Erik ten Hag | 2024/25

[CM]

You clearly have forgotten all context within those seasons. We had many dark moments and you’re living in denial. League finishes didn’t tell the full story like how we were 14 points behind city at the end of the season we finished second after being top around Christmas…

Sounds like you’re trying to shift the blame on Ronaldo to block out the reality Ole is a shit manager.

He couldn’t coach so he played a low block and counter and hoped no one noticed. He also destroyed the dressing room by promoting a toxic atmosphere and empowering losers. He lied to players and selected out of form players with injuries over superior players.

I could go on but a simple google search could remind you. Our rivals loved Ole.

I'm well aware of the context, I already acknowledged in the first post we weren't going to win the very top prizes under Solskjaer. There is such a thing as nuance.

You're pushing the idea that he's a shit manager who couldn't coach and destroyed the dressing room, yet his teams scored more goals, played better football and produced better league finishes across multiple seasons than all of his contemporaries as United manager. We actually looked competitive against Pep's City team and won half of our league encounters against them during that spell, who else has managed that?

That's the context you've forgotten. It wasn't faultless, the final season was disastrous even, but Solskjaer was only a couple of trophies away from a very respectable run as United manager. Too many people make out he was a blabbering idiot when nobody else produced better in the last decade.

 

[Hughie77]

Carrick hasn’t been particularly successful in championship. If we want to hire some unqualified manager cause he has United roots, than hopefully we hire some talented one like McKenna (whom to be fair will be damaged goods by the end of season).

Carrick will do OK at Boro, the guy will get a top job in a few years . He will do better with better players and better facilities, the trouble is he English and won't get a fair crack at a top job.

A guy with a name like Carlos kickaball from deepest Peru will get a better chance . The likeliest candidate it ETH goes .. is RVN .. and imo thats why he's there.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Bit harsh

Why? That cat clearly deserved it.

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

He backed it up fine. Neville was the one putting a position out he clearly doesnt believe in for the cameras. As he always does whenever it comes to the matter of United's manager.

At 4:05 he says they lost their nerve, at 4:56 he pivots to a completely different logic, jumping on Neville saying they were looking to prove his point. It doesn’t, not even remotely.

That’s not backing anything up fine, it’s classic Carragher and people swallowing that need to be a bit smarter

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

The ‚no style of play‘ trope is tiring, we have a clear style of play.

Some folks can’t articulate what they see for themselves so revert to parroting what they hear in the media without even questioning it’s validity

 

[ifightdragons]

Why? That cat clearly deserved it.

Promoting animal cruelty, now? You must be a fine person...

 

[ifightdragons]

I’ve actually gone back and looked at Ajax under Ten Hag as well and the more I’ve watched the more the red flags are evident that what he was doing there wouldn’t translate well.

They’d play some breathtaking stuff, montage worthy at times, but a lot of what he set up relies on individual problem solving and a general technical superiority that his players had over almost everyone in that league. They also pretty consistently struggled defending transitions back then (sound familiar?) but it didn’t matter as much because they had brilliant players that could go score again.

It’s seemingly this hybrid of structured “principles” and off the cuff trust in players finding solutions within the game. That’s an incredibly difficult balance and style to play if you don’t have a huge advantage in overall talent. It’s why I think even if you gave us Madrids squad we wouldn’t be some unbeatable team. And add to that the fact that he clearly underestimated the physical jump in the PL and it’s been a disaster. It’s simply not really possible to play this setup where you are pressing high and going man to man with your two midfielders, and THEN also trying to counter at pace and playing hyper direct. With how fast the PL is already , even the best athletes in your squad will be dead tired in the final 30 minutes of the game. I also think it’s indicative of how many non contact muscular injuries we’ve seen in the past year+.

Again, this failure of his initial style wouldn’t completely be an issue if he’d have recognized that what he’s doing isnt going to work, but he didn’t. Instead he stupidly believed it was strictly personnel based and some rotten injury luck that had his sides getting battered by relegation level teams consistently. Even this year, the “improvement” was pretty much solely based on the high pressing success due to playing Mount (who when fit is one of the better pressing players in the world) while sacrificing attacking threat to do so. It was a gimmick of a solution that would never consistently see results, and even then we saw that the rest of the side STILL reverted into having to play a transitional basketball game in the final 20 minutes of both Fulham and Brighton.

