Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

Would you allow ETH to manage the cup final before parting ways?

  • Yes

    Votes: 458 49.4%
  • No, get an interim now

    Votes: 469 50.6%

  • Total voters
    927
  • This poll will close: .

SirScholes

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He dug his own grave from the minute he came in, sighting that players like Maguire and co are good enough at this level, the first thing he should have done was stripping the Captaincy off Maguire, he should have listened to RR a man who spent time with this lot every day, the likes of Shaw, Mctominay, Maguire just to mention a few should have been put on sale, tearing that last season squad was what he shoul have done from day one.

Look at what Pep did from the first day he got the City Job, took out English Number one Goalie simply because he was shit at passing the ball, Feck off Yaya and a host of new signings like Mangala.

Ruthlessness is key to every rebuild, he hasn't done that enough in my opinion.
Pep has bottomless pockets we do not
 

saik

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We had more possession, its obvious they'd run more though :lol:
And we did naff all with that possession. It's more in regards the hard work that is needed of these players. We had more than 60% against Brighton as well. What did we do with it?
 

DWelbz19

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That's like saying Smalling can learn to play from the back and he's not tested because he managed under Moyes, Mourinho and Ole, even though every one and his dog know his abilities aren't suited for that playstyle.

You're the one expecting miracles at this point if you believe Ten Hag is going to turn players shit with the ball to ones good with it. You're deluded, if anything.
Yeah. Ten Hag is no God of football, it’s actually crazy to expect a crop of fundamentally ruined players to start suddenly being able to play possession based Cruijff football because they’ve been doing rondos in training.
 

NotQuiteManc

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Love it.
Just wait until they go against Liverpool next game. Then again, when they go 4 goals up, they just stop running (as hard). This team has the talent but really lack any kind of effort to play in EPL, let alone play well.
 

Relevated

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And we did naff all with that possession. It's more in regards the hard work that is needed of these players. We had more than 60% against Brighton as well. What did we do with it?
Doing anything with the possession is a separate argument. Back in the day when we used to have a lot of possession without doing anything, the manager used to get stick for not creating patters and stuff in training, so should we blame ETH now?

No, we shouldn't blame ETH fully and nor should we completely blame the players. We need to finish the transfer window as strong as possible and then we can discuss further.
 

downunder red

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How is he going to make us competitive if the club is already letting him down, literally a month into the job? The conditions he has to work under aren't conducive to making us competitive. He doesn't stand a chance.
I totally agree. Did you read my post? I said exactly that. Players and club have let him down so far. It will take months and months before we see a change brought on by his methods. What does not help him are fans who want to rip his balls off after two games.
 

saik

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Doing anything with the possession is a separate argument. Back in the day when we used to have a lot of possession without doing anything, the manager used to get stick for not creating patters and stuff in training, so should we blame ETH now?

No, we shouldn't blame ETH fully and nor should we completely blame the players. We need to finish the transfer window as strong as possible and then we can discuss further.
Let's revisit this after the games against teams who will have more possession against us. We will have a clearer indication if it's all down to us having more possession.

We are consistently ranked as one of the least hard working team in the league so I'm not getting my hopes up with this lot anytime soon.
 

DWelbz19

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He dug his own grave from the minute he came in, sighting that players like Maguire and co are good enough at this level, the first thing he should have done was stripping the Captaincy off Maguire, he should have listened to RR a man who spent time with this lot every day, the likes of Shaw, Mctominay, Maguire just to mention a few should have been put on sale, tearing that last season squad was what he shoul have done from day one.

Look at what Pep did from the first day he got the City Job, took out English Number one Goalie simply because he was shit at passing the ball, Feck off Yaya and a host of new signings like Mangala.

Ruthlessness is key to every rebuild, he hasn't done that enough in my opinion.
Pep has bottomless pockets we do not
I think the answer is somewhere in between these posts; our budget is very limited so ten Hag does have to move with some tact, but he definitely needs to move with some pragmatism and ruthlessness to distance himself with some players who are fundamentally not good enough nor do they fit the style of football he wants to play.

