All of our post-Moyes managers have tried to put standards in place. Even Ole tried the whole cultural reboot thing, Ralf came with the “open heart surgery” talk. LvG and Jose also came with strict standards and were quite ruthless about trying to get rid of those who they didn’t rate.
On the dictatorship point, even LvG showed some flexibility towards the end of 2015 when he responded to player criticisms about training. ETH is “my way or the high way” to an extreme extent. He is taking advantage of a vacuum of power at the club. We almost exclusively get his signings, he seems unresponsive to complaints about the training schedule and its intensity, while persisting with the same failing tactics.
Totally banishing Sancho in that manner unless a
public apology was given is considerably egotistical behaviour. Why can’t he accept a private apology and draw the line there? It was him and not Sancho who initially brought the issue to the public sphere.
He boxed Sancho into a situation where a public apology would imply the manager is correct about his professional application. Why would it be in Sancho’s interests to decrease his future earning potential and career prospects like that, just to continue holding bench? What would Ten Hag have gained from a public apology apart from humiliating Sancho? Would it increase his authority in the dressing room? Clearly not, as evidence by dissent towards towards his treatment of Sancho.
In addition, the current issues with Cas and Varane, experienced players the squad needs who have won far more than anyone else including the manager, are also dictatorial. If you want to raise standards at the club do you alienate such players or do you try to use their influence to get them onboard and behind the project? Less than a year ago they were an instrumental part of a trophy winning team and now all of a sudden they are detrimental to these apparent standards he is trying to raise? Make it make sense!
The fact he’s trying to get rid of these two legends of the game implies that they are a threat to his authority. It’s deeply concerning that he is falling out with every player in our squad who has a high standing in the game. It just smells of insecure control-freak that can’t handle big personalities and prefers to surround himself with yes-men that do as their told without complaint. This might work at a smaller club like Spurs or Arsenal, but at United you need to be able to work with superstars. Or, at least, the United of yesteryear. Not this version of United where being a point behind a City side in a crisis is celebrated as some sort of achievement while Arsenal and Liverpool are fighting for the title!
Very constructive contribution
Yep. They told me I don’t need to get answers from the horse’s mouth as his cultists will do his speaking for him
Let’s approach this one by one.
1. Ten Hag cultists isn’t just redcafe posters. Also applies to those who defend him unconditionally everywhere, beit on the Caf, Twitter, Facebook… whatever. It’s those who will always make an excuse for him, no matter what.
2. You said: “It does appear… by main players' interview this week that the stories of a deep dressing room rift/crisis/whatever were indeed vastly exaggerated, if not simply untrue”. Do you honestly think someone is going to come out publicly and say its true? These leaks are players putting pressure on the club to either get Ten Hag to be more accomodating or to get rid.
3. Using the Chelsea game as an example of tactical success is hilarious. Chelsea are terrible and have been so all season, largely because they play a similar way to us. Their squad is also poor and they lack experience. That being said, our tactical weaknesses were still on show and a better team would have beaten us convincingly. Chelsea’s goal took advantage of our man-to-man press as team have done all season to attack us through the middle. Enzo moved wide, McTominay followed him, the passing line through the middle was open for Mudryk to get on the ball and set up Palmer. The man-to-man press is still being exploited. McTominay saving our skin again is also funny considering that Ten Hag tried to get rid. Likewise for Maguire. The fact we’re relying on players he tried to get rid of should be a red flag by themselves.
4. You’re suggesting that there is no mutiny due to the result against Chelsea. You can’t cite our wins as a measure of squad morale being high. We’re likely to win most of our games because we simply have better players. Even in the darkest days of the Moyes, LvG, Jose, Ole and Ralf periods we still won consistently. But what do our performances say? There are too many games whereby we have been dominated across the entire 90 minutes and even in those where we beat weaker teams, we did so unconvincingly and could have easily lost heavily.
5. I explained why I think ETH is a dictator/egotistical control freak in my response to GB.
6. I remain Ten Hag OUT until convinced otherwise. For this, I need to see a consistent improvement in performances. I would be happy for him to turn this around and even all the cultists to come laugh in my face and tell me “I told you so!”. I just want the best for United and my view is that Ten Hag is a detriment to our ambitions.
7. I understand that it is the club’s duty to protect Ten Hag. Can’t really complain about the banning of the journalists, even if it was ordered by Ten Hag himself. That being said, the circumstances that led to it, namely the grievances of the dressing room, are a red flag and they were totally avoidable had Ten Hag been more competent.