United have changed their sporting structure fairly recently, and have a sporting director in John Murtough. If Ten Hag hasn’t had long enough etc then I assume people don’t want John to go yet either, he’s been in that role since march 2021.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
For what its worth, I can totally understand, why fans have lost quite a bit of hope in ETH. Some of his decisions weren't for my liking as well but that applies to Fergie as well. You'll always take the good and the bad and at the end, when the good has more weight, you're happy. This balance is really on the edge now with ETH for me personally but you also have to see the possible negative consequences.
Bringing in another manager will simply restart the situation, we would again have high hopes for the next guy (not that I really know of any suitable candidate right now), would want to give him time, would want to back him, give him a pre season, let him adjust to the club, to the league, to the players. The manager will give chances to most of the players to get to know them. Bla bla bla. So lets face it, the 1st year after a change isn't really anything to base decisions on. Maybe only because he completely fails but actually, not even that would be completely fair. To me, that is one more year added where the club doesn't really move on. There most likely wouldn't be a big clearout, there most likely wouldn't be 6 or more new additions. On top of that, lets not kid ourselves, our internal structures will not become better by switching managers. There's still no recruitment team that (as of now) really warrants trust (not yet). Same for the decision makers above.
I don't really understand, why people are quoting Rangnick about us needing big changes at a lot of places but then are in favor of hopping from one manager after the next while the rest of the structure stays as it is. I think, that is exactly not what he meant.
And while other clubs did well using such an approach, more often than not, there was an element of continuety in the organisation. There is nothing like that apparent with us right now. Which plays a role in some of the decisions that have been made in the last 1,5 years as well. Bayern is a bad example, they are miles above anybody else in their league. Just look at last season, it was as if their competitors went out of their way to hand them the title after all.
My plan would be the following: encourage ETH to stick to his principles, play the style he wants to play even when results are bad. That hopefully will help him to put players on the bench who don't do what he wants him to do and hopefully (if not nudge him) integrate younger players a little more. Sit together with DOF and make a thourough plan with multiple scenarios for next years summer. Not necessarily in terms of actual names, but in terms of profiles that are needed (skillset, age structure, budget). I completely agree that ETH should have too much say in recruitment, a healthy amount but not more. I wouldn't be shocked, if he would actually like that. From then on, recruitment will start to identify suitable targets, yadda yadda. DOF should also create a contingency plan, which manager would suit the current set of players and ideas in case everything breaks apart. The overarching narrative has to become "we are where we are because we made mistakes in the past, but we'll do our best to not repeat them".
Again, I understand that people are disappointed with ETH. But to me, I think having a suboptimal plan is better than having no plan at all. We all know that the environment in our club is a challenge in itself, chances are, that every possible manager will look worse than they did before. Only quick fix for that would be revolution but that isn't very likely. So it has to be evolution and that means streamlining decisions to a positive vision. Nothing less than what Pep tweeted about one of those days, with everybody in the club pulling in the same direction. At United, it looks more like our decision makers are looking for manager to hand over the rope, to get off their own accountability. There is one scenario that I would see as fair - switching the manager but on the same hand Murtough and everybody in the football department. I personally would add all players at or above 27 as well (not necessarily just those). Reset ok, but only a very thourough one.
fyi: I am bit suprised, that so many people give ETHs words with the Ajax comparison so much weight. I mean, it is the press, nobody knows wether that is really what he thinks or wether it is something he just says for this or that reason. To me it is obvious that he definitely had the plan to make fundamental changes, all targets indicate that plus the first couple of games last year. There are a few factors that have challenged that plan though, recruitment (I think FDJ was a very essential piece), disciplinary issues, injuries and so on. Obviously no manager can expect an easy ride but putting all issues to his name does seem a bit shortsighted as well.
Bringing in another manager will simply restart the situation, we would again have high hopes for the next guy (not that I really know of any suitable candidate right now), would want to give him time, would want to back him, give him a pre season, let him adjust to the club, to the league, to the players. The manager will give chances to most of the players to get to know them. Bla bla bla. So lets face it, the 1st year after a change isn't really anything to base decisions on. Maybe only because he completely fails but actually, not even that would be completely fair. To me, that is one more year added where the club doesn't really move on. There most likely wouldn't be a big clearout, there most likely wouldn't be 6 or more new additions. On top of that, lets not kid ourselves, our internal structures will not become better by switching managers. There's still no recruitment team that (as of now) really warrants trust (not yet). Same for the decision makers above.
