Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[DRJosh]

When I saw Eriksen marking Haaland at one stage, it became clear to me ETH has a long way to go towards understanding premier league opposition.

 

[Dion]

When I saw Eriksen marking Haaland at one stage, it became clear to me ETH has a long way to go towards understanding premier league opposition.

You mean when Varane was off injured and we only had 10 men...

 

[Bert_]

He was absolutely correct to setup the way he did. Because we're trying to evolve as a football team and not carry on with the reactive approach we've seen in prior years where we've made no attempt from the get-go to play through the midfield. And hence have ceded control to the opposition and got some favourable results, which imo built up a false sense of security among many fans when it was clear for me to see that our approach to the game wasn't sustainable.

But over the long-term, the tactics of Mourinho and Ole have only contributed to us regressing as a football team, and there's going to be teething problems under EtH when he's clearly attempting to transition from a reactive approach to a more proactive one. We can't carry on playing McFred together if we have any ambitions of evolving as a team. And when you attempt to evolve as a football team, then there's going to be teething problems along the way where certain deficiencies will clearly be exposed. And it should make it easier to identify which players are capable of contributing in a more dominating approach and which ones are not. So for me, the result today was very disappointing but it's part of the learning curve towards becoming a more dominant team.

It's going to take time but I'm more confident now after the 6-3 loss than I ever was under Ole and Mourinho when they won at City. And the reason for that is simply down to how we were approaching games. And if you're Man Utd and approach games by ceding control from the get-go, then we aren't going to challenge any time soon until we change our mindset. And with ten Hag we will look to evolve into a proactive attacking team, but it's going to take time and patience. City spent over £200m on players in Guardiola first season at the club and another £285m in Guardiola's second season at the club. This is what we're up against and it's going to take time and patience to become competitive with a club like City who are bank rolled by a nation state.

Agree with all of this. Some people won't like it but this season is all about building for the long term. We're going to have take results like this on the chin in the short term. There will no doubt be more games like this but in the grand scheme of things we won't even remember them. Hopefully anyway!

 

[DRJosh]

You mean when Varane was off injured and we only had 10 men...

True but the question remains: why Ericksen and not a player with more physical presence.

 

[CM]

True but the question remains: why Ericksen and not a player with more physical presence.

It looked to me as though Eriksen was there to try and block the run rather than challenge Haaland aerially. He failed to do that anyway but it was McTominay who lost out on the aerial duel.

 

[DRJosh]

It looked to me as though Eriksen was there to try and block the run rather than challenge Haaland aerially. He failed to do that anyway but it was McTominay who lost out on the aerial duel.

I re-watched it and you’re right. I stand corrected.

 

[Waynne]

As bad as the players were, most of that defeat was on ETH. The amount of space afforded in midfield for their goals was criminal.

The bad part is that we've seen 3 or 4 times under Ole that defending deep and counter attacking with pace is a great way to beat this City side, and teams like Spurs and Lyon have also shown it in the CL (and in the league again for Spurs last season). The fact that neither ETH nor anyone in his coaching staff either knew this or had the balls to change the tactical setup isn't particularly ideal. Hopefully they learn.

Frankly with the amount of ability City have very few if any teams are going to win going toe to toe with them, the only team I can recall recently doing so was Chelsea in the CL final.

Liverpool as well when they had Sadio Mane. Had City on the ropes. Questioned whether that front line of Liverpool were even human during one game where City never had time on the ball.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

As bad as the players were, most of that defeat was on ETH. The amount of space afforded in midfield for their goals was criminal.

The bad part is that we've seen 3 or 4 times under Ole that defending deep and counter attacking with pace is a great way to beat this City side, and teams like Spurs and Lyon have also shown it in the CL (and in the league again for Spurs last season). The fact that neither ETH nor anyone in his coaching staff either knew this or had the balls to change the tactical setup isn't particularly ideal. Hopefully they learn.

Frankly with the amount of ability City have very few if any teams are going to win going toe to toe with them, the only team I can recall recently doing so was Chelsea in the CL final.

Liverpool go toe-to-toe with City all the time.

