletico) and instant demands of success are more expected by the entire chain from fans to media to sponsor to bankrollers to owners. The pressure is just higher today.
Nice post, pretty interesting philosophically, but a friendly question as to what does it have to do with ETH and in this thread? Perhaps make it its own thread?
What happened vs PSV?
Ajax lost a cup final to them and people are jokingly saying he's bottled it. And some people are being negative and overreacting to one off match.
Ref was poor, especially the first half. Very frantic and not the best quality of a match, but it was a final. Crowd was fantastic though.
Ajax is first in their table only 4 points ahead of PSV with 6 to play I think for both clubs.
Has anyone actually seriously said this? Astounding if that's the case. Surely if anyone has, they're just being sarcastic?This place has honestly gone insane
Loses a cup final to their biggest rivals in a very controversial fashion and suddenly he's not fit for purpose?
Some of you may need to go get a check in with the doctor, some brains aren't firing properly in here
Its related to the over-reactions, lack of respect towards our players/managers, short-termism, end of the world perspective of some etc. People also lack a sense of perspective -- they are so upset as though its happening for the first time or their self-esteem is dependent on the results of United and thus the over-reactions etc.
So first he loses a CL tie to a woeful benfica side, now he's out of a domestic cup final?! What next, he throws away the league?? Keep this bottlejob Pep Guardiola is my idol away from United 
Am I doing it right?
Am I doing it right?
People's sense of identity = manchester United. Thats why people are who worked up by the current situation United is in at the moment. Man United is shit therefore they are shit.
But as I mentioned, these are external identifiers which you have zero or absolutely no control over the control or its direction... which adds to the frustrations.
And if I remember correctly back in school, there was a Hay's Management study of the most stressful jobs out there. Top 10 or 20, I cant remember. The usual, neuro-surgeon, pilot etc.
What was surprisingly included in that like -- personal assistant and production worker.
My takeaway was -- they are very stressful simple because they have zero control over their inputs nor their outputs.
So the key was the control of the ability of either the input or the output. Best jobs would be when you have control of both the input and the outputs.
As United fans, as passionate as we are, we have ZERO input to the coaching or the management of the club nor the output of the players or the results. Thus the level of frustration when things don't go well, is exaggerated. So naturally we over-react, find others to blame regardless of the facts or even in our cases, the lack of insider knowledge ie scapegoating.
That's cup finals for you -- Fergie's two most epic footballing moments were:
a) two goals in the last 2 mins of a match where we played badly but only to win.
b) And penalties win after extra time
Last season we lost in extra time on penalties. Dems the break
Shite happens.
Klopp lost so many finals at Dortmund and at the start of Liverpool career that it pretty much became a meme.
Still what does it have to do with ETH and this thread? Interesting as that theoretical topic is on cultural differences between west and east, people have valid concerns and differing opinions on the topic of coach appointment with our horrible track record and thats what happens in any democracy, you can't just snuff their opinions out with an elite or academic distant reasoning. Trying to change the broad masses behavior on a fan forum is a bit of a lost cause, just saying.
And yes when your team wins there are ample studies done that happiness in that person rises greatly, babies get made, families are happier and the opposite. It stands to reason that team support is a big part of many peoples lives and day to day priorities since low age, to some extent their identities. Many teams have a 100+ year history for a reason. It's part of people's lives.
(Also a reminder that ETH is yet not a united manager)
Yeah, when can you start?So first he loses a CL tie to a woeful benfica side, now he's out of a domestic cup final?! What next, he throws away the league?? Keep this bottlejob Pep Guardiola is my idol away from United
Am I doing it right?
As soon as he's on the verge of becoming United manager, he bottles a cup final. Boy... we are cursed!
I swear no-one reads the last couple pages before posting.As soon as he's on the verge of becoming United manager, he bottles a cup final. Boy... we are cursed!
Derivatives of this has been posted like 3 times already
The thing that excites me most about the appointment is that he’s managed to develop a very attractive brand of football with players that struggled to stand out in England (Blind, Tadic, Haller) Given a larger budget and access to some of the worlds best players he can put together one hell of a team. He will love Sancho for instance
I was joking. I even said so after someone took me seriously. Then someone else ignored that and took me seriously again.
People want to believe it's all serious comments as it makes them feel like they're the only sane ones on here
Some of the drama queens in here rather deserve a 2nd Moyes stint
Any new proceedings? Rumors etc etc?
He's gonna need a lot of PEDs to succeed here
Yeah, this Gaz fella on twitter said an anti ETH enclave is gaining traction within the fanbase and that they are comprised of core battlehardened ultraloyalist Ole inners. Other than that not much at the moment
But you realise these mentioned players were stars in their leagues before they went to England.....Blind was actually player of the year in Holland before he went to Utd.
He's one of us
Hopefully they don't have much if any influence in club decisions.Yeah, this Gaz fella on twitter said an anti ETH enclave is gaining traction within the fanbase and that they are comprised of core battlehardened ultraloyalist Ole inners. Other than that not much at the moment
But people seem to be serious. Mine was a bit tongue-in-cheek.
Jokes apart, I can't believe some of the posters here are questioning his capabilities as a manager based off one game, that too a cup final. Its like saying Pep isn't as good as Tuchel or Klopp because City are not in the final of the FA Cup. Relax people! One game or a final doesn't make a manager.
It's all random pissboiling at this point from click hunters. Stating the obvious, this is probably a done deal, and just not announced out of respect to Ajax ongoing season and title race given our good mutual relationship over the years.
Exactly this. Klopp lost many finals with Dortmund and lost CL final with Liverpool, pep lost a CL final, does that mean he’s a bad manager… some people man!
Looking forward to him i stilling that insane press at our club.
Name me a top manager who has reached multiple finals and has 100% winrate and I will give you all my money (we are not talking flash in a pan team like Greek winning Euro final).
Daily Mail already dissing him for benching Haller out of nowhere. Poor Erik.
Ffs. Fergie lost 2 CL finals so does make him an average manager on a global scale?
Anyone that has doubts after yesterday's game needs to give their head a wobble.
It's a final, anything can happen, would people have been happy if he'd won yesterday yet somehow went onto lose the league? Klopp lost six finals in a row between 2013 and 2018. Give me a team that has the consistency to win the league over the odd cup triumph anyday of the week.
Ten Hag will still be coming in as a serial winner.
It's a final, anything can happen, would people have been happy if he'd won yesterday yet somehow went onto lose the league? Klopp lost six finals in a row between 2013 and 2018. Give me a team that has the consistency to win the league over the odd cup triumph anyday of the week.
Ten Hag will still be coming in as a serial winner.