They don’t. Stevie G had the largely same squad in relegation zone and Conte had largely the same squad playing horrible football.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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Thats not relevant to my statement though.
VdV Udogie Porto and Romero (bit of a random order apologies) is a better back 4.
Bentacur is better than most of our midfielders, and although Bissouma has had a torrid second half of the season he's still comfortably better than Casemiro this season. Maddison is about par with Bruno whilst Son is 2x better than anything we have. I prefer Garnacho over Kulu or Johnson, but it doesn't take away my general point that their starting XI is better.
Villa now have overlays with Diego Carlos, Pau Torres, Diaby, Tielemans etc. That have also helped Emery transcend the team.
Maguire and Wan Bissaka aren't even first choice if everyone is fit. Rashford has scored 20-30 goals in 3 of the last 4 seasons, yes he's inconsistent. Garnacho wouldn't be playing every week if the clusterfeck that is our £160m right wing of Antony and Sancho didn't happen.
Spurs and Villa don't have better squads. They have better managers who are getting the best out of those squads this season. We have the opposite.
But weren't discussing winning trophies, we're talking about finishing in the top 4. Were we not?
You say this squad isn't good enough to finish above 5th to 9th. Yet it came 3rd 12 months ago.
Agreed, no one would have picked Spurs to qualify for the CL this season after finishing 8th last year and then losing 60% of their goals in Kane.
Honestly, so much shit being posted just to avoid the elephant in the room...
Not gone yet?
Dissapointing.
Dissapointing.
Hang on, I effectively mirrored the tone you took towards people that want ten Hag out. "make it make sense" = "bizarre".
But ten Hag was manager last season too and up to February we played some very good football and were pretty entertaining too at times. You can’t just pick and choose which bits to concentrate on, you have to take an overview.
Yeah while we don't have a title winning squad, the way our current manager asks them to play is making a lot of these players look much worse than they are this season.
I distinctly remember most fans complaining about his lack of incisive actions when it came to substitutions last year.
He pretty much played our strongest side in every fixture last year too.
His squad management has been lacking.
Also, you aren't "just stating facts". There's absolutely nothing factual about the premise that ten Hag is developing a positive style of play. I'm not trying to be a dick, but surely you can see where the pushback comes from wrt. the idea that we're actually progressing in terms of identity and playstyle?
Agree, but you must consider the circumstances. (Injuries/new players/off field/sale etc…)
Erik’s had one good season and one bad season, so I’d give him next season as the decider. I really don’t think he has become terrible overnight.
This season they haven't though. I think this season we've had to rely on Maguire and Lindelof/AWB for starting players at CB and LB. Im not looking for whys here just pointing out the fact that the starting XI for us this season has generally been lesser than the teams above us.
Nope. I contracted the playing styles under two manager, neither of which have been good enough for the Caf. I then pointed out the hypocrisy of coveting counterattacking football given my first statement. It literally doesn’t make sense.
Don’t be so defensive! You are allowed an opinion as am I.
Well have folk not been claiming that last season he was being much more pragmatic and made compromises on his preferred style? And that this season is the season he's tried to fully implement a new style of play?
And if we do look at both seasons together and try to plot out a trajectory, then we've actually gone backwards. Not just in results but performances and any semblance of a style or structure actually being implemented.
To be completely honest when you look at both seasons, there's a very good case to be made that our good football/results/form up until around January/February was nothing more than a new manager bounce.
Just shows what a good coach can do, getting those players that looked lost last season (Porro, Romero) into a cohesive attacking unit.
Carlos, Diaby and Tielemans have hardly played. Emery has done wonders with the same group of players Slippy G had. @FootballHQ would you agree?
Park the coach, both teams have had very good players for their style (which relies on a high line and a cohesive press).
VdV is effectively a cheat code, and Udogie is very well balanced. Porro was starting to find his form since last season.
Villa similarly have a very good starting XI. Steven Gerrard being shite as a coach is not relevant to that observation.
Superb post.
They are probably waiting for the Champions League clause to kick in to make it official. This is the only explanation I can come up with. But he is 100% gone, even before June. I'm dead certain of that.
I just hope it's not Potter or Southgate that are coming in.
NagelsmanThey are probably waiting for the Champions League clause to kick in to make it official. This is the only explanation I can come up with. But he is 100% gone, even before June. I'm dead certain of that.
I just hope it's not Potter or Southgate that are coming in.
