Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[r0663664]

I think Ferguson is the common denominator in all this.

It was Fergie, I agree. Glazers are lousy owners since they bought the club on leverage. I remember that we had most average players (if you look at City today). How Fergie got them to be competitive I cannot imagine. Since Glazers took over, we only buy when it was absolutely needed. We would sign 1-2 big names to shut the fans up. Fergie sign young potential players and gave them a stage to perform while they sign big players to try to get into top 4.

 

[RoadTrip]

Imagine if he signed Antony for 85m in his first season

Meh. Fergie signed the likes of Bebe and Obertan.

Signings can and do go wrong. Antony is a particularly bad one. We were desperate, we overpaid what he was worth, and he has underperformed what he was worth. Like a double whammy.

But to sack a manager cos he got a signing badly wrong is just illogical.

 

[Loon]

Folk are in such a rush, every buy must be seen to work instantly, and because United are where they are, Ten Hag is not going to get the kind of leeway Guardiola received for ones which don’t (nor the capacity to bin them off and just buy another). He’ll make a few more duff buys in the future too, but hopefully will end up with a solid team.

 

[Giggsy13]

I'm actually embarrassed about our fanbase.

We don’t deserve nice things.

 

[KD6-3.7]

Meh. Fergie signed the likes of Bebe and Obertan.

Signings can and do go wrong. Antony is a particularly bad one. We were desperate, we overpaid what he was worth, and he has underperformed what he was worth. Like a double whammy.

But to sack a manager cos he got a signing badly wrong is just illogical.

Ferguson didn’t spend £85M on either of them.

The issue with the Antony signing was a competently run club would have a DOF that would have probably veteod the signing and provide the manager with cheaper and probably better alternatives then Antony. Ten Hag is a little limited with the players he signs where he has either managed them before or have some link to the Dutch league. Ten Hag can work here if the structure of the club improves and he especially doesn’t have sole say in regards to transfers.

 

[Strelok]

Ferguson didn’t spend £85M on either of them.

SAF spent 28m on Veron and 30m on Berbatov. Which is the equivalence of about 100m now.

 

[pcaming]

Imagine if Fergie got sacked this quickly..

We've said this about all the managers post fergie, and they were all rightfully sacked after waiting too long...we can't keep writing off seasons to determine when a manager should go.

ETH has improved bits and pieces, but his signings are expensive and poor. His biggest failure in my eyes, is the inability of his team to be composed in possession.

But nothing is going to change now, so we can just hope for the best. I must confess United has pretty much drained me at this point.

 

[city-puma]

We've said this about all the managers post fergie, and they were all rightfully sacked after waiting too long...we can't keep writing off seasons to determine when a manager should go.

ETH has improved bits and pieces, but his signings are expensive and poor. His biggest failure in my eyes, is the inability of his team to be composed in possession.

But nothing is going to change now, so we can just hope for the best. I must confess United has pretty much drained me at this point.

Only change of ownership can help I feel. Otherwise, it’s always about 1/3 or 2/3 of signings work out in one season or two. Over three years, some of those successfuls are either regressed or injured. The holes will never be plugged completely, considering we also need depth, quality depth.

 

[AR87]

We've said this about all the managers post fergie, and they were all rightfully sacked after waiting too long...we can't keep writing off seasons to determine when a manager should go.

ETH has improved bits and pieces, but his signings are expensive and poor. His biggest failure in my eyes, is the inability of his team to be composed in possession.

But nothing is going to change now, so we can just hope for the best. I must confess United has pretty much drained me at this point.

His biggest failure is he hasn't completely changed the play style of the team within 12 months?

I know this isn't exactly what you said, but imo one of the biggest reasons for United's post-Fergie failures is that we have not actually stuck with a consistent squad building/transfer strategy.

 

[RoadTrip]

Ferguson didn’t spend £85M on either of them.

The issue with the Antony signing was a competently run club would have a DOF that would have probably veteod the signing and provide the manager with cheaper and probably better alternatives then Antony. Ten Hag is a little limited with the players he signs where he has either managed them before or have some link to the Dutch league. Ten Hag can work here if the structure of the club improves and he especially doesn’t have sole say in regards to transfers.

Ok but 1) that wasn’t the point I was making, and 2) what you’ve said is obviously correct but not sure why that’s ETH’s fault?

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Wolves?

No comparison between the two midfield displays. Nunes himself has more ability than the entire Forest midfield combined. In fact it’s evidenced by the two approaches. Forest sat back and just waited to attemp counters whereas Wolves took us on.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Ferguson didn’t spend £85M on either of them.

