What's your mid-season assessment?

HookedOnAPhelan said:
I'm happy considering where we were last season, and the fact that Martial has barely been available so far. Our results have been pretty good, and we're in a decent position for top 4 before the second half of the season. The performances are showing clear progress in terms of playing style and the general mentality of the squad, even if there's still a long way to go, and we unfortunately still are capable of dropping the occasional stinker.

I didn't think top 4 was realistic before the season (again, considering the state of us last season), but now I think we will finish in the top 4 provided we can keep our key players fit.
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That’s nothing new. One season in the 90s we lost 5-0 to Newcastle and 6-3 to Southampton back to back, but still won the league!

Look at City; they have a near faultless team but just lost at home to Brentford.

Every team has an off day.
 
He's done as well as I expected it - I just knew he will be great.

- Man management - top
- Player improvement - most very good, they look fit, sharp, and most have found form
- Quality of football - so much better, you see progress
- Transfers - top

The only thing I'd criticize is that he seems to run the team into the ground. No wonder we struggled recently, the players look tired.
 
Expectations - Top 4, but 5th is understandable now that Arsenal are good. We should probably finish 4th though considering Liverpool are down a bit, but if one of them or Chelsea get hot and Spurs finish ahead of us it's not a calamity.

Ten Hag - 8.7/10. The players he's brought in have carried us, he's improved our football and he doesn't rate Cristiano, Maguire or Wan-Bissaka. He's even solidified McTominay's value or at least improved him if he's our backup for Casemiro. Garnacho is playing well. Basically a 9/10 but some slight demerits for a couple mistakes early on (Eriksen as a false 9), Sancho not playing well (may not be at all Ten Hag's fault but he's a core player for us who should be in our 17-18 main guys once we're complete).

Fears - We'd be pretty bad without Lisandro or Eriksen. Anyone else can get hurt and we have a chance at top 4, but I don't see it without either of them.

January Window - We have 4 massive holes and must address one at minimum, ideally 2, but January is always tough. Striker, Eriksen cover, a center back and a right back. I think a very promising young (Frimpong) or quite good but 25-28 year old backup right back (Juranovic) and a striker loan who does decently are the realistic best hope.
 
Pretty happy all things told. The team had so many things wrong with it when ETH took over, he was never going to fix them all in a month (even if part of me hoped). But he's managed to fix or partly fix a lot of things, and nothing has gone backwards.

Main thing I'm happy with is the attitude in the squad. I still feel like we can be fragile at times, but overall we seem more resilient and more committed than we have been in a while. Even when things were going well under Ole, we would often go out with a half-arsed casualness which would catch us out in games. Our overall intensity still isn't 90 minutes, but its getting better.

This also feeds into the thing Im most happy about with the manager, is that he totally gets the mental side of the game in the English game. I worried he might be the tippy-tappy type that would play good football but get steamrollered by more physical teams. But that's turned out to be completely unfounded. He rarely talks in pressers about formations, tactics and the like and spends a lot of time talking about attitude and intensity. He completely understands that the game is a battle as much as it is an art form.

The other positive is that lots of other teams are looking wonky. Chelsea have all sorts of problems, Spurs and Liverpool both run hot and cold. Even City are looking less formidable than previous years. Arsenal are the exceptions of course and Newcastle look like they could mix things up. This has no bearing on our overall development, but in terms of our attempts to get top 4 this season, could be useful.

I think the missing piece for us is in the intensity of our attack. With Martial back and maybe Garnacho able to play more of a role than we expected, we might see an uptick in our attacking quality in the second part of the season. However I don't think we'll solve it with the players we have in the squad right now, so it'll take until next season when we can get in a main striker to replace or at least complement Martial.

We have a lot of players in the squad that might be good enough to get top 4, but will need replacing eventually. A goalkeeper, centre back, right back, defensive midfielder, progressive midfielder and striker are all on the shopping list for the next two years, either as first teamers or backups. And that's assuming good fitness and form for all our current key players. So its going to take at least two summers to reach the squad quality we need and that's going to hold us back until then.

Til then, I think we'll continue to see progress in the latter part of the season. We'll still see odd results like the Villa game no doubt, such is the nature of developing teams, but the future looks promising.
 
I think he's done alright. The transfers have been good and i've seen some steady progress.

I would still like us to start dominating games a bit more, especially away games where always seem to be under the cosh. Look at the results away this season so far:

Brentford 4-0 - complete mauling
Soton 0-1. Okish performance, hanging on a bit at the end
Leicester 0-1. Again, an okish performance against a struggling Leicester side
Everton 1-2. A good performance, should've been 3-1
Chelsea 1-1. I'd say our best performance, but only for 1 half.
Villa 3-1. dogshite
Fulham 1-2. Again, terrible performance. last min winner.

