Erik ten Hag - Ajax Manager

sullydnl

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Looking at the Eredevise table after 15 games, the most impressive thing is the goal difference.

Most scored goals with 48, the next best being on 38. Which fair enough, you might expect. But only 2 goals conceded all season with the next best being 14 is really impressive.
 

AjaxCunian

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Looking at the Eredevise table after 15 games, the most impressive thing is the goal difference.

Most scored goals with 48, the next best being on 38. Which fair enough, you might expect. But only 2 goals conceded all season with the next best being 14 is really impressive.
Considering the high line Ajax plays with, it is insane.
 

WeePat

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Looking at the Eredevise table after 15 games, the most impressive thing is the goal difference.

Most scored goals with 48, the next best being on 38. Which fair enough, you might expect. But only 2 goals conceded all season with the next best being 14 is really impressive.
48 scored, 2 conceded after 15 games is pretty mental.
 

Caesar2290

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seems like Ten Hag is Pep 2.0
while Rúben Amorim is Mourinho 2.0

according to this Ten Hag is City bound while Amorim is United bound (just like Pep 1.0 vs Mourinho 1.0, Ten Hag is better than Amorim too)
Dammit, the regens are popping before the originals can retire. The Matrix is broken again. :lol:

Is there anything bad about this guy?

Is there anything that he needs to improve on if he becomes our manager?
He can be very stubborn. He sticks to his favorites. That's one of the reasons his Ajax side wasn't that impressive in the last 2 years in Europe. Some of his key players got injured, and the replacements because they weren't properly rotated weren't match sharp.

Here is a manager profile where an Ajax fan breaks down to the smallest details

Looking at the Eredevise table after 15 games, the most impressive thing is the goal difference.

Most scored goals with 48, the next best being on 38. Which fair enough, you might expect. But only 2 goals conceded all season with the next best being 14 is really impressive.
This right here aside from his mentality is the reason I want him at United. Plenty of coaches play attacking footy, but usually they are defensively naive. Take Gasperini as an example. His Atlanta side is very well coached attacking unit, but it has always been defensively suspect. Not the case with Erik.

Every single Ajax match that I watch they looked very balanced. I can't remember a single time bar Spurs where I thought they were defensively atrocious. There is absolutely a lot to like about the man and very little to dislike.
 

GMoore23

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Dammit, the regens are popping before the originals can retire. The Matrix is broken again. :lol:


He can be very stubborn. He sticks to his favorites. That's one of the reasons his Ajax side wasn't that impressive in the last 2 years in Europe. Some of his key players got injured, and the replacements because they weren't properly rotated weren't match sharp.

Here is a manager profile where an Ajax fan breaks down to the smallest details


This right here aside from his mentality is the reason I want him at United. Plenty of coaches play attacking footy, but usually they are defensively naive. Take Gasperini as an example. His Atlanta side is very well coached attacking unit, but it has always been defensively suspect. Not the case with Erik.

Every single Ajax match that I watch they looked very balanced. I can't remember a single time bar Spurs where I thought they were defensively atrocious. There is absolutely a lot to like about the man and very little to dislike.
He won't get away with that managing a top club in England who expects to compete for every trophy. That shit literally cost Solskjaer his job.
Look at Guardiola at City, rotates all the time and trusts his squad. The result, multiple league titles and in contention for multiple trophies every season.
 

Caesar2290

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He won't get away with that managing a top club in England who expects to compete for every trophy. That shit literally cost Solskjaer his job.
Look at Guardiola at City, rotates all the time and trusts his squad. The result, multiple league titles and in contention for multiple trophies every season.
True, but one word that describes Hag best is that he is adaptable. This year he started heavily rotating his squad in the CL group stages even before the assured their 1st place. The man is learning from his mistakes and at a very fast pace.
 

