ESPN: Man United want evolution, not revolution under Erik ten Hag - sources

TheReligion said:
World class coach and staff can’t improve any of the current squad? Bizarre Caf logic. Clueless
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I don’t think many people are saying that!

I’m sure some will improve, though I don’t think any of us have any idea which ones. So many have either been out of form for so long or have never been able to display quality on a consistent basis though.

I suppose the hope is that a more structured system will help players achieve a greater level of consistency. Fair enough, but they’ve got to be willing to forgo deeply ingrained habits in order to be part of that system.
 
kps88 said:
3-4 quality, first team signings would be a good window to be fair.
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I mean, it's the absolute bare minimum really isn't it?

We're realistically losing Matic, Pogba, Greenwood, Martial, Cavani, Lingard, Mata all in 1 window. That leaves us very very short of numbers - it would require 2 new CM's and 2 attackers, and there's your 4 already.

And the list of departures doesn't really cover everyone - you'd expect Bailly, Jones have very good chance to be on their way, Henderson, could see one of AWB/Dalot leaving etc. Given how bad the defence has been it would be rather bizarre that we wouldn't address it at all, and any departures will need replacing.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
You should have sent all that to Klopp before he replaced most of the Liverpool team who weren't able to do what he wanted.
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Yeah, sure.

Look - I don't expect him to turn this exact group of players into a title winning team, playing possession football of the highest standard.

Of course there will be ins and outs.

I'm only saying that he can probably work with a number of players the muppets on here consider utterly hopeless.

Or, if you will: I don't pay any attention to which players the muppets on here consider uncoachable or unsuitable - because...it comes from feckin' muppets. They don't know their arses from their elbows.
 
horsechoker said:
The club are targeting Randy Orton and Batista as possible signings
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They should do, they've already got stone cold.
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Implicit in what Rangnick was saying was that we don't need to necessarily be spending £50m+ on every player. Whereas this story, if true, suggests the club want to stick with the idea of buying fewer, more expensive players.I could see us spending £100m+ on one player this summer. And they're expecting the manager to solve the issues in the squad by coaching in the short term. Could be a bumpy ride.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yeah, sure.

Look - I don't expect him to turn this exact group of players into a title winning team, playing possession football of the highest standard.

Of course there will be ins and outs.

I'm only saying that he can probably work with a number of players the muppets on here consider utterly hopeless.

Or, if you will: I don't pay any attention to which players the muppets on here consider uncoachable or unsuitable - because...it comes from feckin' muppets. They don't know their arses from their elbows.
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Abso-fecking-lutely spot on.
 
dove said:
Losing 6 players is fine, we need to trim down the squad as it’s just too big especially as we are not going be in CL. We will probably bring in 4 players. I just don’t think it’s realistic to expect us to buy like 6-7 starting 11 players in 1 window.
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Yes, I agree it would be unrealistic to expect 6-7 first XI players in a single window. But it certainly would seem underwhelming and inadequate with just 3.

Just 2 of those 6 players - Lingard and Mata - have really been excess to requirements (and even so, we would have been in some trouble depth-wise if they had not been available). Will we get equivalent quality replacements for Pogba, Cavani, Greenwood and Matic for 150m? I don't think so. And that's just filling the holes. We haven't even begun speaking about actually upgrading in areas where we have players, but in many cases not the right ones. Sales may bring in additional funds and permit additional signings, but in the nature of things you generally need to spend more on the incoming player than you will get for the outgoing one.

A reasonable approach would have been to identify what is critically needed for the team to function with the system ten Hag will install, and then work towards putting that in place - incomings and outgoings both. Some sort of situational awareness. Instead of, you know, "here's your regular 3-player allocation, see what you can do with that".
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yeah, sure.

Look - I don't expect him to turn this exact group of players into a title winning team, playing possession football of the highest standard.

Of course there will be ins and outs.

I'm only saying that he can probably work with a number of players the muppets on here consider utterly hopeless.

