You mean respect like recognizing your employee needs some extra fitness work and time to clear their head so you give them a three month break from performing to sort it all out and when you come back he sings your praises only for you to start the next season as lazy as ever and then you cry when it's called out? That kind of respect?
Erik ten Hag vs Sancho | Sancho back in full training
- Thread starter Someone
- Start date
- Status
You mean respect like recognizing your employee needs some extra fitness work and time to clear their head so you give them a three month break from performing to sort it all out and when you come back he sings your praises only for you to start the next season as lazy as ever and then you cry when it's called out? That kind of respect?
Being patient for more than 12 months with Sancho and also giving him a multiple-month long vacaton mid-season to sort his personal life and mental health out isn't a sign of respect?
You're right. It's not possible. So I guess following this logic, either it's not logical at all, or your man management skills must be sorely lacking Lazarus
This is not the Ten Hag performance thread. Go have your millionth Ten Hag rant there please.
Titles in 6 years straight. That's quite world class.
The hate for ETH is clouding the fans'' judgement. Their dislike for ETH seems to be bigger than for players who misbehave or create issues.
Well why don't you go and whinge about Ten Hag in a different thread then? There's plenty of them. Doesn't sound like fecking Sancho off has anything to do with why you want him sacked to me. You ought to even agree with it based on what you've said.
Ten Hag does have favourtism, its obvious by his signings and constant use of his most favoured players.
Sancho looked like one of our best players that pre-season playing in a more central role.
He looked like he could really click on and get going trying to interlink the front line.
However, for no reason - after playing great in pre-season, Ten Hag dropped him straight to the bench when he should have been started in our first game of the season and was never seen after that.
This also happened the season before, Sancho had two good (but not great) games at RW but it looked promising like he was just finding his feet. Then immediately Ten Hag drops him for Antony for no reason at all.
I'm personally on Sancho's side than Ten Hag's side on this.
I'm personally okay with him getting another chance here either under Ten Hag or a new manager.
I don't think the management Sancho has played in has been particulary great never mind good.
Well overpayed but that cant be changed now.
Sancho looked like one of our best players that pre-season playing in a more central role.
He looked like he could really click on and get going trying to interlink the front line.
However, for no reason - after playing great in pre-season, Ten Hag dropped him straight to the bench when he should have been started in our first game of the season and was never seen after that.
This also happened the season before, Sancho had two good (but not great) games at RW but it looked promising like he was just finding his feet. Then immediately Ten Hag drops him for Antony for no reason at all.
I'm personally on Sancho's side than Ten Hag's side on this.
I'm personally okay with him getting another chance here either under Ten Hag or a new manager.
I don't think the management Sancho has played in has been particulary great never mind good.
Well overpayed but that cant be changed now.
I suspect too much time has passed to mend this one, probably well entrenched and stubborn now.
I agree though I think there's more than we know and ETH is equally responsible (despite what the Stans will parrot on here). Sancho as far as I know, hasn't played at a level to force a return right? So I can't see movement here but you never know....
On a related theme, I was quite surprised that Bellingham has played 15,000 minutes while Wayne Rooney had 10 or 11,000 at the same age. I've not seen any definitive research about overusing young players but I guess it can't be great.
Although I remember Michael Owen commented that knee problems were in his family so it wasn't due to overuse.
I really hope we can never make another Sancho sized error again.
Wow! Whatever we think about management styles, he had it all to do last season. What a mess.
That alone makes everything else you've spouted nonsense.
Player power is not a thing in this situation or player power is not a thing in general?
We watch games for the players. We don't watch games for the managers or the owners. The players are the performers, they are the stars, and of course they have power. And the more charismatic they are, the more power they have. That's the nature of any entertainment business. This is inescapable. Nobody goes to a football game to watch the manager of a football club (except perhaps the fans who have an absent father complex, but that's a different discussion).
