I'd add a CB this summer. DM, ST, and CB are priorities in my view. Fix the spine of the team first.
Erik ten Hag - Ajax Manager
- Thread starter Panther
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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He had them challenging for 1 season then finished 6th, losing 6-1 on he final day to Stoke. They lost Suarez and Sterling between them challenging for the title and Brendan getting sacked.
Klopp's first starting line up:
Mignolet
Clyne, Skrtel, Sakho, Moreno
Lucas, Emre Can
Milner, Lallana, Coutinho
Origii
A slightly different team that lost 1-0 at Anfield to United later that season:Clyne, Skrtel, Sakho, Moreno
Lucas, Emre Can
Milner, Lallana, Coutinho
Origii
Mignolet
Clyne, K. Toure, Sakho, Moreno
Lucas, Emre Can, Henderson
Milner, Firmino, Lallana
Clyne, K. Toure, Sakho, Moreno
Lucas, Emre Can, Henderson
Milner, Firmino, Lallana
Agree with this post 100%.
There is too much Social Media clap trap that our fans lap up via Twitter, Goldbridge, Rio, Howson etc. A rebuild will take five years etc and other such nonsense. Neville will have you believe that the club is in complete and utter dissaray.
The truth of the matter is we should have expected this situation. We have reached or getting to rock bottom and my feeling is the cultural reset will happen in the coming weeks and months. The current squad is being asked to play heavy metal gegenpress football. This is also a squad made up of four different managers all with different styles. Fact is, this mob are just not built to play it. Yes you can say there is no heart, desire, passion, pride, who knows if thats the case. Ironically last night our best period in the game was when we played a deeper line and played a more traditional couter attacking style.
With Woodward gone there does seem to be progress on splitting the clubs commercial activities from footballing activities. These would never bare fruit half way through a season that is for sure. Not a fan of the Glazers, never will but I do have some optimism with how we seem to be structuring the club behind the scene's.
For all his punditry and soundbiting, I go back to what Keano said a few weeks ago. In essence any new manager coming in, is in a great position. He can mold the squad how he wants then it's upto him to deliver. Mata, Matic, Pogba, Lingard, Cavani all going on a free and likely there will be a few from Henderson, Bailly, Jones, Pereirra being sold.
Just my opinion, but I think you will see two paid for signings, two free agents and the rest made up of Garner, Mejbri, DVB, Garnacho coming into the fold. End of the day this is Man Utd, despite the mess, it's still one of the legacy clubs that players and managers would want to be involved in. We was saying the same thing about Liverpool pre Klopp, who would want to play / manage them.
Saying things like a re-build takes 5 years or so is complete and utter bullshit. What people don't understand is when you get a manager that has his principles, he can easily improve players. I guarantee, out of the 25 players, 5/6 are capable of playing the ETH way and will want to improve.
Infact I can name 2. Sancho and Donny, one has played under ETH and Sancho has played in that kind of system with Dortmund.
1st season is to strip the squad, get a few key players in that you want to build around, then try and develop a style. In the 2nd season, add another 3/4 players and the manager should then have a system and players to play his style.
This is still a big club, the next manager to win a CL or PL with this club will go down in history, his stock will rise, probably be the highest paid manager.
That's it.
This is where we are.
Jose had us "Challenging for the title".
And our team right now is as bad as this Pool team.
We could actually argue that our team is better. Maybe.
So, in three years time - a great manager who ads 3 world class players per year could have the team that destroyed us yesterday.
Brendan had them at 6th, the previous season they were runner ups, and before that seventh and eighth. Ole had us at 5th, 3rd, then 2nd at a point were the league is much more competitive. Now we’re around 6th.
In fact, Ole’s three first seasons were better than Klopp’s first three (8th, 4th, 4th).
Ten Hag’s challenge is that his football, like Rangniks, needs a different set of player skills than Mourinho and Solskjær did, so there will be learning time and set backs.
Will have his work cut out to get us organized again.
Our current team isn't close to as bad as that Pool team. The difference is that those Pool players weren't work shy cnuts. If our current players bought into ETHs vision then I think we could easily be competing for 3rd place next season with 3-4 additions. The problem is that I have zero faith that they will.
My only hope is that a lot of the bad influences on the dressing room will be going and that with coaching and a stable managers we will see some of these players turn it around and start to enjoy their football. I think that is a big issue. They aren't enjoying themselves and don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Klopp has massive buy in from all of his players and it shows. Average players suddenly look like good players and good players suddenly look like great players.