I don't really understand, why people are quoting Rangnick about us needing big changes at a lot of places but then are in favor of hopping from one manager after the next while the rest of the structure stays as it is. I think, that is exactly not what he meant.
And while other clubs did well using such an approach, more often than not, there was an element of continuety in the organisation. There is nothing like that apparent with us right now. Which plays a role in some of the decisions that have been made in the last 1,5 years as well. Bayern is a bad example, they are miles above anybody else in their league. Just look at last season, it was as if their competitors went out of their way to hand them the title after all.
My plan would be the following: encourage ETH to stick to his principles, play the style he wants to play even when results are bad. That hopefully will help him to put players on the bench who don't do what he wants him to do and hopefully (if not nudge him) integrate younger players a little more. Sit together with DOF and make a thourough plan with multiple scenarios for next years summer. Not necessarily in terms of actual names, but in terms of profiles that are needed (skillset, age structure, budget). I completely agree that ETH should have too much say in recruitment, a healthy amount but not more. I wouldn't be shocked, if he would actually like that. From then on, recruitment will start to identify suitable targets, yadda yadda. DOF should also create a contingency plan, which manager would suit the current set of players and ideas in case everything breaks apart. The overarching narrative has to become "we are where we are because we made mistakes in the past, but we'll do our best to not repeat them".
Again, I understand that people are disappointed with ETH. But to me, I think having a suboptimal plan is better than having no plan at all. We all know that the environment in our club is a challenge in itself, chances are, that every possible manager will look worse than they did before. Only quick fix for that would be revolution but that isn't very likely. So it has to be evolution and that means streamlining decisions to a positive vision. Nothing less than what Pep tweeted about one of those days, with everybody in the club pulling in the same direction. At United, it looks more like our decision makers are looking for manager to hand over the rope, to get off their own accountability. There is one scenario that I would see as fair - switching the manager but on the same hand Murtough and everybody in the football department. I personally would add all players at or above 27 as well (not necessarily just those). Reset ok, but only a very thourough one.
fyi: I am bit suprised, that so many people give ETHs words with the Ajax comparison so much weight. I mean, it is the press, nobody knows wether that is really what he thinks or wether it is something he just says for this or that reason. To me it is obvious that he definitely had the plan to make fundamental changes, all targets indicate that plus the first couple of games last year. There are a few factors that have challenged that plan though, recruitment (I think FDJ was a very essential piece), disciplinary issues, injuries and so on. Obviously no manager can expect an easy ride but putting all issues to his name does seem a bit shortsighted as well.
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Better results is enough of a reason to change manager if we get them, that’s the whole point of the sport. The football plan in terms of the structure is relatively new at United, it’s a different team that hired ETH to previous managers. Hopefully with time ETH can turn it around but it’s not shocking that people don’t have faith in him given what we’ve seen so far.
They didn't all do better before joining United. That's objectively not true. You can't rewrite history to aid your argument.
Ole was a complete punt. Moyes and ETH hadn't operated anywhere near our level before joining. LvG and Mourinho we all knew were past their peak.
I'm not going through the players but I can only think of Di Maria and at an absolute stretch Pogba as players who had proven themselves at the top level, were in their prime and it didn't work out here. The rest were unproven at our level or players past their best.
We simply aren't out there destroying the careers of high achievers.
I have no issue with people thinking ETH might not be the man for the job. I have never said otherwise.
I think we are going to fail with ANY manager unless other more significant things change and until then every United manager , no matter how good, is handicapped by default as soon as they walk in the door.
That's exactly what we are. That's how we were setup against City. That's what Ten Hag and previous managers have turned us in to. That's what people who defend them are accepting; our full transformation into the underdog, longing for past glories
But the media scrutiny is as if we were a CL contender, unlike for clubs like Brighton who can operate calmly and patiently.
I dont think you can call us a super club any more. We're not Real/Barca/Bayern/City. We dont exist to win trophies. We exist to sell snapdragon processors and tacky wine. We dont expect to win games against the top 6 teams. We set up as underdogs in every single big game.
We're basically Spurs since Poch left them, with a higher transfer budget. In a cycle of bad hiring decisions.
The two biggest problems we have is making terrible choices on managers, and giving those managers too much of a say in transfers. For every manager we've hired there were strong reason(s) to doubt them. Even with Erik, giving the lack of Prem experience and the fate of every single other Eredivise coach who's made the jump up.