Or, if you will: I don't pay any attention to which players the muppets on here consider uncoachable or unsuitable - because...it comes from feckin' muppets. They don't know their arses from their elbows.
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That's the huge, intriguing unknown, isn't it. There aren't too many players where it seems fairly certain what ten Hag's view will be. I would think maybe Henderson, Lindelof, Varane, Donny, Bruno, Fred and Sancho is on safe ground. But the remainder, could go either way really, for different reasons.
 
L1nk said:
If we don't listen to what Rangnick has been saying then absolutely nothing will change - so expect more of that.
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Yeah. But I don’t think Rangnick meant in one window. He meant, I’m guessing, over 2 years. It’s pretty naive to expect to lose all the players we’re going to lose then sell all the ones who are not good enough and then replace even half of them
Matic, Mata, Pogba, Lingard, Cavani, Greenwood & Jones are all leaving. If we sell AWB, Telles, Maguire
That’s 10 players out and it’s really unlikely that we will not end up lacking in squad depth even if we sign 3-4 players who make our starting 11 better.

The best thing to do, the normal thing to do, is to let the 7 leave plus maybe 1 from the crap that we can sell. Then sign 3-4 players.
Next summer sell 1-2 out of Maguire, AWB, Shaw etc and sign 1-2 players.
 
We all knew that buying 5 top players in one transfer window would be a pipe dream. It's probably 2 first team additions and 2-3 prospects or free agent gambles this summer. These really need to fix our problem areas in midfield and right wing with the highest priority. Next summer when CRs contract is up we'll probably look for a quality striker and another top CB and or midfielder. If we land hits on most of these players, we'll need to start investing into squad depth if non of our youngsters has stepped up by then.
 
I'm managing my expectations as I think huge numbers of players would have made even City baulk. I'm sure ten Hag (and Rangnick) sees this as a filtration process over a period rather than a trip to the dump.
 
No what the club needs is absolution for the utter shite it has served its fans.
 
justsomebloke said:
Yes, I agree it would be unrealistic to expect 6-7 first XI players in a single window. But it certainly would seem underwhelming and inadequate with just 3.

Just 2 of those 6 players - Lingard and Mata - have really been excess to requirements (and even so, we would have been in some trouble depth-wise if they had not been available). Will we get equivalent quality replacements for Pogba, Cavani, Greenwood and Matic for 150m? I don't think so. And that's just filling the holes. We haven't even begun speaking about actually upgrading in areas where we have players, but in many cases not the right ones. Sales may bring in additional funds and permit additional signings, but in the nature of things you generally need to spend more on the incoming player than you will get for the outgoing one.

A reasonable approach would have been to identify what is critically needed for the team to function with the system ten Hag will install, and then work towards putting that in place - incomings and outgoings both. Some sort of situational awareness. Instead of, you know, "here's your regular 3-player allocation, see what you can do with that".
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I think there will be a focus on moving shit out, signing players for the first 11 and filling the squad up from the youth academy. Our focus should just be getting a strong first 11 as quickly as possible. I would happily see it trimmed down to 15 senior pros supplemented by youth next season. If we are playing system football then the younger players should just slot in. In the past when he was in form, we saw the defence fall to pieces when HM was out injured because of a reliance on individuals.

Even if the youth in turn are not up to it individually and need replacing. But there will be an element of ‘making do’. For example, i believe that AWB and Shaw will get back towards form and be our first choice wingbacks next season, but will probably need replacing in due course. But we just have to strengthen the spine of the team - cb, dm, cm, striker. We cant bring in 11 new players at once
 
Rozay said:
150m plus sales is reasonable. The only issue is who we are willing to sell. If the likes of Rashford or Maguire were on the list, we’ll have a good amount. If we are selling players with no value, then it doesn’t help much.
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Never in a million years will Glazers give 150m. And never in a billion years will it be 150m plus sales. That report is again showing how dysfunctional our Managers pos is. They start throwing everything to stop football people doing their jobs. EtH cant’t pick his staff. He can’t sell the players he wants. That is just so fecked about our job. You cannot do what is needed because one donkey Glazer in Miami thinks that Martial is Pele. And yes, that was reported a couple of years back. We have only seen Glazers try something when we stormed the castle and I am starting to think this is what is needed again
 
Dominos said:
I mean, it's the absolute bare minimum really isn't it?