Salah wasn't world class when he came to Liverpool
Mane was good but not amazing when he came to Liverpool.
They have taken god knows how many defenders and midfielders who were average on arrival and turned them into top players.
Good managers add value to players and create something greater than the sum of its parts. United haven't had a manager do that since Fergie.
I don't agree with this.
My opinion but I think Ten Hag is coming in with the understanding(and backing) that his job is to rip this squad up and build a proper team.
This job, no matter how messy we've become is still one of the top jobs for any manager, the job now is for Ten Hag to set a style of play and recruit the type of player that can perform to that style of play.
“work shy cnuts” is the most apt description of our squad I’ve heard so far
If you go to Transfermarkt here https://www.transfermarkt.com/statistik/endendevertraege it shows all the players with contracts ending in the summer. If you select 2023 it shows all those with 1 year left who should be available for a good price in the summer. There actually a lot of very good players in both we could target for EtH particularly in the 2023 group to get some players for less than €40m (some are under €20m).
2022 Kamara, Eriksen (experience and a little extra quality).
There's also Johnstone (mentioned as a back up GK), sadly Mazraoui's off to Bayern and Grillitsch who could also be a squad DM
2023 Laimer, Ruiz, N'Dicka, Celik, Bissouma (court case pending), Renato Sanches, Teilemans, Gaya, Gosens, Grimaldo, Dembele (linked as a cheap CF), Aouar, Thuram
Most of them are young, hungry cheap ish including wages and ready for the step up.
There are also some brand names on there we won't get, shouldn't get or would be on very high wages
2022 Mbappe, Dembele, Rudiger, Romagnoli
2023 Sterling, Oblak, Soyoncu, Gnabry
The lists does change regularly as players sign new contracts or get linked to/bought by new clubs so some of the above may not apply. You have to check often to keep up.
Kamara to us was said by Il Romanista supposedly when Roma enquired. See here https://footballfocus24.com/2022/04...midfielder-man-united-news-and-transfer-news/
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wen Hag?
It's very crucial that the board, Erik Ten hag, and Ralf Rangnick must make the best decision together to make things right. In my opinion, recent mistakes were brought Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo with huge wage from 350K to 500K per week. This level of wage must expect extraordinary performance like De Bruyne and Salah consistently. If they can't perform upto required level, how do we offload players who're enjoying huge wage?
In addition, extending Bruno's wage and contract right now before Erik Ten hag join is also not good thing. We still don't know whether Erik Ten hag can use Bruno as key player in his posession based football or not. What's the point board and Rangnick decided in this period? So, for Degea, Shaw, Rashford, it'd better wait until Erik Ten hag join and make decision together.
In addition, extending Bruno's wage and contract right now before Erik Ten hag join is also not good thing. We still don't know whether Erik Ten hag can use Bruno as key player in his posession based football or not. What's the point board and Rangnick decided in this period? So, for Degea, Shaw, Rashford, it'd better wait until Erik Ten hag join and make decision together.
Not sure how accurate that info is. Coman definitely signed a new contract a while back, for example.
Would've thought the announcement would be today no?
In any case, this chap is going to need to be the literal Messiah if we want to turn this around.
In any case, this chap is going to need to be the literal Messiah if we want to turn this around.
Such a good point this.
I think we have the perfect guy come in to improve players that we deem as good.
As you pointed out, as long as the negative influences have been removed from the squad and he is able to add personnel that have the right mentality and fit his system.
I was so downbeat yesterday but reading that has given me a glimmer of hope.
When you think of all the managers post Fergie, EtH seems like the first one to come in that doesn't just name a starting 11 but also tries to improve players and make them versatile.
A manager with pedigree and work ethic and plan how to play on long contract is exactly what we need for the reboot of morales and play system. If I could, I would like this post. As a lot of you are very emotional which is understandable, but you have to see the big picture as well.
There's no reason on God's green earth why we couldn't get the right players next season and hit the ground running. Taking 2-5 years is just bullshit. All we need are the right players and system. Theoretically that could be done overnight. Yeah it's a bit of a simplistic view but you get the point.
I did say at the bottom it constantly changes. Edited out. I missed it as I got sick of his agent linking him with us to jack up his contract offer with Bayern.
I agree, I do not think a rebuild takes that long. I do see how a next season could be transitional but I expect top 4 as bare minimum still.
