Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[theyneverlearn]

I don’t remember a game where we won the ball in so many good positions but just didn’t execute the right pass to take advantage.

It felt like as soon as we won the ball the players had no idea what to do with it. The amount of times the wrong pass was played, or delayed was infuriating.

It looked like we had no threat up front and no pressing from our CF, Rashford. Stick Hoijund up there and we’ll instantly look better. Someone who is a focus up front and will be the first to press.

 

[MUFC OK]

Style of play isn’t a hypothetical. It’s quite literally there to see in data and before your eyes. Do you think tactics are some ephemeral idea?

If you honestly think any of those three managers deserved more time then fine, but I think you’re being disingenuous to make some point that has no basis in fact. To say we don’t give managers time in comparison to the majority of the top times is nonsense. You can pick Arteta as the exception, but Chelsea, Spurs, City (pre Pep), Liverpool (pre Klopp), Real, Bayern, Barca all point differently.

On the bolded, nice facetious comment. I’ll be equally facetious and say “check the stats bro”.

You can’t compare the PL to Real, Bayern or Barca in my opinion. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Chelsea, Spurs or Liverpool pre-Klopp have managers enough time either - it’s not just a United issue. We all slate the ownership and acquisitions of 4th, 5th choice players etc yet you think managers deserved to be sacked? All bar Ole didn’t get what they asked for, so which is it?

ETH has been backed in fairness but I’m going to call out any fan trying to turn the screw on him after one sub-par performance in a game we won. I suspect the criticism is actually about a different issue than on field performance entirely.

 

[united_99]

The point is that people who have done horrible things are a part of the club, and to claim your love of the club has dininished based on the one recent person is just stupid considering the history.

Different cases/times/context.
I only watched Giggs play from your examples. Cheating on your wife/sleeping with your sister-in-law are not crimes, no one can charge or convict you for that.
The domestic abuse case came long after he retired. He was Wales manager then and had to leave his job. Then the alleged victim came across as not reliable in the court hearing and after the hearing still no decision could be made.
For me this belongs to cases such as „We didn’t see/hear him doing / saying it“, „he could be guilty/but could also not be guilty“.
Whereas a certain other case as we all know is completely different. People will always believe more what they have directly seen/heard from the person‘s mouth for example.
So no matter how much people try to compare it to other (ex) players, this one is different.
The club will probably go with the „law“ and argue they shouldn’t be „above the law“. People can be fine with this stance or not, their decision. But incredibly desperate attempt to throw all cases into the same basket.
And even if you decide to throw all into the same basket because this way you feel good, it’s a huge difference if it’s an active player or a retired player. You can’t change history, you can only influence the present.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Not exactly true that though, is it? Even Liverpool fans have been more patient with their managers than we have at United to my memory.

Let's contrast the way their fans treated Hodgson vs the way our fans treated Moyes.

United fans are by far the most patient in European football - to a fault, really.

 

[fallengt]

It´s the expectations and hopes that kills us isn´t it.

New players in, a proper pre season for all players, lots of time to gel the team together, lots of time for the players to understand what the manager wants from them, lots of time for the manager to figure out what his players can do for him and how they are best utilised. And yada yada.

Preseason doen´t look good, but we know preseason is only preseason so no need to worry. Roll on the season. Fecking let´s go!! Let´s see how much closer we are to the best teams now.
Wolves at home is a perfect start to ease into the season and gain confidence!

And then the game happens, and Wolves look better at almost everything. Over 90 minutes, we have no answer.
Our perfomance is probably not as bad as the reaction says, but it is the feeling of being stuck in a hamster wheel, were we just rotate between some good games, some so so games, some truly shite games, back to some good games again, then some so so games, then some truly shite games again and round and round we go.

This
Also for anyone says "we won alot while playing poorly under Fergie". Right, We've been saying this for 10 years now, where's United's league title?
Well, we play poorly because performance is poor, there's no hidden message to it. Up to staff and ETH to solve it now.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Not exactly true that though, is it? Even Liverpool fans have been more patient with their managers than we have at United to my memory.