A great manager would have adjusted his system and style to the new league and tweaked it to allow his players to flourish initially. But even a half decent manager would have realized a month or two into last season that what he’s built his “system” on is untenable and would drastically need to be adjusted and quickly (Van Gaal is a good example). Ten Hag did neither.

Spot on post.

 

[kaku06]

I’ve actually gone back and looked at Ajax under Ten Hag as well and the more I’ve watched the more the red flags are evident that what he was doing there wouldn’t translate well.

They’d play some breathtaking stuff, montage worthy at times, but a lot of what he set up relies on individual problem solving and a general technical superiority that his players had over almost everyone in that league. They also pretty consistently struggled defending transitions back then (sound familiar?) but it didn’t matter as much because they had brilliant players that could go score again.

It’s seemingly this hybrid of structured “principles” and off the cuff trust in players finding solutions within the game. That’s an incredibly difficult balance and style to play if you don’t have a huge advantage in overall talent. It’s why I think even if you gave us Madrids squad we wouldn’t be some unbeatable team. And add to that the fact that he clearly underestimated the physical jump in the PL and it’s been a disaster. It’s simply not really possible to play this setup where you are pressing high and going man to man with your two midfielders, and THEN also trying to counter at pace and playing hyper direct. With how fast the PL is already , even the best athletes in your squad will be dead tired in the final 30 minutes of the game. I also think it’s indicative of how many non contact muscular injuries we’ve seen in the past year+.

Again, this failure of his initial style wouldn’t completely be an issue if he’d have recognized that what he’s doing isnt going to work, but he didn’t. Instead he stupidly believed it was strictly personnel based and some rotten injury luck that had his sides getting battered by relegation level teams consistently. Even this year, the “improvement” was pretty much solely based on the high pressing success due to playing Mount (who when fit is one of the better pressing players in the world) while sacrificing attacking threat to do so. It was a gimmick of a solution that would never consistently see results, and even then we saw that the rest of the side STILL reverted into having to play a transitional basketball game in the final 20 minutes of both Fulham and Brighton.

A great manager would have adjusted his system and style to the new league and tweaked it to allow his players to flourish initially. But even a half decent manager would have realized a month or two into last season that what he’s built his “system” on is untenable and would drastically need to be adjusted and quickly (Van Gaal is a good example). Ten Hag did neither.

Well done. Agree with everything you said.

 

[stevoc]

Promoting animal cruelty, now? You must be a fine person...

He's a pigeon, obviously he doesn't like Cats.

 

[RedSky]

Pos​	Club​	Games​	W​	D​	L​	GF​	GA​	GD​	Pts​
1st​	Man City​	17​	15​	2​	0​	48​	10​	38​	47​
2nd​	Arsenal​	17​	14​	2​	1​	43​	8​	35​	44​
3rd​	Liverpool​	17​	11​	4​	2​	38​	18​	20​	37​
4th​	Chelsea​	17​	9​	6​	2​	43​	28​	15​	33​
5th​	Newcastle​	17​	9​	4​	4​	38​	25​	13​	31​
6th​	Aston Villa​	17​	8​	4​	5​	30​	33​	-3​	28​
7th​	Crystal Palace​	17​	7​	5​	5​	32​	20​	12​	26​
8th​	Bournemouth​	17​	7​	4​	6​	26​	25​	1​	25​
9th​	Tottenham​	17​	7​	2​	8​	29​	28​	1​	23​
10th​	Fulham​	17​	6​	4​	7​	25​	25​	0​	22​
11th​	Man Utd​	17​	6​	4​	7​	26​	30​	-4​	22​
12th​	Brentford​	17​	5​	5​	7​	26​	26​	0​	20​
13th​	Nottm Forest​	17​	5​	5​	7​	22​	25​	-3​	20​
14th​	Brighton​	17​	5​	5​	7​	18​	24​	-6​	20​
15th​	West Ham​	17​	5​	4​	8​	28​	37​	-9​	19​
16th​	Everton​	17​	5​	4​	8​	16​	29​	-13​	19​
17th​	Wolves​	17​	4​	3​	10​	16​	35​	-19​	15​

It's actually 6 wins.

