Indeed and I think that’s probably ETH’s argument and the club agreed. It’s all well and good putting the blame on him for certain players but at the end of the day nobody said no to them and they were all signed off and ETH wasn’t the one agreeing the fees for them. I doubt he saw Antony as a £90m player or whatever it was but that’s the best the club could get him for. Would he have been a good signing at £45m? Maybe still not but he wouldn’t have had the same scrutiny.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
i think there should be more optimism now with Ratcliffe in charge because that hopefully means the Glazers won't be involved on the football side of the club. I think any DoF under the Glazers would've been setup to fail. I think with the constraints Murtough was under, he's left behind a strong scouting and data department along with a strong academy which he developed when he arrived.
As far as the veto is concerned, that's normal because if you have heads of recruitment in place, then ten Hag won't be involved like he was in 2022 after the sacking of Bout and Lawlor. That again is a Glazer problem.
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It's alright arguing against the popular opinion if you have a genuine argument
If you can't see it by the signings we've made under him and the ones we're reportedly after this summer (according to the information, these would have to be ones Ten Hag has okayed) then I'm arguing against a brick wall - not many fall outside the bracket of having either been Dutch or having played in the Eredivisie at some stage
I imagine this is true of every manager to be honest. Klopp wanted Brandt instead of Salah. If that aligns with what the rest of the recruitment team think then that's fine, but they also need to be in a position to offer better alternatives. They've often failed to do that.
My genuine argument is that we had poor alternatives on the table, because the DoF was atrocious and incapable of offering the club's own targets to overlay Ten Hag's. That being said, Licha was a known quantity to the club and on the shortlist already. Ten Hag prioritised him over Pau Torres (rightly in my view). You can then consider Antony as a signing but that was also reported to be on the club's own shortlist. In fact Ten Hag himself initially had reservations about going back to Ajax post Licha.
Then you have Hojlund who has absolutely no links to Ten Hag, who was preferred over Ramos and Kolo Muani. Then you have Mount who was as much a club pursuit as a Ten Hag one. Then you have Onana who, sure, was a Ten Hag ex player - but I would question who the club offered as an alternative and who was veto'ed by Ten Hag to get Onana.
My genuine argument is instead of considering a narrative that Ten Hag forced priority on who he preferred, it's far more likely the case that he was not given any reasonable targets to work with and as such, had to depend on who he knew of himself in many cases.
It does seem like a clear pattern. How many signings have we made/making that doesn't have a tie to Ten Hag in some way? I was hoping that would shift with Ineos coming in but they've doubled down.
My concern is that Ten Hag is reluctant to "okay" any signing he isn't familiar with.
He's had this veto since day one. And since day one I can only think of Casemiro (who had already won 5 CL's and everyone knew) who United have pursued who falls outside the bracket of either being Dutch or having played in the Eredivisie at some point. Maybe there's another one but I can't think of him.
What is this actually based off? I'm genuinely curious. By the way no manager will be ok with unfamiliar signings. They'd likely tend to get a full report and decide accordingly.
Going for De Ligt isn't doubling down. We wanted Branthwaite and Todibo first. He's also a player we tried to sign in the past, long before EtH was the manager.
The other signings that seem to be doing the rounds at the moment are Ugarte and Zirkzee. Ugarte has nothing to do with EtH and Zirkzee just happens to be Dutch, but he left Holland to join Bayern quite young, and EtH had left Bayern by then.
You have to remember that a lot of good players still cut their teeth in Holland. Would you not want us to sign the next Robben or Suarez?
Maybe he wasn't. But the Athletic article today is suggesting that the scouting department are recommending players but they are being veto'ed. Since Ten Hag holds a veto, I wonder to myself who he's said "no" to. Whereas I know for certain he's said "yes" to some absolute toss. I don't know about you but I knew the Mount signing would be a disaster, for example, as many others did. For Hojlund I give Erik a pass. I know he won't have wanted Hojlund as his only striker signing too and he wanted Kane.
I hope like every other red here that this summer provides a positive signing to two. Why I'm a bit downbeat on it is that I joked a couple of months ago that we'd just target Dutch players and ex-Eredivisie players again, not thinking we actually would, but it seems we are again.