 

[3KDré]

Liverpool go toe-to-toe with City all the time.

Liverpool went toe to toe when they’d learned their system in and out and when they had an XI equal to City’s on paper.

In a way today was a good lesson. The players will know today what it takes to try to outplay city, and that is at least a year or two of learning the routines and the systems ten hag will put in place. I’m not overly angry at the result today. Before the season the expectation was to allow Ten Hag to get rid of the bad eggs and implement his system - let the players learn it inside out before we can judge how they play against a team like city. Next season if we play like that against them again I will be worried.

 

[frostbite]

But this is just a hypothesis based on nothing.

Edit: For example, did you see ETH screaming to Antony and Sancho for not helping in the back? Did you see him scolding them after we were down 2-0? Did you see him replacing them after 3-0 when they continued not following his orders?

As is yours that Ten Hag set up not to defend from the front. Even if that's what's happened, it doesn't mean that it was intended.

More generally, that's an issue with a lot of the analysis after a failed game. People assume (at least implicitly) that everything that happened was intentional and therefore bad planning, but in reality, we usually don't know what the coach had wanted exactly (except when it gets explained afterwards). So when @JPRouve talks about learning, we can't actually be sure what's been learned exactly. Maybe Ten Hag now knows that his approach didn't work against City. Or maybe it's that it can't be executed with these players. Or maybe rather that it can't be executed until players get more confident, and/or more experienced.

Obviously, everybody is free to assume and hypothesize as they wish; but it would make sense if posters were a bit less self-assured in their analyses of United's approach and its execution.

Obviously, you did not see my edit.

My hypothesis is that the players followed the manager's plan. If players do not follow the manager's plan, then the manager can do a lot of things during the game. And I gave a few examples.

On the other hand, your hypothesis is that the players may have not followed the manager's plan. Where do you base this?

 

[NZT-One]

This is an absolutely brilliant post and it's a good reminder of big picture thinking Vs small time thinking.

... - but football is football and coaching is coaching, and if the players are good enough they will do the job and if not you find someone else. Today's another learning experience and it's the hardest day he will have. Next time will be better because it has to be.

Kind of an example that comes to mind and hopefully it's what your saying - was Moyes clear and obvious mentality in the big games. He'd say "we are going to try to get some sort of result" against Bayern Munich or whoever and you KNEW he'd be saying "dig in defend hard and hope for a draw". But what the hell do you get out of that? Nicking a one nil win maybe once every five seasons while getting dicked 3-1 or 4-nil most of the time ...

I'll never get this sort of thinking. It will be better because it has to be? What? What will be better? Maybe that we adjust our plan (to whatever extent) to our opponent, maybe? So exactly what many on here are saying that we could/should have done?
Time isn't just changing things just because. It does because you have to learn from what you are doing and alter your decisions based on it. People act as if there was a realistic chance, that us halfarsedly pressing City today had any chance to be successful when this is the environment, they are exactly thriving at. Didn't even need to be in form like they were today. I am not worried about ETH and his qualities. But lets not act as if some stuff couldn't be prevented or mitigated at least.

Exactly and that's what makes a great manager. There isn't a manager in the game that doesn't make mistakes, it's football sometimes you get things wrong.

Anyone who thought ten Hag would come in and turn things around to the point that we're winning nearly every week and achieving 90+ points were kidding themselves. I'm still confident we'll finish in the top four but I expected us to have runs like we've had since the Brentford game then hit a bump in the road like today.

Who is stating stuff like that? I haven't seen anybody post something like that after todays game (in this thread). What people are talking about was maybe a more defensive approach. You know, the kind of approach our very own manager made use of against both Arsenal and Liverpool to good success. Would there be a guarantee of a different outcome? Surely not, but the odds might have been a little different. We might haven't lost in a way, that sure bruised a few souls today.

I don't agree with point one, we could of played with 2 DMS had the wingers deep protecting the fullbacks and played in a low block looking for fast transitions but it's not what ten hag wants us to do, it's not what any of us really want to see either, and in your second point you say that it's pretty much a free hit as we are not expected to get anything from the game.

