Sorry my bad. I mean Madrid.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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That's just Ajax being Ajax, they always lose their best players. That hardly makes this any better.
Do you think tactically if we were to provide him with more technical players e.g. a De Jong type midfielder, better technical fullbacks, a better striker and 1 or 2 more technical wingers, that tactically he would be able to pull of what he is trying to implement from a tactical perspective? e.g. the two 8s pushed up etc.
My view is he has shown tactically in previous roles as well as the first season that he cleary has something about him. After all he was able to have a successful first season depsite having to abandon the way he truly wanted to play due to the players ability. This season it seems he thought it was time to go back to what he wanted to originally implement and the injury crisis pretty much scuppered that (and yes you can point to the first couple games and say we were still not looking good). However I feel like if you do recruit in the right players to this tactic it could be successful. After all it really is not that much different in terms of positions, rotations to what he played at Ajax, I think the key difference is its lacking in a few areas mainly technical fullbacks, a De Jong type midfielder and better attackers.
It didn't even happen the way he suggested. The season after Ajax lost these players, they didn't make it past the group stage. The poster is talking about the 21/22 season where they topped a group with Sporting, Dortmund and Besiktas and got knocked out to Benfica in RO16. Not sure what miraculous talents of ETH we're supposed to infer from that.
"Worse" in what sense?
That was a good group campaign from Ajax but pretty meaningless when they just went out to Benfica in the very next round.
Di Matteo is really the only questionable coach to have won CL in the last two decades. Rijkaard too, maybe, but he was actually great at Barca for a short period of time. Flick maaaybe the last one not at a truly elite level. Otherwise it's pretty much exclusively elite coaches:
Ancelotti, Mourinho, Pep, Fergie, Heycknes, Luis Enrique, Zidane, Klopp, Tuchel (I might be missing one or two).
The only one I can think of who you missed is Rafa Benitez, im not sure which bracket you would put him in though since he has had so many different jobs at so many different levels.
05-09 Benitez was definitely elite. He took them to the latter stages of CL regularly.
That whole decade arguably. He did a fantastic job at Valencia - two league titles IIRC.
I think the point here should be that over the last 20 years there have been quite a few managers that once made CL semifinals with teams who are normally not expected to reach CL latter stages, and most of them either did nothing at all or too little at a higher level afterwards (at least yet for some) to be considered elite (Irureta, Poch, Pellegrini, Puel, Magath/Rangnik, Jardim, Eusebio di Francesco, Nagelsmann, Rudi Garcia, Unai Emery) or only succeeded at national level but again did not have any notable successes at club level after that (Hiddink, Deschamps).
Jose, Klopp, Simeone also did that and are/were elite managers, but they all actually reached finals or won the whole thing.
This is not to take away from EtH CV before joining us - it was defined good enough to argue that he deserved a chance at a higher level. But it was not particularly rare/remarkable/stellar, nothing like Sir Alex at Aberdeen or Jose before going to Chelsea or Klopp/Simeone of more recent time.
Jose, Klopp, Simeone also did that and are/were elite managers, but they all actually reached finals or won the whole thing.
This is not to take away from EtH CV before joining us - it was defined good enough to argue that he deserved a chance at a higher level. But it was not particularly rare/remarkable/stellar, nothing like Sir Alex at Aberdeen or Jose before going to Chelsea or Klopp/Simeone of more recent time.
Benitez was top class during that era. Fell down a tier after 2010 and another couple of tiers later on but 2005 Benitez was one of the best coaches in the world.
Yeah getting someone from our City rivals tells me that they see no one as unobtainable
He's got much more talent to work with here than he did at Ajax. Its just bluster and excuses. We weren't even that good to watch last season and we had some horror shows even then. He will obviously see an improvement with better players, that's just true of any team, but he's not taking us where we want to be. Ratcliffe isn't investing billions to allow Ten Hag to have a go on the off chance he might have been a secret genius lurking in Eredivisie at the age of 52.
I feel it's pointless when we have to talk about 6 new first team players on top of 400 million spent just to get us out of mid table mediocrity. If he's so far away from having the personnel to play the way he wants then he shouldn't be using these tactics. If he's that inflexible then we should be looking elsewhere either way. We can't fall apart completely every time when we get injuries or not get certain players.