So 7 away games, i'd argue perhaps a couple of decent performances. If we are to finish top 4, I think we know where we need to improve!
 
If you told me at the start of the season that we'd be 3 points off top 4 with a game in hand going into the winter break, that wouldn't have been too bad.

After the first two games, it's a good place to be, especially considering that we have Spurs and Newcastle ahead of us, and I fully expect us to push on and finish ahead of both.

I think top 4 will be City, Arsenal, Liverpool and United, in that order. If that comes to be, then job well done in my view for a first season.

In terms of on the pitch, we are not playing the free flowing and dominant stuff that ETH would surely like, but there's clear signs that we play like a team now. We defend as a unit now, we attack as a unit and actually get numbers in the box.

The intensity and workrate is better, we're more solid defensively. It's worth noting that 10 of our goals conceded were in 2 games. Other than those anomalies, we've defended with a desire I've not seen for a long time now. I can now see how we'd improve with another top CM and a top CF. The foundations are being laid, players are improving and understanding their roles better.

Given our start and fixture list, I would say that ETH has shown enough to warrant full backing and support. That's more than what we've seen for a decade now. Plenty to work on, but this doesn't feel like any false dawn type of situation we saw under previous regimes many times.
 
Generally, I think the results have been better than the performances. I've been happy with ETH and pleased to see he is willing to drop players who are out of form and we've improved defensively.

The main issue I've had is that aside from the Spurs game I don't think we've put in any really good performances. It's not to say we've been shite or deserved to lose but a lot of our games have been tight and we've not controlled games all that well. I'm sure it will come in time though.

I don't think our attack has been very good at creating or putting away opportunities too which has had us under pressure in games where we shouldn't have been too.

All part of a process though and I think there are enough positive signs to think things will get better in time. Hoping the second half of the season is where we start playing better football and winning in a more convincing way.
 
If you look at us this season:

Average performances:

Brighton (H) - L 1-2
Southampton (A) - W 1-0
Leicester (A) - W 1-0
Everton (A) - W 2-1
Newcastle (H) - D 0-0
Chelsea (A) - D 1-1
West Ham (H) - W 1-0
Fulham (A) - W 2-1

There have been plenty of average performances but some very good results. This to me is us reverting back to old ways, what we were like under Ole a little. But in terms of really actual poor performances there have only been the following:

Brentford (A) - L 4-0
Man City (A) - L 6-3
Aston Villa (A) - L 3-1

So it would appear pretty patchy. However, what has been excellent is our performances against other top 4 rivals, the games that have really convinced me we're on the right track. The following performances were all very very good, some of the best I've seen us play in years and nothing like games under Ole:

Liverpool (H) - W 2-1
Arsenal (H) - W 3-1
Tottenham (H) - W 2-0

When you consider all of the above we're doing pretty decent I think.
 
When a new manager comes in, its very difficult to change the way the team is used to playing. This was a Manutd team with 0 confidence, he has addressed that.

Its always very difficult for a manager when you keep getting injuries, Varane, Antony, Sancho, Marital have all caused issues because it changes the way Ten Hag wants to play.

To see real improvement, we need to see our best 11 for 10 games straight, I hope this is something that can happen post WC.
 
We are r8ghtbwhere I expected us to be.
This will vbe a long, hard slog.
 
romufc said:
When a new manager comes in, its very difficult to change the way the team is used to playing. This was a Manutd team with 0 confidence, he has addressed that.

Its always very difficult for a manager when you keep getting injuries, Varane, Antony, Sancho, Marital have all caused issues because it changes the way Ten Hag wants to play.

To see real improvement, we need to see our best 11 for 10 games straight, I hope this is something that can happen post WC.
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That is very fair.
All teams get injuries. Especially this season due to the fixture congestion.
We all know that the squad is not good enough yet.
But a top coach is able to get the best out of the resources he has.
And EtH has done just that.
Not sure what he could realistically have done much different or better.
But for the first time in ages, my passion for United has been reignited.
8/10.
 
Buster15 said:
That is very fair.
All teams get injuries. Especially this season due to the fixture congestion.
We all know that the squad is not good enough yet.
But a top coach is able to get the best out of the resources he has.
And EtH has done just that.
Not sure what he could realistically have done much different or better.
But for the first time in ages, my passion for United has been reignited.
8/10.
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Agreed with the injury part, which is why I think he has done a good job. Changing his tactics. Imagine spending a whole Pre season with Martial as your CF then to have him play 2 games. The alternative players couldn't do that role.