Højlund. There's also no evidence anywhere saying he turned down the chance to sign someone with that veto that we'd now regret. Not like LvG supposedly did with Kroos.
It's not information so it's not based off any facts. It's my concern. My concern is due to the signings under him and the signings we're being reliably linked with this summer.
De Ligt - ex-ETH player.
Branthwaite - ex-Eredivisie
Zirkzee - Dutch
There are links to the PSG midfielder but not from anybody reliable yet.
Murtough took over responsibility of club targets after he sacked Bout. Murtough in my view was terribly incompetent, so I would find it far more likely from the Athletic briefs that it was his failure.
For example Athletic briefed that Licha was chosen over Pau Torres. Hojlund was favoured over Kolo Muani and Goncalo Ramos. These aren't irrational veto's or veto's that you can say "ah Ten Hag is just going with people he's familiar with". I think there's a genuine case for both and he was vindicated in his choices for both.
These are just two examples.
But the Athletic said De Ligt and Branthwaite at the very least are INEOS pursuits!
Indeed. I don't claim he has. It's a concern because the players through are all similar circumstances. The targets are all the same. So I don't know who he is saying no to. I'd like to think the recruitment department can do better than just asking Erik who he knows
Well if that's the case I just hope the recruitment department is strengthened and gives Ten Hag more to work with and choose from this summer and beyond. And that the club can support him better. And that the manager is open to signings who fall outside the bracket.
If he doesn't have the personnel to do it, he won't be able to do it.
We were linked with Amrabat since early in the window and he's a player ETH is very familiar with, I think he'd have been the choice anyway. We indeed could only sign him very late in the window because we were unable to offload McTominay. We will never know whether we would have gone for someone else had we sold McT.
What targets are these?
He can have his veto on players. The club can also veto players he proposes, as they should.
This is how a normal club should operate, nothing too interesting about it. The key here is how strong is managers position. If ETH doesn't cooperate nicely, he will be cut loose because his position is still on the edge.
Considering ETH said himself there were other players he wanted at the 6 position... Not to say we would not have got Amrabat anyway but I don't think he was supposed to be the main target/only signing
Martinez
Malaria
Antony
Weghorst
Amrabat
Onana
Timber
De Jong
Gapko
Mason Mount
De light
Branthwaite
Zirkzee
Anyone who won't admit to his obsession with Eredivisie is biased.
Malaria
Antony
Weghorst
Amrabat
Onana
Timber
De Jong
Gapko
Mason Mount
De light
Branthwaite
Zirkzee
Anyone who won't admit to his obsession with Eredivisie is biased.
Makes sense. Getting a player the manager thinks is shit is a trainwreck waiting to happen.
We could have signed Hannibal for free but paid €10m euros instead
Don't forget Arnautovic
We invested significant portion of our budget in Mount, so whoever we were getting after that would most likely be just backup to one of Casemiro/Mount/Bruno... maybe we would have indeed gone for Onana/Fofana with a larger budget but it made sense to go for Amrabat given financial constraints and starting 3 being quite firmly established at that point (which Mainoo disrupted in a great manner).
You seem to be arguing a point that I have not disputed. We signed Amrabat because the recruitment team could not get others signed (e.g they could not shift players to raise the funds to sign our first choices)
It's just really immature at this point to call it an 'obsession'. Maybe try and apply a bit of critical thinking?
2 of those were loans. More to due with how bad the club had let us finances get than anything.
Timber ended up at Arsenal, Gakpo at Liverpool, so not like they weren't sought after.
FdJ plays for Barca and would have been a great signing. Mount was an odd one but was injured all season so we don't really know how good he could be for us, and he's won the UCL with Chelsea long after playing in the Eredivisie.
We needed a new GK and Onana was one of the best actually available at the time. He's been disappointing so far, but our defence was shocking last season.
Zirkzee, Branthwaite and De Ligt all seem to be club led pursuits that EtH has agreed with.
