Ratcliffe, in his first big interview talked about judging progress based not just on results, but on trajectory. Ineos accept (in their words) that it’s a process that will take more than one year, so if the trajectory is right, then progress will be judged accordingly. So I don’t think this is just about results, far from it.
By just about every available metric our trajectory with ETH has been going in the wrong direction for nearly 18 months. We’ve gotten consistently worse, not better. And even if you mitigate for injuries, you can see that we aren’t even doing the basics right, and we haven’t progressed towards developing an actual game plan on the pitch.
To say we should give him more time, because of the structure he had to work under, or the injuries or off field drama he’s had to deal with, would fly in the face of all credible evidence. To give him that chance, you’d have to delve deeply beyond the surface to see that there were underlying KPI’s showing we were improving. For it to be possible to uncover evidence of progress made even if it wasn’t apparent in results or the high level data. But there just isn’t. The only thing we’ve improved upon, statistically, is the amount of running we do, and how often we trigger a press and win the ball high up the pitch. But that has to be put in the context of us operating a high press with a medium to low block, meaning that when that press is broken (often) we are like lambs to the slaughter. A phenomenon that has been evident all season, to even the most half-witted armchair fan, and about which ETH has seemingly done nothing.
If we want to progress as a club and find our way back to the top, we have to make hard decisions. And despite this being a hard one, it’s not a difficult one. There is little other than blind hope, or traditionalist nostalgia about patience, to base a positive decision on keeping Ten Hag at the club, and neither of those should be the basis for any sort of rational decision making. I don’t wish ETH ill, and hope he is more successful elsewhere, but I cannot see any logical and informed pathway towards keeping him on board. The decision seems painfully simple to me. Unfortunately, I also have the sense that those arguing against his sacking are doing so out of a more emotive, than rational, decision making perspective, citing a lot of subjective mitigating factors and employing whataboutism in industrial quantities.
I would even venture to say that as one of his biggest conditions for coming here in the first place was control over recruitment, that even if the metrics existed to indicate he is taking us in the right direction (they don’t), his position will be so undermined by the new structure, that it almost makes his position untenable anyway, And again, even if we could find any evidence of a positive trajectory over the last year or more, you simply cannot - as a new owner - show any weakness in the face of our worst league campaign in the PL era, and our worst since 1990 (34 years!). You simply have to draw a line under it, be ruthless (it’s not even a ruthless decision, just a sensible one), and revolutionise the club. There is simply no other elite club in world football that wouldn’t have sacked Ten Hag already, after a historically bad season. We are the outlier. And not in a noble, “better than the rest” sense, but in an apathetic, incompetent way. Thankfully, hopefully, Ineos is bringing the curtain down on what has been a shambolic and embarrassing decade.
Finally, I’ll make very little commentary on the timing of the decision. Or more aptly put, the timing of the release of the decision. When one operates in the public forum, there is rarely a good time to do it. We also don’t know how the publication of the decision came about. Was it intentional? Was it a leak from an aggrieved party? Maybe one of the coaching or executive staff on the way out? I don’t think we know. So it’s folly to paint with broad strokes. I would venture that I would be surprised if ETH hadn’t been informed some time ago, not least since our courting of other managers has become so public.
It seems a bit ridiculous to go into the final with the notion that one game could save his job, or end it, when that’s the last basis on which Ineos will make the decision. So whether by accident or design, it’s better to rip the bandaid off, and I think it’s fine to go into the final having clarity. I am sure the fans will give him a nice send off now.
At the end of the day, the decision makers are stewards of the club, not of the manager, and if the announcement needed to be made now, for reasons behind the scenes that we are not aware of - for the good of the club - then I can get behind that. The manager market is hotly contested this summer and what matters moving forwards is that we can make the appointment we want and need to do. ETH will get a hefty pay off. I can’t see this affecting the result of the game at all, because I am sure that the players will have had clarity in this some time ago.
Given how tight lipped Ineos were prior to the Berrada and Wilcox appointments, it would suggest to me that this was leaked by someone, rather than released. At this point we are talking to other managers, their agents etc., and in that chain somewhere, someone has likely talked too much. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Ratcliffe and co are highly annoyed the story has come out now, because it doesn’t really fit their modus operandi. Obviously, however, some people on here are highly upset, and we are going to see their righteous indignation in full force; but ultimately they are upset that he’s being sacked. We can just expect that we are going to see a ton of outrage for anything that comes into view over the coming days, weeks and months. It is a decision that will be brought up, regardless of relevance, as a stick to beat then with the next time something goes wrong.
Right now, it’s a chance for so many people to neatly wrap up all their agendas (anti-Ratcliffe, anti-certain players, anti-Ineos, pro-Qatar, pro-Ten Hag, political partisanship, socio-economic injustices and perspectives etc etc) into a messy package of mouth frothing vitriol, and let the powers that be have it. Because it’s a protest not just against the decision, or its timing, but much of what the owners stand for. It’s to be expected, but ultimately doesn’t amount to much other than white noise.