Woodward was so invested in giving the manager the players they wanted and bringing in galacticos. And Murtough basically just exists to give ETH whatever he asks for at whatever cost. If we brought in a proper DoF with good experience in the role, and a manager who is confident in landing in any squad and immediately implementing their style (just as Ange has done in a terrible Spurs squad) we'd finally turn a corner.
Mata
Di Maria
Falcao
Schweinstager
Pogba
Matic
Alexei Sanchez
harry maguire
Cavani
Ronaldo
Varane?
Casemeiro ?
All succesful players whose form eventually turned to sh*t after joining us and they never consistently reached their high levels again
For whatever reason each one didnt work out, theres a pattern, mad that you probably cant find a comparable club with as impressive a list of graveyards for once quality players.
As for players being passed it, that doesnt explain this, theres plenty of examples of pros in their 30s doing fine in the EPL.
Pogba and Di Maria I mentioned and Mata I agree with. Would also add him as being mismanaged.
But the rest? Come on, you can see issues with all those. Stuff United can't do anything about.
But either way you said ALL players and managers had performed better before coming to United. Simply not true.
Did they give the managers all they wanted ?
Did Moyes really want Fellaini as his first signing ? Did he even want Mata, who never fit into any managers lineup properly.
LVG is on record as saying we regularly got a target who was way down the list of priorities or targets. Shaw and Herrera were actually identified the season Moyes was in charge, they certainly werent LVG signings.
Jose got us to our best league finish and got Dalot and Fred to take us to the next level. Forget about Jose, what did the squad think about that? Look at RVP when Ferguson left, how do you think the ambituous players in our squads feel about this level of ambition the club showed ? Another manager setup to fail that season
And Ole, brought into "make the squad happy". How was that ever gonna work ? Did he really want Ighalo ? How did Ronaldo affect his plans ? How many times have managers been given a Mata, a sancez, a Ronaldo, A casemerio kind of signing that looks quality on paper but is actually just an easy signing for the club to make to get instant gains ? Alot of the times these signings were nothing to do with managers, just players who could be gotten and what manager would say no to them ? When you were given Ighalo as your striker, you wouldnt say no to ronaldo !
And then sprinkled into these quality signings is an Ighalo, Weghorst, Evans. And lets not forget the Bailly, Phil Jones, Martials, Lingards, DVD (?), Maguire (?) that managers have to work with because thats just some weird thing about United letting players leave who nobody wants. Oh and lets not forget, every United squad has at least one (usually 2-3) vital position where we are massively lacking in quality, its just a given.
But United managers are supposedly getting most of what they want ?
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Can anyone re
Yeah Pochettino's stock was very high after that title challenge of 15/16,yes I know they finished 3rd in a two horse race. That only happened because Spurs were so broken by that draw to Chelsea which cost them.
Falcao tore his ACL the season before joining United. That's when his form "turned to shit."
Cant be bothered going over the history of our managers and their shit signings again. It doesn't need explained why most of this stuff you're coming out with is at least equally the fault of the manager at the time. They largely got what they asked for or asked for idiotic unrealistic signings. They also said yes when Woodward popped up with a Sanchez or a Ronaldo suggestion, the Galactico style signings were not forced on them. Ole also had direct input in extending the contracts of so much deadwood, including Jones, Bailly, Lingard etc.Did they give the managers all they wanted ?
Did Moyes really want Fellaini as his first signing ? Did he even want Mata, who never fit into any managers lineup properly.
LVG is on record as saying we regularly got a target who was way down the list of priorities or targets. Shaw and Herrera were actually identified the season Moyes was in charge, they certainly werent LVG signings.
Jose got us to our best league finish and got Dalot and Fred to take us to the next level. Forget about Jose, what did the squad think about that? Look at RVP when Ferguson left, how do you think the ambituous players in our squads feel about this level of ambition the club showed ? Another manager setup to fail that season
And Ole, brought into "make the squad happy". How was that ever gonna work ? Did he really want Ighalo ? How did Ronaldo affect his plans ? How many times have managers been given a Mata, a sancez, a Ronaldo, A casemerio kind of signing that looks quality on paper but is actually just an easy signing for the club to make to get instant gains ? Alot of the times these signings were nothing to do with managers, just players who could be gotten and what manager would say no to them ? When you were given Ighalo as your striker, you wouldnt say no to ronaldo !