Firstly, I am told ETH is an elite manager, which means we should already get alot more out the current players, boosted with 4/5 signings, we have to at least compete for a cup.
Its about getting the right players for ETH. That is the hardest job we have. We have pathetic scouts.
Time will probably prove you right.
But I do generally believe he's been given assurances on this part before taking the job. And I believe the club leaked that they didn't sign anyone in January so that the new manager would have more funds for a summer rebuild.
Rangnick has stated publicly what needs to be done and how many players will be needed. So no doubt this would have been fed back to the board also. Surely they can be under no illusions as to what is required from them.
We've historically usually spent quite well when we fail to get the CL which seems a strange way of doing it.
We did back Mourinho hugely, hopefully ETH will get the same treatment.
If we can get Tchoaumeni, Nunez, Antony and Nkunku that would be a great start.
I think you are right in that the view is a bit simplistic.
If you’re premise is that our scouts are terrible, and if we make 2-5 good signings we could improve very fast, there is already a glich.
Realistically, managers hitting the ground running (honeymoons notwithstanding) are the exceptions. Klopp came 8th, 4th, 4th in his first three seasons. Guardiola was third in his first season despite coming to the worlds richest club, with his old sporting director having prepared the club for him two seasons in advance, and despite a fantastic honeymoon gift. These are the two beat managers post Ferguson, for two big clubs.
Also, building on a direction is one thing, changing a direction is something else.
If you’re premise is that our scouts are terrible, and if we make 2-5 good signings we could improve very fast, there is already a glich.
Realistically, managers hitting the ground running (honeymoons notwithstanding) are the exceptions. Klopp came 8th, 4th, 4th in his first three seasons. Guardiola was third in his first season despite coming to the worlds richest club, with his old sporting director having prepared the club for him two seasons in advance, and despite a fantastic honeymoon gift. These are the two beat managers post Ferguson, for two big clubs.
Also, building on a direction is one thing, changing a direction is something else.
At this post he just needs to give us a team that fights in that pitch. That’s the parameters for success at the moment as it seems we’ve created a squad who don’t give a feck.
Cheers
willing to bet that is McNulty without looking. Hardly our biggest fan.
Klopp inherited a team that was much worse than ours that also had terrible recruitment without the star level power. He had no Varane, Sancho or Bruno level talents nor highly rated young players in their reserves like Hannibal, Elanga or Shoretire. Yes this season has been a mess but that Liverpool team Klopp inherited was even more terrible than our lot. Ten Hag having a viable system and tactics to hammer into the squad will improve us no doubt.
We have to be in for Oblak if we're serious about the rebuild. We need a keeper and there isn't anyone realistically available. Atletico has nothing to offer him anymore from a sporting perspective and there isn't anyone better than him out there. Unless we unearth some unknown gem we'll be stuck with DDG and Henderson for a long time.
So now Ralf is being criticized for telling the truth?
Oblak appears to have lost his way.
No thanks. Think he's on the decline personally. A few years ago I'd have agreed, but now money could and should be spent elsewhere.
No I agree with Ralf's brutal assessment, just laughing at the notion of us having to bring in up to 10 players, just highlights the absurdity of the situation we find ourselves in.
Considering our other problems, GK is literally our least priority. Could we replace De Gea with a player that’s better at the things Ten Hag and Ralf like? Sure, however De Gea has been good this season. He’s stood up, he’s been a leader (as seen by him doing the interviews + encouraging the team yesterday when Maguire just stood there).
I also think De Gea’s inability to play the way say Allison or Ederson do is talked up too much. I doubt they’d play that way either in a non functioning team with a truly awful back four in front of them. Getting a ball by either Maguire or Wan Bissaka or giving a ball to either of them is like throwing or receiving a live hand grenade.
Oblak's definitely not the answer, a few years ago maybe but not now
Oblak would be a strange choice. He is a keeper with a similar profile as De Gea, and his form is were De Gea’s was a year or two ago. Now De Gea is among the best again among the shotstopper specialists. If were looking for a new keeper now, it will be because Ten Hag would want different strengths from his GK. Henderson could have a chance because of that.
I’m not sure what are the obvious candidates of more pro-active, playing keepers attainable at the moment.
Oblak has gone to the dogs as of late. For the money he would cost it would be a ridiculous buy
He won't last 18 months at United because of the board and the players.
That's the spirit. Honestly why even bother being interested in this form of entertainment if you're going to be relentlessly negative even about something that we should be hopeful and positive about? What joy is there for you?