Also, Arsenal are an example of a team with minimal injuries, they have played same games as us but because they dont have injuries to their starting 11, they look consistent.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs all have injuries and all look inconsistent.
 
Relatively happy with the direction the club is going in. There's a lot of positives to take from the start of this season but there's also still plenty of room for growth. We need to follow up a good summer transfer window and continue to back Erik ten Hag is getting us closer towards where he wants us to be.

If we get Ronaldo out and replace him with a competent striker, that will do wonders for our chances of getting Champions League football next season. When everybody is fit, we have a pretty decent team and we've played some really good football at times. Now we have to address the squad depth so there isn't such a big drop off when we're missing two or three of the starting players.
 
I expected it to be a fairly bumpy ride and didn't anticipate massive progress for a few months. Basically, I would've accepted another transitional season as long as we were looking like an actual team (and not a bunch of individuals) by the end of the season. Expected a similar league position to last year tbh.

Right now, I think EtH has done a really good job. We're much more solid then I expected and better on the ball (with a lot more to come). I'm impressed with his signings and think he's dealt with Ronaldo and Maguire well.

One of the biggest issues was morale and you only need to look at the likes of Rashford and Dalot to see that individuals are improving. Also think he's handling Garnacho's integration well and did a good job in getting Shaw back into form.

Anyone who doesn't see clear progress just needs to think back to last season. We were completely rudderless. The difference is night and day.
 
romufc said:
Agreed with the injury part, which is why I think he has done a good job. Changing his tactics. Imagine spending a whole Pre season with Martial as your CF then to have him play 2 games. The alternative players couldn't do that role.

Also, Arsenal are an example of a team with minimal injuries, they have played same games as us but because they dont have injuries to their starting 11, they look consistent.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs all have injuries and all look inconsistent.
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Correct.
Much as I hate to admit it, Arteta has done a remarkable job with the Gooners. Spit spit.
 
Offside said:
If you look at us this season:

Average performances:

Brighton (H) - L 1-2
Southampton (A) - W 1-0
Leicester (A) - W 1-0
Everton (A) - W 2-1
Newcastle (H) - D 0-0
Chelsea (A) - D 1-1
West Ham (H) - W 1-0
Fulham (A) - W 2-1

There have been plenty of average performances but some very good results. This to me is us reverting back to old ways, what we were like under Ole a little. But in terms of really actual poor performances there have only been the following:

Brentford (A) - L 4-0
Man City (A) - L 6-3
Aston Villa (A) - L 3-1

So it would appear pretty patchy. However, what has been excellent is our performances against other top 4 rivals, the games that have really convinced me we're on the right track. The following performances were all very very good, some of the best I've seen us play in years and nothing like games under Ole:

Liverpool (H) - W 2-1
Arsenal (H) - W 3-1
Tottenham (H) - W 2-0

When you consider all of the above we're doing pretty decent I think.
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Personally I see that Spurs game as standalone compared to Arsenal and Liverpool, as that was a complete performance in my opinion.

Liverpool and Arsenal overall were good performances not great, unlike the Spurs one for me.
 
Massive Spanner said:
I thought top four should be a reasonable assessment given the massive transfer outlay, now.. I’m not so sure. We have such a piss poor squad outside of our best XI. His signings have been great, though.

I think he’s done well but we are much more of a hard to beat team than a team that plays good football, and we probably all expected the latter from him. But he has plenty of time to bring that too.

Not convinced we will get top four but I’ve seen enough of the man and his signings to be convinced he’s the right coach for the foreseeable. Which I was never able to say about any of our previous four managers in their debut years.
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Agree with much of this but I think we will get top 4. Would like a cheeky cup also
 
From a pure footballing perspective I'm delighted. Our transfers have been on-point, Ten Hag clearly knows what he's doing and we are headed in the right direction.

The Ronaldo situation is pretty ugly, though. I hope he's unable to cause a stir in the dressing room, which he undoubtedly would love to.
 
RedStarUnited said:
I suspect this is looking at calendar dates instead of games played. we had more points after 14 games in 17/18 for example.
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Nah, I most likely missed out that season. Still would be third best which is a good achievement considering circumstances.
 
A decent start for sure. Some positive changes in our style of play but we are thin on the ground with the squad size.

New signings have generally slotted in well and Garnacho's flashes gives us another potentially top attacking player.

Imperative that we move on some of the distractions and players that aren't up to it so that we can improve our squad depth - Ronaldo, Maguire, AWB, DVB and Elanga all need shifting soon but we've also got to see more from players like Sancho who looks like a big miss at the moment. Need a striker in January desperately.

