Will fans enjoy ETH’s brand of football

I actually liked the fact we had so much of the ball under LVG, it's just kind of a shame that we didn't actually do anything with it that was so disappointing and boring. If it's possession football but with actual goals, combined with a high intensity press then i'll be very happy.

A slight concern would be if we start hearing terms like 'United DNA' and 'tippy tappy crap' criticism from certain players, if things don't go well initially. Hopefully it won't come to that. I'm optimistic :cool: .
 
A better question is will the people who pretended to know everything about Ten Hag when they clearly knew very little enjoy his football?

That I'm interested in
 
Irwin99 said:
A slight concern would be if we start hearing terms like 'United DNA' and 'tippy tappy crap' criticism from certain players, if things don't go well initially. Hopefully it won't come to that. I'm optimistic :cool: .
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When you say “players” do you mean former ones? I doubt if any of the current lot give a toss about United DNA. The former ones seem to be on “moan bonuses” from their employers so yeah they’ll be bound to find something to criticise.

Apart from a couple of Pochaholics, most of the people on here who are already flexing their muscles to prepare themselves for a nice bit of ETH bashing don’t seem to be United DNA types. There’s still a fair bit of yearning for the return of Proven Winner Jose, bizarrely. They aren’t going to like pretty football at all.
 
Yes people will whine, especially the first couple months when the attack looks blunt. I also remember Bayern fans complaining about Pep's football being boring so I think teams will an attacking tradition generally don't like lower tempo possession styles. In this sense I don't think ETH is our ideal fit but we let so many candidates go to other clubs while we stuck with Ole so ETH becomes our best fit by virtue of just being the best manager on the market. Klopp would have been a typical United manager through and through.
 
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Adisa said:
He's slightly more Klopp than Pep.
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Gotta disagree, ETH is one of the few managers to openly admit to basing his football on another current manager's football. By his own words he emulated his philosophy after Pep. One of the first things that jump out when you watch Ajax is how similar they play to Pep's teams in the final third. I welcome it because I personally think Pep's is slighty stronger than Klopp's. Not that there's any objective way to prove it.
 
Revaulx said:
When you say “players” do you mean former ones? I doubt if any of the current lot give a toss about United DNA. The former ones seem to be on “moan bonuses” from their employers so yeah they’ll be bound to find something to criticise.

Apart from a couple of Pochaholics, most of the people on here who are already flexing their muscles to prepare themselves for a nice bit of ETH bashing don’t seem to be United DNA types. There’s still a fair bit of yearning for the return of Proven Winner Jose, bizarrely. They aren’t going to like pretty football at all.
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Yep: i forgot to put the 'ex' in the ex-players bit. My bad.

It's not just Neville and Scholes; I've heard Dwight Yorke, Peter Schmeichel and other legends who have said similar stuff about 'United DNA' and 'getting the club' etc. and although i don't seem to get as angry as other people do on here about them expressing their opinion I always want to say to them that Pep and Klopp had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of their current clubs but they're making history right now. I feel we have to be open to new ideas and stop looking back to the Fergie era.
 
VP89 said:
Full backs are so vital from reading this.

We must be getting a new full back, maybe on both sides surely. Perhaps that can be organically through reserves but I dont see any fullbacks of our first team capable of central midfield /full back hybrid roles.
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I think Shaw will be great under ETH, but both of our right backs are useless
 
As long as we have a well defined team structure and coherent style of play, I am happy.
 
I think a better question is will Ten Hag be able to implement his style of play?
We have seen Rangnick quickly abandon the pressing. LVG also abandoned his more attacking style after Leicester and became more conservative.

1) will Ten Hag have enough players to effectively implement his preferred style
2)will he be given time in the early months when it might appear boring because the most difficult part is always the attacking and creating chances part and that needs time and the right players.
 
Let's not put what Van Gaal implemented and Pep implemented in same sentence. Fans will enjoy any style of play as long as the team is scoring goals and winning.
 
Irwin99 said:
Yep: i forgot to put the 'ex' in the ex-players bit. My bad.

It's not just Neville and Scholes; I've heard Dwight Yorke, Peter Schmeichel and other legends who have said similar stuff about 'United DNA' and 'getting the club' etc. and although i don't seem to get as angry as other people do on here about them expressing their opinion I always want to say to them that Pep and Klopp had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of their current clubs but they're making history right now. I feel we have to be open to new ideas and stop looking back to the Fergie era.
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Oh definitely.

It seems to be people who grew up as fans (or players) in the comfort and stability of the Fergie era that have this problem. I became an Old Trafford regular just as Wilf was getting the chop and Sir Matt came back in; a couple of years later The Doc arrived and took a axe to what was left of the Sir Matt era, and fans were incredibly excited about it.

