Is this supposed to be a defense for ETH?
If he can only play in a particular way, only with particular players, and when these players are injured he is completely lost and doesn't know what to do... then he is not a good manager.
Excuses. Team was shit this season with Martinez playing.
Clutching at straws at this point.
I don't share the exact views of what the tweet says, it was more to show the clip. Ten Hag's been very poor and has made some terrible decisions this season there is no question about that. What I won't have though is that we were poorly coached last season - that we didn't know what type of football we wanted to play last season.
He is definitely responsible for our poor form this season - but everything is multifactorial. Part of the reason (again, not absolving Ten Hag of blame) we have been so poor this season is that when certain players are out - their replacements are a completely different type of player and it means we have to change the system accordingly.
There are too many players in our squad that are too dissimilar. The reason Pep can rotate so much is actually a lot of their players can slot in and play the position similarly to each other so their system stays constant. For example, if they need retention Grealish, Bernardo, and Kovacic can all provide this.
Just look to last season when Martinez was out, we were fine because Shaw played the CB role similarly. And this season when Varane is out we have to drop our line because no one else who was fit was able to provide his pace and organisation.
Part of this is definitely Ten Hag's fault though. We've had so many injuries because we played far too many games with little rotation last year. The gaps between our front 5 and back 5 when pressing is way too big. Our press is disorganised (compared to last year). He wants direct transitional football but signed Antony who passes back every counter. The balance of our midfield is wrong.
There are many things wrong this season from Ten Hag, but it's definitely been exacerbated by our club's poor structure. Our recruitment team is awful. Last season he wanted Timber and couldn't get him. It's our club's job to then find someone who is similar to him to play a similar role in the team - instead, we waited till Martinez called Ten Hag up to say I want to join and signed Martinez instead. Ten Hag wanted FDJ who provides who controls the play, is press resistant and can carry the ball well - when it turned out we couldn't sign him, we decided to get no one and then panic buy Casemiro after poor results (who is a completely different type of player). He wanted Antony for 60m, which was too much, but instead of finding another player of similar profile at a cheaper price we dithered and paid 90m at the end of the window. Not even Pep is given complete control of transfers, he wanted Maguire, Fred, Sanchez, Van Dijk and Rice off the top of my head and got none of them but they didn't suffer because City were smart enough to find alternatives that fit the system.