They were on Hodgsons back from the beginning, and they wanted club legend Dalglish sacked for poor performances just as we wanted Solskjaer sacked. Football fans are the same across the board. We all have expectations and are happy to see managers sacked when they aren't met. No point pretending the United fanbase is worse just to have a go at people

 

[glazed]

ETH has been backed in fairness but I’m going to call out any fan trying to turn the screw on him after one sub-par performance in a game we won. I suspect the criticism is actually about a different issue than on field performance entirely.

The problem isn't him it's the obvious lack of ambition the club has and will always have so long as the Glazers are in charge. ETH will eventually get fed up and quit if they don't fek off.

 

[Revan]

Not exactly true that though, is it? Even Liverpool fans have been more patient with their managers than we have at United to my memory.

- Hodgson (their Moyes) survived until the 8th of January. Moyes survived until the 22nd of April. They were both equally shit.
- Kenny Dalglish (their Ole in steroids) survived 1.5 seasons. Ole survived 3 seasons. For what is worth Ole did better (54% vs 47% win rate) but also had a significant backing in transfers.
- Rodgers (probably the closest from ours would be ten Hag) survived 3.5 seasons. He probably would not have got as much time at United, but then he also did not have much backing in transfer market despite almost winning the league with squads that were nowhere as good as City and Chelsea.
- Klopp has been great for them and I do not think we have had an equivalent to that yet.

For what is worth, I think:

- Moyes got way too much time. While he shouldn't have been hired in the first place, he should have been sacked after those back-to-back losses at Old Trafford against Everton and Newcastle. It was clearly a wrong experiment that was going to end only in one way. We essentially gave up on that season by not firing him.
- Van Gaal should have got the second season, but I think should have been fired after failing to pass the group stage in a weak group in UCL, so in December. We were also not doing well in the league, he had had massive backing, and we couldn't score if our life was dependent on that. Mourinho was available too. We sacrificed the season by not firing him back in December.
- Mourinho definitely deserved the second season. However, by the middle of it, it was clear that he had reached the ceiling. I was advocating his sacking here (whatever that means) after the defeat at Sevilla. He definitely must have been sacked at the end of that season, his toxicity had become too much and we essentially sacrificed the next season by starting with him.
- Ole should have never got the permanent job. But for bad reasons, he got it. I think he started very bad the first full season and probably should have been fired by Christmas, but after covid/Bruno we played well and ended the season strong. On his second full season, it was clear that we have reached the ceiling with him and he should have been fired. Unfortunately, we continued the wrong experiment and sacrificed a season, by keeping him and not firing him earlier, especially after that disaterclass against Liverpool.
- Rangnick was a caretaker. He rightly was not allowed to continue.
- EtH was hit-and-miss in the first season, with more hits than misses. I think he deserved a second season (I think he would not have got it in most of the other big clubs), but if it is just a repeat of the first season (especially the very low quality of football), he should be sacked by middle/end of season.

I think all our previous managers got more time than they deserved (except Rangnick who got only as much). I never bought the worshipping of the manager, the 'support the club, and the manager'. I do not think they should be in charge of transfers, and waste hundreds of millions in ill-thought transfers (all of them are culprits at this). They are a high-ranking employee, but at the end of the day, cheap to replace. The Real/Barca/Bayern/Chelsea philosophy of fail fast where the managers are fired at the first sign of trouble and replaced until they hit the jackpot when it comes to managers has shown to be far more successful than our philosophy of keeping the manager at least until 6 months after everyone realizes that they are shit, and at least until 2 months after they lose the dressing room, and in meanwhile giving to them full power over transfers, just in the idiotic hope that they will turn out to be Fergie MK2. Meanwhile, sacrifice a season so they are not fired a bit too early.

 

[garelo]

His 4-1-4-1 formation doesnt work. we got slaughtered by liverpool last season playing this formation with our strongest XI. He needs to tweaks his formation, he needs to find solution to get our midfielders to link up with each other, honestly i just dont buy it how isolated our midfielders are when we have hardworking players like Bruno, Mount, Antony, Casemiro in it.

I was quite impressed how Shaw and Wan Bissake kind of showed up in the box to the Wolves keeper so often. Did you not enjoy that? Fraud i would link to a guy like Lampard, not Ten Hag. Hes been a big improvement over OGS play. No more Pogba, no more Maguire, no more Ronaldo slowing down affairs. Rashford coming good. Plenty of good points imo.

