There's almost an entirely new spine to the team.
Without Martinez, Casemiro, Eriksen and Antony do people think we'd be where we are i.e. fairly comfortably top four.
Can even add Varane as a new player really given he never got going last season.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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Without Martinez, Casemiro, Eriksen and Antony do people think we'd be where we are i.e. fairly comfortably top four.
Can even add Varane as a new player really given he never got going last season.
No chance. As good as Ten Hag is, players are more important than any manager. The drop off is clear when we have certain players missing.
Our best XI is 6/7 players different to our most used from last season, whether new signings or due to injuries.
Totally agree.
This isn’t talking down ETH either. I personally think job number one for any manager is get the right players in. Which on the whole he's done so far.
I just hope it continues. We saw what happened to Ole. Things looking promising then a couple of bad windows and it goes to shit.
We never played this good under Ole though. Even in his best spell as an interim manger we were mostly a counter-attacking team that cruised on an 'underdog' mentality. With Ten Hag, even when we don't play at our best, we control games. We're still not completely able to go toe to toe with City and partly Arsenal (even though I would argue we were the better team in the first game) but other than that - I can't remember a single game this season, apart from the first 2 disasters, in which I can remember us being embarrassed or being 'lucky'. If anything, this entire season we've been getting screwed and should be far ahead than were we are now, but that's football I guess.
Huh ? The team changed completely. Maguire got benched, we have a new defense, AWB just got back to the starting lineup recently , we got a full new midfield plus Antony in the attack. The likes of Sancho and Varane were in their first season playing in a fully collapsing team. Rashford and Bruno are the ones who made a comeback from awful form last season.
Last season's team was pretty bad indeed. It was dependent on Fred, Scott and Pogba in midfield and Maguire at the back, that says it all I guess.
Yep. People were writing off Shaw, Rashford, Bruno, and Fred. There were threads about how it was 100% on the players, and how Jose was right (
)With the best will in the world, not every signing will be a success. Antony has shown flashes of excellent play, seems to know where the goal is, but is not really up and running yet, Malacia has done well, but still learning his trade. Weghorst was probably the best we could get at such short notice, whilst not spending much money.
It certainly will be interesting to see who we purchase in the summer, I'm sure there is a short list from Ten Hag, and I'm also sure that players like Amad, Hannibal, Laird, Fernandez, Iqbal, Mainoo, Shoretire etc. will be pushing for a spot in the first team squad, although I think a few of them will still go on loan next season.
Yup, his recruitment, along with everything else, has been top class.
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U wot m8?
What I love ETH is he identified our weakness from Day 1 - our midfield was sh*t for so many years, all his signings are comfortable with the ball, then he is brave enough to bench our captain and drop CR7.
I hope Glazers will sell the club and not disrupt our summer window, we are in a right direction now, just 3-4 right signings and we can compete the top, which no one expect in last season end.
I hope Glazers will sell the club and not disrupt our summer window, we are in a right direction now, just 3-4 right signings and we can compete the top, which no one expect in last season end.
Not at all. It shouldn't really be his job though, but it was in the summer.
I think this is one of his strongest strengths so far. Virtually all of his signings have been spot on. Of course, some might think Antony is overpriced, but he does the job well and he has a lot of future growth left (hopefully). In contrast to someone like Ole, Ole just brought players who are "stars" but with never any idea as to how to team build them or what they brought to the team composition, not just their names. ETH identifies weaknesses and quickly plugs them, Ole thought that buying expensive individual players somehow makes a great team and that's how he ended with a band of mercenaries who gave no shit about the club or winning.
Casemiro and Martinez alone have completely transformed the club so to say recruitment hasnt been good is strangr. Eriksen and Malacia good, jury out on Antony. So that's overall good to solid.
I do feel the promise under ETH feels more "solid" than it did under Ole.
But it's easy to forget that at one stage we were looking very promising under Ole. I'd argue possibly at times looking better than we have under ETH with maybe less player quality?
Eithet way, it all went badly wrong after that awful summer window(Amad, Pellistri, Beek etc).
Point being, the next couple of transfer windows are huge.
Anyone thinkinh ETH can just coach us to titles will be disappointed.
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I concur, I probably should have worded it differently. Good to solid is a better way of putting it.
I know where you're coming from but I think our good spell when Ole was appointed was down to the players putting more effort into it more than anything. The players had their confidence shattered by Mourinho so when Ole came in with his optimism, they flourished. With EtH, I feel our good play is more a product of proper coaching - of an actual system with patterns and principles being taught.
