There is also Varane, Shaw and McTominay that could be added. None of which I would be in a massive hurry to keep at the moment, and two of which are massively overpaid for what they consistently deliver. Getting the players who are paid far too much for what their output is will be key in resetting the culture at the club and in the dressing room. That they added a year to Lindelof's contract doesn't bode well for me, I think they did the same with Wan Bissaka? I don't see the benefit to the club.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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I know it's big wages but I really like Varane for us. He's so cool and composed, calming at the back and he's stayed a tad fitter than I expected.
If we moved on Lindelof & Maguire, brought in Tosin on a free + say Todibo - we'd have CB choices including Tosin, Todibo, Licha, Varane, (Evans). I suppose we could move on Varane for Branthwaite if Saudi paid good money.
Problem with taking up extra year options is if someone actually fancies buying them, also one year of contract what sort of price would you get for them. Not every team is run as stupidly as ours.
I like him also but like you said, his wages are a massive concern considering he misses a third of the season every season. He really has to play almost every week to be a top earner, and his recent concussion comments have got me very concerned about his state of mind and playing at this level.
But your feelings don't align with logic. Whether we are talking about the fact that we are a team between CL and EL which has nothing to do with being mentally fragile and also because your feelings rely on very different groups of people being particularly irrational.
The correct answer is generally the simplest and most logical. A team that is expected to finish in spots that either lead to being the last team to qualify for the CL or the first team to qualify for the EL, will some years be in the CL and others in the EL. You would need to be in a different tier in order to either be always out of the CL or always out of the EL. And that's due to a combination of the quality of our squad and the quality of our managers, it's not based on either deciding to flick a switch and be good enough managers or players depending on the team's CL status.
I don't dislike him, but he would need to be taking a big pay cut to stay I would have thought. You just can't be giving 300k a week to a player that you can't build around due to fitness issues. His track record is what it is.
I think we are in agreement? There will be no queue of top clubs waiting to pay Lindelof and Wan Bissaka what we are paying them on their current contracts. I see zero chance we are getting fees for them in the summer, hopefully I am proven wrong, but that is my feeling.
No one is paying a decent fee and matching the wages we're paying players that haven't done anything in their entire time here.
Thankfully I missed the 7-0 and have never seen a single goal from the game. I can just pretend it never happened
I’ve forgotten that
I have a man crush on him, so I'm probably not being reasonable
Just from watching the team every week my feeling is that they are mentally fragile, do you not think they could improve in that regard? My feeling on their mental fragility definitely aligns with logic to me. Even in the games that we win there are moments of total lack of composure and collapses. Of course it isn't the only reason why we are where we are, but a team isn't going to get proper consistency of performance without being more robust in mentality and character.
There are likely tens and tens of factors that are leading to the underperformance this season. I am not saying that it is purely down to one thing or the other, just mentioning things that will need to be improved upon if we are to get back to being a top performing team. Just as changing manager won't turn us into a proper team overnight either.
But like with @sugar_kane says, changing multiple things at once doesn't really help you find the real issue. City went through loads of iterations though Mancini, Pellegrini and then pep went through signing a load of players to get the right ones. There were always jokes on the defence spending of City was bigger than that of the DRC.
Think a lot are confidence players and that is where good man management comes in.
That is where the charges come in isn't it, boosting the sponsorship deals falsely to boost spending power. Us it is we had the spending power just no structure to spend it wisely. The won the title under Mancini didn't they. We had started to go off the rails by then. The spending after the Ronaldo sale apart from RVP was criminal.
Absolutely, I wouldn't want to have confidence players on 300k a week though. When you are at that level of salary it should be because you are giving reliable and consistent outputs, and you can dig yourself out of confidence slumps quickly enough. Obviously I would want more from the manager in that regard too though.
Agree with that. You pay 300k to strong characters not ones who slightest drop in form they go to pieces.
Yep, I don't think anyone can argue we've wasted a hell of a lot of time not getting this structure in place. We are where we are now though and are starting for 3 steps back because we failed to address it. Ten Hag could be our Mancini or Pellegrini and we find the next manager who could be the Pep for us. He could end up being the long term manager too, but I think we have to at least give him until the end of his contract.
I would only keep him on massively reduced wages. I think he'll opt for semi retirement in Saudi on mega money.
If they were mentally fragile, then no I don't think that you could improve in that regard. And if they were mentally fragile, they wouldn't be a top half PL team, professional Footballers(or any professional athletes) aren't mentally fragile even the ones that at some point may have issues such as Deisler or Enke who are extreme examples, these people aren't mentally fragile, they push themselves beyond stress, injuries, fatigue and fierce competition from teenage as amateurs to the top of their sport.
What I do see is a team that compared to better teams lacks elite technique and elite athleticism, I also see managers that lacks elite tactical and coaching nous. That's why I agree with anyone suggesting that we need to improve the squad where I disagree is with the idea that clearly deficient managers should be excused for illogical reasons or talking about players being lazy or mentally fragile.