ETH wants to progress us into a high press possession based side so why not give it a go against the very best, a good acid test to see where we need to improve and what players can cope with the pressure.

As it turns out there is alot to improve on and some players struggled to deal with the pressure, ETH would of learnt plenty from today and that's hopefully going to be very important going forward.

Maybe if we sat back and tried to counter we might of got a backs against the wall result good for the short term not necceserialy good for the long term.

I can totally understand, that you are trying to prevent any hyperbole criticism around this place. Totally on your side. But things like your reasoning won't really help. If ETH wanted to play high press possession game today, then his failure actually is even bigger. Because we haven't seen anything in pressing or in possession whatsoever. And we haven't seen much of those things in any of the previous... what 10 games? So you can't really be serious when you act as if it was totally valid guess to try to deliver just that against the best team in the league. Especially good at moving around the ball through pressing systems. Whatever ETHs plan was, it failed badly today. He somewhat reacted at half time and 2nd half was a bit better, but we shouldn't be afraid of calling out avoidable issues when we see them. And constructing some reasoning for it, is pointless. Fergie made loads of mistakes. Any manager does. So be it. ETH can do them of course as well. Stating he is a crappy manager because of it is bs, obviously. But acting as if mistakes aren't there is just as well.

I am totally with you, we obviously have to pay the price, accept that the transformation to a different stylistic approach will hurt along the way. But there is no way, todays match can be seen as a necessary step. Try to play expansive against Southhampton, against Leicester or Everton next week. Build your way up. But getting borderline humiliated in a derby with all the bad press isn't of any help. And noone even called for a parked bus today, just maybe not starting with two AMs would have been a start. Or adding one player to the attack who is known to be at least somewhat benefitial against the ball as well like Elanga is. If you think, that ETH isn't able to adjust his style to certain situations without surrendering his ideas then you seem to think worse of him than most of his critics in here.

I agree that we've wasted millions post Fergie. But we as a club have never been able to match the spending of the City owners who spent almost £500m in Guardiola's first two seasons at the club. And when you as a club have the capacity to spend such sums of money, then it's not difficult to rebuild the squad in one or two windows. And that's what they did whilst being backed by a nation state and having a proactive/attacking head coach to lead the project.

Our biggest issue imo has been that we've appointed the wrong managers. Because when you have a progressive forward thinking manager/head coach at the club, then the recruitment reflects the methods of the manager/head coach. Our recruitment reflected the approach of managers who were either attempting to implement a strategy from a bygone era or were happy to control the game without the ball. Erik ten Hag is the first manager/head coach we've appointed post Fergie who fits the criteria I'm talking about and needs time to implement his methods.

Fergie made many mistakes before winning the league 6 plus years after taking the helm. In European competition there was also question marks over Fergies approach to the game where we would come a cropper very often. And just from the top of my head I remember us being thrashed by Newcastle, Southampton, Chelsea and even City who put 6 past us at Old Trafford.

And nobody except for maybe a small minority isn't happy to give him that time. Doesn't mean, we shouldn't talk about decisions that turned out wrong and discuss the extent of avoidability. Obviously the players failed today as well. Might have even failed him to a degree. But that is what he does for a living - provide an environment for his players to work. And if you realize that something doesn't go like planned, adjust.

 

[reelworld]

1he amount of "fans" who wanted ten Hag to failed just to say I told you so, or prefer Poch is outstanding.

 

[frostbite]

1he amount of "fans" who wanted ten Hag to failed just to say I told you so, or prefer Poch is outstanding.

No Man Utd fan wants ETH to fail. On the contrary! However, if we lose because he made a few mistakes, there is no reason not to say so. Every manager makes mistakes and gets things wrong from time to time.

 

[reelworld]

No Man Utd fan wants ETH to fail. On the contrary! However, if we lose because he made a few mistakes, there is no reason not to say so. Every manager makes mistakes and gets things wrong from time to time.

Well, they could've fooled me then.
In hindsight, there's thing that EtH could've done better. But I expected these kind of result since we are massively trying to shift our tactics and approach to the game. There's going to be a learning curve for both the manager and the team. And I was encourage with what I see when he got it right because that's the kind of football that I'd like to see.

