Realistically how brutal does Erik Ten Hag need to be?

My response to "who would you keep from this current squad?"
luke511 said:
De Gea, Heaton, Varane, Bailly, Lindelof (last reserve), Shaw, Fred, Sancho, Elanga, Bruno, Ronaldo. With Diallo, Pellestri, Van de Beek, Garner, Mejbri, Garnacho, Laird and Fernandez all getting brought in.
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He needs to be this brutal, all the players that are clearly not up to utd standard or stealing a living without giving a feck need selling as soon as possible. That includes McTominay, Telles, Dalot, Rashford, Maguire, AWB, Lindelof is nowhere near good enough at the tough side of defending but he'll probably have to stay as last back up. It'll take 5, 6 or 7 players coming in as well but if the funds can be raised with selling the likes of Rashford then it has to be done.
 
mu4c_20le said:
I think many will be surprised at how the players respond to an actual coach. Some will be let go as they've been here too long and lost the hunger, but many so called under-performers will make some here look stupid.
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Completely agree with you.
Elite coaches can improve players who respond to his methods.
But those who are not suitable or not prepared to make the changes will be the ones to go.
 
He has to put the footballing side of the club above all else. No one is bigger than the club, no player more important.


Forget names, how much we paid for players.. if they need to go they need to go. The fanbase will back him 100% on this.
 
Youd think very but it won't be realistically done all in one window.

This why we have to have some patience with him because this isn't an overnight fix, I listen to the Talk Of the Devils podcast and Andy Mitten who I respect a lot was saying 1st season should be top 4 and a cup win which is i think is unrealistic, what we should be aiming for is to get the playing side correct of that takes a whole season and we finish around where we are now I'd be ok with it.
 
sunama said:
You seriously think that the board will allow him to sell Maguire and Rashford?
I think he'll be told to work with certain players who aren't good enough, just as all previous managers have been told to do.
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the players in question are irrelevant. The problem is that he board has had way too much power in telling or influencing managers post fergie. Time for the staff above Ten Hag to know their place and that is , they are facilitator, no more no less. If they want to run the team go get their coaching badges. Time to let our manager manage and in doing so the buck stops at his door as in reality it always does. The writing was on the wall as early as Moyes and the fellani debacle. ( 15 m this week ) no we will wait and pay 27. In hindsight Woodward and his companions should have been in the same car as Moyes leaving Old trafford. The club ignored more than 40 reports on Alphonso Davies that one annoys me as my brother lives in vancouver and raved about him. If ten hag isn't allowed freedom and its another merry go round of last day buy of, less than enthusiastic , galacticos ( ronaldo exception) then we all can see what we can do to influence change at board level.
 
Let's face it over the next three season he needs to replace this while team. The only one i can possibly see here in three years time is Sancho..IF he gets back into form.
And the "squad players" let's mot even go there.
This has to be the worse Man Utd squad i can ever remember.
This is what you get when you have clueless owners "Let's just buy a few big stars and keep the money rolling in..."

I hope he lets 10+ go and brings in five for a start. He has my sympathies. He's going to need a miracle to turn this *** around!
 
To be honest i think most of the brutality should be coming from a higher level. Getting some confidence and hope back into the squad will be needed and ten hag should be occupied with that.
Leave the higher ups to tell them to get fecked as far as improved / extended contracts go. Leave the higher ups to sell them off to whoever will take them, leave the higher ups to negotiate replacements that leave them rotting in the reserves.
 
He obviously cannot be too brutal, when realistically we have to keep a large part of the squad. No point in making enemies from day one. But he should be ruthless with the players who clearly do not have a future here. Here I'm thinking of the likes of Lingard, Pogba, Jones, Bailly and Cavani.

Then there is a large group of players that probably are not good enough in the long run, but need to be kept around and perform during next season. The likes of Telles, Maguire, Wan-Bissaka, McTominay, Martial, Rashford, etc. He needs to be able to get more out of them than what we have seen this season, and then ship them out gradually if they do not fit the system or perform well enough.