Both of Shaw and AWB were doing that under Ole too, remember the "Shawberto" thing? Albeit in AWB case his first touch is improving under ETH and ETH has got betters player in his disposal compare to Ole who had to make do with McFred and whoever was available for RW position. So the question should be ask, how come a team with the best DM and the most hardworking no. 10 in the world get overrun too easily too many times? remember we got beaten 0-7 by liverpool without slow players you mentioned above last season.

 

[ClassOf'99]

I'm still not understanding why the Mount signing was such a priority.

Case is going to drown in if we play Mount and Bruno the way we did against Wolves.

We only needed to get cover for Case and an upgrade on Eriksen, neither of which is Mount.

The system worked last season with:

---------Case
------------------Eriksen/Fred
-------Bruno

All that was missing was an actual striker to finish the chances.

This new system leaves Case to cover the whole midfield by himself which he's never had to do nor does he have the legs to do.

Amrabaat seems like he would've been the prefect partner for tough games and good cover outside of that.

And with Mainoo emerging as good cover for Eriksen I don't know why we aren't setting up the same as last year and building up better transitions from that.

 

[NLunited]

His 4-1-4-1 formation doesnt work. we got slaughtered by liverpool last season playing this formation with our strongest XI. He needs to tweaks his formation, he needs to find solution to get our midfielders to link up with each other, honestly i just dont buy it how isolated our midfielders are when we have hardworking players like Bruno, Mount, Antony, Casemiro in it.



Both of Shaw and AWB were doing that under Ole too, remember the "Shawberto" thing? Albeit in AWB case his first touch is improving under ETH and ETH has got betters player in his disposal compare to Ole who had to make do with McFred and whoever was available for RW position. So the question should be ask, how come a team with the best DM and the most hardworking no. 10 in the world get overrun too easily too many times? remember we got beaten 0-7 by liverpool without slow players you mentioned above last season.

First half against Pool we were actually good and lost our heads after we got two behind.

We beat them at the beginning of the season. We usually pressed in a 4141 shape last season.

 

[pocco]

On the bolded, nice facetious comment. I’ll be equally facetious and say “check the stats bro”.

You can’t compare the PL to Real, Bayern or Barca in my opinion. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Chelsea, Spurs or Liverpool pre-Klopp have managers enough time either - it’s not just a United issue. We all slate the ownership and acquisitions of 4th, 5th choice players etc yet you think managers deserved to be sacked? All bar Ole didn’t get what they asked for, so which is it?

ETH has been backed in fairness but I’m going to call out any fan trying to turn the screw on him after one sub-par performance in a game we won. I suspect the criticism is actually about a different issue than on field performance entirely.

One sub par performance? I could reel off a list of them from last season that were beyond atrocious. Many against 'worse' teams.

 

[Strelok]

- Hodgson (their Moyes) survived until the 8th of January. Moyes survived until the 22nd of April. They were both equally shit.
- Kenny Dalglish (their Ole in steroids) survived 1.5 seasons. Ole survived 3 seasons. For what is worth Ole did better (54% vs 47% win rate) but also had a significant backing in transfers.
- Rodgers (probably the closest from ours would be ten Hag) survived 3.5 seasons. He probably would not have got as much time at United, but then he also did not have much backing in transfer market despite almost winning the league with squads that were nowhere as good as City and Chelsea.
- Klopp has been great for them and I do not think we have had an equivalent to that yet.

For what is worth, I think:

- Moyes got way too much time. While he shouldn't have been hired in the first place, he should have been sacked after those back-to-back losses at Old Trafford against Everton and Newcastle. It was clearly a wrong experiment that was going to end only in one way. We essentially gave up on that season by not firing him.
- Van Gaal should have got the second season, but I think should have been fired after failing to pass the group stage in a weak group in UCL, so in December. We were also not doing well in the league, he had had massive backing, and we couldn't score if our life was dependent on that. Mourinho was available too. We sacrificed the season by not firing him back in December.
- Mourinho definitely deserved the second season. However, by the middle of it, it was clear that he had reached the ceiling. I was advocating his sacking here (whatever that means) after the defeat at Sevilla. He definitely must have been sacked at the end of that season, his toxicity had become too much and we essentially sacrificed the next season by starting with him.
- Ole should have never got the permanent job. But for bad reasons, he got it. I think he started very bad the first full season and probably should have been fired by Christmas, but after covid/Bruno we played well and ended the season strong. On his second full season, it was clear that we have reached the ceiling with him and he should have been fired. Unfortunately, we continued the wrong experiment and sacrificed a season, by keeping him and not firing him earlier, especially after that disaterclass against Liverpool.
- Rangnick was a caretaker. He rightly was not allowed to continue.
- EtH was hit-and-miss in the first season, with more hits than misses. I think he deserved a second season (I think he would not have got it in most of the other big clubs), but if it is just a repeat of the first season (especially the very low quality of football), he should be sacked by middle/end of season.