 

[Fahad Jawaid]

Having calmed down after the game and after rewatching the match. I feel sorry for our midfield. The setup, tactics were soo wrong. Bruno was no where near the midfield all game, it was basically 3 vs 2 all match in the middle. I agree that Casemiro made poor passes which led to chances, but even then we were too easy to play all game and in second half Liverpool basically took it easy but still had a Sobozli chance where he messed up in front of goal by taking too many touches and then Salah put it above the bar from 10 yards out.

Casemiro's mistakes has kind of given him a way out, but he needs to realize and change his suicidal tactics of allowing both FBs to go forward same time and leaving two CBs and Cas as three players with no one close by, playing midfielders so far away from each other with Bruno basically playing as a second striker.

He should be playing three midfielders all close to each other, giving them passing options, plus as Pep once said he prefers midfielders passing 5 yards instead of 15, because with 5 yards, even if you mess up a pass, the players can quickly swamp you and take the ball away, whereas for longer passes the recipient is taken out of the play completely. He does not have the tactical nous to understand this simple fact.

Lastly taking Amad out and Garnacho was also another blunder, which also made Mazouri toothless and Garnacho could not even control the ball and was bullied all game, let alone combine with FB.

I was ETH out last season, but sort of continued with backed him this season with new coaching team and new players, it appears to have no impact whatsoever. The slight silver lining is our team has improved overall and has good depth in defense and attack. Could do with another CM for replacement with Mainoo, except that we are in very good shape, so whoever we choose as a new manager will have a good squad to mould into his style of play and could get far better results.

 

[RDCR07]

 

[RDCR07]

Pos​	Club​	Games​	W​	D​	L​	GF​	GA​	GD​	Pts​
1st​	Man City​	17​	15​	2​	0​	48​	10​	38​	47​
2nd​	Arsenal​	17​	14​	2​	1​	43​	8​	35​	44​
3rd​	Liverpool​	17​	11​	4​	2​	38​	18​	20​	37​
4th​	Chelsea​	17​	9​	6​	2​	43​	28​	15​	33​
5th​	Newcastle​	17​	9​	4​	4​	38​	25​	13​	31​
6th​	Aston Villa​	17​	8​	4​	5​	30​	33​	-3​	28​
7th​	Crystal Palace​	17​	7​	5​	5​	32​	20​	12​	26​
8th​	Bournemouth​	17​	7​	4​	6​	26​	25​	1​	25​
9th​	Tottenham​	17​	7​	2​	8​	29​	28​	1​	23​
10th​	Fulham​	17​	6​	4​	7​	25​	25​	0​	22​
11th​	Man Utd​	17​	6​	4​	7​	26​	30​	-4​	22​
12th​	Brentford​	17​	5​	5​	7​	26​	26​	0​	20​
13th​	Nottm Forest​	17​	5​	5​	7​	22​	25​	-3​	20​
14th​	Brighton​	17​	5​	5​	7​	18​	24​	-6​	20​
15th​	West Ham​	17​	5​	4​	8​	28​	37​	-9​	19​
16th​	Everton​	17​	5​	4​	8​	16​	29​	-13​	19​
17th​	Wolves​	17​	4​	3​	10​	16​	35​	-19​	15​

It's actually 6 wins.

It still doesn’t change the narrative. Only scoring 22 points out of a total of 51 points isn’t good.

 

[RedSky]

It still doesn’t change the narrative. Only scoring 22 points out of a total of 51 points isn’t good.

Obviously not. Worse than Fulham, 30 goals conceded in 17.

 

[despairingfool]

He's ruining my football club that I've supported for 27 years. I absolutely despise the man. Please sack him.

 

[Ghostrider318]

He has shown no system, no consistency and is in his 3rd season. He gotten every player hes asked for including a 80 million pound fidget spinner.

I have no faith in him to turn this around as he continuously fails to see the issues and repeatedly tries the same things even when failing at them rather spectacularly.

I just hope that the new board keeps him on a shirt leash and sacks him preferably before Christmas

 

[Tom Van Persie]

 

[Rolaholic]

 

[UnofficialDevil]

I'm sorry for you

 

[Sarni]

De Boer was sacked after 5 games at Palace. It's wild that our club loves to play the long game with managers who clearly aren't good enough.

