This subject seems to be emotive for those who are still in the middle of it. My ride from euphoria at his employment and espousing about the new era we should be entering through the seven layers of despair to being wholly extricated and accepting that he is not the guy, is all documented in this very thread. Ironically, ten Hag is the only post-Fergie appointment I have been fully behind, and perhaps more ironically, I’ve had more to say in denigration for said manager than the others because expectations of him to what he has done are so disappointingly disparate.
There isn’t a single counterpoint that stands up to scrutiny with regards to him - even the slightest deep dive and most points put forward can be used against him. But I’m not Clouseau and I’m not really interested in sticking knives in, but commenting on ongoing issues that never resolve, even with extended prep time, should be the crux of every discussion regarding the tenure. Why? Because by them, and via these most fortunate circumstances, the manager still has a window of opportunity to turn around a ship he’s continually crashed into the proverbial iceberg this season with his litany of errors and plain obstinacy.
You have made the point about the maladies of this season, seemingly not realising that sets ten Hag up for a fall. It is he that did the about face and 180’d his midfield scheme and tactics; it is he who badly navigated preseason, both in terms of prep and readiness for the campaign; it is he who has taken us in a direction that regressed the team and about-faced on the work done in his first season. The buck for what we see comes down to an unworkable system outside of absolute optimisation. It doesn’t matter what it could look like if that time never comes, for whatever reason it does not come; all good managers work with what they have, and more importantly, they optimise it. You don’t trudge through treacle trying to make something into what it is not; you go around that treacle as best you can. Last season, our midfield got by, it wasn’t great, and the sliding scale started once Eriksen’s tank depleted and he could barely complete 60 minutes (after a really sterling start to the season). Casemiro began a slide of his own he didn’t truly recover from and wasn’t great when he got back into midfield post-suspension, but was still serviceable.
What backed the midfield was keeping its positional integrity. Even if it wasn’t firing offensively or defensively as it had done, there was still a shape to it and a challenge issued for opposing teams to get through. It was far from water tight, but that could clearly be put to the personnel - there was no stream of posts bemoaning chasms in midfield or fundamental lack of shape. This season? From the start of preseason, alarm bells were sounded - and it is fully documented - that never waned and, to this day are apparent. The suicidal setup, of ten Hag’s devising, has been a talking point all season. It’s talked about less now because it’s a dull, exhausting conversation most no longer care to entertain anymore. At base ends, it all comes down to how we have been set up to play - a way of playing opposing managers and players are coming out in droves after playing us stating how easy or comprehensively sussed it was, crap teams at that. Bournemouth, Fulham, Copenhagen and so on and so forth, all talking blueprints against us.
You’ve mentioned managers needing time to grow, but what tends to happen for this to be viable is they themselves showing signs of growth, improvement, development and learning from their mistakes. Ten Hag has undone a tonne of his own work and has shown no development or growth when it comes to controlling and containing inferior sides. Sides where our squad, even depleted and injured is a treasure trove of riches by comparison. We have wins under our belt but very few performances anyone wants to put the house on. If we did have those performances, ten Hag would be willed to succeed by many who have since withdrawn support because they see nothing to back, or any reason to back it over someone else who can try and make us greater than the sum of our parts (as we should be). We’re constantly having epic back and forth with really poor sides; there are so many things to pick apart if the interest in breaking down the minutiae was there. My previous post isn’t about any particular manager, rather what they brought to the table. Not one of them was the complete package and every single one of them could be broken down to very distinct pros and cons. I would be genuinely interested in hearing what pros and cons you or anyone else have for ten Hag and what he has done this season, or why, from what you see, things have grounds to become what most us dreamed they would when he first got here. What is it you are backing or what carries that is not based around faith and hope for a different future?
And regarding this squad. Unless it’s ever set up right, how are we supposed to know what it is or is not capable of? Setting up a team to fail and constantly be knee deep in swill gives us next to no insight on what could be.
