It doesn't even matter. We're shit at pressing. The fact we attempting to press is doing more harm than good.
Erik ten Hag | 2024/25
- Thread starter Cheimoon
- Start date
-
Hello, Guest! We have four new competitions (with taglines and awards as prizes) starting.
A new Odds or Evens competition is starting now. Click here to read the rules and message Damien to submit your eight players by 14th September 2024
A new Carabao Cup prediction competition is starting now. Click here to enter to submit predictions for round 3 which begins 17th September.
A new Champions League prediction competition is starting now. Click here to enter to submit predictions for the first round which begins 17th September.
A new Europa League prediction competition is starting now. Click here to enter to submit predictions for the first round which begins 25th September.
For Odds or Evens you have until the 14th September to submit your players. Submissions will be open for the next 1 day, 7 hours, 21 minutes, 31 seconds, and will close on Sep 14, 2024 at 12:30.
No. 2 seasons + 3 games. 3 games showing a continuation of the same old rubbish.
How daft must a person have to be to ignore the evidence of 2 whole seasons and give him a clean slate, in some misguided blind hope that he'll magically transform into a good manager.
3 under the new structure and game model though.
Cheers Stefan.
I'm too young to remember what it was like in Fergie's early days. Obviously there was no social media but I know he was a goal away from getting sacked. It paid off keeping him, that doesn't mean it's going to be the case with every manager.
I don't know if Ten Hag is the one to lead the club back to success. I am willing to ride it out with him a bit longer.
In terms of replacing him, I genuinely think the only manager in the world right now who could get short term success would be Ancelotti. And that isn't going to happen.
An interesting few months ahead and glad for once it's an international break. A pause and chill period was need for everyone.
Ok so the new loony narrative is "3 games". Is the " who will replace him" narrative still active on here?
No, a good amount of us are adamant that he should have been sacked back in May, even after the cup win. There is already enough evidence that he isn't good enough and never will be.
I think you’re quite aware of the circumstantial issue here; I have said he should get 10 games before the season had kicked off, but the way we’re plummeting, there’s no way that holds true. He cannot be allowed to tank another season, which shortens his margins for error tremendously.
When things look like a run-on, they get treated as such. We’re rubbish at everything. Still. It wallops goodwill and “fresh start” for six because it then doesn’t look or feel like anything but a well worn continuation.
Bingo! The players at ETH's disposal are not inclined to press and when they do it's half-hearted and disjointed. In the American West there's a saying that goes you can lead a horse to water to you can't make the horse drink. I have no no doubt that ETH instructs his players in training to press but they just don't do it in actual competition and when they do, they're easily bypassed and find acres of space in front of them and score goals for fun, like shooting fish in a barrel.
I can understand keeping ETH for a few more months while INEOS recruit a suitable successor but ETH needs to understand that what his tactics aren't working. Were he to man up and bench Rashford and adjust his tactics to suit the players he has who are willing to put in the effort and win some games he might just dodge the bullet and see through the "long run". But the direction he has us going in now, which is the wrong direction, he'll be replaced with an interim manager by mid-October.
I would actually like to see what Ruud can do with this squad. It's painfully obvious now that ETH has lost the players -- if he ever had them -- but it's open question whether Ruud or anyone else could command their respect.
We don't have a new game model. But most critically how is a new structure supposed to improve coaching issues? Is there an example of something similar ever happening in any sport?
Not really we press, the structure of our pressing makes no sense but it is executed.
Into his 3rd season.... 3rd season.
Regarding our pressing I think that context is important. Our players have absolutely been inclined to press and for that reason we have been one of the team that creates the most turnovers in the league but the way we do it is reckless, it's a bit like a heavyweight that only throws haymakers, he is likely to have a high KO rate but he is also likely to get himself rocked by any decent boxer.
There is a new game model that's set by Wilcox. Whether the coaching issues are ironed out as a result of working toward a tweak in the way we play, wel find out. 3 games is too early to tell but I'm not saying ten hag shouldn't find himself under immense pressure given how last season went.
