Ten Hag sacked | Ruud appointed Interim Manager

Let me first say: thank feck he's gone.

Next: the question has to be asked: why the hell wasn't he sacked earlier? And by earlier I mean last season.

Letting him go after the FA Cup final would have been perfect for all parties. And this was hardly an outlandish idea at the time. Many of us were in favour of it - a decent exit for yet another "manager" who didn't quite work out...on a high note, at that.

Would have made perfect sense - new owners, new plan, new "structure" - and so forth.

Why the feck was he kept on?

And when it became obvious - to my blind granny's blind dog - that he would never turn anything around in a millions years...that would have been in late August, I guess, around there...why the feck didn't they give it to Ruud (or whoever) then? Did they not see what my blind granny's blind dog saw?

This is a good day in the sense that ETH is - finally - gone. That feels good to many of us. But it's not a grand day, it's not - by any stretch of the imagination - a new dawn. We are run by people who decided to let ETH make an utter fool of himself before - finally - sacking him. Mock Ezza ten Hazza all you want (I don't like him), but please keep focusing on the real problem.
 
Spoony said:
Did he implement tiki taka at Barcelona? We're best at chaos football. We need a nutcase of a manager, it's a shame Roy Keane has mellowed.
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Generally I think Cruyff is credited as being the first one to introduce it to Barca. So it goes back quite a ways and has since obv been used and perfected under other managers.
 
JPRouve said:
I really need someone to explain this one to me without making silly comparisons such as Ole. And I should insist on the fact that I'm not really interested in Xavi or anyone else.

Xavi took over a mess and won the league, he is the one that either introduced or developed nearly all the kids that are currently shining and where shining with him and for Spain. Also for the Flick current love, Xavi has had similar periods with Barcelona in 2022-2023. To me he seems to be naive when it comes to big fixtures but he didn't fail with Barcelona and he is one of the big reasons they didn't totally collapse after the financial scandals because he relied on kids without issue.
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No to mention at this point I'd take anyone "failing like Ole", i.e, finishing 2nd and 3rd while scoring goals in a heartbeat.

Xavi actually won the league, and was then handed a 3 Million transfer budget. The way people talk about him you'd think he was a Lampard or Gerrard in manager.
 
romufc said:
Whilst I can see where you are coming from, I agree that McKenna has done well so far but managing United and Ipswich is completely different.

We can see it this season, its the same problems they had at United as coaches, defensive issues.

Both Carrick and McKenna, struggle to set teams up defensively, look at the goals Ipswich are conceding, Middlesborough are a mid table championship club that concede goals. Neither would do well at United.
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To be fair to McKenna, he has taken Ipswich from League One to the PL in 2 years, without major investment. To even be in the PL is beyond ridiculous. They made some signings in the summer, but their squad is miles off being PL quality. The only reason they are even in the league is because of the massive overachievement of their coach. The fact they aren’t bottom is achievement enough, and then you look at them having played Liverpool, city and Villa in their first 9 games. Getting 4 draws and 5 losses.

Yes, they have defensive issues, but a huge part of that is just a massive gulf in player quality. I’m not advocating for McKenna to be United manager. He isn’t ready. But he can’t be bashed for how Ipswich have done in the PL. By all rights they shouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for him.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Let me first say: thank feck he's gone.

Next: the question has to be asked: why the hell wasn't he sacked earlier? And by earlier I mean last season.

Letting him go after the FA Cup final would have been perfect for all parties. And this was hardly an outlandish idea at the time. Many of us were in favour of it - a decent exit for yet another "manager" who didn't quite work out...on a high note, at that.

Would have made perfect sense - new owners, new plan, new "structure" - and so forth.

Why the feck was he kept on?

And when it became obvious - to my blind granny's blind dog - that he would never turn anything around in a millions years...that would have been in late August, I guess, around there...why the feck didn't they give it to Ruud (or whoever) then? Did they not see what my blind granny's blind dog saw?

This is a good day in the sense that ETH is - finally - gone. That feels good to many of us. But it's not a grand day, it's not - by any stretch of the imagination - a new dawn. We are run by people who decided to let ETH make an utter fool of himself before - finally - sacking him. Mock Ezza ten Hazza all you want (I don't like him), but please keep focusing on the real problem.
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they couldn’t get anyone they liked and firing him and hiring the wrong bloke is a far worse look than giving him time. i don’t think ineos did much wrong and they’ve acted a lot quicker this season than i thought they would. they need to start proving themselves now though.
 
Mr Anderson said:
Sadly coming a long time. Ideally summer it should have happened, leave on a high after cup final but 8th in the league is deplorable.

Erik got rid of a lot of rotten eggs. Can see in the likes of David de Geas tweet, we had a lot of spoilt brats.