Motta
Potter
In that order for me, I dont mind Potter at all tbh.
Because of injuries obviously. Right so you're rating players very much in the here and now. I'm talking about where this squad could finish under a more structured style of play that suits these players.
Yep perfect manager for them as they all wanted to learn and improve compared to many of the squad he had at PSG and Arsenal who'd seen better times.
Watching McGinn yesterday he's improved so much from being the typical all action British midfielder who'd be up and down the pitch but would be rash with passes and give the ball away too much. Barely wasted a pass in the second half yesterday so a great captain's performance.
It's actually baffling or hilarious how badly the team are coached. Give me Ole back over this shit
How many times can we do that though?
We've already done that under Ten Hag since the summer of 2022. We only have 10-11 players left who played under Ole.
Yeah I mean from the availability this season, we don't have players that can break top 4. It points to poor squad building more than anything else.
Chemistry teacher
I am the one who knocks
Wouldn't be surprised if it was a couple months into next season either, the problem is who to replace him with. Either way his days are numbered.
So across two summer transfer windows under ETH we've spent over 450m pounds (net spend around -350m pounds) and now some fans claim our squad is worse than Villa or Spurs, and that on paper we have no business in the top5. Quite incredible if you think about it
Some will do anything to absolve the manager.
I'm always looking at what's needed to be winning trophies, top 4 should be the fall back option, not the main aim.
Over the next few years.
Getting to the point where you're in a position to win the league should be the number 1 priority.
And once you're in a position where winning the league is your top priority, then you can focus on looking beyond that and look at competing for the CL.
FA Cup is always nice to win, it should be next on the list. But that and League cup should be considered as markers for success to give players the experience of winning, so they know how to win under pressure.
Across the last five full seasons, we've scored 339 points to Spurs' 323. Hard not to think they'll have closed that gap a lot further when this season is done, and they'll have got more points than us in 3 out of the last 6 seasons. We're on about that level and have been for a while now.
Wow, hang on. Weghorst and 'won over' in one sentence. Technically worst player since Bebe, played ahead of Elanga. Absolute farce of a seining, no goal threat, played at one point as a target midfielder but couldn't even win headers. Agree with much of the rest of the post.
450m and we have no feasible tactics.
Well done
Well done
Neither do I, but Jose wasn't sacked after Sevilla. We just all knew it was over from that moment. Perhaps Ole - Villareal is more appropriate than Watford.
We do it until we've replaced the mediocre players with better players.
10-11 players is quite a lot, especially when the list of retained includes players of the level of Victor Lindelof, Harry Maguire, Anthony Martial, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Scott McTominay (and Jadon Sancho, Donny van de Beek and Facundo Pellistri).
That's before you start looking at Varane and even Shaw, who have massive availability issues.
Then when you consider the players we've brought in, Martinez and Malacia have injury issues (Mount possibly on this list too), Casemiro, Eriksen and Evans were only ever going to be short-term options, Amrabat isn't even a permanent signing, Antony seems wholly unsuited to the Premier League, and even Hojlund represents something of a gamble.
If you expect the next manager to utilise more than a handful of this squad and bring about success, then you're deluding yourself.
You've named four players in your post. Does a manager need to have a perfect squad to achieve a goal difference that isn't negative and a top 4 finish on the table. After spending £400m no less. Why are we still talking about the "players" as if we're still looking at Ole's and Jose squads also. There were seven players on the pitch on Saturday that have nothing to do with those eras.
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A playing style of leaving so much space in midfield you can drive a truck through it whilst routinely giving up 20+ shots a game (even against relegation fodder) in the hope that you're not 3-0 down by half time. Make that make sense.
Developing a style of play is pointless if it doesn't work. Seems to me everything he comes up with, opposition managers work out almost immediately.
Almost all of our first choice defenders missing on Saturday, with a kid playing at centre-half and he sets the team up to expose it. No protection from the midfield.
The players attitude can be questioned, but the system doesn't work.
3/4 of those players are key members of the first 11 with 2 of them in the spine.
Again I am not absolving the Pep Guardiola is my idol, he has been awful and needs to go
Anyone who thinks we have a play style have their head buried in the sand, the only time we had a style was under LVG and Ole, we were a possession and counter attacking team
A better coach would have us playing better in a matter of weeks, never mind 2-3 years. The current squad isnt good enough to challenge for the title either, but it does not help that ETH has been allowed to piss away over 200 million on dross