RooneyLegend

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He won't get away with that managing a top club in England who expects to compete for every trophy. That shit literally cost Solskjaer his job.
Look at Guardiola at City, rotates all the time and trusts his squad. The result, multiple league titles and in contention for multiple trophies every season.
Rotating is difficult without quality. Luckily for him, we're a very wealthy club that buys what it wants. Just bring him in, we'll figure the rest out later.
 

VidaRed

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He won't get away with that managing a top club in England who expects to compete for every trophy. That shit literally cost Solskjaer his job.
Look at Guardiola at City, rotates all the time and trusts his squad. The result, multiple league titles and in contention for multiple trophies every season.
Make pep the manager of newcastle now without any janury signings and see him get relegated with newcastle.

Pep can only rotate and win because he has players worth several hundred million sat on the bench.

No matter what pep does, he'll always be rated below klop. Just like city, they can win 10 titles on the trot and still no one would give a flying feck because its all tainted.
 

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True, but one word that describes Hag best is that he is adaptable. This year he started heavily rotating his squad in the CL group stages even before the assured their 1st place. The man is learning from his mistakes and at a very fast pace.
During the period where he didn't rotate, was there an absolutely ridiculously monumental dropoff in quality between the players he overused and their understudies?
 

Caesar2290

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During the period where he didn't rotate, was there an absolutely ridiculously monumental dropoff in quality between the players he overused and their understudies?
@AjaxCunian can give you a much in depth answer, but to answer your question in layman's terms is the players that were brought off the bench looked a bit rusty and lost. It wasn't so much a quality thing as more to do with lack of match fitness(similar to DVB) and lack of cohesion due to the fact that most of the players haven't featured much. They do have a well defined system they stick to, but you need match fitness to execute it. As a result when called upon they would misplace a lot of passes and just look a bit out of it. Just look at their recent EL run to better understand what I mean.
 

hungrywing

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@AjaxCunian can give you a much in depth answer, but to answer your question in layman's terms is the players that were brought off the bench looked a bit rusty and lost. It wasn't so much a quality thing as more to do with lack of match fitness(similar to DVB) and lack of cohesion due to the fact that most of the players haven't featured much. They do have a well defined system they stick to, but you need match fitness to execute it. As a result when called upon they would misplace a lot of passes and just look a bit out of it. Just look at their recent EL run to better understand what I mean.
I get that. It was clear from your earlier post. Sorry to make you repeat yourself. I was just wondering if maybe during that period he eschewed rotation because his bench options were so horrendously bad that he couldn't possibly play them and hope to compete. To be clear I don't think there's a real chance of that being the case, I just wanted to get it out of the way, because this-

True, but one word that describes Hag best is that he is adaptable. This year he started heavily rotating his squad in the CL group stages even before the assured their 1st place. The man is learning from his mistakes and at a very fast pace.
-is a very positive sign if he's learned to effectively rotate in such a relatively short time (rather than simply now having more players who he feels are up to standard)
 

VanDeBank

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Dunno

Also Frank de boer looked like a genius there
Not really. He won 4 consecutive titles, but his football was boring and shite and they got smacked in Europa League knockouts every time with said shite football.
 

VidaRed

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Dunno

Also Frank de boer looked like a genius there
You have two options:
1. Continue with mediocre managers
2. Try new promising managers

Only an idiot would follow the first option. Even if the promising manager flops and is mediocre, its still not in a worse position than if the risk wasn't taken.
 

Camilo

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True, but one word that describes Hag best is that he is adaptable. This year he started heavily rotating his squad in the CL group stages even before the assured their 1st place. The man is learning from his mistakes and at a very fast pace.
Incredible pace. If he continues to learn one thing every year until retirement he could learn another what, 20, 25 things? Scary.
 