It's a massive, massive undertaking, because basically everything in the club and the squad is wrong. Really hope we show some patience with him. It's probably the first manager since Fergie, who I feel have both the right identity/playstyle and credentials.
 
Tavern in the town said:
Looking at our squad (minus players who are leaving) we have: Maguire, Varane, Shaw, Fred, Bruno, Sancho and Ronaldo who have at some point looked very good for either us, their previous team or their national team. These are not bad players, they’re being made to look bad by managers who shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the job.

There will be no major culling and rightly so. I think we’ll surprise a lot of people next season because while it feels like rock bottom now, our squad hasn’t suddenly turned shite. We’re better than people think, 3 signings and we’ll walk top 4.
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Agree with the bolded and the rest in general.

I think if you throw Rashford in that list along with De Gea, you’ve still got the nucleus of a good basis for top 4.

We need the same things we needed at the start of this season, a RB, 2 CM’s and a top drawer striker. That alongside EtH managing to get a tune out of the players he has and it should be enough for 3rd.

The following season we can look at bringing in new players to improve on and displace the ones above. We can then bust them back down to backups or move them on, as I suspect will be the case with Ronaldo (age) Bruno (poor fit for new playing style).
 
Extremely.

Rip the armband off Maguire. Metaphorically, literally, I don't care. I would say he'd have to tell him find a new club but realistically, no-one can buy him so we're stuck with him. Bench him.

Tell McTominay to find a new club. Pay no heed to any Fergie influence.

Tell Rashford to focus on football instead of brand building or piss off.

Be strict as feck with younger players. Do not allow any Lingard "characters" to develop.

Anytime Bruno wastes 30 seconds whinging at a ref for not giving a free for a dive instead of focusing on the football match happening around him, beat him.
 
Shane88 said:
Extremely.

Rip the armband off Maguire. Metaphorically, literally, I don't care. I would say he'd have to tell him find a new club but realistically, no-one can buy him so we're stuck with him. Bench him.

Tell McTominay to find a new club. Pay no heed to any Fergie influence.

Tell Rashford to focus on football instead of brand building or piss off.

Be strict as feck with younger players. Do not allow any Lingard "characters" to develop.

Anytime Bruno wastes 30 seconds whinging at a ref for not giving a free for a dive instead of focusing on the football match happening around him, beat him.
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Jesus christ he's not trying to run a sweatshop for gods sake :lol:
 
The good news for him is that a large part of the squad will be leaving due to contracts ending like Pogba, Lingard, Mata, Matic and Cavani.

I'd also expect players like Martial, Henderson, Bailly and Jones to leave as well as a few others.

These players have been in and out of the team but on huge wages so in theory ETH can replace them with players he wants to be first team players. Hopefully he can't start to phase out some of the players who have been first choice under Ole and Rangnick but are clearly not good enough or not in good enough form to be playing for the starting 11.

I really think he needs to be brutal because even if some of these players start off well under him, we know deep down they can easily and quickly down tools. For the reasons mentioned above in the first summer he should be able to freshen up the team quite a bit but realistically it will take 3 or 4 transfer windows before he can clear out all the baggage
 
I see two sides to the "brutal" question

Squad rebuild / getting rid of overpaid, careless sons of a lady - This needs to be brutal but over 2-3 transfer windows. We can't just go and get rid of 10 players and expect to do well in the league at the same time. Get rid of the toxic ones first would be what i'd do as none are clearly awful players, just not the standard we need.

Player behaviour / attitude as per Brighton match - no manager can go into a new position and become a raging psycho. He needs to learn who he can trust, who does what is asked, who has the character that he needs and wants in a player etc. He can't afford to lose the dressing room in his first season. After his first season and he's had the time for two transfer windows, gotten rid of the above paragraph, then I expect to see the angry / brutal ETH who doesn't put up with shite if the players don't do as asked
 
Adam-Utd said:
Not sure he will start with brutality tbh.

