Mctominay for Mainoo at HT

If we're going to lose it should be with young players like Mainoo, Gore, and Amad. Bringing Mainoo off for dross like McTominay sucks the enjoyment out of the game for the fans. Bringing McTominay on says that you've given up on playing football.
 
Alemar said:
It costed us 2 conceded goals. Diabolical DCM performance from McTominay, one of his all time worst.

The only positive from this game was the fact, that we saw Amad - he is significantly better than Antony by all accounts.
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Who's to say that a gassed Mainoo wouldn't have been responsible for goals too?

ten Hag's options in midfield were shocking. In an ideal situation, Eriksen would have been rested too.
 
Resonance said:
I think he’s just gambled and throwing on your leading goal scorer in the league, in a league game, isn’t that wild of a gamble. Hindsight is a wonderful tool.
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Come on mate, I thought no-one would defend this sub, but hey.
 
Pirlo'sBeard said:
He confirmed it was tactical.
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Truly unacceptable. This is so naive and self sabotaging. Did he underestimate Forest? Surely not because you could see in the first half they posed a threat and we were keeping them at bay. It’s almost like at half time ETH just decided to open up the dam and let the water come rushing in.
 
JediSith said:
Truly unacceptable. This is so naive and self sabotaging. Did he underestimate Forest? Surely not because you could see in the first half they posed a threat and we were keeping them at bay. It’s almost like at half time ETH just decided to open up the dam and let the water come rushing in.
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Got to agree this is a show him the door moment, on its own.
 
mav_9me said:
Not what he said.

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Had to replace the 18 year old because he’d played twice in a few days but was okay to leave on the 31 year old who also played twice in the past few days, consistently struggles with the pace of PL, and has to play with a pacemaker fitted due to the heart attack he suffered a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I’m not buying it. It was just another disastrous tactical decision to add to the ever growing list. He’s out of his depth and we all know it.
 
I was furious when I saw that substitution. Even more so when Forest's two goals came from a great hole which Mainoo would have plugged. Everyone, apart from EtH, knows that playing Fernandes and McTominay in midfield is a recipe for defeat. Playing with one recognised DM has cost us in matches this season. Playing half a match with no recognised DM is nothing less than sabotage. A sackable offence!
 
Tracking Mainoo's development is the only reason to watch the game these days. They're releasing a statement because taking him off sucked the enjoyment out of the game.
 
My opinion as a total football tactical noob and from the couch.

First off, the starting lineup was a foul. Antony has done nothing to be a regular starter when fit, it's a stubborn manager sticking to his preferences versus form and ability, even with injury problems limiting subs. Smart money was keeping Rashford-Garnacho wide like the prior match and sticking McTominay in a false nine/striker role; or perhaps giving Amad this role from the start but not sure if he was ready for 60+ minutes. I also don't see the point in the Reguilon loan if ETH rarely plays him even when there's a massive LB gap through injuries, persists with Dalot at LB in these situations. Go with Dalot-Reguilon as fullbacks to provide width - we know AWB can't - and support to Rashford-Garnacho, it's Forest not Liverpool.

Secondly, let's stick with the Mainoo needed a break narrative. Fine but don't leave the midfield suicidally unbalanced. Maybe stick AWB in there as a DM seeing as the bench was limited and he'd have been the only defender on the subs assuming the starting lineup above. AWB would sub on with instruction to play a holding role and continue to allow the FBs to push up. He should be able to do that against Forest for 45+ minutes even if something he's not familiar or wholly comfortable with. Perhaps Dalot could move to a holding role as he's more flexible and AWB might begin drifting to the right too much in a DM role, y'all can debate if either works better than Eriksen-McT.

Third, this setup allows for impact subs between 55-70 minutes as applicable, namely Eriksen who has no legs to play 90+ minutes twice in a few days. The match was running past him in the second half and he was also leaving space deep in midfield with McTominay roaming. I don't know which sub to make and would prefer to keep McTominay out of deep midfield but maybe Amad for Eriksen gives more attacking ability up top and McTominay can drop to an 8 role with AWB/Dalot in the 6. Not sure what other options on the bench could work here, maybe Hannibal in the 8 for energy and pressing?