The issue with the Antony signing was a competently run club would have a DOF that would have probably veteod the signing and provide the manager with cheaper and probably better alternatives then Antony. Ten Hag is a little limited with the players he signs where he has either managed them before or have some link to the Dutch league. Ten Hag can work here if the structure of the club improves and he especially doesn’t have sole say in regards to transfers.

Yes but we know that this is the reality as long as the Glazers are here. So changing managers won’t improve that - if we think other managers are some transfer experts were highly mistaken. They will all make mistakes because ideally it should be a club - manager partnership with a strong contribution from the club.

 

[Waynne]

As this clearly shows, we are just dependent on individuals to have good moments./s

Moments FC

 

[Waynne]

I can tell you.

1) Attacking through the flanks - passing patterns aimed at opening up space for wide players to exploit.
2) Building up from the back using a back 3
3) A High, narrow press
4) Fluidity amongst the front 5, constant interchange of positions
5) Inverting wing backs
6) quick transitions after winning the ball high up the pitch
7) The striker stays central and rarely moves into channels

You can see the patterns borne from this. Our player positions are very fluid, with different positions filling into different roles at various points. The back 3 for example can have Casemiro drop in ( so AWB and Shaw/Dalot push up and central) or AWB/Shaw tuck in and Casemiro stay slightly higher to receive the first pass through the middle. Bruno and Eriksen/Mount are very fluid across the attacking 4 of the 4141, they frequently move into channels and tend to operate narrow. You can have instances were both Bruno and Eriksen are on one side of the pitch. Bruno in particular can temporarily swap roles with the right winger, creating spaces and channels to exploit.

In terms of the patterns of play, are they always perfect and effective? no. But they exist. Our press is high and narrow, but based on individuals can be broken with small errors. Our back 3 can provide passing lanes, but if players aren't getting into positions early enough or people in the back 3 are hesitant, it will take longer for the build up to occur. Fluidity in the front 5 and inverting wing backs can lead to gaps on the flanks being exploited if people don't get into position quickly enough. If a full back fails to invert effectively, it can either leave the holding midfielder isolated or provide less passing options for team mates. Turnover of possession can happen, but if poor decisions are made when they occur, you will not get the quality quick transitions required. If the striker you have is poor at holding up the ball, is slow to anticipate chances and is slow to get into the right central positions, you are not going to get a focal point that would allow more touches in the box, bring in team mates and be a constant presence in the box for the wide attacks to connect with ( since we are aiming to attack from the flanks).

Essentially, patterns of play clearly exist, but due to early operational issues, they are not as effective as one would hope for at the moment. The expectation is that given more time with players adapting and key players coming back from injuries, the patterns will become more effective; however they do exist

Good post.

Seen Dalot and even Wan Bissaka come central into Cass's DM position with Cass sometimes in Bruno's #10 role against Forrest. But that could be because they were sitting so deep and I doubt they would take such chances against teams like Liverpool, Arsenal or City.

I also hate how you can park a long distance coach in the vacant RB and LB positions when opposition teams break down our attacks and exploit those massive gaps. This is where our forward players fail as they don't press hard enough to prevent that exploitation of space inbehind on the flanks. Rashford, Antony, Bruno etc. don't do enough to win the ball back quickly. Otherwise Dalot and Wan Bissaka are left in no mans land with Martinez and Varane left to stop rampaging opposition attacking players.

 

[sglowrider]

Moments FC

Inter Individual Brilliance

 

[Andersonson]

Ten Hag has not failed, and has been successful, last season, and there is no need whatsoever to constantly conjure up doomsday scenarios. We have 6 points from 3 games. It is not excellent, it is not horrible. As for recruitment setting him up to fail, let us just at least wait until the end of the window, can we not? And to introduce the notion of sacking him is, honestly, pure lunacy. Some on here are suffering from what could be called football club dysmorphia.

I agree

 

[georgipep]

Where I think the Glazers have screwed us, in terms of squad building, despite spending a load of money is the way we seem to take forever to make big decisions about anything. The Greenwood saga really highlighted this. Throw that level of indecision, can kicking and wooly thinking into the mix when you’re trying to sign the best players in the world and you can see why our transfer record is so poor compared to other clubs with similar spend.

Same shit applies to negotiating contracts with players already at the club. Hence our potentially most valuable players end up leaving on a free and we can’t seem to offset any of the cost of our spending. It’s a total shit show and wouldn’t happen with owners who were either capable of being decisive or willing to allow people who understand football the autonomy they need to make those decisions quickly.

Fans seem to not like when the clubs spends big money and when they try to negotiate.

There is no winning.

As for Greenwood, I agree. He should've been sold the moment his criminal case was dropped.

 

[ArmaDino]

I think he is making the same mistake Fergie made twice in the CL final against Barca, i.e. playing a hardworking midfielder at the expense of a technical one.

