Erik ten Hag - Ajax Manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
No wonder these lazy bastards Didn’t want him as manager.
I think Henderson, Williams, Chong and Pellistri might stay on for 1 more season. Never know if ETH might want to use them.
Why would you take that as fact or even go with the lazy line when the supposed player's favorite would be Pochettino who is known for being extremely demanding?
Out of interest JP, as it was reported the players preferred Poch, why do you think they did?
Obviously we don't know, but I've seen you a few times (rightly) suggest it can't be because they're lazy as Poch is demanding as well.
Because I’ve watched these self entitled cnuts stroll around the pitch all season not bothering their arse. Yes, Pochettino is known for being demanding when he was at Espanyol, Southampton and Spurs however PSG is a different story. These lot have probably been watching Messi and Neymar tracking back at a walking pace and thought yeah I’ll have some of that.
There have been articles about it but I don't believe it. Maybe they asked a player who said something positive about Pochettino or it's completely made up but anyone suggesting that Pochettino is soft and not demanding hasn't been following his career.
He is no different at PSG, the story isn't different.
He personally may not have changed but the type of players and ego’s he’s managing have. He can demand all he wants But if the players aren’t having it then it doesn’t matter and the personalities he’s currently managing at PSG are much more akin to our current squad.
I'm sorry if I've missed this in this forum or if anyone has written anything about it before. But which players would ETH like and dislike from our current squad?
To be honest, that’s not even amongst the most ridiculous theories floating around here. That said, I suspect it’s unlikely that those saying it actually believe it. Probably just something to say on the net. I think the main bottom line is that it comes from anti-Pochettino people, and rather than trying to find sense and reason in everything, best to just take it as ‘I don’t want Poch, I want Ten Hag’.
You haven’t missed it, nobody could have possibly provided the answer because we don’t know.
I don't expect a fact, I expect an idea and opinion. It wasn't a problem with Rangnick. Did you have anything to add?
My opinion would be he wants technical players that are comfortable on the ball, have vision, not lazy, and aren't afraid to press. Most of all, as with any manager, he would want players that understand and trust his vision as the manager and are willing to adapt to his style and follow his instructions.
We just don't know. The general assumption is that in defence and midfield, he will favour players who are good in ball possession and building up from the back, while in attack, he will be looking for intelligent players who excel at finding the space and making off-the-ball runs. Some players will adjust more easily to his methods than others, but it's all guesswork about who they might be.
interesting post
I long for the day when United show this arrogance & swagger at home in particular
players should be going on to the field remembering that “we are Man Utd”, rather than freezing at the anxiety of it
hopefully ETH will bring a new era
atm United play like an away underdog cup team even at home
He's not at psg, he looks like he's been a walk-over.
That's not actually true, think about it this way. The PSG players that you are targetting have won things while using their abilities in a similar way, you know it's even crazy to call these players lazy when they are among the most successful players in activity. Our players have different abilities and a different history of success, making a parallel between them is suspect, it's widespread but it's extremely suspect. It's even more suspect when it's used in the context of Pochettino.
Agreed.
He is at PSG, that's actually the one thing that he has in his favor, by most account he is respected by the playing staff and demanding. The issue is that he has failed to adapt to players with different strength and weaknesses.
I don't know enough of his stint at Utrecht other than that he did a very good job there which earned his transfer to Ajax.
He has now earned a transfer to United, but I know more of the context surrounding what he achieved. It is not to downplay him in any way, shape or form, but if we want him to replicate what he achieved at Ajax (which earned him the transfer), it is also good to look at the context.
I think he's a fantastic manager, with great ability to coach an exciting brand of football. But there will be more to deal with than that, and I hope he will be able to do so as that will even influence his ability to coach.
My issue is that it does two things. People are portraying a dishonest image of Pochettino and he doesn't deserve it but most importantly it sets the ground for negativity around the playing staff and we don't need it.
Yes, this is what I am really hoping for. We've had about five years of United looking to play on the break against any semi-decent opponent. I'd like to see us offering more in these games and having the courage to get on the ball a bit, rather than figuratively curling up in the foetal position and hoping we don't take too much of a kicking anytime a decent team comes in to town.
how do you come up with this stuff?
It does, but I don’t think it’s to be taken literally. More of a sentiment. Clearly hyperbolic, but the main thing to be deduced is we don’t like our player’s attitudes and we don’t like Pochettino.
Well there's a good chance he'll dislike most of them and like Sancho and Bruno.
I don't think that he was being dismissive. We literally don't know, he has used all sorts of players with various level of technical abilities or workrate.
I don't think it's anything different to most managers tbh. Most would love Sancho, most would love Bruno, most would love Fred. Some may prefer a ball playing goalkeeper and make that a priority at different levels. I'm sure anyone would look at our DM position and see that we need an actual DM who can also dictate tempo a bit. I'd guess Ten Hag will want more attacking fullbacks but settle with what we have for now. I don't think he'd like any of our current strikers (Cavani/Ronaldo/Martial). My guess is he'll keep Martial as depth and look to sign a starter and the other 2 will go.
I think almost any manager that comes in would try to make it work with Shaw, Maguire and Rashford at first. Whether that's Rashford being the 3rd guy on the wings and rotates with a new RW and Sancho, or is a starter, we'll see. I doubt he goes anywhere. Maguire has a lot of deep playmaking which Ten Hag will like, and he'll try to coach around his issues.
Honestly next season I can see Sancho, Bruno, Fred, Shaw, Maguire, Varane, Dalot, de gea all being regular starters with rashford, Mctominay, even Matic, Wan bissaka, Telles, Lindelof all being regular squad pieces. Ten hag I think will look to address DM, RW and CF to start with (full on holes in the squad) and then coach the rest.
A quality that Ten Hag has shown at Ajax is the ability to adapt tactics to multiple different players, even when losing key players and still perform to a high level with the same identity in his team. So I wouldn't expect drastic decisions past just getting rid of those who want to leave with bad contract situations or on the wrong ends of their careers.
If he's into off the ball runs and pressing then he's much more likely to be a Fredhead than a Sanchoho.
Brief video with what looks like a cartoon drunk Ten Hag explains his tactics with the current squad.
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David de gea is a shoe in he says.. I wonder if he is
Sancho's game is one-twos, linking up with players in smaller spaces around him and using his dribbling in those spaces... to do that you need to run off the ball well. I think he will love Sancho.
I've heard he wants the good players, and doesn't want the bad ones.
Stopped watching after 40 seconds, if he thinks De Gea is a shoe in he knows nothing about Ten Hag. Pep’s first move was to bin Joe Hart and I expect something similar from Ten Hag.
Yes, all guesswork at this stage, but I think Ten Hag might quite like Sancho and Fred. Shaw is good in the build up and will probably also be a good fit.
Just purely based on the scale of changes required, I think he settles with De Gea in year 1. But, an important first decision could be Henderson vs De Gea. The easy/neutral/probable thing is Henderson leaves and De Gea is #1, but there's always the chance that Ten Hag places huge importance on playing out with their feet and values Henderson that much more, even if ultimately Henderson isn't all that good in that aspect either. But with Henderson being pretty average, I don't think he makes that call.
Yeah that raised my eyebrow. It’s no secret that Ten Hag likes his to team to build from the back and expects his keeper to be an available outlet. De Gea simply doesn’t have the attributes to operate that way. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Henderson becomes our keeper for the near future.
He wanted Heaton at Ajax on loan i think.
I reckon Heaton benefits more from this appointment.
I can tell you one thing with 1000000% certainty, Tom Heaton will not be the number one next season.