We're realistically losing Matic, Pogba, Greenwood, Martial, Cavani, Lingard, Mata all in 1 window. That leaves us very very short of numbers - it would require 2 new CM's and 2 attackers, and there's your 4 already.

And the list of departures doesn't really cover everyone - you'd expect Bailly, Jones have very good chance to be on their way, Henderson, could see one of AWB/Dalot leaving etc. Given how bad the defence has been it would be rather bizarre that we wouldn't address it at all, and any departures will need replacing.
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That depends.

I personally think LvG was really bad for the club overall. But one thing I'll always praise him for was the way he used to fill out his squad. His approach was 11 top class starters complemented by kids from the academy. Granted, there were a lot of sub-par players who got their only appearance because of him. But on the plus side, he also unearthed Rahsford. And, at the very least, the youngsters who did play gave their absolute all for every minute they were on the pitch.

If EtH follows the same model (which isn't unreasonable to think, given both came from the Ajax way of doing things), I don't think we're a million miles off.

DDG or Henderson, Heaton
New RB, Laird
Shaw, Williams
Varane, Lindelof
Maguire, New CB
New CM, Fred
McTominay, Garner
Bruno, Mejbri
Sancho, Elanga
Rashford, Amad
Ronaldo, New CF

That's two starters and two backups by my reckoning (though I appreciate some of the individual choices may be up for debate).

Let's not forget, EtH is a good coach who can get this team to play better than the sum of its parts. Since we still have the 4th best squad for individual talent in the league, he should be able get us CL qualification even without a massive influx of players. Though, of course, a few top quality additions wouldn't go amiss.

This issue we've had the last few years with dressing room culture was because of the sheer size of squad, imo. Every direction our players turned their heads, they'd see teammates doing feck all in training, or doing feck all in matches, or exaggerating injuries so they could get trips abroad, or getting left out of starting XI's because they were a Woodward signing and the manager didn't fancy them, or getting fawned over by the suits because of their marketing potential, or happy to sit on the bench with their fat contracts counting their money, or getting extensions for doing nothing in order to preserve squad value, or unable to get sold because the board refused to admit their scouting system was fallible. All of things breed complacency and United have had it worse than any other club in living memory. Woodward fecked us up beyond all recognition. Him leaving is even bigger than EtH joining, imo.

In any case, a smaller squad means fewer places to hide and fewer examples of non-commitment you can follow. That's the direction we need to take, imo - where every single senior player is vital to the cause and has no other choice but to pull their own weight.
 
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I think we need to deal with the dressing room culture issue decisively now. Then at least the rebuilding can start properly and new players come in to a group that want to be here and will try their best. That probably means a fairly large clean out and making do with lower quality in some positions and a tight squad next year. But you can add quality and improve over time. I think the whiners like Rashford and Maguire just need to be out of the building so we can get the morale, pride and focus on honest improvement etc. back. I would only spend money on players under 25 that look like a real quality prospect. It will mean reducing expectations for results next year but by the following year we could start to look strong again. If we just keep tweaking and don’t cut out the players with a bad attitude it will be so much harder to get where we need to be.
 
DarkDog said:
Never in a million years will Glazers give 150m. And never in a billion years will it be 150m plus sales. That report is again showing how dysfunctional our Managers pos is. They start throwing everything to stop football people doing their jobs. EtH cant’t pick his staff. He can’t sell the players he wants. That is just so fecked about our job. You cannot do what is needed because one donkey Glazer in Miami thinks that Martial is Pele. And yes, that was reported a couple of years back. We have only seen Glazers try something when we stormed the castle and I am starting to think this is what is needed again
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Have you been asleep for all of out previous summer windows?
 
