Erik ten Hag | Currently unemployed
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Exactly, Scholes had a short lived managerial career and the others haven't managed. If you wanted fear, just get Roy Keane in. SAF wasn't about fear, he had the right balance between discipline and supporting the players and that's the balance that must be found.
A good manager will be a good start. Then bring in technical players, players who have a first touch that can open up the game, no more brute athletes and pace merchants. We need to build a technical skillful side. Sancho is one we need another 2. Then a DM goes without saying and full backs good in the final third.
Last nights result should have no bearing really. Everyone loses cup games they should win. It's not like Ajax didn't turn up or play well, they were the better side last night.
How many games did Fergie lose over the years to inferior teams in one off cup matches? How many times has Pep lost in the CL with the best team at his disposal? It happens to the best.
He's still playing brilliant football, winning all their groups games despite being a selling club. Not many teams could sell De Jong, De Ligt, Ziyech, VDB etc and still be almost as strong as before, especially on their limited budget.
Poch losing 3-2 when being 2-0 up with a collection of world class stars is bottling it. Losing a game by a smash and grab when you've played very well isn't.
How many games did Fergie lose over the years to inferior teams in one off cup matches? How many times has Pep lost in the CL with the best team at his disposal? It happens to the best.
He's still playing brilliant football, winning all their groups games despite being a selling club. Not many teams could sell De Jong, De Ligt, Ziyech, VDB etc and still be almost as strong as before, especially on their limited budget.
Poch losing 3-2 when being 2-0 up with a collection of world class stars is bottling it. Losing a game by a smash and grab when you've played very well isn't.
We’ve gone out of Europe to Spanish opposition 5 years running. That can’t be a coincidence, we just shit ourselves with the ball at our feet. Ten Hag can fix that.
I think he’s our best chance of replacing these shit players with good ones as to play his style of football he needs players who are good in possession. He’s got no choice but to ship out our whole team and start again.
I think he’s our best chance of replacing these shit players with good ones as to play his style of football he needs players who are good in possession. He’s got no choice but to ship out our whole team and start again.
TheEuropeanlad is right in point that out. But he was also right last week pointing out the mentality issues. (post 2019, that is). Might be harder for ETH to get that working when he usually has to replace important players very often.
It is like calling PSV underdogs in the Netherlands. Dortmund were no underdogs. They had the better team in Germany when they won the league.
If the result made AJAX think itd be fine to move him on. Good. Thats what we want. Because this guy is more of a football manager than our previous two combined (nice guy and angry unstable man).
They had the better team because he made them the better team.
Kagawa, Blaczykowski, Lewandowski, Gündogan, Grosskreutz, Hummels, these players were nobodies and/or youngsters when they joined BVB, Sahin, Schmelzer, Götze etc came from the youth setup.
Of course BVB were the underdogs against Bayern, relatively speaking.
Still believe we should consider Mancini and Enrique with ETH, if not before.
Is he a bottler now?
Yes. Should have been obvious after that Europa League exit against Roma, if not already after bottling it against Spurs.
I would say Klopp is.
psg was playing real Madrid while Ajax was playing benefica. Benefica was the underdog, while real Madrid was the favorites. Despite that psg dominated real Madrid the majority of the tie and only loss because of bad errors by their defenders. Moreover, having very lazy forward who does little off the ball. Ajax should have won this and I m not sure how they didnt.
This type of rationale only make sense if you don't consider the squads and the budgets.
I think ETH would prefer Verrati to Alvarez, or Wijnaldum to Klaassen.
ETH would start half of PSG's bench if he had them at Ajax.
I watched the entirety of the first game. PSG didn't "dominate" RM.
This changes nothing for me. Bring him in!
I think everyone is so obsessed with their own checklist or personal favorite appointee (for whatever reason) that they'll find fault with any/every other candidate.