 

[Cheimoon]

Obviously, you did not see my edit.

My hypothesis is that the players followed the manager's plan. If players do not follow the manager's plan, then the manager can do a lot of things during the game. And I gave a few examples.

On the other hand, your hypothesis is that the players may have not followed the manager's plan. Where do you base this?

I was speaking more generally, just using this case as an example. I don't know what Ten Hag did during the game and you may be right - although given how Ten Hag tends to set up his teams, I doubt he told four(!) players not to participate in defending. Also, that'd be insane against any organized team, let alone City, and also more than you need to be ready for a counterattack.

But again, my point was more general. You were rejecting the idea that playing the game in this way may have been a good learning experience because of how things played out. I'm suggesting that we don't even know what Ten Hag wanted exactly, so can't know either what he will have found most interesting about today's performance - which may have been much more useful for long-term purposes (if only personnel planning and mental preparation) than many people think.

(Especially compared to completely reversing course and sitting back in hopes of 'nicking' a 1-0 loss. Well, or win, but negative football rarely works against City.)

 

[croadyman]

No Man Utd fan wants ETH to fail. On the contrary! However, if we lose because he made a few mistakes, there is no reason not to say so. Every manager makes mistakes and gets things wrong from time to time.

Yeah no one is beyond criticism

 

[frostbite]

I was speaking more generally, just using this case as an example. I don't know what Ten Hag did during the game and you may be right - although given how Ten Hag tends to set up his teams, I doubt he told four(!) players not to participate in defending. Also, that'd be insane against any organized team, let alone City, and also more than you need to be ready for a counterattack.

If ETH told these 4 players to participate in defence and they didn't ... and he did not substitute any of them before it became 4-0 ... then it is ETH's fault again. When a player does not follow the manager's instructions, and the manager does not substitute him, then the manager has lost control already. I don't think ETH has lost control.

 

[DJ_21]

As bad as the players were, most of that defeat was on ETH. The amount of space afforded in midfield for their goals was criminal.

The bad part is that we've seen 3 or 4 times under Ole that defending deep and counter attacking with pace is a great way to beat this City side, and teams like Spurs and Lyon have also shown it in the CL (and in the league again for Spurs last season). The fact that neither ETH nor anyone in his coaching staff either knew this or had the balls to change the tactical setup isn't particularly ideal. Hopefully they learn.

Frankly with the amount of ability City have very few if any teams are going to win going toe to toe with them, the only team I can recall recently doing so was Chelsea in the CL final.

Seems like the only way to beat them is by counter attacking but some managers aren’t gonna change there style of play. ETH said he always wants his teams to play on the front foot no matter who there playing. I don’t think Bayern Munich or psg will just counter against city neither, I think they’ll try and match them. The difference is having the players to do it. Very few teams have the squad capable of going toe to toe with them, c palace and Newcastle both went goals up against them and then the minute they sit back city find a way to score and get back in the game… they have haaland now which gives them an option against teams that sit deep, 9 times out of 10 hes beating the defender in the air for the ball. To beat city, you need to attack them with pace, they don’t like it and can’t handle it because it rarely happens so they probably don’t even train it tbh.

 

[croadyman]

If ETH told these 4 players to participate in defence and they didn't ... and he did not substitute any of them before it became 4-0 ... then it is ETH's fault again. When a player does not follow the manager's instructions, and the manager does not substitute him, then the manager has lost control already. I don't think ETH has lost control.

Hopefully Casemiro plays regularly now, Scott needs dropping back to bench

 

[Adnan]

And nobody except for maybe a small minority isn't happy to give him that time. Doesn't mean, we shouldn't talk about decisions that turned out wrong and discuss the extent of avoidability. Obviously the players failed today as well. Might have even failed him to a degree. But that is what he does for a living - provide an environment for his players to work. And if you realize that something doesn't go like planned, adjust.

I didn't say you shouldn't discuss or talk about what happened in the game.