The lead singer of a rock band has power. Nobody gives a fart about the manager of a rock band (although the manager of the rock band is actually a very important part of the band, and in some situations, he can make or break the band).
So, in my opinion, it is completely meaningless to talk about "player power". It is just meaningless clickbait that some journalists have created. The only way the players wouldn't have any power is if they were interchangeable, nameless robots. We wouldn't want that.
If a manager is a capable manager, then he would want strong characters under him, and he would still be able to manage them and create something great. If he can't, usually the reason is that he is not a good manager. And here, I am not talking about football managers only, the same is true in any business.
Saying that player power 'isn't a thing' is just nonsensical and smacks of you not really keeping up with the times. It was always a thing and has only become worse in these modern times of social media where every tweet is dissected ad nauseum.
I could go on at length about why you're wrong but i'll just leave my argument to the words of Alex Ferguson
“If the day came that the manager of Manchester United was controlled by the players—in other words, if the players decided how the training should be, what days they should have off, what the discipline should be, and what the tactics should be—then Manchester United would not be the Manchester United we know,” he said.
“Before I came to United, I told myself I wasn’t going to allow anyone to be stronger than I was. Your personality has to be bigger than theirs. That is vital. There are occasions when you have to ask yourself whether certain players are affecting the dressing-room atmosphere, the performance of the team, and your control of the players and staff. If they are, you have to cut the cord. There is absolutely no other way."
"It doesn’t matter if the person is the best player in the world. The long-term view of the club is more important than any individual, and the manager has to be the most important one in the club.”
Now read that and tell me that Fergie would have handled Sancho any differently than Ten Hag. Ten Hag even gave Sancho a period to get himself together but still didn't take it. Fergie would have kicked a boot at Sancho's head and he'd have been out of the door faster than you could say "Playing Playstation at 4am". The only difference is that Fergie was doing it from a position of strength, whereas Ten Hag wasn't.
Plenty of players fell foul of making the mistake 'in Fergie's eyes' that they were bigger than the club, Ince, Beckham, Stam, Keane and even Pogba aided by Raiola.
I remember that saga. Went on and on for few seasons. The trolls from dortmund fans, the condescending German media. The sheer arrogance of them. And when we finally got him, our fans was fully behind him and still dortmund fans had the ultimate last laugh. Mismanagement or not, you expect balls of steel from an adult man irrespective of profession. It's been a complete heartbreaking story. I will never take star players from that league on the face value ever again.
So, you believe that "player power" is now greater than in George Best's time? And that it is a major problem with football in modern times?
In my opinion, the whole thing is bullshit. Footballers today are more professional than at any other time in the past. Player power is not a thing, it is just another excuse for some managers. It is also a great topic for some journalists and pundits, because they can talk about meaningless bullshit forever. They can repeat the same things today, tomorrow, ten years from now, like talking about how the rain makes everything harder.
Last edited:
And it doesn't, right? Everything is always the same, rain or no rain.
This is a mind boggling take. You’re telling me that paying teenagers multiple millions of pounds a week because they are worth even more than that to their club has no affect on their attitude or ability to have more influence than previously?
So, you really think that the Ten Hag vs Sancho saga shows the effects of "player power"? Can you explain to me where exactly was Sancho's power? I missed it.
This is utterly wild! A band leader/member sorts out the style, singing, song writing, harmonies, instrumentals, sound, the band, etc. The manager does not make the music or get involved in it artistically at all, that's not akin to a football manager at all - the power dynamic is completely different.
The manager of a football club determines how they actually play and is more like the conductor of an orchestra (which, would you know it, requires more teamwork) as they determine how the various parts fit together and play. It would be incredibly dense to suggest that no one cares about the conductor in classical music or a choir.
And when you get difficult players, the composer or conductor doesn't carry all the blame, the players are held responsible for their performances.
Someone refusing to be subbed off is not showing a "strong character", neither is throwing a strop because you've been rightly dropped for poor performances. If anything, it's quite the opposite.