There'll be no perfect candidate because posters would either say i) they're not PL proven, ii) they're not big club proven, iii) they're over the hill, iv) he's not a proven winner like Conte, v) they're bottlers/never won a title or vi) even if they did win a title, it will be dismissed because it was a "tin pot" cup or league, vii) he's too defensive or conversely "has no plan B"...Hell, we could be offered Pep tomorrow and some would say tiki-taka is boring or he can only win with money...
All the above are opinions of course (some more informed than others) and they're all valid. Hell, I'm no football expert so I post a ton of drivel in here - and that's on a good day.
Ten Hag is my favored candidate for a few "personal" reasons. I am excited that for once, we'd be appointing a "hipster" manager (as the Caf politely calls them) who will be a breathe of fresh air. He has a vision and clear way of playing - plays attacking football, and seemingly takes his game to the opponents. He's done well in Europe and has worked with rebuilding sides. He seems fairly "strict" and able to discipline/manage a squad and I am just excited to see what he could do with a little more quality in his squad and with a good structure in place (debatable at United but hopefully it changes). The timing also seems perfect with the vacancy and his time at Ajax seemingly coming to an end.
Of course, this "vision and attacking philosophy/pressing high up" are all attributes i like in football. This doesn't mean that those are the qualities everyone favors and he'll still be a risk in this league and at a club this size.
There'll be no perfect candidate because posters would either say i) they're not PL proven, ii) they're not big club proven, iii) they're over the hill, iv) he's not a proven winner like Conte, v) they're bottlers/never won a title or vi) even if they did win a title, it will be dismissed because it was a "tin pot" cup or league, vii) he's too defensive or conversely "has no plan B"...Hell, we could be offered Pep tomorrow and some would say tiki-taka is boring or he can only win with money...
All the above are opinions of course (some more informed than others) and they're all valid. Hell, I'm no football expert so I post a ton of drivel in here - and that's on a good day.
Ten Hag is my favored candidate for a few "personal" reasons. I am excited that for once, we'd be appointing a "hipster" manager (as the Caf politely calls them) who will be a breathe of fresh air. He has a vision and clear way of playing - plays attacking football, and seemingly takes his game to the opponents. He's done well in Europe and has worked with rebuilding sides. He seems fairly "strict" and able to discipline/manage a squad and I am just excited to see what he could do with a little more quality in his squad and with a good structure in place (debatable at United but hopefully it changes). The timing also seems perfect with the vacancy and his time at Ajax seemingly coming to an end.
Of course, this "vision and attacking philosophy/pressing high up" are all attributes i like in football. This doesn't mean that those are the qualities everyone favors and he'll still be a risk in this league and at a club this size.
And why did they have a better team under his watch? Where did he take them from and where did he take them to?
You've been quiet since last week
. Welcome back.I don't think anyone is pinning their hopes on just ten Hag as an individual. It's got to he ten Hag working with Rangnick in a higher level, that's the only way it'll have a chance of working.
It's kind of a mental block for them I guess, bigger than EtH this failure.
It’s probably got something to do with the fact that most of the time they’re facing far better teams, how many were they expected to win? Benfica last night sure but who else?
Wouldn't say he is a bottler, as Ajax have done a lot better than they should be (although he did get the benefit of a good generation.)
My concern with him, is that he is what I class a ideologue where he has one way of playing and doesn't move anyway from his plan A, even if the situation requires a tweak. By this, I mean someone like Pep and Wenger, in that they have a great plan A but won't tweak that; hence why Pep has trouble with the CL.
Personally, I prefer managers like Tuchel as he is flexible and will do what is best for the team as a whole, rather than what is best for his thoughts.
That said, Poch kind of comes into the ideologue category too so not sure what the answer is.
I think it's called "being Dutch". I'm afraid they might take offense if you call their national football identity a mental block.
Go get him now, this should be mission critical, get him ASAP and let him work with Ralph to understand who should go and who should stay and then back him in the summer.
Couldn't believe that they were unable to score. They didn't have any 100% chances (like the one Elanga missed for example) but they were always looking dangerous and created quite a few decent chances in the box. Lack of composure really let them down.
I don't think Benfica had any half-decent chance of scoring before the goal or after that. Non-existent fault that led to the set piece too.