It’s what I have been saying for a while and the post above showing that we only won 5 or 6 of the last 17 games strengthens that notion, his job would be in question at pretty much any team in PL bar relegation fodders with these results. Poor finish to last season, getting progressively worse since League Cup final, playing disjointed football that cannot in the long term bring good results.

West Ham finished one spot below us and decided it was time for them to move on from Moyes, who also won them a trophy (arguably a more important one than FA Cup was for us, given this was their first European cup). I genuinely think some of the mid table teams have higher ambitions and definitely much less patience for mediocrity than we do.

 

[Offside]

He would 100% have been sacked if we lost that cup final. That’s my biggest concern with INEOS right now. Knee jerk decision making. Although if they’re playing the long game until the right target comes up then whatever. Still, the summer transfers were clearly influenced by him just buying a load more ex Ajax.

 

[DavidDeSchmikes]

He would 100% have been sacked if we lost that cup final. That’s my biggest concern with INEOS right now. Knee jerk decision making. Although if they’re playing the long game until the right target comes up then whatever. Still, the summer transfers were clearly influenced by him just buying a load more ex Ajax.

Mourinho lost the FA Cup Final in 2018, next season got sacked after 7 wins in 17 league games

 

[Rams]

Having calmed down after the game and after rewatching the match. I feel sorry for our midfield. The setup, tactics were soo wrong. Bruno was no where near the midfield all game, it was basically 3 vs 2 all match in the middle. I agree that Casemiro made poor passes which led to chances, but even then we were too easy to play all game and in second half Liverpool basically took it easy but still had a Sobozli chance where he messed up in front of goal by taking too many touches and then Salah put it above the bar from 10 yards out.

Casemiro's mistakes has kind of given him a way out, but he needs to realize and change his suicidal tactics of allowing both FBs to go forward same time and leaving two CBs and Cas as three players with no one close by, playing midfielders so far away from each other with Bruno basically playing as a second striker.

He should be playing three midfielders all close to each other, giving them passing options, plus as Pep once said he prefers midfielders passing 5 yards instead of 15, because with 5 yards, even if you mess up a pass, the players can quickly swamp you and take the ball away, whereas for longer passes the recipient is taken out of the play completely. He does not have the tactical nous to understand this simple fact.

Lastly taking Amad out and Garnacho was also another blunder, which also made Mazouri toothless and Garnacho could not even control the ball and was bullied all game, let alone combine with FB.

I was ETH out last season, but sort of continued with backed him this season with new coaching team and new players, it appears to have no impact whatsoever. The slight silver lining is our team has improved overall and has good depth in defense and attack. Could do with another CM for replacement with Mainoo, except that we are in very good shape, so whoever we choose as a new manager will have a good squad to mould into his style of play and could get far better results.

I’m sorry but this is exactly the kind of post that annoys me. Not that I don’t think that fans are not in their right to criticize the manager or state their opinions, it’s because it’s argued from a position as it’s a fact. But actually, it comes over to me as completely untrue.

First of all, Ten Hag worked under Pep Guardiola as a young coach and both are Cruijff disciples. So to state that Ten Hag doesn’t understand or have the nous to understand the way Pep prefers to play is highly unlikely to say the least.
In terms of how the midfield is set up, nowadays most of the better teams in the EPL will set the midfield up the same way as United as they’re trying to play through the press, so they need to find a pass through the press and will position midfielders behind the back of the opposition midfielders pressing. Unfortunately, our midfielders don’t seem to have had the quality & skillset to make relatively simple balls over relatively short distances as our rivals do over the past 2 seasons. We keep giving easy balls away and are so sloppy. So if we criticize the manager for being able to improve our players abilities, or for buying a load of crap players with the wrong mindset, then yeah I feel that’s a fair argument. Unfortunately, our players aren’t in the same league as Rodri, Bernardo Silva, and de Bruyne.
Now of course there’s room to argue that we should set up more defensively, but we played that way under the previous 2 managers, which turned out to be a nightmare as in order to win to win something those type of tactics have become obsolete in the era of the high pressing game and/or counter pressing. And the previous 2 managers didn’t have the same personnel problems Ten Hag has had to deal with.

I’m not trying advocate for Ten Hag to stay, I think that if things haven’t improved in 3 months time then he needs to go because of the way he’s been backed this summer, but at least give the manager some respect because he’ll have a lot more footballing nous or knowledge than any single poster in this forum.