And then sprinkled into these quality signings is an Ighalo, Weghorst, Evans. And lets not forget the Bailly, Phil Jones, Martials, Lingards, DVD (?), Maguire (?) that managers have to work with because thats just some weird thing about United letting players leave who nobody wants. Oh and lets not forget, every United squad has at least one vital position where we are massively lacking in quality, its just a given.
But United managers are supposedly getting most of what they want ?
ETH ended up with Casemiro because he was so adamant for so long about De Jong, and Murtough is spineless and didnt force him to change targets. They both could have done a lot more to force Maguire and McTominay out. It was ETH's decision to give Evans a year contract, no one elses'. His decision to pursue Amrabat for the entire window after wasting £60m on his top target who as it turns out he has no clue how to integrate.
United signing an injured striker, not like us to do that !!
He isn't!
He has shown us nothing since he's joined, he got lucky with rashford having a purple patch, without that last season would've been a complete write off, he got lucky with the draw for the cups, then his luck team out and he's looked lost ever since, incapable of looking at a game and making the correct adjustments instead it looks like he's blind throwing darts at a dart board hoping to hit a triple 20.
United consistently failys on pretty much every footballing barometer relative to the money spent. And thats not even discussing non existent infrastructure improvements.
If you want to focus on managers, go right ahead.
Will we take bets on what will be the reason the next manager fails ?
- Past it ?
- Too inexperienced ?
- Out of their depth ?
- Something else - maybe a sex scandal, we seem to have a few of them
You can say the same thing after every manager at United because the clubs setup to fail.
We should all endeavour to be more like Skills, famed tit of the board.
Giving Ole and Jose 6 odd years between them was absolutely horrendous for this club. I feel those years really fecked the club over and left us with a terrible squad.
We really should have spent the months between Ole and ETH, sorting out a proper sporting structure at the club. It looked like Ralf was going to take on some kind of advisor role, but that went tits up. ETH then came in and has done what every post-Fergie manager has done; added dross to the dross that's already there.
Unless we change how we are run; the next man will likely also add expensive dross to the dross that's already there. So, so much has to change at this club if we ever want to compete at the top table again. ETH probably isn't the man, but feck me, if we sack him now it'll likely be a short term bounce followed by the usual demise when the likes of Rashy and Bruno get fed up again.
It's mind boggling that we've basically played the same painful, directionless football under Jose, Ole, Ralf and ETH. In that period we've literally only had brief spells of looking like a coherent football team.
We really should have spent the months between Ole and ETH, sorting out a proper sporting structure at the club. It looked like Ralf was going to take on some kind of advisor role, but that went tits up. ETH then came in and has done what every post-Fergie manager has done; added dross to the dross that's already there.
Unless we change how we are run; the next man will likely also add expensive dross to the dross that's already there. So, so much has to change at this club if we ever want to compete at the top table again. ETH probably isn't the man, but feck me, if we sack him now it'll likely be a short term bounce followed by the usual demise when the likes of Rashy and Bruno get fed up again.
It's mind boggling that we've basically played the same painful, directionless football under Jose, Ole, Ralf and ETH. In that period we've literally only had brief spells of looking like a coherent football team.
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Yep. He did battle through that period and Rashford broke through the ranks and Martial's form was very good. We finished 5th in the league with a dismal points tally and goals scored but only missed out on top 4 via goal difference because things did pick up for a little while after that nightmare November and December.
Perhaps EtH has to put his faith in the likes of Hannibal and Mainoo? Generally i'm against putting ridiculous expectations on young players but he might have to trust in them at this rate.
If he can’t play good football with the windows he’s had, there’s no evidence to suggest giving him more windows will do anything except make it even worse for the next person coming in
I actually think there were some good patches of decent football last season but it did drop in a level in the final third of the season.
But I also think no manager can get a team playing sexy football with his entire back four out.
Some of you won’t be happy until he’s spent over a billion and still throwing out the same lines. He’s bad enough to get something out of this team, more than most in fact.
Directionless (nice word!) began under Moyes and persists to this day. We only bring in top players due to our checkbook, not the ambition of the club. Woodward and the Glazers made this very clear. It’s we, supporters of the club, are responsible for allowing this decrepit state of the club to persist and I hold my hand up for being a lemming who needs to have a word with himself.