Two big differences back then compared to now: the fan base was a good deal younger and consequently much of it wasn’t nostalgia-prone, and there was hardly any arena for bitter ex-players (Crerand, for example) to air their views.
 
Prodigal7 said:
With Ten Hag’s football being more similar to Peps possession based game and LVGs total football than a counter attacking approach based on pacey wingers, will our fans enjoy and accept this type of football?

There have been lots of people here commenting about how boring they find Peps keep ball and that lamented LVGs brand brand of total football at the time.

Personally I feel we need to modernise the way we play more in line with this, but my feeling reading here is that many will disagree.
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Peps football is brilliant. Any neutral would say the same. The only reason people say otherwise on here is because he's the city manager. Had we been playing that type of football, we'd be ecstatic.
 
It was interesting to see him talk about playstyle, I forgot the video but he mentioned he wanted to win with style but also considers AJAX's history. So it seems like he base his style on the club too. I am sure the football we play will be different than AJAX. I just hope that he will use the 2008 squad as a model than the recent ones. Attacking, exciting and consists of both senior & junior players and while we didnt have the best in world in every positions, the synergy was there and theyre all the correct players for United. Unlike now... all the wrong players and the wrong fees and the wrong mentality.
 
Jinn said:
How about we just win?
Talking about style of play now feels like a first world problem.
Just win.. Ugly
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Having a set system and style of play will help us win. It’s going to be a transitional season so we’re going to hit a few bumps along the road but it will all be worth it for the long run.
 
We just have to suck it up and trust the process, and work towards a defined goal. Just like pool did when they hired Brendon Rodgers, he was the one that actually managed to instill a modern style of possession football which provided a great platform for the next manager to take over from.
 
What makes a certain brand of football enjoyable? Folk will have their own sensibilities and subjective take on things, but by and large United supporters would appreciate...
  • A defined offensive plan, and a large emphasis on verticality.
  • Room for individual flair, without compromising on collective grit.
  • Attacking in waves, instead of settling for a suboptimal status quo.
  • Variance of passing moves and approaching from all sorts of angles.
  • Displaying cohesion (or harmoniousness).
  • Effective usage of the wide channels and pinning the opposition back.
  • Radiating a sense of controlled aggression.
Given enough support on the off the training pitch, ten Hag has what it takes to deliver on those aspects (as they are aligned with the tenets of Cruyff, probably his biggest inspiration as a coach). There will definitely be some periods where the team seems devoid of ideas, wishy-washy in possession, not as attack-minded as one would hope (or conversely, way too attack-minded), and so forth — but that happens under any manager (even Fergie and Busby couldn't get their teams to play champagne football week in and week out for years on end), and some things can only be solved by acquiring more talented personnel (who can push the manager's theories to the limits).

A few romantics will opine that United should compulsorily be a counter-attacking team with classic wingers that ceaselessly head for the byline, but that's not an effective strategy for the elite level of the contemporary game as you are purposefully limiting yourself on the ball and one would also be hard pressed to unearth old school laterals in an era that is defined by inverted wingers and inside forwards and half-wingers (with the fullbacks often replicating the characteristics of an traditional wingers). They will have to deal with it, I guess? :)
 
As long as he gets the results, no one will really care. Some will pretend to care but given a choice between winning and their preferred style of football, pretty much everyone will chose winning.
 
Bebestation said:
I personally don't think that our fans really care all that much about the style of Football primarily.

They want to win foremost on a more regular basis.
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I agree. Give me a tumescent three points every week.
 
kiristao said:
As long as he gets the results, no one will really care. Some will pretend to care but given a choice between winning and their preferred style of football, pretty much everyone will chose winning.
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Haha. This is me. But if the results are undeserved wins, this is not good enough for me because luck will run out.
 
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I read alot about LVG's possession based football which some fans do not mind. I won't mind it if we are winning a match. However you may have forgotten that when we were 2 or 3 nil down, players were still passing sideways and backwards with no sense of urgency even as clock is ticking down to the last minute of play. I really do not want that kind of football again.
 
Watching City play is painful and boring, but its because its City. If United dominated possession in the same way I'd be hooked.
 
moodyred said:
I read alot about LVG's possession based football which some fans do not mind. I won't mind it if we are winning a match. However you may have forgotten that when we were 2 or 3 nil down, players were still passing sideways and backwards with no sense of urgency even as clock is ticking down to the last minute of play. I really do not want that kind of football again.
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Then the inevitable with 10 minutes to go, abandon that tactic, stick Fellaini upfront and hammer crosses in to the box. Even worse under LVG was when we went 1-0 up though. We'd have been dominating possession, completely keeping the opposition pegged back and out of the game, we'd go 1-0 then suddenly sit back, play long ball and invite pressure on ourselves which we couldn't cope with.
 