Finally, players like Antony et al can sub on late when needing possession, runners and pressing to close out a win. Had ETH kept a balanced midfield this was likely going to be a late United win or draw at worse. Forest were not bypassing central midfield in the first half and neither side really looked able to score, it was likely going to be an error or moment of brilliance for one side to grab three points.
 
Malone_Post said:
Had to replace the 18 year old because he’d played twice in a few days but was okay to leave on the 31 year old who also played twice in the past few days, consistently struggles with the pace of PL, and has to play with a pacemaker fitted due to the heart attack he suffered a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I’m not buying it. It was just another disastrous tactical decision to add to the ever growing list. He’s out of his depth and we all know it.
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I'm sure he thinks Eriksen would offer creativity and so kept him. I'd still have taken him off for fresher legs. Obviously it was a wrong decision.
 
It's hard to imagine a more blatant act by a manager to sabotage his own team than ten Hag subbing off Mainoo for McTominay v Forest 30 December 2023.
 
lex talionis said:
It's hard to imagine a more blatant act by a manager to sabotage his own team than ten Hag subbing off Mainoo for McTominay v Forest 30 December 2023.
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I’ve had a suspicion for a few months now that he’s trying to get sacked for the payout because he knows he’s out of his depth. I think he thought he would already be gone by now so he keeps upping the ante.
 
crossy1686 said:
I’ve had a suspicion for a few months now that he’s trying to get sacked for the payout because he knows he’s out of his depth. I think he thought he would already be gone by now so he keeps upping the ante.
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Ya know, with the way this club has been run for years it would not surprise me he's wanted out for a while and the management is so inept and clueless they can't see it for what it is.
 
Desert Eagle said:
is enough for me to know ETH has no clue.

70 million for Antony is enough for me to know ETH has no clue.

Making Bruno captain is enough for me to know ETH has no clue.

Feel free to add your own.

Happy new years!
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Mainoo is probably injured

Antony was available for a lot less.. board pussied around and Ajax hiked the price.

board should have said “we are going with Amad.. it’s too much”

not his fault.



Bruno has given the biggest shift for the team for a while
It was worth a punt. Who should get it now?

Feel free to add this to the managers thread, that might be helpful!
 
Don't know what makes me sadder having ETH sub him for McT or that we are dependent on a 18 year old teenager.
 
Bringing McTominay on wasn't the issue for me. Those who said it killed the game need to watch the first half again. Yes, it was 0-0 at half time, but Forest would most likely have scored whether this change was made or not. We had no control of the game whatsoever, and it was all too much for young Mainoo.

Having said that, ten Hag putting McTominay in the single pivot role, when his best moments have come as the advanced 8 in a team that score next to feck all was a very baffling decision to me.

I'd personally like to know why he did this. Other than that, lets not pretend we were brilliant without McTominay. That was arguably our worst half this season.
 
EtH said he did it because Mainoo had played 3 games in a week and is still a teenager.

The problem is why is the squad so bad that our only holding midfielder is barely old enough to drink.
 
Tyrion said:
EtH said he did it because Mainoo had played 3 games in a week and is still a teenager.

The problem is why is the squad so bad that our only holding midfielder is barely old enough to drink.
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If you’re good you’re good. Might as well ask why Real Madrid’s squad is so bad that they’re relying on a 20 year old midfielder every game.

I get that young players’ game time needs to be managed, that’s fair, but Mainoo will be able to get a break now anyway since Casemiro will be back next league game, so it might have been worth letting him see this one through til the end. My question is, why does ETH think Mainoo needs a rest when his fitness is looking good, yet Eriksen was looking gassed by half time and was kept on all game.
 