I remember how our hold up play improved dramatically once Scholes was subbed during the CL final in 2011.

Same thing can be seen here: once Eriksen started against forest, we had more control. Mount is a completely different player. He is good at playing dynamic football, but not that great if you want some control in Midfield.

Probably the best way to utilize this set up would be for ETH to move to a 4-4-2 diamond with Case, Mount, Eriksen and Bruno as part of the midfield. That way we can get a bit of everything in there: control, defensive solidity, workrate, creativitiy, pressing.

The problem that arises is that ETH relies on width to create openings, so not sure how he would handle that...

 

[georgipep]

I think you are trapped into that thinking the glazers want you believe it reasonable. For last few years, it’s almost always that we did long term signings only in summer with a fixed and rigid budget. The plans have almost always been two extremes, well-established (even though around 30 yrs old) or extremely young. For them it’s a number problem. To add one in, get one out first, even though some transfers didn’t work out (it’s common, it’s impossible to have all transfers correct). There are many 20-22 years old young players we should buy as strategic investments, because they are almost ready and already been able to contribute. Now, every summer, we add three. Everything else? Forget about it. ETH and DOF are not given error tolerance in transfers to be better prepared to handle any season which is always tough with a lot of games. We need a new owners and potentially new DOF.

What do you expect? Every year a new squad because the manager failed to use the players already at their disposal?

 

[Zen86]

I don’t dispute your criticisms. I’m simply saying that criticizing them for not spending enough on transfers is misguided. We buy expensive players all the time and put them on monstrous wages. The issue is the lack of a plan in terms of identifying talent and making sure it fits with the club’s style of play.

We’ve spent enough on transfers and wages, however there’s very little intent behind it. It’s often been knee jerk splurges if we’ve fallen behind the pack. It comes across like they are forced to spend money they didn’t intend to, which would explain the last-minute and scattergun nature of how we do business. It’s been a complete and utter shit show under the Glazers.

We may have spent a wedge on transfers in recent years but the way it’s been executed is basically throwing money down the drain. Nothing but a waste of funds and it has come at the expense of everything else that needs to be operated at a professional football club which should be sitting towards the top of the pyramid.

 

[sglowrider]

I am okay with ETH at the moment. I can see progression albeit not a straight line which is fine. My only disappointment is that he really doesn't give youth a chance despite his Ajax reputation.

 

[Garethw]

Imagine if Fergie got sacked this quickly..

Surely nobody is calling for his head already?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a fluid implementation of a system 12 months in.

Hopefully it all clicks in the coming weeks. But if it doesn’t and we aren’t picking up the points, the pressure will rightly be on ETH.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

I am okay with ETH at the moment. I can see progression albeit not a straight line which is fine. My only disappointment is that he really doesn't give youth a chance despite his Ajax reputation.

Kobbie Mainoo would be featuring for us right now if he wasn't injured. ten Hag does give chances to the youth but only youth players he feels deserve it and are ready to be part of the first team.

 

[Garethw]

I am okay with ETH at the moment. I can see progression albeit not a straight line which is fine. My only disappointment is that he really doesn't give youth a chance despite his Ajax reputation.

It’s probably more a sign of how poorly managed the youth teams have been run than anything else.

To not have one centre forward, left back or midfielder prospect to step in for a few games is a damning reflection on the academy director.

 

[crossy1686]

Imagine if Fergie got sacked this quickly..

Imagine Fergie spent £400m in his first 12 months in charge and bought Antony and Mount...

 

[RedorDead21]

Meh. Fergie signed the likes of Bebe and Obertan.

Signings can and do go wrong. Antony is a particularly bad one. We were desperate, we overpaid what he was worth, and he has underperformed what he was worth. Like a double whammy.

But to sack a manager cos he got a signing badly wrong is just illogical.

Yep One bad signing is hard to swallow at that price given how skint we are but if Mount and our new striker also all don’t perform this season it suggests recruitment as we know should not be in the hands of the manager.

 

[Dannn411]

He did well to adapt first season after coming in naive but he is stubbornly going back to a style that he clearly does not have the personnel for. He cannot keep committing 5 players plus the two full backs forward and leaving only one midfielder and two CBs back when 99% of the team is so terrible at keeping the ball and when we have slow poke CBs who regularly get done on counters by rapid opposing forwards. Forest could have scored 4 goals on Saturday. Every time they got the ball the counter was on because half the field was wide open.

Not everybody has to be Pep Guardiola. Pep plays the way he does because he has the personnel. He has to adapt again or he will get absolutely destroyed by better teams and there won't be forgiveness from the fans this season if we get mauled again.

 

[MancunianAngels]

Imagine Fergie spent £400m in his first 12 months in charge and bought Antony and Mount...