ETH is likely to assess both XI and under 23s. He will buy players who is an immediate needs. I think there will be at least 3 players coming and 2-3 promoted within. I don't really think our CBs are that shit. If we get a good DM, our defense may not be so shaky. I would say DM, RW and ST are immediate needs. Maybe be a defender in the winter transfer window if things are still shit. I believe Hannibal, Gardner, DVB, Amad and etc would have a chance to stake their claim to XI so there is your 6-7 players for XI.
 
£150m plus whatever we make of sales I think is a really good starting point. If we come out and say we are going to spend twice that then the price of players we are interested in will just go up.
Also it’s not just a case of seeing where we can improve and just throw money at each position. We need to get the right players, players that have the talent, attitude and upside that can challenge Liverpool and city in the come years.
If we could get 4 players of quality to fit into our starting 11 next season and one or two squad improvements then that would be a brilliant window.
That with another one or two in Jan and the same again next summer and we are looking at a complete rebuild in a year.

Thing to remember folks, it’s about getting the right players, not just buying because we need too. Given we won’t have CL football signing quality players won’t be easy.
 
The Irish Connection said:
The Glazers pushing back against Ralfs 6 players needed comments I see.
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Indeed.
Ralf R is giving us the formula to win the league and big trophies.
Glazers and the bankers want to stick to the formula to get 4th place.
Fans have slowly accepted and now celebrate, top 4. For me, 4th place is failure!
 
mattsville said:
It's going to be a revolution Summer, then evolution thereafter.
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Only time will tell, but I think it'll be evolution (just has been the case under every new manager), followed by the manager being fired after 2-3 years.
 
No more than 3 signings, I think only one

De gea
Johnstone (new signing)

Dalot varane maguire shaw
Bissaka lindelof jones telles

McTominay Fred
Garner Pereira

Bruno
Van de beek

Greenwood Sancho
Elanga Garnacho

Rashford
Martial
 
::sonny:: said:
No more than 3 signings, I think only one

De gea
Johnstone (new signing)

Dalot varane maguire shaw
Bissaka lindelof jones telles

McTominay Fred
Garner Pereira

Bruno
Van de beek

Greenwood Sancho
Elanga Garnacho

Rashford
Martial
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You really think we've hired a new manager to make one signing? I know we're not going to sign 10 new players but feck me :lol:
 
Think its more likely that board are in sync with Rangnicks view but dont want it to be so transparent as he makes out.

It doesn't help them with negotiating transfer fees, so its best to temper it with leaks such as this.

I anticipate 4 or 5 players through the door myself.
 
ESPN don’t understand football and they have no sources. Big nothing Burger.
 
Beans said:
ESPN don’t understand football and they have no sources. Big nothing Burger.
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Wasn't Ogden the one to break the Ten Hag story first? Possibly Rangnick too IIRC.

If so they've been spot on with recent news.
 
bosnian_red said:
I mean, in the past 8 seasons we've won the FA Cup, league Cup, Europa League, finished 2nd twice, finished 3rd once and 4th once. We've also lost an FA Cup final, a Europa League final, and made the semi finals of the league Cup twice, FA Cup once and Europa League once. It's hardly all doom and gloom. Go take a breather and relax a bit.

You are never that far off. I guess the difference is expectation vs what happens. If you expect bare minimum the club goes back to winning titles next season and will blame them for being a mess if we don't, then you're setting yourself up to just be pissed off as that isn't happen even if we spend 500m in one window and steal Pep Guardiola from Man City while getting Klopp to retire at the same time. Ok in that case maybe. But still. You have to be reasonable. No point bitching about the past, it's how do we rebuild.

Year 1 - Implement system, top 4 fight
Year 2 - address weaknesses from year 1, adapt system to make next step up. Comfortable top 3 finish.
Year 3 - make step up to be competitive with the best teams in Europe (the hardest step)

That's pretty much the standard blue print on how every rebuild should go. Hell, even Ole did the first 2 steps after the Mourinho disaster but failed on step 3 and we are back to square 1 because of the way he went about trying to take that step (a chunk of very short term signings and no play style/subpar coaching).

