Fraud may not be the word, but I understand the line of thinking.
I don't think he was anywhere near as good of a manager as fans and the media would like to think. Him being Dutch and the idea of the country as a whole being full of total football wizards painted a picture of him being a tactical genius. He was quite the opposite of that, and this was clear from a lot of decisions he made and his failure to stop specific tactical flaws for elongated periods. He was clearly out of his depth. Yet unlike Moyes and Ole, he gets treated like the club were the ones to limit his abilities. Once fans start realizing, that outside of transfers, the owners and senior executives, have no influence on the pitch, they will start looking at where the on pitch issues have always lied - the people we hire as managers.
Retrospectively, the system Ten Hag employed with Ajax was very unique....it took a lot of risk and required such a level of superiority that it was clear it couldn't be replicated in hindsight. You had players like Timber and Mazraoui, centre backs who were fluid and constantly out of position, Daley Blind being a sort of playmaking defender, and players having the time and space to overload the opposition from the weirdest positions. Timber and Lisandro were undersized centre backs yet still faced little pressure. Ajax also didn't actually keep possession through a reduced tempo like most teams, they were able to maintain high possession numbers through playing high and having the physical superiority to regain possession when lost due to easily winning one on one duels. Despite how fluid their backline was, teams did not have the speed or power to take advantage of their weird distribution of numbers, so on appearance, with the risk Ten Hag took, it looked attractive, but in reality, his system could not work in any competitive league, and more specifically, a league as physical and intense as the Premier League.
At United, particularly from last season onwards, his lack of tactical acumen got exposed, as his inability to react to situations on the pitch became apparent. Some fans would limit this to in-game management, but overall I actually think its a reflection of his full tactical inadequacies. My takeaway, especially from last season, was that he didn't actually know how to tweak the system to make it effective. He can follow a recipe, but I don't think he knows how to cook. Which is why in the Premier League, he could provide us with the shape, movements and formation, but couldn't adapt when the recipe given to him didn't work in the premier league environment.
In comparison, Amorim's system seems a lot more simple and adaptable. Its quite clear what the route to goal is, and it doesn't rely on extraordinary features, such the heavy overlaods ETH's system required, in order to get goals. The defensive set up is also easy to understand and doesn't require moments of fluidity to be effective. On paper, this makes it adaptable to the Premier League. The big lesson with Ten Hag is that Dutch managers reliance on fluidity and their stubbornness toward their tactical principals is not conducive to the intense and physical nature of the premier league, that requires quick action. To adapt to that reality, managers who focus on fluidity, need to be able to adapt their tactics to make it conducive to the league, which are the steps that both Pep and Arteta have taken. Pep with his inverted full backs, Arteta by using centre backs at full back and by ensuring his wingers act almost like wing backs in their tracking back. United were so dominant for so many years due to having simple tactical principles that were suited to the pace and intensity of the premier league. I think Amorim coming in, with INEOS supporting him, will allow us to get back to that.