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The second half of the season will be a good time to judge him, he’s looking like he’ll have a fit squad of players going into it, so the excuse he’s having to chop and change regularly will hopefully be gone.
He’s just had a few weeks of barely any football to drill the players of what he expects, there shouldn’t be any misunderstanding of what we should be doing on the pitch in the next few games.
The FA Cup game will be different but seeing how we perform against Wolves, West Ham and Aston Villa will be interesting.
He’s just had a few weeks of barely any football to drill the players of what he expects, there shouldn’t be any misunderstanding of what we should be doing on the pitch in the next few games.
The FA Cup game will be different but seeing how we perform against Wolves, West Ham and Aston Villa will be interesting.
Since Eriksen got injured we’ve been horrific. 2023 was a horrible year in the PL.
Please INEOS. I’m on my knees for him. De Zerbis football is electric. The way they dominated Arsenal at Emirates and Utd at Old TraffordI think they'll go for someone relatively young, charismatic , hugely ambitious and who's philosophy on the game will align with theirs, while being comfortable in this potential set-up and may have history in the PL already.
Wow, these same posts. What happened last season or pre season? When he also had a fit squad and weeks to drill the players. What you think happens in regular training? We are utterly lost and shapeless playing terrible football. People defend his comical and badly drilled high press and some kind of defined 'style of play'. We never control matches, its literal chaos. Come off it. Maybe he will surprise it but I just cant see it.
There is a difference between talent and suitability for a tactic. If you take the squad that he inherited and compared it to his best squad at Ajax, the United squad was worth more, had more stars etc but I don't think anyone said that he would be able to play how he played at Ajax or better than that with that United squad he inherited... so clearly "having better players" is not the be all and end all. We have many players worth more than Ten Hag's Ajax players but that doesn't mean they are suited for the way he wants to play. Hell AWB was worth more than half or more of those Ajax players yet no one is going to say he's an ideal player for possession/Ajax style football. This is also why for me the calls to get in De Zerbi or Potter are strange at this point, with this current squad and the injuries they have suffered, is it likely or unlikely that De Zerbi or Potter will be able to implement the Brighton way of playing? I think we all know that when you are forced to play the likes of Evans, Maguire, AWB, Mct etc for the majority of the first half of the season then its pretty unlikely. Even more so for Potter who I think highlights the point that its not just about how much the players you have are worth. For what its worth when Ten Hag had Martinez, Casemiro, Antony fit we finished 3rd and with a trophy. So even for me the "all ten hags signings have been crap" argument is flawed based on last season and this season most of his signings have been injured. The percentage of Ten Hag signings who have been successful relative to their role in the team is probably no different to most managers.
Then you might say well another manager would be more practical and get us top 4. If thats the case then there's no point bringing in a De Zerbi or Potter as you don't bring them in to be practical, you get a Jose in for that. Adding to that Ten Hag was practical last season and had a very successful season in relation to initial expectations. But at somepoint if your plan is to completely change the way the club plays, its ethos etc you have to commit which I think Ten Hag has done this season. He's been unlucky and yeah there are some things like the pressing he needs to sort out. However, I think if we get him more technical fullbacks (which we know we need at least on the right), a midfielder in the mould of the player he clearly wanted in De Jong and few upgrades I think his tactics can work. Would I be distraught if Ineos sack him end of season, not really, but I'd be fine if they backed him and gave him a further season. There is clearly a lot of crap throughout the club that needs to be sorted and for me Ten Hag is way down the list of that.
This has been the most relaxing week of the season and I havent missed watching United.
As far as I am concerned, ETH is now in his second chance period where we need to see progressive improvement as players come back fit. Players back from injury will need games to get fully fit and we want to see a consistent starting lineup with few changes. But if by mid March we are still playing poorly and losing I think it gets very hard to defend his position. The Man City game at start of March could be the game that could be the defining one in the end.
As far as I am concerned, ETH is now in his second chance period where we need to see progressive improvement as players come back fit. Players back from injury will need games to get fully fit and we want to see a consistent starting lineup with few changes. But if by mid March we are still playing poorly and losing I think it gets very hard to defend his position. The Man City game at start of March could be the game that could be the defining one in the end.