If you'd have offered this at the start of the season though, I'd have been okay with it!
 
Given the dismal state of the squad upon Ten Hag’s arrival, the shambolic management of the transfer window, and Ronaldo doing his very best to tear down the foundations, I’d say Ten Hag has done as well as humanly possible.

The squad was short of around eight quality players (still more neeeded), zero time was afforded to Ten Hag in order for him to bed in new recruits prior to the season starting, and we’ve played the entirety of the season with a fit and functional centre forward.

We look better than we did, and the players we eventually bought are all good ones, but much work is needed. Ten Hag knows it, too. He needs backing all the way.
 
He’s done alright. I don’t think the club will finish top 4. There’s a lack of possession even against poorer teams that will be the undoing once again. This is a 2-3 year rebuild at least
 
romufc said:
Agreed with the injury part, which is why I think he has done a good job. Changing his tactics. Imagine spending a whole Pre season with Martial as your CF then to have him play 2 games. The alternative players couldn't do that role.

Also, Arsenal are an example of a team with minimal injuries, they have played same games as us but because they dont have injuries to their starting 11, they look consistent.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs all have injuries and all look inconsistent.
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Same number. Very different fixtures.
 
Overall good, not excellent but very good.
First two games were woeful, however since then,
Got rid of the chuckle brothers and McFred, huge improvement.
He has massively improved Rashford and Martial plus McTominay.
Signed Casemiro and Anthony and both have been good signings and we have taken 26 points from 12 games with 7 away and 5 at home.
Our biggest danger is fixture congestion and a thin enough squad, although most teams have this issue. If we can continue to average well over 2 points per game we will comfortably make top 4. We need key players to stay fit, Casemiro, Eriksen, Martinez. The fact that all three of these have just joined speaks volumes.
 
We are still only in first year of rebuild. Ten Hag has done very well so far and if he is backed again in January and next summer, we will be challenging for everything next season.
 
Bestietom said:
We are still only in first year of rebuild. Ten Hag has done very well so far and if he is backed again in January and next summer, we will be challenging for everything next season.
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Just out of interest, if you consider this as doing “very well”, what would be ‘moderately well’? What would be be par?

You’ve definitely improved from last year but you’ve spent €240m according to TransferMarkt, and recouped €13.25m, and by most accounts have the highest wage bill any PL club has ever had. You’re 5th in the league with a goal difference of 0, and got through the Europa league second in your group.
I’m not saying he’s the wrong manager for you, I do think he’s probably the correct one, but ‘very well’ just seems to be pushing it a little. Arsenal and Newcastle are doing very well, Chelsea are doing very badly; I think Utd are really just at par.

Edit, I’m aware there is more to football than just the stats, and that’s probably where I’d consider him as having done well.
 
TOP OF THE LEAGUE BABY!!

Sorry, this is not Feyenoordcafe, but we're red too, so yeah.
 
Really happy overall. The signings have all been better than expected, the football is already improving despite a recent slowdown mostly due to injuries and fixture congestion. We’ve played all of the classic top 6 and won 3 of them, drawing one and only losing at City away.

Most of our games have been away games too so it’s nice to have a lot of them out of the way. If we can get a solid striker in and improve the depth in other areas it will be a very good season. Winning a trophy would make it even better.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yes, really. The thing you need to remember is that there are 38 fixtures in a season. With 24 still left to play.
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Yep, and you also need to remember that we play each team twice. So how can there be different fixtures for them?

There will be fixtures they have played and we haven't or vice versa. I really dont get how they have played different fixtures to us.
 
After a disastrous start ETH has steadied the ship well. Away to Brentford was the low point.
There is some mitigation for the 6-3 loss at City.
Martinez has been a good buy. Eriksen doing well. Antony promising. Malaccia promising.
Still need at least 4 good players though. Happy enough.
 
I think we're doing fine. Not great, but also not terrible with plenty of encouraging signs. As much as I hate to say it, and probably shouldn't, if Greenwood hadn't turned out to be such a total bellend I genuinely think we'd be comfortably in 2nd or 3rd. Right wing and striker have been our two biggest issues this season.

He still has a lot of work to do, The squad lacks balance and there's deadwood that needs to be cleared out. I was hoping for more sales in the summer, but I understand why he'd want to look at all his players first. Hopefully, he now has a good idea of the players and who needs to git gone.
 
romufc said:
Yep, and you also need to remember that we play each team twice. So how can there be different fixtures for them?

There will be fixtures they have played and we haven't or vice versa. I really dont get how they have played different fixtures to us.
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Not sure if you’re being serious at this stage.

If you are, your second last sentence answers your last one.
 
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