Problems for Erik were he signed dogshit players (although he had no real support in the signings so had no choice) and when the going got tough, he was too stubborn to adapt or change how we played. Effectively having us play like a bottom half team in pressing hard and trying to counter, which kept failing anyway.

Wish him the best, think he will do well at a club further down the road than us in terms of structure and stability - he was setup to fail here regardless like all managers post Fergie
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That really is the key. Had we signed the likes of Kane, Palmer and Declan Rice instead, I'm pretty sure it would have worked out. Some of these players are so good that it would have made up for any tactical deficiencies. Whatever happens next, recruitment really has to be top notch going forward.
 
always_hoping said:
PL games was posted up by the PL themselves today.

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Christ. That makes for dire reading. Just shows how poor our managerial recruitment has been in the past eleven years.
 
rimaldo said:
they couldn’t get anyone they liked and firing him and hiring the wrong bloke is a far worse look than giving him time. i don’t think ineos did much wrong and they’ve acted a lot quicker this season than i thought they would. they need to start proving themselves now though.
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You give them more credit than I do.

But I hope you're right.
 
always_hoping said:
PL games was posted up by the PL themselves today.

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So, in terms of points per game:

Fergie: 2.16
Mourinho: 1.89
Ole: 1.80
LVG: 1.78
ETH: 1.71
Moyes: 1.67
Rangnick: 1.54

Both myself and somebody had posted totals previously, but looks like we both made small mistakes. ETH only beating Moyes from the permanent managers, comfortably behind the others.
 
Redplane said:
Generally I think Cruyff is credited as being the first one to introduce it to Barca. So it goes back quite a ways and has since obv been used and perfected under other managers.
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No. Tiki Taka is from the 2000s and it describes how Spain played which was then used and improved by Guardiola. Cruyff is credited with the introduction to Total Football.
 
simonhch said:
To be fair to McKenna, he has taken Ipswich from League One to the PL in 2 years, without major investment. To even be in the PL is beyond ridiculous. They made some signings in the summer, but their squad is miles off being PL quality. The only reason they are even in the league is because of the massive overachievement of their coach. The fact they aren’t bottom is achievement enough, and then you look at them having played Liverpool, city and Villa in their first 9 games. Getting 4 draws and 5 losses.

Yes, they have defensive issues, but a huge part of that is just a massive gulf in player quality. I’m not advocating for McKenna to be United manager. He isn’t ready. But he can’t be bashed for how Ipswich have done in the PL. By all rights they shouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for him.
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I agree and I have said that they have done extremely well but when I look at what is required for United, he isnt it.

Whilst he has done really well, being defensively solid is a requirement for a top tier coach.

I think McKenna can be a good coach, but that doesnt mean he should manage United based on what he has done at Ipswich.

At the moment, we need a manager with a big personality.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
You give them more credit than I do.

But I hope you're right.
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none of them are idiots. they don’t get to where they are by being stupid. all they’ve done is takeover business basics really. now they don’t have any excuses for getting it wrong.
 
JPRouve said:
No. Tiki Taka is from the 2000s and it describes how Spain played which was then used and improved by Guardiola. Cruyff is credited with the introduction to Total Football.
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If you want to be literal about the introduction of the term yes, but as you basically said the groundwork/underpinnings of it lie with Cruyff. Pep made it what it is today.
 
I thought he was the man to take us forward at first, but as last season progressed, it was obvious it wasn’t. Still he has two cups to his name and will probably be successful in a much lesser year. Maybe we would have been better off with Poch at the time. Who knows?
The next manager; surely won’t be worse, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
 
always_hoping said:
Should have higher hopes than that. Has won one trophy in five seasons with Arsenal and whenever they play a decent team and are lucky enough to take the lead he choose to park the bus and hopes it's enough to win.
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In Arteta's defense, he has been competing with Pep and cheating City so it hasn't exactly been fair. If RvN can get us to play like Arsenal and compete for the title every year, I'll be more than happy. Not sure what more we can hope for. Being a regular title winner in current PL is unrealistic.
 
JPRouve said:
I really need someone to explain this one to me without making silly comparisons such as Ole. And I should insist on the fact that I'm not really interested in Xavi or anyone else.

Xavi took over a mess and won the league, he is the one that either introduced or developed nearly all the kids that are currently shining and were shining with him and for Spain. Also for the Flick current love, Xavi has had similar periods with Barcelona in 2022-2023. To me he seems to be naive when it comes to big fixtures but he didn't fail with Barcelona and he is one of the big reasons they didn't totally collapse after the financial scandals because he relied on kids without issue.
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Good post. I wouldn’t want Xavi because simply put, I’m not sure our squad is suited to how he’d want to play but to objectively call his time at Barca a failure without any context is wrong.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
The roof at Old Trafford is leaking.

Granted, it's only a real problem when it's raining.
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I cannot see how fixing a leaking roof will improve how our players play... maybe when they play away they miss the leaking roof, so they leak goals instead?
 
