Zlatan on Ten Hag | "A project can go wild with results but either you believe it in or you don't believe in it"

Oranges038 said:
I'd give him all the time and money he wants.

He's doing a great job.
Click to expand...

7 goals in 7 league fixtures is a great job ? We could've kept any of our previous 5 managers, given them equal money and probably been better off. Naturally everything isn't EtH's fault, but we shouldn't paint a rosy picture of being mid table.
 
simonhch said:
Lots of comparisons going on with other managers; Klopp and Arteta for example.

Fact is that ETH over achieved in his first season, considering the mess of a situation he walked into. 3rd place, FA Cup final lost by goalkeeping error, and a League Cup trophy, the first trophy in 6 years.

This season has started poorly, for sure; but the mitigating circumstances are an almost unprecedented injury crisis, more scandals off the pitch, a forever takeover saga….the team is completely misfiring as we integrate more new players and deal with the legions who are out injured.

This season should be judged as a whole, not in the microcosm of the first 5-10 games. When the team hits a rough patch, which it has, there is no quality of infrastructure to fall back on. The club is a rotten shambles behind Erik. Sacking him is pointless.

I’d give him three full seasons and make the call at the end of next season. In the interim you take the rough patches with the same grain of salt that you take the purple patches, and hope a takeover of some sort is completed.

If we finish 5th or 6th this season, it only looks like regression because he overachieved so much last season. In reality, the squad he took on and the problems we had, only merited a 7th or 8th place finish. Not third, a trophy and another final.
Click to expand...
Great post and one of the few sensible ones in this thread.
 
lex talionis said:
Morgan has never made a meaningful contribution to our understanding or appreciation of politics, culture or sport. He’s a scummy WUM who is not worthy of our attention here, even if he were to interview Socrates or Einstein.
Click to expand...

Honestly a interview between Socrates and Piers Morgan would be totally worth it

 
Last edited:
Raoul said:
7 goals in 7 league fixtures is a great job ? We could've kept any of our previous 5 managers, given them equal money and probably been better off. Naturally everything isn't EtH's fault, but we shouldn't paint a rosy picture of being mid table.
Click to expand...

He can't go out there and score the goals. His team has created plenty of chances but for some reason they just can't put them away.
 
Oranges038 said:
He can't go out there and score the goals. His team has created plenty of chances but for some reason they just can't put them away.
Click to expand...

He had ~150m to work with and hasn't resolved our striker situation; instead squandering it Mount and Hojlund. That's on him.
 
Oranges038 said:
He can't go out there and score the goals. His team has created plenty of chances but for some reason they just can't put them away.
Click to expand...
That's not the case. We are actually 12th in the xg table for the season so far, with just 11.5. So the notion that we are creating loads of chances is simply false.
 
Devil_forever said:
Then lets compare it to Chelsea, they turned over managers for fun under Roman and were the most successful team in England during his reign.

The opinions of Zlatan "I bottled it on every big occasion and became a mental midget at Barca" Ibrahimovic don't hold much weight for me. Sorry.
Click to expand...

Chelsea who had an incredible squad, with proven winners and had a DOF overseeing the development of the club? That Chelsea?
 
Raoul said:
He had ~150m to work with and hasn't resolved our striker situation; instead squandering it Mount and Hojlund. That's on him.
Click to expand...

That's the spirit, write off the players he bought after a few games as well. It's all his fault the players who have played a grand total of about 3 games together haven't instantly clicked and been banging in 4 goals a game. The logical conclusion is that he should be sacked and they should be binned off in January too.

The Firestarter said:
That's not the case. We are actually 12th in the xg table for the season so far, with just 11.5. So the notion that we are creating loads of chances is simply false.
Click to expand...

6th in terms of shots on goal with a -4 xg. Not that I care too much for xg. But lets pretend we don't see any attempts on goal.
 
Oranges038 said:
6th in terms of shots on goal with a -4 xg. Not that I care too much for xg. But lets pretend we don't see any attempts on goal.
Click to expand...
Did I say we have not made attempts? We are mid-table on expected goals, and midtable on real points too. Some of that has to be attributed to management, you can't just say "we are just not putting the ball in the net"
 
The Firestarter said:
Did I say we have not made attempts? We are mid-table on expected goals, and midtable on real points too. Some of that has to be attributed to management, you can't just say "we are just not putting the ball in the net"
Click to expand...

I can and I did.
 
Oranges038 said:
That's the spirit, write off the players he bought after a few games as well. It's all his fault the players who have played a grand total of about 3 games together haven't instantly clicked and been banging in 4 goals a game. The logical conclusion is that he should be sacked and they should be binned off in January too.
Click to expand...

