Calling Ten Hags system this season ambitious is incredibly generous....
If ten Hag was sacked tonight, who would you have as an interim?
- Thread starter horsechoker
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If the ambition is to finish lower than Moyes, then it's not top shabby. We just need clarity on the ambition.
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I think it’s ambitious, I doubt any other side in the history of the league has finished 6th whilst conceding 20 shots a game.
It’d be like a boxer deciding to go into a title fight and go 12 rounds with his defence being well, just his hands by his sides.
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I think it’s ambitious, I doubt any other side in the history of the league has finished 6th whilst conceding 20 shots a game.
It's like the Ralf/Ole sesson on steroids: I keep expecting us to be about 15th in the league, but yet there we are, in 7th. I honestly think we may end up lower than that which would be quite something.
So these are the excuses Im talking about, how that this be a sensible view. Was it only us who played in closed stadiums? How do you even know what the standards was in training?
Now to xg, we were always in top 4-5 in underlyings, much better than what we achieved under EtH. Again, better league position, better possession, much better defensive performance, better underlying numbers, much better actual GD and expected GD. But league cup is all that matters, which is fair enough. For some it's binary.
When we had injuries under Ole, he was blamed and was called as P.E teacher, now why is it different? Why is EtH not called outdated P.E teacher?
Talking about injuries, when he started his first full season, he lost Shaw, Pogba in second or third game, Martial was out. That's our 3 creative players and then relied on Lingard, AP till we signed Bruno. would EtH do better if he had AP, Lingard, Fred, McT, James as 5 of the 6 players in the attack?
Ole's last season was downright shit, same as EtH. Ole had to go, EtH should be sacked irrespective of cup finals.
Why is tactically sound and much better manager with much better squad not doing much better than "failed cardiff" manager? We at least reached Europa finals, we were embarrassed by Sevilla even before that. We were a goal away from qualifying from very good group, we were embarrassed by every CL opponent and didn't even qualify for Europa.
Why is all those failures overlooked just because he won league cup? How is that a sensible view, ignoring the Europa disaster, CL disaster, 7-0, 6-1, then conceding most shots in PL with worse record than Luton, Competing with Luton, Fulham for goals scored. Why is the tactically sound manager and progressive manager is averaging less possession than Vibes manager?
One more comprehension post. Nice going and this is not me being hostile before you cry again after throwing hissy fit
Slutskiy.
There’s still 6 games to go so we could end up on 68 points*, that’d be our 5th best since Fergie.
How the feck does that make any sense? Same with Chelsea though in fairness, I keep expecting to see both sides battling it out for 12th.
*we obviously won’t, wouldn’t put it past us to not win another game this season.
People want to see shots on goal, so it's ambitious.
Lack of midfield, lack of attack, 0 play from back even though we spent 50 million on Onana shouldn't matter, it's all shots on goal, sadly it's the opponents who does that. At least Onana is made to earn his wage.
Well he’s clearly not tactically sound is he? And with a better squad last year he did do better than anything Ole managed. More points, more silverware.
This season I don’t think anyone can pretend our squad is much better, not even sure that’s the case without the injuries.
If that's our 5th best points tally, then it just shows what an utter shambles the last 11 years have been
We probably won't win many more. But by virtue of SU being appalling, I expect a home win tomorrow. If that game were away, I wouldn’t be so confident. Not that I am confident, mind.
With the season almost done McLaren. No chance that winning games, or even the cup, will have fans crying out for him to be made permanent manager.
If he wins the cup there will be plenty of fans on caf who will back him. Doesn't matter how clueless we look on the pitch, winning cup means nothing else matters.
Matic had to go round giving fines to people who turned up late because Ole wouldn't do shit. Why are you burying your head in the sand about this?
Ten Hag was 3rd in the XG table too last season, the actual points overperformed XG by 8.36 points.
Ole in his 20/21 season was hitting the pretty much the same overperformance.
Ten hag in his better year had more clean sheets (17 vs 13), better point per game (as you know), similar shots overall, but a lot more big chances being created (84 vs 68 for Ole), and yes slightly fewer goals per match (1.53 vs 1.92).
Ole's better season was certainly not better than Ten Hag's better season on most of your named metrics.
Ole is a P.E Teacher because he has no established pedigree in coaching, his CV in relevant European competitions prior to joining us was relegating Cardiff , because he outsourced the tactical side to Carrick and Mckenna and openly dismissed the value of tactics in games in press conferences. Not because he had some injuries at one point in time (that were not concentrated in one area of the squad).