It was a loan deal, so you should just let this Falcao example go, it's a wrong oneUnited signing an injured striker, not like us to do that !!
Okay I probably didn’t make it clear. Some posters have said that all the elite teams sack “underperforming” managers, list out the top clubs, say we should do the same, and, by implication, are putting us in that group.
Once, about 12 years ago, we were in that group. True, nobody thinks we are as good as those teams at the moment and it follows that what works for them won’t necessarily work for us. This is very relevant because our goal is to get back to that level, not to get a new manager bounce every couple of years.
Rashford having a 41 G/A season is now a purple patch, especially after he's had solid output in all of his seasons in his career except 21/22. Complete and utter nonsense, just like the claim that ETH hasn't shown anything at United so far.
Someone who understands tactics explain why he can't play like Ajax here??
I'm guessing he doesn't see some big brand players as flexible enough to be able to play that system. Bruno and Rashford spring to mind.
Or, he believes that style is a more surer way to success in this league.
They also sold 20 players lost both their DoF and chief exec. Any player Ajax had that was worth something has gone the squad is a joke
He doesn’t have the players for it simple as. Ajax players grow up playing technical football not in the Brazilian sense but in the dutch sense where they got a solid foundation of being able to play simple and can controll balls in tight spaces and just move in a fluid manner.
He IS TOO the one! I think…
But I totally agree there’s loads of stuff he does (or doesn’t do) that seems like a mistake. I rarely agree with his selections lately.
And he doesn’t seem to do much on the touch line. I was thinking about this earlier - if he’s not going to do it himself, he needs a Brian Kidd type to bellow instructions from the side like “squeeze up!” and that sort of thing.
Even so, I think he’s between two conflicting demands - overhaul the entire club and win games while he’s doing it. This is why the team looks unbalanced and why we are inconsistent in the way we play and inconsistent in the execution. He is trying to integrate players who can play to his ideal but there are still many who can’t and it’s a bit of a dog’s dinner at times. I think it will get better eventually. I do get annoyed when we’re shit and lose but I seem to be much more patient these days.
I just don't understand why it's at the opposite end of the scale though. Fair enough he cant get that Ajax tactic going here but we generally play some of the worst football in the league, Rashford nicked so many games for us last season it's always a 90 minute slog and the goal difference backs that up even when finishing third.
I'm not claiming to be an expert, far from it actually, but from what I've seen/read so far:
-We didn't have a keeper with the required technical abilities last year, but that's now been sorted with Onana
-Varane and AWB/Dalot not good enough in the build-up
-Martínez and Shaw, our 2 most important build-up & most press-resistant defenders are out with injuries
-We still don't have a ball-carrier #8 that he wanted in De Jong (I think Mainoo can do it even as early as this season, but I'm not gonna say we have that player before he makes a single appearance)
-Rashford not disciplined enough when we don't have possession
-It seems like Antony is our only winger who knows how to position himself and who to press when we don't have possession
-A lot of players are just generally not good enough and are unsuited to the way he played there...most of the squad I'd say
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Well yeah because that squad needed surgery and 3-4 windows to fix.
And I get the whole argument about "look at what Ang did" etc. But he's early doors. We've seen big positive impacts on teams before before a collapse (conte and Jose at spurs, Rodgers at Leicester etc) as well as one or two hits (klopp and pep). So the argument works both ways
At least be accurate in your criticisms, what you originally said wasn't correct.
Do these player look like they are buying into what Ten Hag is asking them to do? Both on the pitch and off it, in terms of his disciplinary methods.
If the answer is no, how is he going to get them on side?
If the answer is no, how is he going to get them on side?
Agreed. Could add that the PL is orders of magnitude more competetive than the Eredevise ie much easier to build something at Ajax than it is to build something from Ole's legacy competing against pep and Klopp.
Also, Casemiro's legs are gone and he is our only quality CDM which makes our midfield and team unbalanced.
Yes that's what a purple patch is in correlation with the years before and currently this season, what ETH showed last season was he couldn't game manage, how often were we backs to the wall in the last 10 to 15 mins, and this season he has demonstrated nothing that would say to he's going to work his way out of this, instead we have all the excuses of injured players, that actually shows how limited he is as a coach that he can't work with anyone but his 1st 11
Yeah last season's success was built on Casemiro playing out of his skin, Rashford scoring a shit ton of goals and Varane/Martinex being a great combo. All that's gone.