Tyrion said:
EtH said he did it because Mainoo had played 3 games in a week and is still a teenager.

The problem is why is the squad so bad that our only holding midfielder is barely old enough to drink.
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Wouldn’t that be because the £70m CL winning midfielder is injured? Along with the £55m England international?

We also had a bug going around so wouldn’t surprise me if Mainoo had been under the weather like others.
 
The damage is probably done the two previous summers. As bad as it is taking Mainoo off, he is 18, played a lot and maybe we concede with 10mins to go and lose 1-0 with later subbed Mainoo or knackered one. He's also been out for most of the season so I'll give ETH that, it's testament to how good he is and quite an insane situation to end up with.

We all saw how shit we were without Casemiro, how we have a glut of attacking mids. We saw how Eriksen was good for about 45 mins, maybe once a week or less only. We had huge quality and athletic issues, an injury to Case and were dead and relying on a 31 year old is risky.
 
The Mctominay stuff is just baffling. If i was to guess at what he's trying to do, it's that he believes Mctominay arriving into the box, usually unmanned, is a good attacking option considering our attack problems. But he just can't face up to the glaring problems Mctominay brings. He'd rather risk leaving the the opposition having acres of space on the edge of the box, Mctominay's complete inability to pass, track runners, fall back etc, on the faint hope that he's free in one of the attacks and the wingers find him for a shot. But if you are doing that why are you not forcing the wingers to look for him? ETH's tactics for wingers seems to be "just be as greedy as possible". They barely feed Hojlund so why introduce all the flaws of Mctominay? I know we have injuries but wouldn't you rather stop giving away the midfield (guaranteed when Mctominay plays) and try to change how th attackers are playing together?
 
Wasn't the least bit surprised at the goals we conceded. Mctominay has no clue how to play DM. Sick and tired of him, sick and tired of the manager who continually trusts him when it's obvious for a long time now that Mctominay is not very good.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Bringing McTominay on wasn't the issue for me. Those who said it killed the game need to watch the first half again. Yes, it was 0-0 at half time, but Forest would most likely have scored whether this change was made or not. We had no control of the game whatsoever, and it was all too much for young Mainoo.

Having said that, ten Hag putting McTominay in the single pivot role, when his best moments have come as the advanced 8 in a team that score next to feck all was a very baffling decision to me.

I'd personally like to know why he did this. Other than that, lets not pretend we were brilliant without McTominay. That was arguably our worst half this season.
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You're ignoring the fact that whilst we may not have been in control with Mainoo on the pitch, he was still plugging that hole in front of the CBs in and around the box. It's exactly that which makes it harder for teams to score against us, even when we're playing badly. Remove that and replace him with someone who isn't disciplined in that role, doesn't scan for danger, doesn't track midfield runners, and just doesn't occupy those defensive spaces smartly, and of course we concede to yet another simple pull back to someone in acres of space. I'm not sure how you can't see the link between that sub and us conceding.

And who is pretending we were brilliant without McTominay? I haven't seen a single person claiming that.

Most people just seem annoyed by the fact that replacing Mainoo with McTominay made our defence more exposed, which led to us conceding goals. Something that is so fecking obvious and predictable that we're baffled why the manager can't see it.
 
Hernandez - BFA said:
So I didn’t watch the game but at half time - many people were saying on this that the game was passing by Mainoo and that he should be subbed.

Because Ten Hagg did it, and we subsequently lost - suddenly it’s as if the decision was completely unthinkable.

Check the match day thread and see the amount of people who were saying Mainoo was invisible.
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That's not the problem, he can do anything else than McT as dm. He is absolutely blind to the fact that he should never play Bruno and McT together except for a desperate attempt on goal towards the end, even worse, put McT as a 6.

He keeps doing this bs in the mf! It's the definition of insanity by keeping this duo on the field
 
Sandikan said:
Hannibal as a defensive mid? I'm not sure that's his game somehow.
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No, probably not, but he has more awareness about him than McTominay, and may have been covering the position on the edge of our box where the two goals came from.
 