Assuming we end the transfer window with a whimper, ten Hag has two solutions with the current crop he has:
1. Purge as much of the underperformers as quickly as he can and give the game time to youth/fringe players who better fit the style of football he wants to play; or
2. Temper his style of football/the tactical set up to better accommodate for the fact he has a bunch of players who seem incapable of playing the way he wants.

I personally think trying to persist with the style of football we want to play, with this crop of under-performers might well be his total downfall.
 

steffyr2

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Well, if DDG doesnt make that first 2 mistakes , then we are talking about a completely different game here.

Playing out from the back isn't the problem but players making school boy mistakes is .
I just watched the 1st 2 goals. It's like they don't expect the other team try to take the ball away. We pass a slow rolling ball and oh no! shock! surprise! the other team runs to it and gets there before we even move. Honestly, can Utd find a U18 team to practice with? Because practicing with the other half of our team must just keep reinforcing our bad habits.

Someone said once somewhere that Utd had many, many better passers than Ronaldo. I disagreed. Maybe they meant clever passes, I don't know. What you do see is Ronaldo passes crisply -- fast balls and direct -- because he's used to playing in teams where people try to take the ball away. We don't seem to realize that the other team will try to do that.
 

Grande

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I agree and I think having two inexperienced people at very, very important positions (Murtough, Fletcher) also plays a big part in this. But I'm hopeful for the future, we just have to endure and accept the fact we are and will be in a tough position for a while. It was always going to be slow, but this club needs stability and you won't ever get that if they keep sacking the wrong people every year.

Really hate to say it but we can learn a thing or two from Liverpool and Arsenal (although we will have to wait til the end of the season to see how they turned out), who also climbed out of a huge hole and cleaned up their mess, like the wage bill, getting rid of dead wood and players who don't match the ambition of the club, by trusting in the people they hired and the project they were building. I remember seeing a LOT of "Arteta Out" throughout the internet. Good the club didn't listen.
I guess there are two reasons why a manager gets time to complete a rebuild: a) the heads know enough about developping a football team to know what to look for as relevant progress, or b) they know nothing, and are afraid to sack the manager who knows about football. The latter can luck out (like probably was the case with Ferguson).

I can see the logic of all manager hirings of ours except Moyes in isolation (the chaotic totality has been disastrous, though) but I think Erik Ten Hag is the first time we have the right person to give a lot of time to in a decade. He is a modern manager and coach, with competence on oll levels of developping a team. But he needs to be fully, fully supported, for at least three windows and a year more after that.

I am sure Murthaug and Arnold can develop the competence they lack - they seem to have the right general ideas (unlike Woodward who gradually developped competence, yet had all the wrong ideas so that did little good). I’m more despondent about Joel Glazer, who has the wrong ideas and no apparent incentive to learn.
 

Phil Osophy

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And I can say the same thing about you as well. If you are expecting miracles after 2 games, may be this isn't the game for you or may be you are not patient enough to support us at the moment or may be you are underestimating the PL way too much.

See - the "art of delusion" works both ways. So lets agree to disagree and move on !
I think ten Hag is doing fine by testing these players under pressure and seeing what they're capable of, there's nothing bad with it. But we can't expect him to wait eternally until they all improve because ETH will lose his job before some of them show even slight improvements in certain areas, with De Gea being one of the most clear cases.

De Gea worked here under LvG and his keepers' coach Franz Hoek, one of the references in the game in that regard, and the man ended up frustrated with De Gea because of his inability to adapt his game, and he was younger back then when it's easier to mould players. There was some improvement in his passing game but still not enough (and didn't last much), and he kept refusing to play away from the line.