I have for years said that our current most important players aren't good enough and put a glass ceiling on this club, those players are Bruno and Rashford, this season I would add Casemiro and Shaw(because he can't stay on the field). But my issue with the manager is that his setup and coaching see us perform like the 10th best team instead of performing like the 5th best team and that's not excusable.
Of course "mental fragility" is relative, I hope you didn't think that I was comparing these elite atheltes with the mentality of the average pub team player. I believe a lot of them mentality fragile when compared with other teams who are competing for top honours to be clear.
I don't disagree with your post anyway. So much at the club needs fixing.
The issue is the simple fact that you keep putting it at the top of your list, even if it was relative. But I'm willing to accept after you answered these questions, do you think that our squad is technically and athletically equal to the best teams in the league and the CL? Do you think that our manager is of the same caliber than current elite managers?
Only at United would we have this bizarre situation where we say that the best players are the problem. If we got to a position where we had a CF who scored 25 goals a season and a RW who contributed 30+ GA, had two fullbacks of Shaw’s quality who could stay fit, a Rodri level DM and world class CBs, do you honestly think having Rashford in the side would somehow create a “glass ceiling”?
I’m absolutely convinced that if we got a sensible structure and the correct level of player around him then Rashford would not be “a problem”. I’m less keen on Bruno as a player but he’s also shown that he can do a job when given a more defined role and for Portugal. As such, I’d definitely fix the manager first before making any decision on either.
I don't think I have made a list, let alone put it at the top of the list. Definitely think it is something worth mentioning though.
Technical and athletic level - The squad is miles off the clubs competing at the top, in this regard. Needs an overhaul.
Manager of same calibre as current elite managers - He certainly hasn't shown it this season, if he is.
If you want a really wild ride, read your first 5-10 posts in this thread and your last 5-10. It’s like bunnies in meadows into a post-apocalyptic Mad Max wasteland of misery.
1:20 onwards exactly the same response as Ten Hag.
So if Klopp (who I think we all reluctantly agree knows what he’s doing) suggests that is what has to happen….. maybe…. Just maybe…. Ten Hag might know a thing or two if he’s saying the same sorts of things.
Not really sure what this argument is? Rashford is our most senior and well paid player, we can't create a squad you're talking about with him on 350k a week. What are we saying will bring out the best in Rashford? If we have a Henderson style CM player who does all the running covers for him? A full back that covers the whole flank as well so he doesn't have to track back? Rashford has just lost his opportunity to have the team built around him to be honest.
We could move the manager on as well for all I care, but betting on us becoming a top team with Rashford just seems just as dumb as blindly backing Ten Hag.
You can’t take anything I say seriously because I’m honest about a slight bias I have to him? I’d argue a lot of people are dishonest/ disingenuous / oblivious about their own biases and objectivity (or lack of) and come in here to vent rather than discuss.
One thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that even if I absolutely detest a persons view or disagree with them, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have valid points or that I can’t learn something from them.
I think by making an honest disclosure about a bias , what I say is something people can trust is an authentic position that’s had some elements of self reflection , even if they disagree with it.
With regards to your “all positions should be from a position of objectivity” comment, I don’t agree at all with this statement. Being objective, by definition , includes admitting one’s bias. Everybody has some sort of bias in these discussions, the only question is to what degree.
People not admitting certain bias’s does not mean they are more likely to be objective. Id argue the opposite, that most people don’t make any meaningful reflection on a position on the manager outside of how they feel about it and the select information that they want to promote.
Just to elaborate, I have a soft spot for him because I think our club has been a basket case and the massive spending (thats been a stick to beat managers with) has basically been a human shield to the glazers/woodward. I also think you can see what one or two years of a sh*t system (and massive money thrown at the problem) under Chelsea can do, we have had a decade of it and I dont expect a manager to be able to fix it that quickly. I mean when Boehly took over, chelsea were at least in as good as position as us and he has spent two or three times what we have spent in the same time and things have been worse for them!
And elaborating on elaboration, I tend to try and explain my position as clearly as I can. Some people interpret it as "trying to change their mind" which is not something I am trying to do. I just want my position to be heard and clear.
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I am inclined to agree as some think it will all just fall into place next season. He will be in the last year of his contract. If it works then great, if not he has had a chance and it likely won't be any worse than it is now, but we have things in place and know exactly who we want as manager, no kneejerk appointment and have been discussing who to sign with that manager who he wants and wants rid of. If it works for ETH then we can sign further players to make his squad complete.
Best case scenario for the season is a van Gaal end. FA Cup win and P45 the same day.