My manager.
Kinda agree with you there. Around late 2020 to early 2021, apart from the CL clusterfeck, we looked very good in the league. If we had invested more in the midfield and a bit more focus in the coaching, Ole might still be around (not sure if that would be good in the long term as he had a low ceiling).
So thats another Ten Hag "fault" taken off of the list. What will be the next fault they try to come up with
Spot on.
I feel he is going to get the short end of the stick. A downward spiral of 3-4 losses coupled with draws and you are looking at him gone from the club instead of giving him the time to sort things out. This is how I am sure the club is going to function. Sucks but that's the way it will be. The culture and ethos of the club will be replaced with cut throat competition to be the best. A lot of good people will fall by the wayside. Similar to how Chelsea operated under Roman.
What????
If we get Qatar as the new owners, next season or the season after next, this will happen.
Plus loads of galactio signings to add to the mess. PSG mk2.
Anyone who slates TH isnt a Utd fan. Simple as that.
Hes improved us no end and had to beg to bring in loan signings because the leeches wouldnt back him in Jan.
Best manager we have had in 10 years and after half a season hes got us as the only club in Europe still in 4 trophies. We were the equal of Barca lst night at their ground, who are head and shoulders the best team in Spain, right now.
Shame on anybody criticizing TH.
Hes improved us no end and had to beg to bring in loan signings because the leeches wouldnt back him in Jan.
Best manager we have had in 10 years and after half a season hes got us as the only club in Europe still in 4 trophies. We were the equal of Barca lst night at their ground, who are head and shoulders the best team in Spain, right now.
Shame on anybody criticizing TH.
Not sure it's true if you look at the Qatari's relative management of PSG.
They gave their new manager one year to bed in. Even not winning the league in the first season is not sackable offense. The issue is their squad building which enables player power, Hollywood FC culture thus undermining the head coach.
It's less happy trigger than early year Abramovich era with that first Mourinho sacking.
Not Qatari advocate here. I am still in the crossroad for how I feel about whoever the new owner.
ETH is a winner, why would they sack him. He outplayed Barca at Camp Nou with Weghorst, AWB and Fred, even got us in a title race already in what is supposed to be a long term project. We should have been fighting for top 4 and he got us sitting comfortably above that. Give this guy the players he wants and he'll lead this team to glory. Can't see them getting rid of one of the best managers in the world that easily.
You're stuck in the last decade then, because every decent "younger" player costs 80m+ these days. Saying Malacia doesn't fit the prem when he's all pace and physicality is hilarious, plus he only cost 15m. Also "not being impressed" that a free transfer is one of our better players is a strange take. We signed Casemiro after FDJ didn't come, so that's not even a fecking issue either.
And then it's a couple of emergency loans. I agree the jury is out on Antony, but taking in the rest of the signings it's two legit world class players, two valuable squad additions and good footballers for a combined 15m, and then two emergency loans to replace Ronaldo and Eriksen in January.
I know any potential new owners wouldn't be daft enough to dare to replace him but even then those idiotic rumors on the sale thread have me scared for my life that it just might happen.
Certainly hope not.
Certainly hope not.
I understand what you both are trying to say.
For me it's a worry, United is much bigger than psg. Much more eyeballs on united.
If your see klopp's stint with Liverpool, he won the cl in 19, won the league in 20 and then almost dropped out of the top 4 in 21, then almost had a quadruple in 22 and now again on a downward spiral this season. Klopp is also a world class manager.
If ten hag has such a roller coaster ride, he won't get a chance to come back like Klopp did after just getting in to the top 4. Just because ten hag is an intelligent manager, doesn't mean he will get time.
This is what I feel might happen. If we spend money, we may not have the patience to deal with the benefits of ten hag. And if he has a wobble in a season or player power becomes bigger than the manager or if we move towards a glalatico style which Madrid failed and so did psg, we will have a manager rotation style like Chelsea.
It's all a lot of what if's though. I don't see ETH losing power in the dressing room, ever. Also the main difference with Liverpool is that they didn't invest until it was too late. With these Qatari you don't even have to worry about going into a transfer window semi-broke. I understand and somewhat share your concern, but I think it's a bit premature to even state it as a fact like you did earlier. Let's first wait and see who the Glazers sell to and if it is indeed the Qatari's maybe it's not so bad as some think. Their statement was promising and if they really care about the fans like they say they do they would know ETH is untouchable. If they happen to be cnuts like you predict you can bookmark me and tell me I told you so after a year, but I don't think that will happen.