If you need somoene to explain how that's not quite comparable to not having any LB to field and relying on 4th and 5th choice CBs to partner into a season (whilst also not having other players in the squad) then there's something wrong.
Fair argument.
He doesn't have a better squad.
failures aren't being overlooked - you're going off on a tangent again.
Fair enough,
Almost every metric EtH is worse, much worse defensive, even worse xGD.
| Possession | Rank | Shots | Rank | Shots against | Rank | Xg | Rank | XAG | Rank | XGD | Rank | |
| 2019-20 | 55.9 | 5 | 14.3 | 4 | 10.3 | 5 | 62.2 | 4 | 37.7 | 2 | 24.5 | 4 |
| 2020-21 | 55.6 | 5 | 13.8 | 4 | 14.5 | 8 | 60.1 | 4 | 41.4 | 4 | 18.6 | 4 |
| 2022-23 | 53.8 | 6 | 15.6 | 5 | 12.7 | 9 | 67.7 | 6 | 50.4 | 8 | 17.3 | 6 |
| 2023-24 | 49.7 | 10 | 14 | 9 | 17.9 | 20 | 47.2 | 12 | 59 | 16 | -11.7 | 15 |
Which brings back to my first post. What happens on the pitch doesn't matter, it's all articles, PC. We had injuries to Martial, Shaw, Pogba in the first few weeks of the season and we relied on James, Lingard, AP to play behind Rashford as a CF. We also played Brandon Williams as LB with that combination with Fred and McT as CM. Compete with that shit show.
Ole promoted Brandon Williams when he didn't have Shaw, if someone should explain you there are other players in the academy who should be promoted or should have kept instead of selling players like alvaro then you don't know ManUtd at all. We promote young players when there is a position open, don't rely on AWB who offers 0 but still play him no matter what.
Fair argument.
We have better squad, ofcourse his failures are overlooked because he won league cup and all the excuses I hear is 2 injuries.
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13.58 pg. Finished the season with 13.4 pg. It dropped to 12.7 in 22/23. Now, we're the worst in the league with 17.9 shots pg. For comparison, Solskjaer's best was 10.3 pg in his first full season. So was Mourinho's with 9.5 shots pg in 2017/17, and LvG's with 10.1 in 2014-15. Moyes stands at 11.9 pg in his one season. Not that it really matters in isolation because whatever we were gaining from being "tough to beat" never materialized into any short of dominance on the pitch. It also shouldn't come as a surprise that, under the prism of the "expected" stats, all of them peaked (in therms of the overall quality of the performances) in their first season when the goal was to steady the ship after the previous guy's failure by being cautious. Then, as the expectations for something more were growing, the cracks began to appear. Finally, as is the case today, the club's dithering allowed the wheels to completely come off. The difference with ETH is that he basically expedited his downfall by going all-in with a very weak hand.
That's an interesting view, at least this passes with Ole and EtH, not sure about Jose.
More reasons to believe short term contracts is the way to go for any new manager.
Interesting stuff, fair play. 17.9 shots p/g is absolutely wild. It hasn't been a slight regression this season, it's been a full on implosion of epic proportions. There's zero excuses for it getting this bad.
17.9
That is stark raving bonkers, like you wouldn’t believe it was true just by looking at the table, but if you’ve watched us you’re like “yup sounds about right”.
Win or lose? Will IF we manage a win against City do the unthinkable and sack a second manager after he has won us The FA Cup? Now that would make us unique.
Oh he's absolutely not a good manager. For a handful of games with this absolute shower it would be great though.
It makes more sense if you recall that Mou's second season was the last time De Gea was absolutely world-class for us (then, he had that horrendous WC in Russia). Most models have us overachieving in xGA and xPTS by about 15 goals and 20 points. And a lot of that was down to De Gea's heroics. In his first season, though, and as long as Zlatan was fit to provide a focal point onto which the ball would stick, we looked a bit more balanced.
I also believe that this is the big test for INEOS, assessing the stats in front of them and not allowing a bad situation to fester. Both Mourinho and Solskjaer should have gone after their second full seasons. We should have parted ways with LvG after 14/15 and ETH should have never been allowed to tinker so much with the tactics from a position of weakness. They will obviously not get every single decision right, but we have to start from somewhere. I'm crossing my fingers.