 

[Zumbi]

I've gone through the entire first 2 pages of your recent postings, there's one post I've found with a list of names:



In bold is your list and " references to why their records are better", which is an extremely generous way of putting a single sentence that doesn't touch on any of their records. But I'm happy to go through the list.

Firstly, Nagelsmann I'd be over the moon with. But he's with the German national team. Do you genuinely expect us to be able to get him in now? The same goes for Emery, why would he leave Villa who are enjoying CL football? Frank is also in a position, and is much less enticing than the previous two mentioned. Do you honestly think they're immediately attainable? In the summer is much more feasible, which is what I've been advocating for.

Tuchel we've discussed already.

McKenna's managerial career is limited entirely to lower league experience, there's a huge gulf between the Ipswich job and the United one, surely you can acknowledge that? To me that would represent a humongous gamble, and I don't think that's worth it given we could go after much more accomplished candidates in the summer.

Amorim is an interesting one actually, I don't know too much about him but from what I read he has a style similar to what we're trying to achieve. Can you go into a bit more detail as to what makes him a good fit? And why he would be attainable immediately to replace Ten Hag?

I went through the reasons in various other posts. The reasons largely centered around comparisons with Ten Hag, like the fact that those managers are doing more impressive things with fewer resources than Ten Hag is. They get their teams playing better football, setting them up in a way that makes them harder to play through whilst also being more cohesive in possession - which are both very obvious failings of ten Hag’s set up.

And that goes back to your claim that changing the manager is change for change sake, versus my argument that it would be change for the very specific purpose of trying to improve the performance of our team. Because this discussion about bringing a new manager in isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening specifically because our current manager is underperforming so badly. Therefore it’s not simply a case of assessing each potential candidates record independently. You assess them in comparison to the other option, which is keeping Ten Hag. And to me that’s a much bigger gamble than trying someone else, because we already know he’s not working out how we hoped, and it is already hurting us as a club. Finishing 8th is damaging. Finishing bottom in a CL group is damaging. Getting spanked by teams up and down the table, at home and away, is damaging. Winning only six PL games in the last 17 is damaging. Setting new unwanted record after new unwanted record is damaging. So the sooner we put an end to this the better, both short term and long term.

As for the questions regarding whether any of these managers are attainable, my answer is yes, I would expect Manchester Utd to be able to lure a suitable candidate as soon as they become set on doing so. I can’t predict which one, and you can dismiss each and every name that’s been proposed with various questions and doubts all you like, but I just don’t think the notion that suitable candidates are attainable only at the end of the season but not during the season is well founded. It might cost more money, but managers move between clubs mid season every single season. To think that it’s somehow unachievable for a club like Utd is laughable. Do you really, honestly think it’s beyond Ineos to identify and lure a replacement mid season?

Indeed, in this circumstance it’s much more likely to happen mid season, because they’re less likely to be even looking for a new manager if Ten Hag does well enough to still in post by May. If he goes, it’ll be sooner than that, and it’ll be because they’ve found someone they think will do better.

 

[sebsheep]

Promoting animal cruelty, now? You must be a fine person...

Posted by ifightdragons...

 

[sebsheep]

Pos​	Club​	Games​	W​	D​	L​	GF​	GA​	GD​	Pts​
1st​	Man City​	17​	15​	2​	0​	48​	10​	38​	47​
2nd​	Arsenal​	17​	14​	2​	1​	43​	8​	35​	44​
3rd​	Liverpool​	17​	11​	4​	2​	38​	18​	20​	37​
4th​	Chelsea​	17​	9​	6​	2​	43​	28​	15​	33​
5th​	Newcastle​	17​	9​	4​	4​	38​	25​	13​	31​
6th​	Aston Villa​	17​	8​	4​	5​	30​	33​	-3​	28​
7th​	Crystal Palace​	17​	7​	5​	5​	32​	20​	12​	26​
8th​	Bournemouth​	17​	7​	4​	6​	26​	25​	1​	25​
9th​	Tottenham​	17​	7​	2​	8​	29​	28​	1​	23​
10th​	Fulham​	17​	6​	4​	7​	25​	25​	0​	22​
11th​	Man Utd​	17​	6​	4​	7​	26​	30​	-4​	22​
12th​	Brentford​	17​	5​	5​	7​	26​	26​	0​	20​
13th​	Nottm Forest​	17​	5​	5​	7​	22​	25​	-3​	20​
14th​	Brighton​	17​	5​	5​	7​	18​	24​	-6​	20​
15th​	West Ham​	17​	5​	4​	8​	28​	37​	-9​	19​
16th​	Everton​	17​	5​	4​	8​	16​	29​	-13​	19​
17th​	Wolves​	17​	4​	3​	10​	16​	35​	-19​	15​

It's actually 6 wins.