I think all our previous managers got more time than they deserved (except Rangnick who got only as much). I never bought the worshipping of the manager, the 'support the club, and the manager'. I do not think they should be in charge of transfers, and waste hundreds of millions in ill-thought transfers (all of them are culprits at this). They are a high-ranking employee, but at the end of the day, cheap to replace. The Real/Barca/Bayern/Chelsea philosophy of fail fast where the managers are fired at the first sign of trouble and replaced until they hit the jackpot when it comes to managers has shown to be far more successful than our philosophy of keeping the manager at least until 6 months after everyone realizes that they are shit, and at least until 2 months after they lose the dressing room, and in meanwhile giving to them full power over transfers, just in the idiotic hope that they will turn out to be Fergie MK2. Meanwhile, sacrifice a season so they are not fired a bit too early.

Big fan of ETH but I'd agree with this. Madrid and Bayern are ruthless. You could say the same about City. Being too nice won't get you anywhere.

 

[mav_9me]

- Hodgson (their Moyes) survived until the 8th of January. Moyes survived until the 22nd of April. They were both equally shit.
- Kenny Dalglish (their Ole in steroids) survived 1.5 seasons. Ole survived 3 seasons. For what is worth Ole did better (54% vs 47% win rate) but also had a significant backing in transfers.
- Rodgers (probably the closest from ours would be ten Hag) survived 3.5 seasons. He probably would not have got as much time at United, but then he also did not have much backing in transfer market despite almost winning the league with squads that were nowhere as good as City and Chelsea.
- Klopp has been great for them and I do not think we have had an equivalent to that yet.

For what is worth, I think:

- Moyes got way too much time. While he shouldn't have been hired in the first place, he should have been sacked after those back-to-back losses at Old Trafford against Everton and Newcastle. It was clearly a wrong experiment that was going to end only in one way. We essentially gave up on that season by not firing him.
- Van Gaal should have got the second season, but I think should have been fired after failing to pass the group stage in a weak group in UCL, so in December. We were also not doing well in the league, he had had massive backing, and we couldn't score if our life was dependent on that. Mourinho was available too. We sacrificed the season by not firing him back in December.
- Mourinho definitely deserved the second season. However, by the middle of it, it was clear that he had reached the ceiling. I was advocating his sacking here (whatever that means) after the defeat at Sevilla. He definitely must have been sacked at the end of that season, his toxicity had become too much and we essentially sacrificed the next season by starting with him.
- Ole should have never got the permanent job. But for bad reasons, he got it. I think he started very bad the first full season and probably should have been fired by Christmas, but after covid/Bruno we played well and ended the season strong. On his second full season, it was clear that we have reached the ceiling with him and he should have been fired. Unfortunately, we continued the wrong experiment and sacrificed a season, by keeping him and not firing him earlier, especially after that disaterclass against Liverpool.
- Rangnick was a caretaker. He rightly was not allowed to continue.
- EtH was hit-and-miss in the first season, with more hits than misses. I think he deserved a second season (I think he would not have got it in most of the other big clubs), but if it is just a repeat of the first season (especially the very low quality of football), he should be sacked by middle/end of season.

I think all our previous managers got more time than they deserved (except Rangnick who got only as much). I never bought the worshipping of the manager, the 'support the club, and the manager'. I do not think they should be in charge of transfers, and waste hundreds of millions in ill-thought transfers (all of them are culprits at this). They are a high-ranking employee, but at the end of the day, cheap to replace. The Real/Barca/Bayern/Chelsea philosophy of fail fast where the managers are fired at the first sign of trouble and replaced until they hit the jackpot when it comes to managers has shown to be far more successful than our philosophy of keeping the manager at least until 6 months after everyone realizes that they are shit, and at least until 2 months after they lose the dressing room, and in meanwhile giving to them full power over transfers, just in the idiotic hope that they will turn out to be Fergie MK2. Meanwhile, sacrifice a season so they are not fired a bit too early.