Craziest thing is the club rejected a bid for mctominay from westham. Instead of negotiating we rejected the bid...thats our problme right there. Until we get a DOF to ask the tough questions with ETH, he will do and say whatever crosses his mind
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Bringing McTominay on wasn't the issue for me. Those who said it killed the game need to watch the first half again. Yes, it was 0-0 at half time, but Forest would most likely have scored whether this change was made or not. We had no control of the game whatsoever, and it was all too much for young Mainoo.

Having said that, ten Hag putting McTominay in the single pivot role, when his best moments have come as the advanced 8 in a team that score next to feck all was a very baffling decision to me.

I'd personally like to know why he did this. Other than that, lets not pretend we were brilliant without McTominay. That was arguably our worst half this season.
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No one argues that we were brilliant in the first half, but it is undeniable that subbing on McTominay for Mainoo took us from pedestrian to shambolic in the second half.
 
Zumbi said:
You're ignoring the fact that whilst we may not have been in control with Mainoo on the pitch, he was still plugging that hole in front of the CBs in and around the box. It's exactly that which makes it harder for teams to score against us, even when we're playing badly. Remove that and replace him with someone who isn't disciplined in that role, doesn't scan for danger, doesn't track midfield runners, and just doesn't occupy those defensive spaces smartly, and of course we concede to yet another simple pull back to someone in acres of space. I'm not sure how you can't see the link between that sub and us conceding.

And who is pretending we were brilliant without McTominay? I haven't seen a single person claiming that.

Most people just seem annoyed by the fact that replacing Mainoo with McTominay made our defence more exposed, which led to us conceding goals. Something that is so fecking obvious and predictable that we're baffled why the manager can't see it.
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First of all, I don't think McTominay is a holding midfielder, nor should he play there. However, let's not go on like we weren't conceding those kind of chances with Mainoo on the pitch. Let's go back to Villa, for example, McGinn was free in the area and had it not been for Evans, they'd have gone 3-2 up.

As I said in another thread, the kind of goals we conceded yesterday, i.e from a cut back, are goals we've been conceding for a long time now, regardless of who is playing there. Its a structural problem! If people can't see that, then they're being ignorant.

If ten Hag wanted to lessen the amount of times this happens, then he needs to go with a double 6 pivot with a number 10. That way, if/when it breaks down in midfield, we have 2 holding midfielders screening the defence. City do it with Rodri and Kovacic, Villa with Luiz and Kamara, etc. Heck, Ole used to do it with Fred and McTominay. Whilst they weren't great in the creative department, we were a lot harder to beat, especially in the so called "tougher" games.

Unfortunately, if ten Hag continues to play the way he's playing, and purposely ignore how vulnerable we are to counters, then he'll lose his job. As a manager, he needs to identify this flaw and change it. Plus, we look much better in a 4231 anyway.
 
The only reasonable way to have brough McT on, IMO, should have been to sub off Antony and change tactics (McT up top? Bruno out wide - which I don’t like btw but Antony was stinking up the place anyway) or to sub off Eriksen. Never a DM or for Mainoo - especially not when he’s partners are Eriksen and Bruno. Come on man. It’s basically fecking so obvious playing a midfield of McT Eriksen is suicide. Still fuming
 
Ish said:
The only reasonable way to have brough McT on, IMO, should have been to sub off Antony and change tactics (McT up top? Bruno out wide - which I don’t like btw but Antony was stinking up the place anyway) or to sub off Eriksen. Never a DM or for Mainoo - especially not when he’s partners are Eriksen and Bruno. Come on man. It’s basically fecking so obvious playing a midfield of McT Eriksen is suicide. Still fuming
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We had Rashford upfront in this match, so switching Garnacho right and moving Rashford left was an option. No need to move Bruno to the wing if we took Antony off and brought Scott on as an emergency forward.
 
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