I do find it ridiculous that every time Winter defends ETH he bangs on about him lacking warmth as if anyone gives a feck.
Andy Mitten: The players aren't responding to the manager
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The thing that doesn’t add up is, if he’s working so hard to fix the culture and set the right tone why is he making Rashford undroppable, one of the forerunners of this toxic culture by most people’s estimation on here, alongside Martial another target of such claims. Surely if you are changing the culture that means you would be largely playing your own signings and phasing out the old guard. But instead we are seeing the opposite happening. Most of his signings right now are on the bench. Riddle me that one.
I can fully believe that he's sat down and spoken to Mitten and Winter and told them that's what he's doing. But what more evidence do they have? I desperately hope it's true and he turns it around, but I'm sorry I'm not one for blind faith.
I can fully believe that he's sat down and spoken to Mitten and Winter and told them that's what he's doing. But what more evidence do they have? I desperately hope it's true and he turns it around, but I'm sorry I'm not one for blind faith.
If you are an experienced interviewer, you can get a very good idea during an interview how genuine a person is being and a feel for how honest they are with their responses versus answers that duck the question or when they give a neutral answer or one full of meaningless waffle.
I find it unlikely he has winked at Andy and said "Trust me bro" and then Andy has responded with 'shit man, that's all you had to say' [Jules / Winston Wolf in pulp fiction reference] .
I find it unlikely he has winked at Andy and said "Trust me bro" and then Andy has responded with 'shit man, that's all you had to say' [Jules / Winston Wolf in pulp fiction reference] .
Maybe Martial and Rashford aren't actually the problem and this is just what fans believe? Then the riddle is solved.
Mitten slightly kept his counsel, but the fresh podcast is mutinous. Savage on Ten Hag’s credibility in the media, the odds tactical decisions, and the Antony transfer in particular.
Mutinous as in the other hosts disagree with him?
Most of this sounds like fair criticism. But don't think that means he's gone back on his views on the manager in general needing more time.
Jules Winfield " oh..you rotating to the bench" **looks at phone **
Jules Winfield " shhhhiiiitttttt...that's all you had to say"
Jules Winfield " shhhhiiiitttttt...that's all you had to say"
I actually had to google to check I hadn’t missed an episode. That’s an incredibly melodramatic summary of what I heard when I listened to the same episode. Apart from anything else, Mitten makes it crystal clear that his preference is sticking with Ten Haag.
He 100% hasn’t.
He 100% hasn't gone back on his views and still backs the manager? Just to clarify because I have a knack of avoiding podcasts when we are doing shite. Curious to know what his stance would be based on the latest though.
Why?Anka is the worst
Very out of place isn’t he (no racist, I just don’t know how else to word it)Anka is the worst
Says things I’d expect a 9 year old to say when they’re learning about football
Well I should first caveat that podcasts are subjective. What grates on one listener is probably appreciated by another.
My view of him is that he's always coming across like he knows more than most about tactical approaches in the game and actually doesn't. On the flip side he is the only journalist with the balls to ask tactical questions in the press conference so he deserves props for that. He's also not nearly as clueless and condescending as Micheal Cox, so he's probably not the worst but just frustrating to listen to when the chips are down.
I feel like he's got it wrong too many times, think on one occasion I heard him talk about a man mark system that we supposedly used and just recently ten hag said he categorically does not have us use a man marking system. He was also extremely novice in the Mourinho and Ole phase, when he would criticise Mourinho a lot and when Ole came he said "all you need is love, it's that simple". In the end, it wasn't and he then used hindsight to retrospectively change his views.
I also hate how he has an infliction (? Unsure if that's the right word to describe it) at the end of every sentence like it's a patronising question. This comes down to the podcasts being subjective on the listener bit. But he says a lot of things in a patronising tone, which is frustrating for a journalist often relying on hindsight to develop his own views.
Yeah, he still backs the manager. About as down on the players as I’ve ever heard him, mind you.
Yeah. Agreed. Seems like an extremely nice bloke but classic self taught football hipster who thinks his analysis is way more insightful (and accurate) than it really is.
Thanks. It's a shame how our lowest moment happens to be just before a trip to Anfield with so many key players missing on top. For all of ten hags mistakes, he also can't get any luck.
Forget whether people want him or not it's irrelevant to this, but has any manager ever had the circus around them the way ETH has.
Sancho x2
Ronaldo
Takeover
Greenwood
Pressure from media for dropping players eg Maguire the captain at the time.
That's not to mention the normal circus united are involved in, eg 1 minute we're getting arnoutavic and rabiot then when the uproar came about the higher ups change to casemiro and Antony.
We're a circus with clowns running the show and unfortunately any manager we've had has to suffer it. Let's hope SJR changes this
Agreed, really confused me.