It depends who they are thinking of as manager. Potter would bring a coaching structure, but can he handle the pressure of Manchester United and big egos, although he would be well supported by the structure round him. Southgate can handle the egos, but has not shown much at club level management, was that inexperience. However until after this Euros we do not know if he has learnt to deal with expectations.
https://www.skysports.com/football/...ont-train-too-hard-amid-ongoing-injury-crisis
Some good stats on injuries in the article. With all the injury talk, you would think United and Newcastle would be massive outliers but it doesn't seem to be the case for us.
Some good stats on injuries in the article. With all the injury talk, you would think United and Newcastle would be massive outliers but it doesn't seem to be the case for us.
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Ohh prescient! I feel the euphoria slowly but surely changing to degrees of despair for most, quite saddening. He really did come here with huge backing from the vast majority of fans.
I don't really know about that. It could easily get much worse.
We are currently 6th and will most likely still be able to secure European football at the end of season thanks to numerous wins we got despite not deserving them. Our expected points based on performances would actually have us around 12th or 13th, which I also would agree is the level we have been playing at throughout the season.
What could quite realistically happen next season is that our luck in games will run out and we will regress back to where our performances should normally see us. There's nothing in our performances over the last 12 months that indicates we are likely to get better and be closer to top 3 teams than we currently are.
We do write off seasons very easily here though, and have been acceptant of mediocrity for a long time, so fully expecting ETH to get at least 1, if not 2 more 'free pass' seasons before we make any moves. We are the only big club in Europe that genuinely considers it completely fine to have horrible full seasons. Other big clubs usually call for change after 2-3 months of below par performances. Imagine Real, Bayern or Barcelona being OK with where we are.
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That's not just United. It's not uncommon for decent and sometimes very good teams to have an issue with their best players when they want to reach a higher tier, examples of that would be Ozil for Arsenal, Van Nistelrooy for United, Coutinho for Liverpool, there are players like Mario Gomez who was statistically good but was also an issue for Bayern, there is also Ibrahimovic for nearly all the teams he played for, for a long time he would essentially take too much space in your attack which is a limitation against the best teams. Many players are either not a good fit outside of very specific contexts or are soloist, they will perform at a high level individually but don't contribute to any sort of synergy and at the highest level synergy is essential.
Yep. Could easily see us having a Chelsea-tier season if he stays.
I would worry if we get rid of him now, then we might still under perform next season even with a new manager anyway and some will not be happy. Doubt they can get rid of all the players in one go and get all the needed players in, so it will still be a bit sketchy. The only thing would be if we can actually see what a manager is trying to do.
Have you watched those games? I watched one of them and he is spot on.
We have not been better this season than many of the teams that are currently below us but have got many, many wins in tight games. We have 15 wins and all but 3 of them were by a single goal. We've barely dropped any points in tight games - all three of our draws we were the inferior side and should have lost (Spurs, Liverpool, Brentford), and most of our 11 defeats were very well deserved..
I don't really know about that. It could easily get much worse.
We are currently 6th and will most likely still be able to secure European football at the end of season thanks to numerous wins we got despite not deserving them. Our expected points based on performances would actually have us around 12th or 13th, which I also would agree is the level we have been playing at throughout the season.
What could quite realistically happen next season is that our luck in games will run out and we will regress back to where our performances should normally see us. There's nothing in our performances over the last 12 months that indicates we are likely to get better and be closer to top 3 teams than we currently are.
We do write off seasons very easily here though, and have been acceptant of mediocrity for a long time, so fully expecting ETH to get at least 1, if not 2 more 'free pass' seasons before we make any moves. We are the only big club in Europe that genuinely considers it completely fine to have horrible full seasons. Other big clubs usually call for change after 2-3 months of below par performances. Imagine Real, Bayern or Barcelona being OK with where we are.
Isn't this one of them strawman fallacies?
And actually undermine your own pov: how come Ten Hag doesn't get praise for despite all the trouble, mixed performances, he still manages us to look good, view on CL and much, much better than Chelsea and second coming Howe and his magic Newcastle band? Indeed, we should have beend P12 orso, but we ain't.
How many times didn't we (me included) write ETH's eulogy when he managed to get a good if not spectacular good performance out of the hat? Why can't he get some slack for that? Just look at what a bad run Arteta had with Arsenal had, with much more bad games and results in a row. As it is, Ten Hag's worst run is 2 losses in a row.
Really, take down ETH when he indeed gets us a P10 endresult but at the moment, by your metric, wash his car. Kiss the ring. And tonight if you are at the game, praise and back him and the team.
It could go either way, we don't know. We've seen managers join top clubs and make immediate impact and we have seen managers come to big clubs and struggle from the get go. Villa finished 14th in 21-22, fired Gerrard in late October 2022 when they were flirting with relegation and even within last season were able to pull themselves up to 7th, they are going for Champions League spot and are likely to finish with more than 70 points.
They could have very well kept Gerrard, allowed him to get more players, work under different structure or whatever excuse they could have come up with at the time but instead they just fired him and went for the best manager available. Meanwhile we are telling ourselves it's fine to be horrible, it can't get any better and we can just write off another year.