Caesar2290

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I get that. It was clear from your earlier post. Sorry to make you repeat yourself. I was just wondering if maybe during that period he eschewed rotation because his bench options were so horrendously bad that he couldn't possibly play them and hope to compete.
To be honest I have no idea mate. It's hard to judge because Ten Hag makes his players look way better than they actually are(a trait of great managers). So it's hard to say if it's a case of him not trusting his own squad or simply because they were dogshite. This season they added a couple of new players as well as some players from the academy have stepped up so it might be a case of the later.
Incredible pace. If he continues to learn one thing every year until retirement he could learn another what, 20, 25 things? Scary.
I don't think that's how it works sadly. I think great managers are recognizable by their quality rather than their knowledge.

All the great modern managers be it SAF, Pep, Klopp have a couple of things in common. They have a winner's mentality. They are very adaptable to the new trends. They improve the players more and they rotate their squads effortlessly(SAF was a magician at these). There are a lot of other factors, but these usually represent the backbone of a successful manager.

This is the main reason I am so excited about Ten Hag. It's because he posses all of these qualities. Ever since he started rotating his squad he immediately stepped into the potential Elite Manager category. The only thing missing is him showcasing his abilities on a larger scale.
 

GMoore23

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Make pep the manager of newcastle now without any janury signings and see him get relegated with newcastle.

Pep can only rotate and win because he has players worth several hundred million sat on the bench.

No matter what pep does, he'll always be rated below klop. Just like city, they can win 10 titles on the trot and still no one would give a flying feck because its all tainted.
Hence why I said top club expecting to compete on all fronts. With us Ten Hag will have the same tools at his disposal as Pep and Peps the benchmark.
I agree with you that Pep could never manage a lesser club which is why I was talking about top clubs which we are.

Pep is a brilliant manager and the best manager of a world class team there is. Would he be terrible at a lesser quality side, probably but who cares.
He's actually very much like our own Roy Keane, obviously a far better manager and tactician but both were top players and played in top teams.
They find it hard to coach players that can't do the things that came so easy to them.
 

BorisManUtd

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Benfica in round 16 of Champions League is a good draw for Ajax and they should progress to quarterfinals. If they do, it will be interesting to see them against stronger opposition later on and it would be a big test for ten Hag. If they go as far as in 2019 then I could see us choosing ten Hag definitely.
 

RedSky

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Dunno

Also Frank de boer looked like a genius there
Qualifying games not counted.

ManagerLeague GamesLeague Win %CL GamesCL Win %Europa GamesEuropa Win %
Erik ten Hag12577.6%3056.7%1060.0%
Marcel Keizer1770.6%0-20%
Peter Bosz3473.5%0-1553.3%
Frank de Boer18766.3%2528.0%2339.1%
Martin Jol5170.6%520.0%837.5%
 

AjaxCunian

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Good test for him, Ajax are the favourites I think.

Probably facing a top side if they make it to the quarters. Would be good to see how he does.
 

NYAS

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Wasn’t impressed with the Alkmaar game but hopefully it was just a bad day at the office.
 

BorisManUtd

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Qualifying games not counted.

ManagerLeague GamesLeague Win %CL GamesCL Win %Europa GamesEuropa Win %
Erik ten Hag12577.6%3056.7%1060.0%
Marcel Keizer1770.6%0-20%
Peter Bosz3473.5%0-1553.3%
Frank de Boer18766.3%2528.0%2339.1%
Martin Jol5170.6%520.0%837.5%
Ten Hag's record in Europe is what impresses me the most. Excited to see how he does in knockout stages this season.
 

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Wasn’t impressed with the Alkmaar game but hopefully it was just a bad day at the office.
They've been having more games like that in the league this season. Ajax seem to have an issue with motivation with league games they're supposed to win without too much issue (as arrogant as it is to assume that against AZ). It's something Ten Hag really needs to address now - he keeps stating he's unhappy with it and pointing to a lack of energy and urgency after those games, but it's up to him to fix that.
 

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@AjaxCunian or others who follow the Eredivisie.. looks like they're sitting 2nd behind PSV (1 pt behind) and 3 pts above Feyenoord.

Level dropped off? Injuries? What's going on?
 