Any sources on this? Would be interesting to read.
What is that new game model? How does it differs from last season?
There is no new 'game model'. The term is nonsense.
Great analogy.
Isn’t it more like a boxer who throws only haymakers but has powderpuff power? We might win turnovers high up the pitch but we then don’t do anything with it (because our structure and tactics when we actually have the ball are all over the place). I don’t recall the last time we actually knocked someone out - at best we hang on for a gritty win on points.
As such, we huff and we puff and we occasionally create a good position but realistically we still rely heavily on a moment of magic from one of our forwards. As soon as someone hits us, we can’t recover.
Im not in the room but I believe there is a clear style and structure that the team will operate in and they want continuity irrespective of the manager in this department. It was reported by various credible journalists but one is here(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ed-game-model-jason-wilcox-identity-transfer/
If ten hag fails to implement a style consistent with the vision that Wilcox has (supported by the structure embedded by Ashworth) then I'm sure hel be sacked and rightly.
I just think 3 games is a bit early to tell right now. Given neither Ashworth nor Berrada were in the room when he was renewed, hel need to convince fans and the board. He's not off to a good start.
That's a different point in the sense that the goal of pressing is to create turnovers. We are also have bad footwork and struggle to get in range but that's a different issue to throwing haymakers.
Pick your poison:
- 3 games
- No qualified replacement
- We've improved
- Unlucky losses
- Referee positioning vs Liverpool
- Individual mistakes
- Superior xG
- Ugarte not available
- Arteta struggled too
The 3 games isn't a defence of him. You maybe misconstruing what the point is here.
3 games into the season and he is delivering the same shit football that was served last year. In between, he got a seal of approval from the new management, signed some players and had another full pre-season. Lot of time has been given to him to refine his tactics so as to not keep conceding like crazy. But nothing seems to have changed.
This football style did not start this season. Last season, many gave him the benefit of doubt because of ridiculous number of injuries that meant the team was constantly changing and because the club was still being run by Murtough and co.
Last edited:
I think his position is untenable. But Berrada, Ashworth and Wilcox don't want to throw Brailsford and co. under the bus for allowing him to stay on this season by sacking him already. They'll likely give him until the next international break to turn things around.
Well I'll say this, Ten Hag's focus on the team pressing high is not reaping many rewards in terms of goals and as we've seen so far is detrimental to our defending.
No, I want you to explain to me this model, you have watched preseason games and four official games, so I would appreciate if you can tell me how the current game model differs from what ETH has done for the better part of two years.
Otherwise, I don't know how you can use it as an argument because it's not an official position held by the club and it's also not a visible reality. It's just something that a paper wrote and that paper shows its own skepticism by labeling it as "the so-called game mode".
The reality is that nothing has changed, there is no new game model even the one specific thing mentioned in that article, the pressing scheme that routinely exposes our midfield hasn't changed.
"The game model" sounds a little like high minded flatulence to say that the club would rather we don't Rasa la Tabula every manager and we don't have to buy super specialised players / pieces to fit an unorthodox game plan.
I assume it will include playing 4 at the back, 3 at the front including two wingers and also having Bruno.
I assume it will include playing 4 at the back, 3 at the front including two wingers and also having Bruno.
It's HR speak, for "Don't you worry, we are actually doing things. We swear."
It's actually 117 games of his tenure, but whatever.
Conor Moore's impression of EtH is so good. The thing EtH does with his mouth. 
I could see a ruling from up top that Bruno (that was extended) is the playmaker, we're not buying a DLP and we have some broad profiles for positions going forward, and likewise for manager (no Bielsa to take the most obvious example coming to mind).
That's not to cheapen football tactics to simpleton level, I know it is pretty intricate (11 players to instruct + whatever scenario you face with the 11 oppo ones) but the broad pillars are not that complex. If the manager would like the fullback to tuck in sometimes I really don't think the board is going to rule "NO, the game plan™ says only overlapping !"