Bigger club also mean bigger politic coming from the fanbase.
The difference between PSG hollywood fc culture and Real Madrid or Barcelona Galaticos is that the latter has the fanbase to keep the players in check.
While our fanbase is much more forgiving, and the club would be a private owned business, it wouldn't be as easy for the owner to beat to their own drum politically. Sacking the manager when the fanbase has his back would cause an uproar here.
I don't see the problem here. ETH's situation would be more similar to Pep than to Klopp. Liverpool didn't invest enough so having lower bottom level season is kinda understandable. Pep had his low season too. He's not getting sacked for that.
ETH has potential, but not proven he's a SAF. He has to realize that potential. Having resource, big fanbase may be blessing, or maybe the curse; he has to pass this trial to become an elite manager. Else why bother how long he stays in the end if we forever a nice top 4 team.
I hope he wins a prize before any big Qatari money comes in, so nobody can take anything away from the accomplishment.
I think you're reaching a bit to suggest we control all our games. We didn't control the Leeds games, we didn't control the 2nd half against Palace away, we didn't control against Fulham, we didn't control against Villa. We've regularly had to bring Maguire on for the last 5 minutes to head the ball away as we hang on for dear life for a 1 goal lead. We're already over-performing our xPTS so very generous to think we should be much further ahead than we are.
The underlying stats suggest we're not really much ahead of where we were when we were finishing top 4 finishes under Ole. Our xPTS extrapolated for this season is 67 points, if we carry on over-performing we might get 75 actual.
Ole's main issue was in 3 years he just made barely any progress season upon season and eventually it collapsed. ETH will be expected to get top 4 this season and actually turn us into an elite football team next season. He can't just languish around this current level forever which is what we were doing under Ole before it turned sour, I'm confident ETH will actually make the progress that Ole couldn't. However we shouldn't pretend we're anything more than we are so far this season, we're just look like a top 4 side achieving a normal top 4 points tally, who scrapes a lot of close wins and doesn't score enough goals.
The eye test suggests we're a better organised team than we were under Ole and our games feel less hectic than under Ole, we have to say that. I think we're seem to be a fair way off being a genuinely top side, which is to be expected given it's his first season.
He has nothing to prove. Beat the strongest teams in Europe with about10% of their budget.
I find the entire Qatar thing to be extra annoying because of it happening during the start of Erik's time with us.
Football reputation is clean as snow from what I could gather,
Takes a monumental challenge in restoring United and succeeding at it in ways none of us could have hoped for, up to now.
And then come the murderous shitbags and threaten to make everything he does with the club tarnished.
This is so infuriating. Pep was tarnished from the day it was clear he was intending to leave Bayern for that lot.
With ETH, I'd like to hold onto the thought he didn't know.
Football reputation is clean as snow from what I could gather,
Takes a monumental challenge in restoring United and succeeding at it in ways none of us could have hoped for, up to now.
And then come the murderous shitbags and threaten to make everything he does with the club tarnished.
This is so infuriating. Pep was tarnished from the day it was clear he was intending to leave Bayern for that lot.
With ETH, I'd like to hold onto the thought he didn't know.
And given the injuries ti our midfield. No eriksen and Donny severely limits ETH especially with mctom and casemiro missing time too. He's also had pretty much half a striker the entire season. I agree with your main point that we are far from the finished product and still have key weaknesses that haven't been addressed and that ETH will do what Ole could not.
I see it a bit differently
First off, we're a couple of good results going our way this season from being in the title race and while it's a long shot but it's still a possibility.. we never challenged before now
Secondly, we are not a fair ways off being a genuinely top side as we've gone toe to toe with the best teams and beaten them in a way we've never done post-SAF. This match against Barca should be a pointer that we're closer to the top than you think especially considering we were missing about 4/5 key players
Overall, we are further along on our development schedule than any fan had any right to dream about and considering ETH is doing that coming off our worst season.. it's a bonafide miracle
Fully expecting Arsenal to bounce back from last few results with win over Villa,also wouldn't expect City to get troubled until Newcastle game on Mar 4 but hope I'm totally wrong
Bit with the Glazers we will always struggle off the pitch. For once they appointed an amazing manager but anything else is a disaster under them. Hence our situation and them willing to sell