Martinez is our best defender, and Malacia is fine as a cheap LB backup. It was just very unfortunate they were both injured last season.
All those reasons you give despite the glaring facts, just make you seem biased, at least to me.
It's an obvious trend, doesn't take much intelligence to discern. There's also lots of reinvention going on, it was reported that Erik disregarded the scouting recommendations because there was much movement around the key staff at the time and he didn't have confidence. Which is a perfectly plausible decision but it does demonstrate just like most managers post SAF that Erik along with others has been a poor judge of talent.
Mount was 100% the managers signing and a priority at that. Sky sports reported that he tried to sign Mount on loan from Chelsea while at Ajax, the following season after his period at Vitesse.
Additionally the quotes cited from the club's website: "in a separate interview, with host broadcaster Viaplay, Ten Hag revealed he had to beat off other clubs to clinch the England international's signature:"
"We worked so hard to get this done. I think so many clubs were looking out for Mason, to sign him, and we succeeded. We are happy with that, he brings something in the midfield department".
I think it's inconceivable that a manager needs input on who the club signs but it's imperative that the structure for recruitment is a top down process because if Erik is solely disregarding the club's resources in favor of his own convictions he will fail in this area.
This is a sentiment echoed while he was at Ajax the fans forewarned of his ineptitude in the criteria of judging talent. As it stands the best players under the manager are the ones coming from the club's academy as opposed to senior level purchases.
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You are genuinely one of the worst posters on any forum I've ever browsed.
I think you don't really understand what bias is. If you dislike EtH then that's totally fine, you're entitled to that opinion, but it's obviously leading you to the same decision when it comes to our signings or reported targets, without looking at the wider context.
We've obviously signed players that have some link to Dutch football, no matter how tenuous the link is, but that doesn't mean they're bad players or players we shouldn't be targeting. The Eredivisie is a development league, a place where a lot of great players have cut their teeth and gone on to amazing careers at big clubs. Should we just stop targeting these players completely because we have a Dutch manager, one you don't think very much of?
Considering the top Spanish, Italian, and German players rarely leave their home countries and the top clubs there, and how the best English players come at a massive premium, now more than ever, don't you think that's somewhat narrow minded and limiting?
The one I forgot to mention in my previous post was Antony, which was obviously a massive mistake and was probably pushed by EtH, but only after we'd failed hard to get anyone in that window and hit panic button.
As long as that isn't allowed to happen again then we should be fine.
Well we both know who the reported targets are who fit the description so you can skip to what you want to say about it if you like
Ehh I’d wait for Ornstein / Athletic / Ducker
Pep Guardiola’s La Liga obsession:
Rodri
Laporte
Cancelo
Torres
Danillo
Kovacic
Nolito
Bravo
Gomez
Angelino
Porro
Rulli
Mari
We could do the same for Jose and Portuguese players or coaches from all manner of places.
Our scouting and recruitment systems have been a farce so the manager has relied on what he knows. When we’re in a better position to support him, he hopefully won’t have to anymore.
Blaming him for being poor on recruitment is the same as when we hired Ragnick to be a long term DOF and then blamed him for being a poor coach. Lumping everything on an individual when it is/was the structure that was wrong.
Rodri
Laporte
Cancelo
Torres
Danillo
Kovacic
Nolito
Bravo
Gomez
Angelino
Porro
Rulli
Mari
We could do the same for Jose and Portuguese players or coaches from all manner of places.
Our scouting and recruitment systems have been a farce so the manager has relied on what he knows. When we’re in a better position to support him, he hopefully won’t have to anymore.
Blaming him for being poor on recruitment is the same as when we hired Ragnick to be a long term DOF and then blamed him for being a poor coach. Lumping everything on an individual when it is/was the structure that was wrong.
The Athletic have reported on our interest in Ugarte as being genuine.
You're guilty of confirmation bias, if anything.
I agree, except our scouting teams are very good, its just that incompetent bankers get scouting reports and make dumb decision, which is described really well in the Athletic article released today.
Joel effing Glazer was reading scouting reports ffs...
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5539692/2024/07/03/dan-ashworth-manchester-united-recruitment/