For a good manager it mostly should be. You can't gamble with club's short term and long term future by going all in with transfers that one particular manager needs in order to play his way. Especially when that manager has been a complete failure so far in implementing said style. Say we spend another 400 million on his signings and this tactic of his doesn't turn out to be success, then what? He has already been backed more than any other manager post SAF.
And then followed up with crashing out in the next round in a very disappointing performance vs Benfica?
Why are these tedious threads ongoing, and why are you guys still defending the Pep Guardiola is my idol. 'suitability for a tactic'. We have a squad full of seasoned internationals and ETH has now signed a good chunk of them. We were poor for a good part of H2 last season, suffered some terrible defeats and have been poor. People still banging on about Ajax in Europe might reflect on how many of those players have fared afterwards, not many successes after big moves. we lost to Galatasaray who had a good group stage but how many of their players would we want? its pathetic the levels some will stoop. Are you a United fan or an ETH fan. What tactics are you on about, we have seen none from him. Look at Brighton, Brentford etc who play good football with fraction of our budgets
Yeah, I think the argument kind of falls flat on its head because -- I'm sure if you provide many managers with more tactical players they would do a lot better. That's my biggest problem.
We've reached a point where I just think there's too many fundamental flaws in ten Hag's approach and tactical make-up that cannot be excused away by anything other than him just not quite being up to the quality needed for this league. We play a giant chasm that some would define as a midfield every single game, we concede the same cutback near enough every single game, and our chance creation stats and attackers appear to have regressed from last season.
It really does beg the question -- where is any sort of optimism still held for this manager?
Its quite clear Ten Hag has a tactical approach, those saying he doesn't are being disingenuous. Whether the tactics are right/ideal for this group of players I'm more than happy to debate but lets not pretend that there are not clear patterns to how the team setups, tries to pass out from the back, press etc. My issue with the tactics is that I feel they require the players to be very comfortable taking the ball under pressure, making right decisions and the whole team functioning in unison which its clearly not at the moment. Whether that's due to the injuries, personnel or his coaching again im happy to debate. Yet regardless of who you hire there will.be constants in this team that aren't going to change. Rashford is not suddenly going to become a great presser, Bruno isn't going to reign in his risky passing, Varane, awb, mct aren't going to become comfortable on the ball.
Now the doubts you have are perfectly fine and if you believe Ten Hag is a crap manager then fair enough. However do you think De Zerbi or Potter would get this current team playing Brighton style football this season with all the issues Ten Hag has had? Not practical football but Brighton football?
Agreed, its insane. We all want the club to succeed, I was optimistic when he joined even though the number of red flags grew. The first and to my mind biggest was refusing to meet Rangnick. If you want to learn and succeed why would you not speak to him. It spoke of gross arrogance and overconfidence, and he has been found out. Some seem to think it makes them super fans or more dedicated. The cult of the manager is weird. There will never be another Fergie. Get over it
Lets also not forget the players Rangnick recommended. As well as Haaland, we could have gone for Enzo, Alvarez, Luis Diaz, Morata, Gvardiol, Nkunku, and Konrad Laimer. Other than Haaland, these were all probably obtainable, several are now at City, others at Liverpool, one at Chelsea, one at Bayern. Imagine if ETH had gone for some of these players instead of Antony and all the rest from the Dutch league.
Benitez is a top manager and better than ETH. The guy actually has more than one plan per game and is able to react and adapt his tactics mid-game.
We're getting most of our injured players back, and with generally only one match a week for the rest of the season it gives a lot more time on the training field to actually get his ideas through.
I don't expect us to suddenly look amazing or anything, but things are set up for a decent improvement. On the flip side, if that improvement doesn't happen then it's a very bad look for both him and the players.
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'get his ideas through'. Really which ideas? He's said we cant play like Ajax, though other than one great season not sure they were that good and played in a poor league. he's been here for 18 months, how much longer does he need? We had close to zero injuries at start of season and yet were awful.
I hope we do improve as we cant get much worse. But unless its dramatic he still deserves to go. Its about performance not results in my view, I would rather exciting football and lose than dull draws or undeserved wins. Its also his signings that have set us back several years.
We've not played a game in what feels like an age, and the second half of the season is not far off now, but there's hardly any enthusiasm or belief nor anticipation for the return of matches.