He will come in and try to to pick them up first, give every body a chance to prove themselves and see who has the fight.
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Hope it doesn't happen. While he gives a chance to a 3rd league quality players like Mctomonay, Wan bissaka, Maguire, Phil Jones, and probably Rashford as we would probably be destroyed in the matches those people play in, we will lose chances for top 4 in no time. He needs to kick out all these overpayed, overrated amateur-level players on THE FIRST DAY, together with Phelan, Fletcher as those are the responsables of the sinking of our club
 
Quite brutal. That means the moment he walks in the door the contract offer to Pogba needs to be suspended until the manager himself tells the parasites whether he wants Pogba or not.
 
lex talionis said:
Quite brutal. That means the moment he walks in the door the contract offer to Pogba needs to be suspended until the manager himself tells the parasites whether he wants Pogba or not.
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Yes, it’s the contract offer to Pogba that did for us in the 4-0 yesterday & multiple other drubbings he’s not took part in.

Pogba is leaving, how anyone can be hung up on that contract offer when our other midfielders can barely muster a pass & our defence is defenceless is honestly peak Caf agenda.
 
AFC NimbleThumb said:
Yes, it’s the contract offer to Pogba that did for us in the 4-0 yesterday & multiple other drubbings he’s not took part in.

Pogba is leaving, how anyone can be hung up on that contract offer when our other midfielders can barely muster a pass & our defence is defenceless is honestly peak Caf agenda.
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Pogba leaving is not a cast-iron guarantee, not while the offer from the club to renew his contract still sits on the table. That's what has some of us concerned.
 
This team has done my absolute nut in this year but we do have players who are capable of being in a good side. De Gea, Varane, Sancho and Ronaldo are definitely good enough and then Maguire, Shaw, Bruno and Rashford who have all had bad seasons but will be given the chance to get things right next year at the very least before we consider them not fit for purpose.

The likes of McTominay, Fred, Dalot, Wan Bissaka and Telles not starting regularly for us because we've replaced them is the main change I want as they're definitely going to stay but are squad players at best.
 
He will need to be brutal at times. What ETH tolerates will be the standard, not what he preaches or says but what he accepts and tolerates. To raise the standards from where they currently are to where they should be needs a strong hand and he will need to be brutal at times to do so.
 
AFC NimbleThumb said:
Yes, it’s the contract offer to Pogba that did for us in the 4-0 yesterday & multiple other drubbings he’s not took part in.

Pogba is leaving, how anyone can be hung up on that contract offer when our other midfielders can barely muster a pass & our defence is defenceless is honestly peak Caf agenda.
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You won't see me claiming that Pogba did us in at the Amex yesterday, but it was a nice strawman try. :lol:

The club still has a massive contract offer in front of Pogba, which he may or may not decide to sign before ETH arrives at Old Trafford. You might be right that Pogba is leaving, but we might all wake up tomorrow morning to find out that he's actually signed the contract, laughing all the way to the bank.

ETH needs to be given wide latitude in deciding who is and who isn't going to be a member of the squad going into next season, a point no one can reasonably dispute. There are more than a few players who need to go and we may not be able to get of them, such as Martial. Fair enough. But why we still have a contract offer in front of a player who has made it a very public point that he will not commit to United boggles the mind. Yet we do and unless the contract offer is withdrawn, ETH may find that he has a player on his hands he doesn't want and can't get rid of. On the other hand, if ETH does want Pogba that's a different matter.
 
I don't know about brutal, he needs to make a high percentage of right decisions, it doesn't matter what form they take. The best decision might be giving someone a chance in complete contradiction to fan opinion.

There's only so much you can do at once. He might feel 20 of this squad are beyond redemption, he might think 10 are, but ultimately only so much can be done. So I don't think it's about brutality, it's about analysing what is needed immediately, what can wait, who can actually be shifted and who cannot. That's far more important than just saying that he is going to go mental and throw P45s around.

It's fair to say over the 3 years there will be a high turnover overall which may be "brutal", but really that is just the state of things for a big club that has been failing. It's not that unusual or extraordinary.
 
Rather than being brutal, Erik will need to be brave. He will have to fight the media and the board who adore the incumbent players. He won't have too many allies. He will have to succeed. Otherwise, a 20-year wait until the next league trophy would be a genuine possibility.
 