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Taking a thread off topic
2nd?? That is weird. Even though I rate Ten Hag highly, I taught he should be running away with the league. Looks like Pochettino is one of the few managers at a top league that is doing that this season. I really haven’t watch much of the league over there, but it is surprising that PSV is first.
 

Sviken

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2nd?? That is weird. Even though I rate Ten Hag highly, I taught he should be running away with the league. Looks like Pochettino is one of the few managers at a top league that is doing that this season. I really haven’t watch much of the league over there, but it is surprising that PSV is first.
Not really. Just half of the season has passed, it's highly likely that Ajax will still win the league easily. They're just 1 point behind and are utterly dominant, even in regards to PSV - 51 goals with only 4 conceded.
 

Teja

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Not really. Just half of the season has passed, it's highly likely that Ajax will still win the league easily. They're just 1 point behind and are utterly dominant, even in regards to PSV - 51 goals with only 4 conceded.
The GF, GA tallies are pretty insane but it means something to be top of the table half way in. Anything obvious that might be going wrong?

The PSV guy (Roger Schmidt) seems like one from the Red bull factory. A mini Pep v Klopp battle going on there?
 

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@AjaxCunian or others who follow the Eredivisie.. looks like they're sitting 2nd behind PSV (1 pt behind) and 3 pts above Feyenoord.

Level dropped off? Injuries? What's going on?
There was a brief discussion about that recently, see if I can dig up my post that I think explains this...

Ah, got it, it was after their home loss to AZ last week:
They've been having more games like that in the league this season. Ajax seem to have an issue with motivation with league games they're supposed to win without too much issue (as arrogant as it is to assume that against AZ). It's something Ten Hag really needs to address now - he keeps stating he's unhappy with it and pointing to a lack of energy and urgency after those games, but it's up to him to fix that.
It's not great, but at least he understands the problem.
 

Teja

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There was a brief discussion about that recently, see if I can dig up my post that I think explains this...

Ah, got it, it was after their home loss to AZ last week:

It's not great, but at least he understands the problem.
Thanks - I'm a bit wary of the mentality monsters type of posts after OGS' rein here, but I hope that really is the case. The GF / GA tallies still show the sign of a very dominant team, so maybe it's just a minor blip. It'll be interesting to see the Caf's opinion though if PSV actually win the title.
 

Bebestation

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Not really. Just half of the season has passed, it's highly likely that Ajax will still win the league easily. They're just 1 point behind and are utterly dominant, even in regards to PSV - 51 goals with only 4 conceded.
Only 4 goals conceded in the season :eek:
 

AjaxCunian

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@AjaxCunian or others who follow the Eredivisie.. looks like they're sitting 2nd behind PSV (1 pt behind) and 3 pts above Feyenoord.

Level dropped off? Injuries? What's going on?
Maybe urgency/motovation, but Ajax plays teams that sit very deep. Even then, they create chances but sometimes the ball just doesnt want to go in, it gets frustrating and the opposing team might get some good chances on the break.

Ajax had far higher xG than AZ and deserved to win (statistically) even if they werent great, but it is one of those matches which have happened far too often where the ball just doesnt want to go in the net. So there have been a couple of 0-0's and 0-1's but not because Ajax can't break these teams down, but a lack of clinical finishing and you need to be very very patient.

The matches were Ajax win with big numbers, they are usually overly clinical. If this was spread out better, Ajax would be comfortably 1st.
 

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I think this could be Peps last season at City. Ten Hag is his most logical replacement.
He's already said he's staying till 2023. Obviously he can change his mind but I don't see that happening.

Ten Hag going to City would be a real killer. Essentially means he can never ever be Utd boss. :(
 

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Not really. Just half of the season has passed, it's highly likely that Ajax will still win the league easily. They're just 1 point behind and are utterly dominant, even in regards to PSV - 51 goals with only 4 conceded.
Ahh, I see. 17 games has passed, we will have to see, but Ajax has been playing good football in the champion league, so I was surprised when I read they were in 2nd in the league