I think the difference between those clubs and us is the owners/decision makers and their decision making process, with Woodward being the chief culprit for us with his commercial approach as opposed to focusing on on the pitch action. This new Chelsea approach reminds me of that, let's see how it works out.

Agree on the sacrificing a season, to save some money on firing a manager too soon. Again shows you the mindset of the owners/decision makers.

 

[Bebestation]

Ajax fans mentioned it here before he arrived that he had an alternative view on which players to bring to a club.

Right now the majority of players he has bought seem like they may be good but not exactly great.

It’s an improvement considering how we have had so many recent flops (VDB,Telles, Bailly etc) - it seems like we have improved to at the very least to have every player to be useful capable players in an overall squad, yet at the same time apart from a few, not many are really shining out like fantastic new signings.

 

[Revan]

I think the difference between those clubs and us is the owners/decision makers and their decision making process, with Woodward being the chief culprit for us with his commercial approach as opposed to focusing on on the pitch action. This new Chelsea approach reminds me of that, let's see how it works out.

Agree on the sacrificing a season, to save some money on firing a manager too soon. Again shows you the mindset of the owners/decision makers.

I agree with this, but I do not think it is just a matter of putting commercial interests ahead. Being successful in the pitch helps the financial interests of the club, signing players that do good also help financial interests.

I think a large part of the problem is that from CEO to the fanbase we truly believe (or hope) that the club should be ruled by the manager. Every time we change the manager, we do some briefings that this time will be different, the DoF and co is gonna be important etc, but within the 3 days the DoF and the structure above the manager become the manager's bitch, and the fans do a tatoo of the manager.

It is depressing, because it is the worst way to run a club, and by the time we fire a manager we all know that it is wrong what we are doing. But by the time we hire the new one, the irrationality takes over again, we forgot what we said how it should be the next time around, and the entire club becomes an institution whose main job is the worshipping of the manager.

With this approach, we will either find a Busby 3.0/Fergie 2.0, or continue in the wilderness for years to come. Statistically speaking, the former is more likely. I just hope that the new owners don't care about the fans feeling for the manager, and act ruthless like all the other big clubs do. Until then, I do not think there is much hope.

 

[Red the Bear]

I agree with this, but I do not think it is just a matter of putting commercial interests ahead. Being successful in the pitch helps the financial interests of the club, signing players that do good also help financial interests.

I think a large part of the problem is that from CEO to the fanbase we truly believe (or hope) that the club should be ruled by the manager. Every time we change the manager, we do some briefings that this time will be different, the DoF and co is gonna be important etc, but within the 3 days the DoF and the structure above the manager become the manager's bitch, and the fans do a tatoo of the manager.

It is depressing, because it is the worst way to run a club, and by the time we fire a manager we all know that it is wrong what we are doing. But by the time we hire the new one, the irrationality takes over again, we forgot what we said how it should be the next time around, and the entire club becomes an institution whose main job is the worshipping of the manager.

With this approach, we will either find a Busby 3.0/Fergie 2.0, or continue in the wilderness for years to come. Statistically speaking, the former is more likely. I just hope that the new owners don't care about the fans feeling for the manager, and act ruthless like all the other big clubs do. Until then, I do not think there is much hope.

I suppose it still makes sense to give a manager full control if he's unequivocally the best in the business, for example i doubt Guardiola doesn't get everything he desires if he wishes so, City certainly provide him with that prerogative.

The problem arises when we treat every manager post Ferguson no matter how good or bad as if they're definitely going to have the same career that he did with us and be around for upwards of 20 years.

 

[Revan]

I suppose it still makes sense to give a manager full control if he's unequivocally the best in the business, for example i doubt Guardiola doesn't get everything he desires if he wishes so, City certainly provide him with that prerogative.

The problem arises when we treat every manager post Ferguson no matter how good or bad as if they're definitely going to have the same career that he did with us and be around for upwards of 20 years.