And the only thing that needed adjusting was for the selected first 11 players to show some aggression at the start of the match and defend proactively, which allowed City to flood the right half and wide space. Ten Hag alluded to that in his post match interview aswell.

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[ayushreddevil9]

Dont understand the decision to play only one recognized central midfielder(that too McTom) against Man city. Liverpool and Arsenal midfields aren't any special so it worked. ETH should know better.

 

[Ole'sattheWheel]

grim game - fecking hate city. Scoring 3 against them is a faint faint silver lining though.
Just so happens they have the best striker, manager, playmaker and team in the world and we're their bitter rivals meaning they were right up for it.
Shit happens.

We will improve

 

[Flexdegea]

When I saw Eriksen marking Haaland at one stage, it became clear to me ETH has a long way to go towards understanding premier league opposition.

These sort of posts make no sense.

He has experience of playing against halland before, it's not like he doesn't know who he is, and near sure varane was off the pitch, or injured around that time.

 

[flameinthesun]

Does he survive this result at Real Madrid?

Wasn't Jose on the end of some batterings by Barca?

 

[Vapor trail]

He was absolutely correct to setup the way he did. Because we're trying to evolve as a football team and not carry on with the reactive approach we've seen in prior years where we've made no attempt from the get-go to play through the midfield. And hence have ceded control to the opposition and got some favourable results, which imo built up a false sense of security among many fans when it was clear for me to see that our approach to the game wasn't sustainable.

But over the long-term, the tactics of Mourinho and Ole have only contributed to us regressing as a football team, and there's going to be teething problems under EtH when he's clearly attempting to transition from a reactive approach to a more proactive one. We can't carry on playing McFred together if we have any ambitions of evolving as a team. And when you attempt to evolve as a football team, then there's going to be teething problems along the way where certain deficiencies will clearly be exposed. And it should make it easier to identify which players are capable of contributing in a more dominating approach and which ones are not. So for me, the result today was very disappointing but it's part of the learning curve towards becoming a more dominant team.

It's going to take time but I'm more confident now after the 6-3 loss than I ever was under Ole and Mourinho when they won at City. And the reason for that is simply down to how we were approaching games. And if you're Man Utd and approach games by ceding control from the get-go, then we aren't going to challenge any time soon until we change our mindset. And with ten Hag we will look to evolve into a proactive attacking team, but it's going to take time and patience. City spent over £200m on players in Guardiola first season at the club and another £285m in Guardiola's second season at the club. This is what we're up against and it's going to take time and patience to become competitive with a club like City who are bank rolled by a nation state.

I agree the manager has to stick it out with his philosophy. Even if it costs the team results stay true to the vision he has how the team should play.

 

[lefty_jakobz]

In a derby game anything can happen, just so happened they were more up for it than us in the first half. Varane getting injured played a part in their 2nd and 3rd.

We looked better when he made the subs.

Martial is going to score a lot of goals for ETH and us this season.

Only 3 points dropped in this game.

 

[The1974s]

You mean when Varane was off injured and we only had 10 men...

Tbf Eriksen was marking Haaland from the previous corner when Varane was on the pitch.

Was it even a corner? From my view KDB hit the top of the bar with a shot and shouldn't have been a corner ?

 

[romufc]

@Flexdegea Do you see the reason why I said he has done an OK job so far?

 

[RopersReturn]

Being honest, I think ETH has hit the ground running. None of his signings have failed to impress (other than in yesterdays blip), and more importantly he has a long term strategy albeit in challenging circumstances.

 

[Ayoba]

I look forward to the day where we don't get twatted by city. With Abu Dhabi behind them I'll probably be waiting a long long time, but one can live in hope!

 

[Judas]

There's no sense of panic or distrust with him from me after yesterday, he still has my total faith and backing. This is going to take time, money and support.

 

[Real Name]

Playing Martinez today against the likes of Haaland was just a recipe for disaster, it's a game where a fit and club available Eric Bailly would have been more suitable, aside from Varane we have no
tough defenders capable of marking the likes of Haaland.

Not the most glaring of issues though in the team as everyone aside from Martial was bad, Antony's goal would give him a pass too.