I don’t dislike Carl Anka but he talks like some sort of tactical guru which I find a bit annoying, but in general I quit like the podcast as a whole.Weird. Carl Anka is great, does his job well, doesn't make shit up, is respectful and seems a genuinely good guy.. what is there not to like?
( Sorry if that ‘why’ came off as a bit aggressive, not the intention! )
Fair enough, it’s an opinion I’ve seen shared a few times but never really understood personally, as I think Anka is inoffensive enough.
In his defence he’s not the only person who’s talked about ten Hags man marking system, so it was certainly a weird one when Whitwell asked Erik about it and he denied that was the intention.
I agree his tone could be interpreted as patronising at times and the upward inflection is a little annoying but all in all I value his contribution to the pod. One thing I enjoy about TOTD is the mix of styles amongst the contributors. Each to their own I guess!
Pretty much all of that Athletic/Tifo lot come across as condescending smug pricks. Apart from JJ and Joe who are goofballs but they know it. I think JJ actually has his coaching badges as well so he has some idea what he is talking about. But Anka, Jon McKenzie, Alex Stewart et al are just such a chore to listen too.
Someone explain to me the thought process behind players no longer playing for the manager.
It doesn't make any sense. It's basically self sabotage. It will cost them significantly through lost bonuses as well as reduced salaries. In the most blatant examples everyone can see you. Clubs and managers see you. You're potentially damaging your career. All because you're pathetic and basically a child?
Why?
For the record I don't think the players have downed tools under ETH. I've seen United players down tools, it's embarrassing and an insult to the club. That's not happening now. You have players he cast out putting shifts in, that wouldn't be the case if he'd lost the team. It's a confidence and quality issue for us.
It doesn't make any sense. It's basically self sabotage. It will cost them significantly through lost bonuses as well as reduced salaries. In the most blatant examples everyone can see you. Clubs and managers see you. You're potentially damaging your career. All because you're pathetic and basically a child?
Why?
For the record I don't think the players have downed tools under ETH. I've seen United players down tools, it's embarrassing and an insult to the club. That's not happening now. You have players he cast out putting shifts in, that wouldn't be the case if he'd lost the team. It's a confidence and quality issue for us.
As a leader, when you are losing way too much, when you get thrashed against any semi decent opposition, when you talk nonsense and don't look confident at all in interviews, you lose your self esteem and image in front of your players as a leader, and these players start giving up on your self proclaimed "project". That's a very normal human thing to do. If your leader sucks and doesn't even give you any signs of confidence, his employees will ultimately give up.
I think most of the time it's not that the players are actively not playing for the manager or trying to get the manager sacked. It's more complicated than that.
I've had personal experiences both sporting and in my career where the management is incompetent, that gets found out over time by the employees/team members which leads to a general malaise or decline in working culture. That malaise can be interpreted as the players not playing for the manager even if those players don't see it that way.
Anyone just consider" players not responding to manager" is just the same as players can't respond to manager as they are poor and just can't, even if they wished too.
Our players would give the Praetorian guards a run for their money.
I like Anka but he’s pretty compromised on certain things on account of writing Marcus Rashford’s book.
That's a bit too simplistic a way of looking at it.
Players are confident and have quality = we're good.
Or...
Players not confident and lacking in quality = we're bad.
There's a massive elephant in the room in terms of his management, both on a personal level with the players and on a match day, his tactics, his signings etc. You seem hell bent on creating a narrative that the manager is responsible for nothing. If it was as simple as you make out then we'd have been better off sticking with Ole, who was more likeable and seemed to get on better with the players. And that's coming from somebody that wholeheartedly wanted him gone.
Don't think I've ever said anything close to a manager being responsible for nothing. How would that even make sense? There wouldn't be a manager if that was the case.
I have said a manager isn't entirely responsible for things when they go wrong. Or when they go well.
It's not as bad as having Woodward messing around. Woodward literally went behind the manager and the fan back to do thing such as supporting the creation of ESL, extend players contract who the managers want to rid. Ole didn't have the excuse when he had to deal with all the infighting from Lingard, Bailly, Henderson. Ronaldo, Cavani, Pogba, Sancho (even when he first arrived), Martial, Rashford, Greenwood previous scandal when called up for NT... Why does ETH have these excuses? ETH was backed more in term of power to cut players off the squad than any managers post SAF. How exactly the takeover affected ETH where he was given a decent budget, and still picked and chose his transfer targets, players to be rid? You implied as if ETH were told not to sign any more players and keep the squad as is, until the takeover process finalized.
The Maguire point is wild. Most of the fanbase backed dropping Maguire. What was there to complain?
Arnautovic was another ETH pick. His previous racist concern was rightfully not acceptable. Rabiot. Rabiot was free this summer before extending with Juventus. It's not someone else fault when we didn't go back for Rabiot but signed Mount and Amrabat (ETH's former player) that wouldn't look any cheaper as a whole financial package.