The thing that ETH had going for him is that although he can be brutal, Ralf has already been dishing out the brutality with a freckin sledgehammer and may have done the really nasty stuff already. He surely will have identified the rotten parts to be cut out. This allows ETH come in almost like the good cop to Ralf's badass cop.
 
I think he'll come in say and if you don't work hard you'll be fecked off to the bench. No more standing like statues, if I don't see a player not constantly on their toes and moving and making space they will be subistuted after two warnings from the side lines.
I think he'll turn Bruno into a bobby role with sancho and anthony on either side and three new midfielders.
Thats what i'd do anyway. I think the defence will be fine with good midfielders and two hard working wingers. Maye only two midfielders needed if he gets the best out of Van de Beek
 
ETH does not have to be brutal. Our current problem is that we had two useless managers who never won anything of note. And yes, I am talking about Ole and Ralf. Compared to those two managers, our players are much more capable and talented. It is our managers that did not bring anything to the table.

A capable manager is very important at this level. Spurs under Nuno had a goal difference of minus 9, the same players under Conte have plus 20, the manager made the difference.
 
He’ll know in the first couple of weeks of pre-season who is on board. When people say ‘clean slate’ it doesn’t mean they get another season and a new contract. It means they get to turn up to pre-season with ETH not having made up his mind.
 
AndyMUFC said:
This team has done my absolute nut in this year but we do have players who are capable of being in a good side. De Gea, Varane, Sancho and Ronaldo are definitely good enough and then Maguire, Shaw, Bruno and Rashford who have all had bad seasons but will be given the chance to get things right next year at the very least before we consider them not fit for purpose.

The likes of McTominay, Fred, Dalot, Wan Bissaka and Telles not starting regularly for us because we've replaced them is the main change I want as they're definitely going to stay but are squad players at best.
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Shaw's poor positioning is an issue, also doesn't offer enough of a threat either
 
So many people here truly believe we have the whole squad of low quality and lazy players.
It is a sure thing that people will find out ETH has the real magic to turn these craps into a functional unit.
 
city-puma said:
So many people here truly believe we have the whole squad of low quality and lazy players.
It is a sure thing that people will find out ETH has the real magic to turn these craps into a functional unit.
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There is a real dearth of quality and sorry but some are lazy, social media entitled brats
 
How brutal? He needs to be 'lord of the wasteland' brutal.
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Well our record of signing players, has not been great, in recent years, has it?

We have signed some great players, but they always seem to get worse, when they join us.

Examples include…

Di Maria
Falcao
Sanchez
Varane
Maguire
Pogba

I would add Sancho and Fernandes to that list also, but it’s Sancho’s first season and although Fernandes has been terrible this season, you can’t beat what he did, when he first joined us.
 
It’s not about being ruthless, it’s about being clever.

This isn’t resolvable in one year. Perhaps not even two. The problems run deep.

In year 1, the focus has to be on shifting the most troublesome players. Ralf will be critical here in a way, because he will have a key role in identifying who the true problematic players are. He’d also need to identify a few targets to bring in in the summer, who I think shouldn’t be present superstars but players he wants to form part of the bedrock of the team in 2 years time. Players who can drive cultural change and support the transition to his style of football. Other priorities include building confidence in who is left, starting to convey his style, and aiming for a top 4 finish (but he shouldn’t be judged on if he achieves it or not).

In year 2, we shift the remaining players who aren’t showing transition in style of play, or are not buying into the direction we want to take. We bring in players who fill holes and are ready to go, in terms of being not just the best players but the best players who fill a specific role or style of play. The style should be clearly visible in the team albeit I wouldn’t be expecting the team to be fully gelling at this stage. I think a top 4 finish here would absolutely be needed to demonstrate progression. But to be clear, success should really be judged on how well the style permeates in the team, what does our mentality and effort look like, how well have our signings done, etc.

Year 3 is not too dissimilar in terms of transfer window. But this is the year I’d really expect us, if everything is a success, to be pushing the guys at the top of the league.
 
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