Will the rain stop if you talk about it?
So weather reports are pointless? Or are you arguing sports journalists shouldn't talk about people dynamics that might affect the implementation of tactical plans at football clubs?
We lost the game because it was raining.
Actually, I have heard that excuse before , you are right!
My point is that the comparison makes no sense. The rain is the same for all teams (although even that does affect different playstiles and tactics differently), but clubs don't all have the exact same squads and other people affecting people dynamics. And those dynamics are real and affect outcomes. You can deny that all you want, but then you're just wrong, unfortunately. It's fine if you don't care of course, but that's a different subject and always rather uninteresting as such.
Last edited:
So first off, let’s not deflect from what you said. Answer the question about player power in general?
On Sancho - of course - if he wasn’t worth a lot of money to the club he’d have been jettisoned a while ago, maybe even pre ETH given his salary coupled with performances. Re his ‘power’ from a soft perspective, unless you’ve been living under a rock, the media coverage of him has been unbelievably inaccurate and made out he’d been great for Dortmund when he was average and good in like 3 games but all of that was geared towards undermining ETH and completely ignored the former had given him a sabbatical and, by all accounts, been quite a nice chilled manager until he gave up on him.
Whats next... "Football agents power is not real" 
That's a really bad analogy. A manager in football is equal with a producer in music. And a band can change the producer, but can't change the whole band members. The band will cease to exist. The same doesn't happen with players.
People forget that 99.5% of footballers are treated as a piece of meat. They are getting sold, loaned, have their contracts terminated, and are really powerless.
Now, in the top, top of the football pyramid, players have actually power. That includes contract renewals, deciding their own transfer, and also deciding to down tools. Chelsea with Villa Boas, Jose (second stint) is the prime example. So, yes there are situations where player power exists.
Seriously @frostbite piss off to the ETH thread if you want to rant on and on about him, it's getting ridiculous now.
So much arguing here.. walls of text I didn't read.
Sancho is a nob. Get rid. End of.
Sancho is a nob. Get rid. End of.
I pretty much saw it like this too in the instances that you highlighted however I can understand why he was also dropped too. Centrally is where I think he is most effective too however he doesn’t press in this position enough or the system we were playing and also the teams main player Bruno generally occupied this area.
Antony needed games to try and gain form even if he didn’t deserve them from performances. Also thought Sancho had a little chemistry building with Wan Bissaka but it didn’t get a chance.
I’m to hoping that he can play for us again as he is a great talent. However he needs to show it consistently. Both he and the manager could have handled themselves better and found a compromise I feel.
This is actually why i want to really buy Zirkzee because it would instantly make that deep lying forward/False 9 player a part of our tactics because we have a player built to play that way.
Then i think Sancho could get a chance centrally playing in the same position as Zirkzee does if he needs rest or gets injured etc.
Sancho's best ability is through balls and for our forwards they need to come centrally to out wide rather than from out wide to central positions more suited to someone like Hojlund. I think losing Sancho actually back fired on us because we lost a false 9 that ten hag was trying to create but we also lost a wide playing creative player who loves playing through balls to a channel running striker like Hojlund.
I'm personally not too bothered about the pressing because i dont think you can play a deep lying forward/False 9 and also make them the highest presser - it kind of defeats the idea of playing a deeper lying forward if he is pressing so high up the pitch.
I think Ten Hag didn't get his tactics right until the last few games when he finally played with Bruno as a False 9 with two inverted forwards - but that ultimately would have been Sancho's role if he hadn't gotten in to a fight with Ten Hag.
He wasn't though. Has Ten Hag actually ever played Sancho as false 9 in any competitive game? This was just a way to give him minutes in the pre-season, it was very obvious Jadon was way down the pecking order - even behind Antony (in Eric's view at least).
Sancho can perform any attacking role in the team, his problem is lack of determination and reluctance to work for the team. He's a lazy bastard and whatever skillet he's got is irrelevant.
- Status