For a very proven manager like Pep or Klopp, it makes sense to give to them some degree of control. But even them do not get full control, Klopp was overruled many times, both on signings (Salah) and extending players contract (Milner, Coutinho). Pep played Caballero to pressure the club to replace Hart. They probably have more power now, but it was power accumulated over the years of being successful, and is probably still less than what a United manager gets in day 1.

By all accounts the only high-profile overruling of a United manager was when Ed said to Mourinho to piss off when he wanted Maguire and Perisic. To only sign Maguire the next summer when Ole wanted him.

 

[Red the Bear]

For a very proven manager like Pep or Klopp, it makes sense to give to them some degree of control. But even them do not get full control, Klopp was overruled many times, both on signings (Salah) and extending players contract (Milner, Coutinho). Pep played Caballero to pressure the club to replace Hart. They probably have more power now, but it was power accumulated over the years of being successful, and is probably still less than what a United manager gets in day 1.

By all accounts the only high-profile overruling of a United manager was when Ed said to Mourinho to piss off when he wanted Maguire and Perisic. To only sign Maguire the next summer when Ole wanted him.

Pep probably has full control but yeah, klopp doesn't.

You're bang on about how shambolic our system is but it's probably because there's no system to begin with, Fergie was basically had total control over everything so when he left without any succesion scenario put in place it only made sense to see what we have seen, a club without any proper structure.

Even our supposedly vaunted academy has failed to produce any truly successful player aside from perhaps Rashford for so many years, the new owners will have their hands full.

 

[Sylar]

Big fan of ETH but I'd agree with this. Madrid and Bayern are ruthless. You could say the same about City. Being too nice won't get you anywhere.

I reckon none of those clubs would have tolerated a 7-0 loss to their rivals.
Likewise when Ole lost to Liverpool at home 5-0
Or when Moyes lost to Liverpool and City back to back (think both home games) 3-0.

Saying that, Im happy that ETH didnt get sacked and think he had more hits than misses last season. Im really hoping his pursuit of Antony and Mount (which is a significant amount) doesnt end up costing him (thus leaving us with two players who will be difficult to get rid of if our next manager doesnt fancy them).

Ajax fans mentioned it here before he arrived that he had an alternative view on which players to bring to a club.

Right now the majority of players he has bought seem like they may be good but not exactly great.

It’s an improvement considering how we have had so many recent flops (VDB,Telles, Bailly etc) - it seems like we have improved to at the very least to have every player to be useful capable players in an overall squad, yet at the same time apart from a few, not many are really shining out like fantastic new signings.

Good players over great can work if the good players are fantastic at working as a team and following a plan set in place.

I don’t remember a game where we won the ball in so many good positions but just didn’t execute the right pass to take advantage.

It felt like as soon as we won the ball the players had no idea what to do with it. The amount of times the wrong pass was played, or delayed was infuriating.

It looked like we had no threat up front and no pressing from our CF, Rashford. Stick Hoijund up there and we’ll instantly look better. Someone who is a focus up front and will be the first to press.

Im hoping Hoijlund will also be some sort of physical threat / not be easily knocked off the ball. Not having somebody who can at least challenge when the ball goes long is an issue. You dont even have to the biggest - weve had the likes of Rooney, Saha, Cole etc at the very least be like that and challenge and make a long ball into something (or giving us a chance for the second ball to recover higher up)

 

[the_cliff]

I reckon none of those clubs would have tolerated a 7-0 loss to their rivals.
Likewise when Ole lost to Liverpool at home 5-0
Or when Moyes lost to Liverpool and City back to back (think both home games) 3-0.

Saying that, Im happy that ETH didnt get sacked and think he had more hits than misses last season. Im really hoping his pursuit of Antony and Mount (which is a significant amount) doesnt end up costing him (thus leaving us with two players who will be difficult to get rid of if our next manager doesnt fancy them).


Good players over great can work if the good players are fantastic at working as a team and following a plan set in place.


Im hoping Hoijlund will also be some sort of physical threat / not be easily knocked off the ball. Not having somebody who can at least challenge when the ball goes long is an issue. You dont even have to the biggest - weve had the likes of Rooney, Saha, Cole etc at the very least be like that and challenge and make a long ball into something (or giving us a chance for the second ball to recover higher up)

1. Bayerns competition is so far behind them that in terms of money available and competition that it would take a miracle for a team like Dortmund to beat them 5-0. PSG is the same.
2. Mourinho lost 5-0 to Barca with Madrid and had another season. Ancelotti lost 4-0 to City last season he's still here.