In a parallel way we know from Schweinsteiger that De Gea got angry with him when Bastian told him that he wasn't better than Neuer after De Gea asked him. De Gea has spent his career thinking he's the best in the world because of his game under the posts and the club has allowed him to think that way, never forced him to change.

Now at 31 we want De Gea to go from 0 to 100 at sweeping, distributing both short and long, commanding the box, claiming crosses and so on. Don't bet a penny on it. It's impossible.
 

redcucumber

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I totally agree. Did you read my post? I said exactly that. Players and club have let him down so far. It will take months and months before we see a change brought on by his methods. What does not help him are fans who want to rip his balls off after two games.
Yes I did read your post, thanks. Do you remember what you posted? You said you expect him to make us competitive again and back amongst the trophies. I'm wondering how that's possible given the conditions he is working under. Thought I made that fairly clear in my post! Not trying to be an arse. I'm sure we are on the same page.
 

suheilsworld

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If he selects the same players…

Players like De Gea, Maguire, Shaw, McTominay, Rashford are finished. They cant even play well to save their life, nevermind the job of a manager.
Completely agree. Replace the lot with Heaton / Kovar , Mengi, Malacia, Garner/Zidan, Garnacho
 

Oly Francis

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I think the answer is somewhere in between these posts; our budget is very limited so ten Hag does have to move with some tact, but he definitely needs to move with some pragmatism and ruthlessness to distance himself with some players who are fundamentally not good enough nor do they fit the style of football he wants to play.
It's not though 60M€ on Martinez, 15M€ on Malacia, 70-80M€ for De Jong, that's a 150M+ budget without selling any player. Don't you think you could have done something better than what is happing right now with 150M? United could have tried to find 1 or 2 good free agent, sign 2 50M+ midfielders, spend another 50M on an attacker (even more had they sold Ronaldo) and the team would be in a far better shape.

What if they don't? What leverage does Ten Hag has? Playing with academy players instead (if he does fair play to him)? We've heard this "it's not worthy of United's shirt!" smokescreen dozens of time.
 

pocco

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Doesn't need to. Listen to Rangnick you cock wombles. Act like a big club that is turning over ridiculous money and start consistently investing in this team, properly. Sort your shit out, we're all sick of hearing these stupid predictions from the club. I've heard many over the last 10 years and they've all been and gone because of a ridiculous recruitment policy and failed negotiations.
 

the hea

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Sound like he's identified the problem. Our main problem for the last seasons has always been a lack of work rate, our players are just not ready to put in the work required to be a succesfull team. Off the ball movement is minimal, our players are usually just standing still while the passing lanes to them is covered by opposition players.

Yesterday we made some big mistakes when trying to build play from the back and the passers are made the main scapegoats for it. I,m not saying De Gea, Maguire, Eriksen, etc didn't make mistakes when on the ball but our wide players and midfielders didn't do anything to make themselfs available for a pass. Dalot and Shaw went wide and just stod there while the passing lane to them was covered, Fred was standing still next to a Brentford player in the middle, waiting for someone else to take the responsibility and Bruno, Sancho and Rashford where usually nowhere to be seen. If we want to build play from the back the most important thing is that the players not on the ball are constantly moving to make themselfs available for the pass, yesterday we saw nothing of that.
 

Real Name

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Way things are going in the transfer market he'll need to be brave and trust youngsters like Iqbal more. He's got nothing to lose really or will come to that point soon.
 

DWelbz19

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It's not though 60M€ on Martinez, 15M€ on Malacia, 70-80M€ for De Jong, that's a 150M+ budget without selling any player. Don't you think you could have done something better than what is happing right now with 150M? United could have tried to find 1 or 2 good free agent, sign 2 50M+ midfielders, spend another 50M on an attacker (even more had they sold Ronaldo) and the team would be in a far better shape.
We haven’t signed nor spent any money on De Jong. We lost 6 first team players on a free transfer, freeing up huge sums from the wage budget including big earners like Pogba, Cavani, and Lingard.