As high as 11th!

 

[RedSky]

As high as 11th!

Reaching for the stars!

 

[Rolaholic]

I'm sorry for you

Thanks but you can save that for yourself.

I already have enough of feeling sorry simply by watching this side continue to be the laughing stock of the footballing world for yet another season...

The memes and jeers just encapsulate our seemingly never-ending banter era.

 

[The Hilton]

Seems like you love going around in circles.
There is no rule that you need to find a better manager before firing the current one for doing a poor job. That rule is something you created in your mind and using that as a base to argue retaining ETH.

An interim manager can be of lower level than the current one. A new permanent manager can be a new guy to the league, who can be successful or fail.

There isn't a rule, it's just a sensible thing to do. Otherwise it could take us in the wrong direction.

If you genuinely believe there's no way whatsoever to gain an idea as to if a manager will be a success, then we're never going to find common ground. Appointing a manager for no other reason than them not being the incumbent is as irrational as it gets.

 

[The Hilton]

Summer literally ended last week.

So you’d throw away a whole seasons worth of disjointed and low level football instead of acting proactively and rolling the dice? That is ludicrous.

Thankfully INEOS, Ashworth and Berrada won’t think the same. A few more losses with terrible on pitch performances within the next month and he’ll be gone.

Rolling the dice isn't proactive though, it's just irrational. That could easily cause more damage, as our most recent caretaker did.

The folks you've mentioned are in the position they are because they aren't prone to irrational knee-jerk reactions. I expect they'll replace the manager when an option they believe to be better becomes attainable, and not before.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Thanks but you can save that for yourself.

I already have enough of feeling sorry simply by watching this side continue to be the laughing stock of the footballing world for yet another season...

The memes and jeers just encapsulate our seemingly never-ending banter era.

I think you missed the joke

 

[The Hilton]

I'm sorry, but this is laughable and sums up a portion of the fan base at the moment. Around 80% of this forum I'd say knew we were heading for trouble continuing with him after the FA Cup final, but you want to throw another season down the drain, and extend our misery until next summer. Do actually support the club, or despise it?

I don't want to throw another season down the drain, but I even more so don't want to throw multiple seasons down the drain, which is why on balance I think we'd be better off waiting until summer.

As I've said repeatedly though, I'm open to be convinced. Who would you replace Ten Hag with immediately, and why would that be better than waiting until the summer and getting a top candidate in?

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I don't want to throw another season down the drain, but I even more so don't want to throw multiple seasons down the drain, which is why on balance I think we'd be better off waiting until summer.

As I've said repeatedly though, I'm open to be convinced. Who would you replace Ten Hag with immediately, and why would that be better than waiting until the summer and getting a top candidate in?

We've already done that.

There is no point waiting until the summer. It'll be another season wasted by then.

 

[Rams]

Rolling the dice isn't proactive though, it's just irrational. That could easily cause more damage, as our most recent caretaker did.

The folks you've mentioned are in the position they are because they aren't prone to irrational knee-jerk reactions. I expect they'll replace the manager when an option they believe to be better becomes attainable, and not before.

Yeah I think that’s a very valid point which isn’t mentioned enough. One of the things that stuck with me is that during the summer is that the club seemed to be saying Ten Hag is the best manager available for us for now, it didn’t come across to me as if the club are giving unconditional backing to Ten Hag. The fact they extended his contract might not necessarily mean they’re not preparing to wait for what they think is a better candidate. I think the light at the of the tunnel for us as fans is that the club at least seem to have created a football structure required to be successful, which I think has been the root of the problems on the pitch.