17.9
That is stark raving bonkers, like you wouldn’t believe it was true just by looking at the table, but if you’ve watched us you’re like “yup sounds about right”.
The more recent discussions make little sense to me. And i'm saying this as someone who was excited with ETH's appointment. Unless you can show me an example where the team that conceded the most shots pg went on to win the league. And the explanation that it shouldn't matter because we don't concede many shots on target or that they're lower xG shots on average than our opponents' (which is true from open play, except for Arsenal) simply doesn't fly. And how can it, when United have conceded 105 more shots just from open play than the worst team in the top-six (Aston Villa) in that particular statistic. Imagine that we have a negative Field Tilt, meaning that - on average - our opponents have more touched in the final third than our players. These are a relegation candidate's stats.
If he doesn't get sacked when CL football becomes mathematically impossible (which I don't think they will, but it apparently opens up a clause where they can sack him cheaper) then I assume they'll wait to make the final decision based on if they win the FA Cup or not.
Also wouldn't be surprised if he wins it and they still sack him though. INEOS seem pretty ruthless so far.
I dont think they are going to sack him. I feel they will probably give him atleast one more season.
Thing is even if he was sacked, the next manager would still have the same cowardly and average at best squad to play with.
Thing is even if he was sacked, the next manager would still have the same cowardly and average at best squad to play with.
Last minute Lindelof winner ( Lingard was the scorer of the last Fa cup winner)
Sacked right after the game ..
Buys a vacation home in Portugal
Which of my farts smells more? They all stink to be honest.
Saying that he has system is also very generous.
Kidding aside, i had great faith in him. I expected system from Ajax. I got.....whatever this is.
Nice come back. Well done.
Plenty of stats have been posted here that we were performing in and around top 4 level on many metrics during 19-21. The absolute opposite of how Ten Hag has performed this season.
Unless you believed we had a title challenging squad at the time, I'd call that 'punching at our weight'.
Please explain why it isn't?
In his debut year he was 1 game away from finishing 5th and in season 3(3.5 if you count the caretaker) he nosedived and got sacked.
Il ask again, how did he punch at his weight?
So you thought we had the squad to be winning the title in 19-21?
No, I think he had a squad better to not scrape past Leicester (where the winner would have finished in a CL spot) to finish top 4, and to see the season through without getting sacked in 2 of his 3 full seasons.
So il ask again, in his 3 full seasons of management, how did he punch at his weight?
Because he finished top 4 with a top 4 level squad, and performed in many underlying metrics like a top 4 team.
When he 'improved' the squad for 21-22 and started performing worse he got deservedly sacked.
Pretty basic stuff to comprehend.
He scraped top 4 barely against a side that was fighting relegation not long before Rogers came in. That's not punching at his weight. And he spiraled and got sacked two seasons later. That is also not punching at his weight.
He did not punch at his weight. He did it in one season out of 3.5. Just like Ten Hag has only done it for one season out of 2.
Realistically Solskjaer.
So just to confirm, did he finish top 4 or not?
Yep he got rightly sacked when we no longer 'punching at our weight', what's your point?
Sacked, like Ten Hag should be for having us perform like a borderline relegation candidate in many measures all season.
Compare what you see as 'barely scraping' top 4 to this season's disaster, here: https://understat.com/league/EPL/2019
(we were comfortably a top 4 side)
The question isn't did he finish top 4. I'm showing how he didn't punch at his weight. That squad was capable of a comfortable top 4 finish. It finished 2nd not too long prior to his arrival.
Scraping top 4 after half a seasons headstart of knowing the team and his set up is not punching at his weight. It's JUST ABOUT saving his job. And season 3 was diabolical implosion. He punched at his weight, arguably just above, in season 2. That's it. No more and no less.
Read the xg etc on the table I just posted. Then come back and explain how we only 'scraped it' and didn't perform like a top 4 side.
Reminder, this was a season where we played large parts starting with the likes Pereira, James, Lingard, Williams and McTominay.
I dont give a feck about XG. I care about the actual results first. He did not punch at his weight for 2 out of 3 seasons so stop giving absolute bollocks arguments because his XG was nice.
His XG had him 4th when he finished 2nd, it has ten hag 6th when he was 3rd. XG as a standalone metric is just daft, you're better than this.
Predictable answer, don't know why I bothered.
When faced with evidence like you asked for you can't handle it. Laughable.
Much better to perform comfortably like a bottom half side.