ETH has his favourites and it's becoming an issue that's the main problem. That and our midfield is shite and we still don't have another good central defender and a tall striker.

I'm sorry, did you just write Bailly should have played?

Martinez wasnt the problem at all yesterday, but the whole team, especially the midfield.

 

[Real Name]

Does he survive this result at Real Madrid?

Sure, lets sack him cause he lost 6-3 to City.

 

[Real Name]

I don't think we even committed to pressing today.

We just played a high line, but there was no coordinated pressing. There were a few times Bruno did his customary no man's press, but it led to nothing. If the players didn't follow instructions through, that's a different problem then.

We have to get better at keeping the ball/recycling it and then pressing high to squeeze teams.

We haven't pressed well in a single game all season.

I think we pressed well in parts of every game this season bar yesterday of course. As you said when we're not pressing as a team and some players are doing it half heartedly its a problem.

 

[Olecurls99]

He was absolutely correct to setup the way he did. Because we're trying to evolve as a football team and not carry on with the reactive approach we've seen in prior years where we've made no attempt from the get-go to play through the midfield. And hence have ceded control to the opposition and got some favourable results, which imo built up a false sense of security among many fans when it was clear for me to see that our approach to the game wasn't sustainable.

But over the long-term, the tactics of Mourinho and Ole have only contributed to us regressing as a football team, and there's going to be teething problems under EtH when he's clearly attempting to transition from a reactive approach to a more proactive one. We can't carry on playing McFred together if we have any ambitions of evolving as a team. And when you attempt to evolve as a football team, then there's going to be teething problems along the way where certain deficiencies will clearly be exposed. And it should make it easier to identify which players are capable of contributing in a more dominating approach and which ones are not. So for me, the result today was very disappointing but it's part of the learning curve towards becoming a more dominant team.

It's going to take time but I'm more confident now after the 6-3 loss than I ever was under Ole and Mourinho when they won at City. And the reason for that is simply down to how we were approaching games. And if you're Man Utd and approach games by ceding control from the get-go, then we aren't going to challenge any time soon until we change our mindset. And with ten Hag we will look to evolve into a proactive attacking team, but it's going to take time and patience. City spent over £200m on players in Guardiola first season at the club and another £285m in Guardiola's second season at the club. This is what we're up against and it's going to take time and patience to become competitive with a club like City who are bank rolled by a nation state.

Agree in full

 

[Real Name]

Puzzled that anyone could argue that Ten Hag is right to leave Ronaldo out because he doesnt fit the pressing game. What pressing game? There was none today. Ten Hag has done nothing other than disrespect Ronnie today.
Ronaldo presses as much, if not more, than Rashford

Oh poor Ronnie.
He got disrespected.

 

[Judas]

Puzzled that anyone could argue that Ten Hag is right to leave Ronaldo out because he doesnt fit the pressing game. What pressing game? There was none today. Ten Hag has done nothing other than disrespect Ronnie today.
Ronaldo presses as much, if not more, than Rashford

My heart bleeds for Ronaldo, he's been amazing this season, a real shining light, he'd have won us the game single handed. Siuuuuuuu.

 

[ilrm]

there's not much expectation for this season.

After spending over 200m if there are no expectations except playing pretty football then United are deservedly in the wilderness … The football isn’t pretty either so the situation is actually worse.

 

[golden_blunder]

I don't care what people say but he has yet to show me anything that justifies his selection as manager ahead of Pochettino. I have not seen anything tactically that makes me think he's top tier at all and i've seen several instances of alarming tactical naivety already in just a handful of games.

All is not lost yet but he needs to actually start coaching.

Eugh. We’re back to Poch again are we

 

[golden_blunder]

After spending over 200m if there are no expectations except playing pretty football then United are deservedly in the wilderness … The football isn’t pretty either so the situation is actually worse.

The football may not have been pretty yesterday but it’s nonsense to suggest it’s like that all season. We’ve played good stuff in patches, most enjoyable since fergie in my opinion.
people need to calm down, there are no quick fixes, the job has just begun