I think it will take a long time to implement fully, these players just either don't seem to understand tactical instructions, or don't want to listen to them.. Ralf has come out and said they're actively going against instructions during matches, so ETH will only have the same problem, 3 windows before we start to see something like ETH's vision i reckon
 
Trequarista10 said:
Then the inevitable with 10 minutes to go, abandon that tactic, stick Fellaini upfront and hammer crosses in to the box. Even worse under LVG was when we went 1-0 up though. We'd have been dominating possession, completely keeping the opposition pegged back and out of the game, we'd go 1-0 then suddenly sit back, play long ball and invite pressure on ourselves which we couldn't cope with.
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Exactly. LVG style of possession football was so boring, predictable and mechanical. I remember I could go away for 10 mins, get a coffee etc in the middle of the game and I would not have missed anything.

I believe ETH's style of football is way more exciting than LVG's and definitely more attacking. I look forward to next season.
 
Irwin99 said:
I actually liked the fact we had so much of the ball under LVG, it's just kind of a shame that we didn't actually do anything with it that was so disappointing and boring. If it's possession football but with actual goals, combined with a high intensity press then i'll be very happy.

A slight concern would be if we start hearing terms like 'United DNA' and 'tippy tappy crap' criticism from certain players, if things don't go well initially. Hopefully it won't come to that. I'm optimistic :cool: .
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I always thought one of the problems with LvG system was we didn't have a class midfielder who had the vision to make the passes needed to open up the opposition's defence?

Mata and Schweinsteiger weren't up to it.

Goes back to having a crap midfield again.
 
Prodigal7 said:
With Ten Hag’s football being more similar to Peps possession based game and LVGs total football than a counter attacking approach based on pacey wingers, will our fans enjoy and accept this type of football?

There have been lots of people here commenting about how boring they find Peps keep ball and that lamented LVGs brand brand of total football at the time.

Personally I feel we need to modernise the way we play more in line with this, but my feeling reading here is that many will disagree.
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What I’ve seen from Ajax is very unlike the slow choking sideways possesion football of LvG and early Pep. The later years, Pep has introduced more variance in ways and speeds to attack with, and is probably most boring to opponents and neutrals because it is so dominating.

I never fancied Barca’s playing style all that much, but Ajax under Ten Hag have been a great watch to me.
 
It won't really matter what brand of football when you have poor players with low confidence. Getting good characters in, getting rid of deadwood and improving the confidence of certain players will be more important.
 
As long as he trains some of these lot to keep the ball under moderate pressure and string more than 3 passes together I’ll build him a statue outside Carrington.
 
DevilRed said:
At this point, I dont give a shit if we play like simeone's teams as long as we win.
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LVG's football by numbers was shockingly boring.

Moaninho's "football" was even worse.

Winning but playing puke football is not something the fans would tolerate for any more than a season at most.
 
VP89 said:
Very presumptuous statement.
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Shaw has shown his class under Ole and the Euros, plus he's unique in the sense that he can make great inverted runs, also he's very fast and even has good finishing. If he was playing somewhere else other than United, Guardiola would be paying big money for him. He's typically that kind of player that would suit him. I assume he will be back to his best under ETH.

And it's not even just Shaw. I'm pretty sure Maguire, McTominay, Rashford, and Sancho will all be very good under the new manager. Most people are in for a shock that write these players off as useless.
 
Ten Hag's football is possession based but it's a heck of a lot more vertical than the football United played under Louis van Gaal. If I were to be a real tongue in cheek smart arse, I'd say United passed the ball backwards so often under LvG, you'd almost be forgiven for thinking they were a rugby team, not a football one.
 
RC89 said:
Peps football is brilliant. Any neutral would say the same. The only reason people say otherwise on here is because he's the city manager. Had we been playing that type of football, we'd be ecstatic.
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It's very subjective. Many neutrals would agree that Pep's teams are boring. Bayern under Heynckes were spectacular, but with Pep it became boring (for me). Pep's teams kill the opposition with possession and tactical fouls. I think Klopp's style is far more entertaining and those matches are more fun to watch.

I do agree if United would play that style the fans would be ecstatic, because United have been shit for too long and Pep's style is a winning formula.

I think Ten Hag's style is more Heynckes than Pep, but we will have to see if he's able to make the team play to his liking.
 
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We've had:

Fergie: perfect 8 course meal

Moyes: Mcdonalds

Van Gaal - salad with no dressing

Mourinho - Mash and gravy

Ole- Dressing with no salad

So for ETH I'm hoping for a nice steak with sides :drool:
 
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