In fairness before the cup final the majority were in favour of sacking, one game shouldn't make a difference
The poll was was also highly swung towards sack before he won that one game that made goldfish (coincidently influenced by clowns like Goldbridge) brained fans lose their collective minds.
It's not 3 games it well over 100 to give us a fair idea if whether this is 'going towards something good or not'.
How many of our players would walk into the Fulham, Brighton or even Liverpool 1st 11s? How many into Southampton I would say that other than Liverpool there would be majorly Utd players, and even Liverpool would be a fair few.... And yet we struggle and will struggle against Southampton even if we win
So no new game model but a confirmation of the old one? That reads like a PR move, creating a new product out of an old one, like NVidia does every other year.
you've probably missed a few on the bingo card. They've branched out from 'Martinez is injured'.An obtuse post. There are facets of our press that is more synchronised and we no longer keep as big a vertical gap between players as we did last season. You might not see major changes straight off the back 3 games in with a new game model and a new coaching staff. Sorry to disappoint you on this, but it doesn't make it any less true.
If you want to assume that the evident brief on the remit of new appointment is nothing but paper, you go for it.
The line of "official communication" from the club is also quite naive. They don't list out the entire job spec but the clear briefing and clubs own words of taking over all technical areas of football is quite clear.
The evident brief could also be a PR move to lessen pressure on the club and ETH? And the reality is that you are unable to describe a new game model, the best that you have done is describe the same game model with maybe some tweaks which I personally don't see but that's beside the point. We don't have a new game model, we are using the model that ETH has used since 2022, we are a quick transition team that uses a mid block.
"Game model" is worse than LVGs "philosophy".
Nonsense trying to make football sound more complicated than it is.
Nonsense trying to make football sound more complicated than it is.
He just happened to find the right club. Its a club which generally supports and believes in the manager without the manager having earn respect whilst at the club. United hate sacking managers and our fans, representatives and ex-players almost view it as immoral. For so many years during Fergie's reign, he and other representatives of the club consistently subscribed to time and patience being the hallmark of managerial success. I personally think Fergie used that mantra as a show of support to other British managers at the time who were being relieved of their duties in short order. Unfortunately, the statements were so constant that its almost been ingrained the club's dna. That high moral standard and deference to managers can even be classified as part of our identity.
The problem we've had has been twofold. The obvious first problem is that in the past, the people tasked with hiring our managers were people with very little knowledge on football, so they hired popular managers without having the proper mechanisms in place to assess and check that manager. The second problem is that once the person is hired, it takes us so long to sack the manager since in the past a lot of decisions on hard issues like this were determined by strong public opinions from the fanbase; a fanbase notorious for showing managerial support during games and being consistently deferential to the manager. Hiring a manager who doesn't meet expectations is commonplace, however the true problem is how much time it takes for us to correct that mistake. Each manager is treated like a messiah before even their first game and players and other individual are consistently blamed for poor performances and issues in their start. Its only by the end of the first season or the beginning of the second that slight discontent starts being heard regardless of how bad and inconsistent performances are.
Ten Hag has the added feature of being dutch and playing seemingly attractive football in a much smaller league in which his team were significantly better than the majority of the league. The dutch element with the usual dutch verbiage makes our fans think he is a more knowledgable tactician than he actually is. It's take people 2.5 years to notice that he's a horrible in-game tactician, simply from the benefit of being dutch. The second thing is that our fans underestimate the premier league. They underestimate the fact that the tempo and power the league requires is at the very highest level. Its general knowledge that this can affect the success of players, but because we had such a successful manager in Sir Alex for so long, hardly sack managers and never really had the challenge of employing a manager from a foreign league ( with the exception of LVG who faced similar problems), our fanbase hasn't yet caught up to the fact that these high standards affect managers too. Its a hard learning curve extended by the fact that we had incompetent people running the club. We are lucky as a club that we haven't suffered as much reputationally and financially as a result of this drawn out lesson. It took us almost 8 of those years to figure out that we needed a director of football, and we've just now discovered how many executive pieces may be required to have a truly functioning structure. We had so much success, that we are now learning what it takes to sustain success in the modern game.