It's part of the parcel at a big club. If any managers can't handle that, they shouldn't keep this job.
Do you have any thoughts on why these things didn’t have an effect last season? Cos everyone was speaking about how well he did. What has changed? Like Ronaldo and Maguire being dropped hit their point last season not this. Can anyone explain why the Glazers being woeful owners only effects the manager to such a degree in some seasons and then not others. Like what did the glazers do between this season and last season that made Ten Hag stop playing a midfield for example?
- Sancho is the only one I'll give you.
- Ronaldo have him an easy out by giving that interview to Piers Morgan.
- How is the takeover affecting him? He still got gbp 400m to spend to get his players in 3 transfer windows.
- Greenwood again, what did that situation had to do with him? The shit happened before he arrived and then we got him out through the back door.
- Was there any pressure from the media for dropping Maguire? I don't remember anything.
Sorry for being slightly misleading with the brevity of my post. The podcast as a whole was mutinous and pretty savagely critical of Ten Hag, especially for one that comes from three well regarded journalists who report closely on the club and would want to maintain professional relationships. Mitten was the only one who wasn’t throwing his hands up in the air with Ten Hag at this stage, but had limited defence for anything regardless.
Aye Ronaldo gave him an easy way out, he goes into the season with Ronaldo and Martial as strikers, Martial always injured and a striker in Ronaldo who decided not to play leaving ETH with no strikers, that's a great easy way out. Not to mention the club backed him massively by getting the world class loan signing in weghorst. Easy way out indeed.
The takeover stuff has created an instability within the club. It's much more than how much the club spend. ETH, the players and the rest of the staff know that when takeovers happen no one is safe. If you don't think it makes any difference then we'll have to agree to disagree.
Greenwood. He was meant to be part of this seasons squad but united made a u turn. This again left us with 2 strikers, a young buck and martial.
Maguire. The media constantly in pressers and interviews consistently and constantly kept asking about maguire.
I know people are wanting him out, but it's really clouding people's judgement on what has happened at United since he arrived.
Personally I'm not ETH out, but I do see the mistakes he's made and some I can't even make up a story to explain it. He's not perfect far from it. But at the moment I think people see the solution is sacking the manager. We've seen managers in the last decade have 1 good season followed by a bad season then their sacked.
So to me logically you have to come to the conclusion that there's more than the manager that is wrong at the club. I think the fans lack of patience going through a bad time is part of it. Many when ETH arrived where saying this isn't a quick fix, he needs time to build the team but unfortunately ETH vastly over achieving last season has put an unrealistic expectation on him and the team.
The picture isn't black or white. There's a lot going on in the club and for me whether ETH is the future or not, we need the takeover to happen, new ceo/dof to come in, assess the club from top to bottom and then set the club up in a way that if they decide to go a different direction that ETH then the new manager has a fighting chance of succeeding.
Right now sacking ETH and bringing in Potter or whoever would just be more of the same and with our injury list, they'll have 2 hands tied behind their back and if they get off to a bad start, we'll demand to sack them by the end of the season, like rangnick.
Sorry this is just wrong. Of course its not just the manager, we all know that, but that doesnt mean ETH can do a good job. Patience does not achieve anything. Its not just results, its the performances, the selections, the game management, and then the awful signings. We as a fan base are far too tolerant of failure and ineptitude. The RM fan base would never have allowed a Glazer takeover nor tolerated decades of mismanagement. ETH is showing no progress. Lets not forget some teams like Liverpool were poor last year, we did better with a very expensive squad but still had some huge losses in terrible performances. He cant beat top teams, we cant score goals, we cant defend. Ange is playing good football even when Spurs lose. We are playing awful football.
The maguire point was nothing to do with fans, it was the British media I was talking about.
On the arnoutavic and rabiot. Do you honestly think ETH chose those players knowing that 170m euros would be available? No he had a smaller budget, the uproar from fans happened (rightfully) united then panicked and brought in casemiro and antony(who united walked away from earlier in the window for being to expensive to only go back and spends 10s of millions more).
I dont think we are as good as people make out last year. Some good games no doubt but also some terrible ones, lucky to win the cup, poor in Europe against mediocre opposition, some real thumpings that were not acceptable. Now he changed approach and he doesnt seem to know what to do.
Yes Liverpool where awful results and performances and 2 seasons before as well. But guess what they didn't sack klopp.
There's no point in the Merrygo round of changing managers every time we go through a bad half of season giving the manager no time to turn it around.
I understand the signings haven't been good, understand the results and performances haven't been good and mistakes are being made. But right here right now isnt the time to sack the manager and should at least be given to the end of the season and the assess the situation then.