JPRouve said:
I really need someone to explain this one to me without making silly comparisons such as Ole. And I should insist on the fact that I'm not really interested in Xavi or anyone else.

Xavi took over a mess and won the league, he is the one that either introduced or developed nearly all the kids that are currently shining and were shining with him and for Spain. Also for the Flick current love, Xavi has had similar periods with Barcelona in 2022-2023. To me he seems to be naive when it comes to big fixtures but he didn't fail with Barcelona and he is one of the big reasons they didn't totally collapse after the financial scandals because he relied on kids without issue.
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I think it has to do with the fact that their squad wasn’t in a mess when he took over. They were and still are a mess financially but not when it comes to their squad. Same reason Slot found it easy to transition - squad is very good.

Same cannot be said about United. You not only need a good coach to coach this bleedy team but a good man manager. Someone to take the team by the scruff of the neck and tell them this is the way to play.
 
Gandalf Greyhame said:
Firstly, I think the sacking was long overdue. ETH was out of his depth, of course.

But the lack of support for the manager as a theme has been consistent and has passed on as a trait from Glazers to INEOS. For instance, the way EtH was treated by the media immediately before and after the cup final, where we were publicly looking for alternatives behind his back, where the club did nothing to support/protect the manager from disgraceful questions and reports which would surely have affected morale and undermined his authority behind closed doors. Even of the money spent this summer, we only brought in Zirkzee as a goalscorer - after we officially let go of Sancho, Pellistri, and Greenwood. Our defence has improved as a result, but our goals scored remains abysmal - EtH could have clearly done better with what he had, but how much better? Whoever comes in next inherits the goalscoring problem.

The dithering has been inherited, too. If it was indeed determined that the manager was not up to the task, why did it take so long to fire him? Why not earlier in the last break, or even earlier in the summer, when there was clearly enough concern to go shopping elsewhere, and better options were available? What actual benefit was there to keeping him for the additional month, even if you wanted to give INEOS any benefit of doubt.

Now, there's time for INEOS to turn things around - but apart from part of the transfer business this summer (planning for the future with the profile/quality of Yoro, De Ligt, Ugarte), INEOS, so far, have displayed some very familiar systemic deficiences. I hope they turn it around in the way they handle the much more difficult task of appointing EtH's successor.
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If you ask the typical non EPL club supporter they'll probably tell you that we had shown far too much support to ETH. The guy came 8th with a negative goal difference despite spending hundreds of millions on the team. Not only did we keep him and we handled him a contract extension despite refusing to lose control over his VETO but he ended up saddling us with more Eredivisie linked players. ETH had spent 72m on Hojlund, 36m on Zirkzee and 82m on Antony and yet we scored less goals then the likes of Leicester City, Everton, Ipswich and Wolves. In fact only Southampton had scored less goals then we did.

In my opinion INEOS biggest mistake was to bring in Ashworth and Berrada in July. By that time next year's plan had already been shaped (manager, transfers, strategy etc) and there's very little space to maneuver let alone assess what's really going on. Yet the writing was pretty much on the wall from ETH's inability to go past his fetishness for Eredivisie players to his fallout with numerous players including the living legend Varane right to his training regimen who was time and time again, accused for being too intense and was crippling most of our squad. Ultimately we ended up with a manager who was completely on survival mode and whose desperation led to some, very weird, decision making. Case in point was playing a RB as a No 10.
 
Probably already mentioned but it’s interesting in the statement how he is the outgoing ‘Manager’ whilst Ruud and the search is for a ‘head coach’
 
Weird that my post got deleted with all the effing and blinding left in here. I tried to be nice and didn't swear. :lol:
 
rimaldo said:
i thought it’s how you start easing your forearm into someone. at least that’s how my uncle showed me.
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No, the angle would be different in that case. What you’re thinking of is the Qian Bai, a striking technique in Chinese Martial arts. What probably happened was that your uncle was trying to teach you praying mantis kung fu style, but as he struck, you turned around in fear, and the rest is history.
 
Shane88 said:
Antony
Casemiro
Martinez
Malacia
Eriksen
Hojlund
Mount
Onana
Turkish keeper
Yoro
Ugarte
De Ligt
Zirkzee
Mazraoui

How many of those does a new manager keep and use?
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Martinez, Hojlund, Onana, Yoro, Mazraoui can be used by any manaer. Ugarte, De Light need to improve a lot. Eriksen as a backup. The rest can just feck off.
 
Almost made it a year since the day he should have been fired.

Which was when we got knocked out of the CL in a shite group
 
Foolsgold21 said:
Probably already mentioned but it’s interesting in the statement how he is the outgoing ‘Manager’ whilst Ruud and the search is for a ‘head coach’
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Aligns with everything we've heard up to now, that INEOS want a head coach rather than a manager
 
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