Funding wise, if you need more than 150m a year for transfers with one of the highest wage bills in europe, then you're doing it wrong.
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Of course we are not far off having probably spent the most out of the whole Europe for those Mickey cups/finals and a few 2nd/3rd place finish while 20-30 points off the leader, and we now end up 5 years without a single trophy too, with only +2 goal difference in league. This is where we are now, and it’s not just bitching the past, this is where we are now. No point being overly optimistic after such extensive period of shit show.

150m spending per year will only help us making slight improvement (or maybe not, we’ve spent around this sum every season anyway) to keep up with others. This squad is collectively toxic/hopeless with many wrong buys for wrong system, we simply need complete overhaul for the rebuild. Will take time I know, but don’t let yourself in false dawn and expect us easily implement new system fighting top 4 next season with that big pile of shit remaining, that’s all I am saying.

New manager is good when he has right type of players to play under his system, this applies to every managers/teams out there. We don’t have right type of player for that in our broken squad, except only very few exceptions. Mourinho has build a squad for defensive/disciplined approach, Ole has rebuild/re-altered this into more open counter attack play which relies on individuals. None of them have any clues how to build/play for possession football, so we now have an expensive squad fill with wrong types of individual players, who are simply not suit to play possession football with high line defence.

So your step 1 could take much longer than just a year to implement/realize, I’m afraid.

Step 1 - massive overhaul to obtain right players for new system (could work in stage with step 2)
Step 2 - implement system with right type of players on pitch/ fight for top 4 finish (could work in stage with step 1)
Step 3 - rectified weakness and adapt system to push for top 3
Step 4 - step up to be competitive with best teams in Europe/ fight for major trophies
 
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Cathy Ferguson said:
No need to replace DDG and Shaw can be a very good player.

Pogba and Matic need to be replaced.

Hannibal can replace Mata.

So we need at least 2 CMs, RW, striker, and a CB. 5 players. Not easy when we get almost nothing for Bailly and Martial. So at least one free transfer.

RB will be for later even though few rate AWB or Dalot. We have to prioritize elsewhere. Maybe AWB can work on his touch 3h a day during summer.
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For next season yes, we need at least 5 players for starting 11. For long term though, we probably need 7 or 8 players for our starting 11. And this does not include right type of backup players for squad depth, and there’s no guarantee all the new signings could adapt well in PL/in our new team.
 
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Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
Why not both? evolutionary when it comes into clubs standard operations and frameworks & revolutionary when it comes into personnel and performances. :wenger:
 
RedRonaldo said:
For next season yes, we need at least 5 players for starting 11. For long term though, we probably need 7 or 8 players for our starting 11. And this does not include right type of backup players for squad depth, and there’s no guarantee all the new signings could adapt well in PL/in our new team.
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i mean if we are being super hopeful id say less than 5. One would just pray sancho/rashford could be wide forwards, ronaldo at ST, bruno advanced mid, then 1 cm to pair with someone like Fred, i guess just pray maguire/varane look much better in the middle, and maybe a FB between the LB/RB spot to add. And just pray ETH gets de gea playing well from the back

i dont believe for one second in that strategy but it would be the cheapest way for the board to hope this turns around.
 
r0663664 said:
ETH is likely to assess both XI and under 23s. He will buy players who is an immediate needs. I think there will be at least 3 players coming and 2-3 promoted within. I don't really think our CBs are that shit. If we get a good DM, our defense may not be so shaky. I would say DM, RW and ST are immediate needs. Maybe be a defender in the winter transfer window if things are still shit. I believe Hannibal, Gardner, DVB, Amad and etc would have a chance to stake their claim to XI so there is your 6-7 players for XI.
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We also need to assess who is damaging the dressing room so more might have to be kicked out
 
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