Ridiculous comparison.

Fergie spent a lot of money on transfers between 86 and 90. It took him a long time to find a decent balance in the squad.

He would have almost certainly been sacked 2 or 3 years into his reign if football clubs back then were run like they are today.

 

[Lemoor]

Imagine Fergie spent £400m in his first 12 months in charge and bought Antony and Mount...

True, signing people that haven't even been born then would be a sackable offense.

 

[mav_9me]

Ridiculous comparison.

Fergie spent a lot of money on transfers between 86 and 90. It took him a long time to find a decent balance in the squad.

He would have almost certainly been sacked 2 or 3 years into his reign if football clubs back then were run like they are today.

Zero doubt about it.

 

[Sarni]

Imagine if Fergie got sacked this quickly..

Imagine if we had kept David Moyes.

 

[sglowrider]

Kobbie Mainoo would be featuring for us right now if he wasn't injured. ten Hag does give chances to the youth but only youth players he feels deserve it and are ready to be part of the first team.

Who to say... We thought he would have played more of the kids (eg Pellastri) after last pre-season. Mainoo could be another false dawn. Alvaro Fernandez should be given a chance too. Obviously, they aren't fully formed 1st teamers -- but ETH needs the courage to play them. I hope Amad is given the chance too.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

Is it? His job shouldn’t be anywhere near safe after the 7-0.

The 7-0 is irrelevant.

 

[Greck]

As this clearly shows, we are just dependent on individuals to have good moments./s

Antony's contributions to liveplay are really underappreciated on here.

 

[pcaming]

His biggest failure is he hasn't completely changed the play style of the team within 12 months?

I know this isn't exactly what you said, but imo one of the biggest reasons for United's post-Fergie failures is that we have not actually stuck with a consistent squad building/transfer strategy.

It isn't exactly what I said. Even it was, 12 months is a lot of time to implement. We see managers do it within a few months.

But no, I was referring to how disjointed we look and always in a state of disarray. We very rarely if ever look composed and assured as a team.

 

[Remember the geese]

Who to say... We thought he would have played more of the kids (eg pallestri) after last pre-season. Mainoo could be another false dawn.

Mainoo is actually good though.

 

[GaryLifo]

Imagine Fergie spent £400m in his first 12 months in charge and bought Antony and Mount...

In his second and third full seasons he bought a lot of players some of whom didn't initially work out.

Phelan, Ince, Wallace, Pallister, Webb, Hughes, Leighton, Donaghy, Bruce all for what were big fees at the time. He also got the legend that is Ralph Milne!!!

88/89 season was one of the worst I've ever seen as well.

3 full seasons after spending a fortune the team still played very poor football and looked many years away from the title.

This is not me saying ten Hag will be the next Ferguson, but rather responding to your Ferguson example. He more or less did have one of the highest net spends over that time period and had nothing to show for it until his 4th season in charge

 

[nickm]

I think he is making the same mistake Fergie made twice in the CL final against Barca, i.e. playing a hardworking midfielder at the expense of a technical one.

I remember how our hold up play improved dramatically once Scholes was subbed during the CL final in 2011.

Same thing can be seen here: once Eriksen started against forest, we had more control. Mount is a completely different player. He is good at playing dynamic football, but not that great if you want some control in Midfield.

Probably the best way to utilize this set up would be for ETH to move to a 4-4-2 diamond with Case, Mount, Eriksen and Bruno as part of the midfield. That way we can get a bit of everything in there: control, defensive solidity, workrate, creativitiy, pressing.

The problem that arises is that ETH relies on width to create openings, so not sure how he would handle that...

He wants the defence to play a very high line and forwards to press to protect the midfield and recover possession. Let's give him a chance to see if he can make that work before we all decide he doesn't know what he is doing, should throw everything out/be forced out in Feb etc etc etc. He's not even had his first choice 11 all on the pitch at the same time yet.

 

[nickm]

SAF spent 28m on Veron and 30m on Berbatov. Which is the equivalence of about 100m now.

A player of Veron's class today would be 100-120m just by himself, I reckon, maybe more.

 

[GaryLifo]

He wants the defence to play a very high line and forwards to press to protect the midfield and recover possession. Let's give him a chance to see if he can make that work before we all decide he doesn't know what he is doing, should throw everything out/be forced out in Feb etc etc etc. He's not even had his first choice 11 all on the pitch at the same time yet.

Wasn't there a stat that our best eleven only played about 3 times together last season due to injuries and suspensions?

I'm sure that this is true to assume extent for all teams, but it surprised me at the time.

Edit: it may even have been the back 4 of AWB, Varane, Martinez and Shaw that only started 3 times in the PL