 

[The Hilton]

I went through the reasons in various other posts. The reasons largely centered around comparisons with Ten Hag, like the fact that those managers are doing more impressive things with fewer resources than Ten Hag is. They get their teams playing better football, setting them up in a way that makes them harder to play through whilst also being more cohesive in possession - which are both very obvious failings of ten Hag’s set up.

And that goes back to your claim that changing the manager is change for change sake, versus my argument that it would be change for the very specific purpose of trying to improve the performance of our team. Because this discussion about bringing a new manager in isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening specifically because our current manager is underperforming so badly. Therefore it’s not simply a case of assessing each potential candidates record independently. You assess them in comparison to the other option, which is keeping Ten Hag. And to me that’s a much bigger gamble than trying someone else, because we already know he’s not working out how we hoped, and it is already hurting us as a club. Finishing 8th is damaging. Finishing bottom in a CL group is damaging. Getting spanked by teams up and down the table, at home and away, is damaging. Winning only six PL games in the last 17 is damaging. Setting new unwanted record after new unwanted record is damaging. So the sooner we put an end to this the better, both short term and long term.

As for the questions regarding whether any of these managers are attainable, my answer is yes, I would expect Manchester Utd to be able to lure a suitable candidate as soon as they become set on doing so. I can’t predict which one, and you can dismiss each and every name that’s been proposed with various questions and doubts all you like, but I just don’t think the notion that suitable candidates are attainable only at the end of the season but not during the season is well founded. It might cost more money, but managers move between clubs mid season every single season. To think that it’s somehow unachievable for a club like Utd is laughable. Do you really, honestly think it’s beyond Ineos to identify and lure a replacement mid season?

Indeed, in this circumstance it’s much more likely to happen mid season, because they’re less likely to be even looking for a new manager if Ten Hag does well enough to still in post by May. If he goes, it’ll be sooner than that, and it’ll be because they’ve found someone they think will do better.

The bit in bold may be true, but it isn't enough by itself. Rangnick met the same criteria, but nobody in the dressing room would listen to him beyond a single half against Palace. We've had similar experiences under Moyes, Van Gaal, and Mourinho. There's a very good chance that the lesser lights in your list like McKenna or Frank would be completely ignored. There's so much pressure at United, it's crushed managerial legends, most talented but less established managers wouldn't stand a chance.

In terms of the candidates you listed that are more promising - Nagelsmann, Emery, Amorim - how exactly would we go about getting them immediately? I think it's especially naïve to expect Emery to bail out on Villa in the Champions League where he has a huge amount of credit built up, to join us in a comparatively worse situation. Amorim is also in the Champions League. I think with both of them the amount of money it would cost to get them on board at this time would be too much to fit with the INEOS approach to not get ripped off. We refused to be held to ransom for Ashworth, choosing to go without instead, so I expect we'd rather wait to get the right manager in than go back to being shaken down.

Still, it all comes down to what the INEOS team think is the best way forward. I'm happy to trust them to make the good, well informed decisions, we'll have to see what happens.

 

[Rams]

I went through the reasons in various other posts. The reasons largely centered around comparisons with Ten Hag, like the fact that those managers are doing more impressive things with fewer resources than Ten Hag is. They get their teams playing better football, setting them up in a way that makes them harder to play through whilst also being more cohesive in possession - which are both very obvious failings of ten Hag’s set up.

And that goes back to your claim that changing the manager is change for change sake, versus my argument that it would be change for the very specific purpose of trying to improve the performance of our team. Because this discussion about bringing a new manager in isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening specifically because our current manager is underperforming so badly. Therefore it’s not simply a case of assessing each potential candidates record independently. You assess them in comparison to the other option, which is keeping Ten Hag. And to me that’s a much bigger gamble than trying someone else, because we already know he’s not working out how we hoped, and it is already hurting us as a club. Finishing 8th is damaging. Finishing bottom in a CL group is damaging. Getting spanked by teams up and down the table, at home and away, is damaging. Winning only six PL games in the last 17 is damaging. Setting new unwanted record after new unwanted record is damaging. So the sooner we put an end to this the better, both short term and long term.

As for the questions regarding whether any of these managers are attainable, my answer is yes, I would expect Manchester Utd to be able to lure a suitable candidate as soon as they become set on doing so. I can’t predict which one, and you can dismiss each and every name that’s been proposed with various questions and doubts all you like, but I just don’t think the notion that suitable candidates are attainable only at the end of the season but not during the season is well founded. It might cost more money, but managers move between clubs mid season every single season. To think that it’s somehow unachievable for a club like Utd is laughable. Do you really, honestly think it’s beyond Ineos to identify and lure a replacement mid season?