It's tragic and should never be allowed to happen at a club that believes itself to be a giant.
Don't know where others stand, but for me this is a really pained procession toward the gallows for him and there's next to nothing to look forward to in the interim.
If he turns it around from here, it'll be the biggest shock I've had in all the campaigns post-Fergie. Belief in him is almost zero.
It's tragic and should never be allowed to happen at a club that believes itself to be a giant.
Don't know where others stand, but for me this is a really pained procession toward the gallows for him and there's next to nothing to look forward to in the interim.
If he turns it around from here, it'll be the biggest shock I've had in all the campaigns post-Fergie. Belief in him is almost zero.
Think the only thing saving him is just how dry the managerial market is. Outside of Pep and Klopp, there's no managers that really stick out as "sure thing". The next tier down is people like Ancelotti, Allegri, Simeone and Tuchel but most of them are taken, maybe Zidane or Conte could be tempted but neither feel like the right fit for the state the squad is in and Conte's a headcase. Then below them you have your Emerys, Naglesmanns and Pochettinos, very good managers with an obvious ceiling which is below what we're actually after, again, most of these are taken.
We could take a risk on an "up and comer" who have a decent record but haven't been tested at the top level, but that's essentially what we've done with Ten Hag. De Zerbi, maybe? Although I'm not wholly convinced his reputation last season wasn't inflated by the excellent foundations Potter left at Brighton. Potter himself? Though he's already been at a big club in similar dire straights to us and failed to steady the ship.
I get what you are saying but I honestly don't believe for a second that our squad isn't capable of playing as good or better football than Ajax did. In my opinion, even as a critic of Ole, we played some very good football under him in the first 10 games or so, and have invested significantly in the squad and brought in players with a high pedigree in some positions too. Ajax were a dominant possession team before he took over there and he inherited that, whilst he brought the quick transitional play that they relied upon against bigger teams in their CL run. I think people will use the excuse of our squad not being the same as Ajax's, and therefore unsuitable for his style of play, unless we signed that whole Ajax squad. Other managers implement their style quickly at new clubs - with the backing he has had there are absolutely no excuses really.
With regards to your comment about De Zerbi and our injuries, he has had a Brighton team that has lost it's best players and been injury riddled all season, playing his football. No matter the 11, the signs are there. He can play James Milner, Danny Welbeck, Lallana and the style is still there. If we had to play those three and others then you would be here telling us that Ten Hag can't play good football with players like this. On the flip side, give De Zerbi some of our underperforming players and I bet they would shine.
Last season there were 3 signings which did well in Casemiro, Martinez and Eriksen. We all knew the issues with Casemiro though and, for those that were being honest, his form was still flaky last season. But he's an older midfielder who has insufficient mobility to perform the role he is now tasked with. Even in a double pivot, albeit with Eriksen, he struggled. Eriksen again had issues last season as he was a defensive liability but at least covered areas and helped Casemiro and the defence that way. So that's 2/3 that really had question marks over them even last season. It is all well documented and discussed to death in the threads on here last season. We saw these issues, Ten Hag didn't and actually compounded the issue by plonking Casemiro in midfield on his own and signing Mount. Martinez is the one signing I can say has been a success - but his performances early on this season did give cause for concern.
Yes and? Benfica is a good team, we got Mourinho’d by them.
At no point in my post did I defend ETH, I’m merely saying that he’ll run out of excuses with a nearly fit squad which we appear to have for the upcoming games.
I agree that we look nothing like a Top 4 PL side, not even Top 10 at times, the football is horrendous and there is no obvious style we are trying to implement.
He’ll not be sacked though unless we go on a long losing streak and fans get on his back. I expect he’ll see the season out due to the lack of other options and change to ownership on the footballing side. He’s not the first thing they’ll want sorting at the club.
When we play out the back, it looks like it is like pulling teeth for our players; they are not comfortable doing it. They cannot play like Ajax. I guess you can’t make up in 18 months what took ten years to learn at Ajax, where they learn to play like this from the beginning.
Saying we can play like Ajax with these players is bonkers imo.
Last season we were pragmatic, but it stopped working after the League cup win. Why?