I don't think Benfica had any half-decent chance of scoring before the goal or after that. Non-existent fault that led to the set piece too.
He's done a great job there and his record in Europe is pretty decent. But, he does give off that stubborn vibe, where he's adamant his way will work regardless. It could be that he might just be another LVG my way or the highway painting by numbers approach to football. It's works in the relatively small setting at Ajax but might be harder to implement to great success at a bigger club.
I actually enjoyed watching Tuchel outwit Pep in the CL Final, seeing City revert to Stokesque long throws and lumping balls into the box because they ran out if ideas was brilliant. Maybe that is the kind of flexible coach Utd need, rather than looking for someone to instill patterns and a style.
Agree.
If you love football, allow yourself an hour and watch the yesterday's game.
Ajax played on the front foot the whole game. First 35 minutes they had numerous chances.
They asked the right questions, there was always at least 2 players in the 16 yard box waiting for the right cross, or for the ball to fall nicely.
They play with purpose, they are comfortable with the ball. It's everything we're not.
And everything we should aspire to.
Just watch the game. I'd be thrilled if we played like that.
That's enough for me. Get him here asap.
Ajax played on the front foot the whole game. First 35 minutes they had numerous chances.
They asked the right questions, there was always at least 2 players in the 16 yard box waiting for the right cross, or for the ball to fall nicely.
They play with purpose, they are comfortable with the ball. It's everything we're not.
And everything we should aspire to.
Just watch the game. I'd be thrilled if we played like that.
That's enough for me. Get him here asap.
Your last paragraph sums up the hilarious lack of objectivity on here when it comes to comparing poch against eth. Who actually thinks it's the manager that bottles things anyway. Maybe on rare occasions when someone tries to completely shut up shop and it doesn't work but usually it's the players collectively. The manager can influence that by changing mentality and improving structures but that takes time. PSG have a long history of bottling big games which will be a difficult thing to resolve and needs some bug players moving on (ahem neymar)
It’s not revisionism, they were a boring team and it was called out plenty at the time.
That argument would make sense if the big players that you are mentioning didn't win significantly more than Pochettino including the CL. While I dont' think that Pochettino should be accused of bottling the CL but your point is pretty weak, you are not talking about players that haven't won in the past including the recent past.
Yeah, sometimes I wonder if people watched them. While I wouldn't call them boring, I wouldn't call them exciting or beautiful either. Their strength was to regain possession very high and score on fast breaks against disorganized defenses, they used to struggle a lot against settled defenses and people criticized them a lot for that. Then they increasingly struggled to regain possession high and it was the beginning of the end for Pochettino.
I don’t think his argument is weak (that managers generally don’t bottle games, it’s mostly a collective thing among players). I think you misconstrue the problematic. The ability to keep cool, organized, aggressive and balanced isn’t like some key a player or manager can collect and eternally carry around to keep the team from bottling. Messi has won everything but a WC, yet has been his team’s key man in several majestic bottles. United had some spectacular unravellings even under Ferguson. Tuchel watched PSG collapse several times, only to win the CL against odds last year, and Pep is the worlds most successful manager of the last fifteen years, regardless of his tendency to ‘overthink’ or ‘underthink’ decisive CL games for a decade now.
Bottlings are generally things brought together by circumstances and collective human reactions that seem almost impossible to safeguard against. If sometimes the lightning strikes twice in the same place, people dig up all manners of explanations to account for it, disregarding the simple fact that, just as lightning strikes pretty much by chance, if it strikes twice in the same place, it will generally be by chance too.
(Disclaimer: before anyone butts in with a point about lightning conductors, I think statistics will back up that football managers are not better lightning conductors than anyone else.)
I mean, when he's right he's right.
Didn't you say that Benfica loss cemented him as a bottler?
That was tongue in cheek. "Bottler" is, in the majority cases it's used, a silly label.
Fair enough.
Too much Elden Ring. So violent.
Yes he went out last night but he shouldn’t of. Ajax were by far the better side.