I'm not writing them off, I'm going by the quality they have demonstrated on the pitch so far. We had 58 league goals last year, to Arsenal's 88 and City's 94 - so it didn't take a coaching genius to see we were incredibly deficient in the striker department and were bailed out by a once in a lifetime stretch of form by Rashford. Now that Rashy has reverted back to his old form, we are left without a viable goalscorer, which is why we're mid table. Therefore EtH is rightfully under the microscope about his transfers not being good enough.
 
Raoul said:
I'm not writing them off, I'm going by the quality they have demonstrated on the pitch so far. We had 58 league goals last year, to Arsenal 88 and City's 94 - so it didn't take a coaching genius to see we were incredibly deficient in the striker department and were bailed out by a once in a lifetime stretch of form by Rashford. Now that Rashford has reverted back to his old form, we are left without a viable goalscorer, which is why we're mid table. Therefore EtH is rightfully under the microscope about his transfers not being good enough.
Click to expand...

You say you won't write them all off after a few games, but then put that in there, when he's spent 70m on a striker. But if it you makes you feel better, you go on ahead and be as miserable and negative as you like.
 
Oranges038 said:
I won't write them all off after a few games.
But if it you makes you feel better, you go on ahead and be as miserable and negative as you like.
Click to expand...

EtH is under pressure to win now, therefore you don't have the luxury of waiting til seasons end if by Christmas we are on 14 points after 14 fixtures. We have fixtures against City, Liverpool, Newcastle x2 from now until December, so if struggle v Palace at home, that's not outside the realm of possibility.
 
Oranges038 said:
I'd give him all the time and money he wants.

He's doing a great job.
Click to expand...

Yikes. Imagine having more losses than wins this season for any other top club and it being seen as the manager doing a great job
 
Raoul said:
EtH is under pressure to win now, therefore you don't have the luxury of waiting til seasons end if by Christmas we are on 14 points after 14 fixtures. We have fixtures against City, Liverpool, Newcastle x2 from now until December, so if struggle v Palace at home, that's not outside the realm of possibility.
Click to expand...

You're being a bit extremist. The next 7 league games I see are Brentford, Sheffield Utd, City, Fulham, Luton, Everton and Newcastle, that brings it up to Dec 2nd.

If there's only 14 points on the board by then, for sure his position will become untenable.
 
horsechoker said:
Arteta as well on a similar trajectory. Many including myself thought he'd be sacked but they stuck with him and they look much better compared to the last 5 years or so.
Click to expand...

The actual thing to take out of that is that patience can work but sometimes you can be patient with the wrong person. I don’t think 5 years of Moyes would have gotten us challenging for the title for example.
 
The only question I have is why people keep sitting down with Piers Morgan. Almost nothing that is said in interviews he does is worth the attention. Then again, he is like the Kardashian of journos. In it for himself. Like making a sex tape and "accidentally" releasing it. Famous for leeching off the success of others.
 
Dominos said:
The problem with a "project" it should mean progression, with maybe the occasional period of stagnation. What it shouldn't entail is regression.

Some fans may be impatient about how slow the progression is, but as long as the team isn't regressing then there's always an argument to believe in a project.

What we're going through right now is not slow progression. It's going from a top 4 side to a side who doesn't look like they'll get anywhere near top 4. We cannot be going from 3rd place to 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th with less points. A successful project is very unlikely to involve making the team significantly worse after £400m spent. If bad results continue over the next few weeks, it would become very clear that we're going backwards, which can't be acceptable.
Click to expand...

Shouldn’t one take into account the variable factors this season like having 10 players unavailable? To gauge progression, surely the logical approach is to wait and evaluate till the coach can make full use of the resources available to him.
 
Everytime I see clips of him in our shirt I wish he’d been here longer (ideally with Sir Alex). Would be interested to hear if we were ever in for him and why it might not have happened.
 
Swedish_Plumber said:
Everytime I see clips of him in our shirt I wish he’d been here longer (ideally with Sir Alex). Would be interested to hear if we were ever in for him and why it might not have happened.
Click to expand...
Can’t imagine anyone SAF would have hated more than Raiola
 
Swedish_Plumber said:
Everytime I see clips of him in our shirt I wish he’d been here longer (ideally with Sir Alex). Would be interested to hear if we were ever in for him and why it might not have happened.
Click to expand...
Fergie would have told Zlatan to either break up with Raiola, or leave the club.
 
There's lots of revising of history happening in this thread regarding Arteta. It's very easy with the benefit of hindsight to say there were signs of progress from Arteta but if you ask most Arsenal fans at the time they certainly didn't believe in the project. And while you can point to marginal points increases. Fact is they finished 8th in his 2nd full season just behind Spurs 20/21 season (losing 13 games in the process) and then 5th (again behind Spurs) in 21/22 his 3rd season again losing 12 games. They were still miles off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.