Indeed, in this circumstance it’s much more likely to happen mid season, because they’re less likely to be even looking for a new manager if Ten Hag does well enough to still in post by May. If he goes, it’ll be sooner than that, and it’ll be because they’ve found someone they think will do better.

The problem with this argument is that since Ten Hag has been in charge, Ten Hag has been the 2nd most successful manager in England in terms of trophies won. I.e., doing impressive things is not good enough for Manchester United. We’re not going to win the league or the CL by being harder to beat.

 

[NLunited]

We clearly have a coaching issue and I say that as someone who has always backed ETH. Even keeping aside the individual errors by Casemiro, surely it has to be coaching instructions to find a line breaking pass immediately after gaining possession.

The coaching and structure have to suit the players who are on the pitch and not so wedded to a structure that everything else is disregarded.

Casemiro can play those passes actually; he does it every game.

He switches off and makes the wrong decisions sometimes, we have seen it many times last season. Bad decision making.

You don‘t play the pass when it isn‘t on. Pool‘s pressing was good, but we made the mistakes they capitalized on.

 

[NK86]

I’m sorry but this is exactly the kind of post that annoys me. Not that I don’t think that fans are not in their right to criticize the manager or state their opinions, it’s because it’s argued from a position as it’s a fact. But actually, it comes over to me as completely untrue.

First of all, Ten Hag worked under Pep Guardiola as a young coach and both are Cruijff disciples. So to state that Ten Hag doesn’t understand or have the nous to understand the way Pep prefers to play is highly unlikely to say the least.
In terms of how the midfield is set up, nowadays most of the better teams in the EPL will set the midfield up the same way as United as they’re trying to play through the press, so they need to find a pass through the press and will position midfielders behind the back of the opposition midfielders pressing. Unfortunately, our midfielders don’t seem to have had the quality & skillset to make relatively simple balls over relatively short distances as our rivals do over the past 2 seasons. We keep giving easy balls away and are so sloppy. So if we criticize the manager for being able to improve our players abilities, or for buying a load of crap players with the wrong mindset, then yeah I feel that’s a fair argument. Unfortunately, our players aren’t in the same league as Rodri, Bernardo Silva, and de Bruyne.
Now of course there’s room to argue that we should set up more defensively, but we played that way under the previous 2 managers, which turned out to be a nightmare as in order to win to win something those type of tactics have become obsolete in the era of the high pressing game and/or counter pressing. And the previous 2 managers didn’t have the same personnel problems Ten Hag has had to deal with.

I’m not trying advocate for Ten Hag to stay, I think that if things haven’t improved in 3 months time then he needs to go because of the way he’s been backed this summer, but at least give the manager some respect because he’ll have a lot more footballing nous or knowledge than any single poster in this forum.

I get you trying to defend Eth, but if you see the top teams playing, their midfield is not so far apart that a cruise liner could go through it without issues.

That is the problem with posts like these. All the blame on the quality of players and none on the suicidal tactics. We have played better football with worse players in our side.

There is no way on this Earth that other PL managers play the maniac tactics which Eth played last season. Bruno playing as almost a second striker is also not the preferred method of midfield deployment in most PL teams, let alone the top ones. Someone like Odegaard, who is very similar to Bruno in his role as a 10, also plays like a proper midfielder under Arteta's style. Yet we have you here saying that other PL teams play like us.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Thanks but you can save that for yourself.

I already have enough of feeling sorry simply by watching this side continue to be the laughing stock of the footballing world for yet another season...

The memes and jeers just encapsulate our seemingly never-ending banter era.

I was joking refering to his press conference... I actually wish they would sack him in the morning.

 

[Raoul]

At 4:05 he says they lost their nerve, at 4:56 he pivots to a completely different logic, jumping on Neville saying they were looking to prove his point. It doesn’t, not even remotely.

That’s not backing anything up fine, it’s classic Carragher and people swallowing that need to be a bit smarter

These two are a bit reminiscent of late stage Oasis where the Gallagher brothers couldn't stop arguing.