This season we started over with a new philosophy and it is going to take time apparently, with this group of players.
I would be way more critical of Ten Hag if I had not seen this happen three times already in the last ten years.
His ideas are sound I believe: he wants to create transitions by skipping the midfield and having numbers up front. Where we fail is in playing through the press consistently and decision making in defence. Amd scoring goals. Feck me, basically everything.
Tough situation: are we going to abandon these tactics and try something more comfortable for the players, or persist? The easiest way out is getting a new manager.
I think if you stubbornly stick to something that plainly doesn't work and doubly so with players that don't fit the system or if you have key players injured then you're not actually very good.
Plus having zero flexibility to change things in game.
Ten Hag is awful for being stubborn and thus awful for flexibility.
Pragmatism, thinking on your feet, using the players you have to your advantage, etc all make a good manager and he can't do that.
And you know what, you make very good points regarding De Zerbi which is one of the points its hard to argue against. My view is its very difficult to compare jobs at different clubs. You have managers that look great at one club, then not so great at another, same with players. I believe a lot of the success of a manager depends on factors like the players he has at his disposal, how well he is supported etc. There are very few managers who you can take from one club, plop them down in another and then they replicate the success. Whether they are a Jose or Potter. So yes De Zerbi has handled injuries etc very well at Brighton, however if you had to ask me would he get Rashford tracking back and pressing, Mct, Awb playing Brighton style footie etc I'd lean more into its unlikely. Also not saying Potter is better or worse than De Zerbi but we have a very recent example of a Brighton manager going to a big club. Also that's not me saying Ten Hag should never be sacked, I just think 1) whilst Ten Hag is underperforming there are also factors here that I think will make any manager under perform 2) bringing a De Zerbi into the situation we have now would likely yeild the same results.
The signings are also a good example of what a manager at United has to work with. Ten Hag wanted Martinez we got him and he's a good signing. He said he wanted Antony, the club said internally we'd not pay more than 50mil Murtough then pays crazy money for him. Ten Hag wants De Jong in the end he gets offered Casemiro at the last minute, a completely different profile of player. Yet even with that last season objectively was a good season, with decent football in the first half, some very good football like against Barca and then poor football as the team got tired.
I can agree with you without absolving ETH of his mistakes. I even argued elsewhere, before INEOS got involved, that there are two paths we can follow. Either appoint a manager who values purposeful possession of the ball and positional play as a means to win football matches, or fully embrace the fact that we're nothing more than a counter-attacking side and act accordingly. In the first case, the managerial appointment should be the direct consequence of a conscious decision to pick up the scissors and the scalpels and, within a certain timeframe, have a squad that will look almost unrecognizable. Otherwise, you take your pick of the currently available top-in-their-class counter-attacking managers (Conte, for example, can come to OT right now) with the hope that they will be able to succeed where both Mourinho and Solskjaer failed. And that is to add a bit of nuance to the one and only trick we have up our sleeves. Sit back, stay compact, put two defensive midfielders behind the sole creator and hope for the best.
People can say that there's not only one way to win titles. I'd argue that it's impossible to win any major honours, if you have only one way to play well. Because we are not even a good transition side, and we have never been one in the last decade. Liverpool are a good transition team. City are, too, when the situation demands it. We are, as described by Pep since he joined City, purely a counter-attacking side. The difference is that Mourinho did it by choice. Both Solskjaer and ETH (and RR for the short while he was here) wanted to implement a high intensity game, but eventually bowed down to the wants and the needs of the squad they inherited. Solskajer completely toed the line after the nightmarish end to his initial six months at the club, and managed to keep this train going until he ran out of short-term solutions. ETH's first season was similar. Scared to death after the opening fixtures, then went back to what his most productive players are familiar with. Just like Solskjaer and Mourinho, the results were OK at first, but there was little nuance to the way we play. Therefore, what we thought was a promising start, was a ceiling. Is it a manager thing? Is it the main players? It's a bit of both. Personally, i would describe us (since the Mourinho appointment) as a glorified WHU. All the money, all the glamour and posturing to cover this simple truth with a bit of stardust.
So, if we think that someone like Conte or Simeone would beat Klopp and Pep in a 90+ race with a few tweaks, bring them in. Otherwise, the road is long and filled with obstacles.