 

[JuriM]

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[Revan]

Pep probably has full control but yeah, klopp doesn't.

You're bang on about how shambolic our system is but it's probably because there's no system to begin with, Fergie was basically had total control over everything so when he left without any succesion scenario put in place it only made sense to see what we have seen, a club without any proper structure.

Even our supposedly vaunted academy has failed to produce any truly successful player aside from perhaps Rashford for so many years, the new owners will have their hands full.

Sure, but we had over 10 years to fix that. What we have now is a pseudo-DoF who brags how in the job interview, EtH was more interviewing Murtough than the other way around. And a scouting system that since EtH came, out of the 13 players we were seriously interested, 10 of them have played at some time in the Dutch league (Eriksen, De Jong, Antony, Lisandro, Timber, Weghorst, Malacia, Onana, Mount, Gapko), the other 3 who didn't are Casemiro, Sabitzer and Hojlund. So in other words, it is same as before, the manager gets to play Football Manager.

 

[ShinjiNinja26]

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Well Erik, it hate to break it to you but you’re getting none of those unfortunately.

 

[the_cliff]

Well Erik, it hate to break it to you but you’re getting none of those unfortunately.

I think we'll get a midfielder regardless of outgoings. Striker is very hopeful though. Despite a lot of people saying we need to sell to buy I think it's a negotiation tactic from our side, we should still be able to spend another 35 mill and stay within FFP limitations.

 

[Revan]

2. Mourinho lost 5-0 to Barca with Madrid and had another season. Ancelotti lost 4-0 to City last season he's still here.

Mourinho: It was extremely early on the season, and it is was just 5-0, instead of 7-0. Plus Barcelona was a treble winning team.
Ancelotti: fair point, but by that time, he had won with Madrid a couple of UCLs, a league title, and a few other trophies.

A better argument might be that Ancelotti* got sacked for finishing second (with 92 points, just two shy of champions Barcelona) a year after winning the UCL, and Mourinho got also sacked for finishing second (a year after he won the league) from Real Madrid. Similar in Bayern: Nagelsmann got sacked from Bayern while in title race after having won the league the season before.

* Poor guy got sacked from Chelsea a year after winning the league, while finishing second. And from Bayern while being in title race having won the league the season before.

On the other hand, if a manager of United leads us to UCL zone, we build him a shrine.

 

[Lemoor]

And a scouting system that since EtH came, out of the 13 players we were seriously interested, 10 of them have played at some time in the Dutch league (Eriksen, De Jong, Antony, Lisandro, Timber, Weghorst, Malacia, Onana, Mount, Gapko), the other 3 who didn't are Casemiro, Sabitzer, Hojlund. So in other words, it is same as before, the manager gets to play Football Manager.

Kane, Costa, Ramos, Rabiot, Rice, Min-Jae, Lavia, Caicedo, Muani, Osimhen, Raya and probably at least a dozen others I forgot about are missing from your list. There is a ton of former Eredivisie players among targets, there is no need to fudge the numbers.

 

[the_cliff]

Mourinho: It was extremely early on the season, and it is was just 5-0, instead of 7-0. Plus Barcelona was a treble winning team.
Ancelotti: fair point, but by that time, he had won with Madrid a couple of UCLs, a league title, and a few other trophies.

A better argument might be that Ancelotti* got sacked for finishing second (with 92 points, just two shy of champions Barcelona) a year after winning the UCL, and Mourinho got also sacked for finishing second (a year after he won the league) from Real Madrid. Similar in Bayern: Nagelsmann got sacked from Bayern while in title race after having won the league the season before.

* Poor guy got sacked from Chelsea a year after winning the league, while finishing second. And from Bayern while being in title race having won the league the season before.

On the other hand, if a manager of United leads us to UCL zone, we build him a shrine.

Madrid definitely have higher expectations than us and I understand completely where you're coming from.
But we also have to be realistic and things have to be put into context, the reason Madrid and Bayern have those expectations is because of the teams they had. Bayern always have the best team in Germany, that's a fact.

Madrid had arguably the best cf of the last 20 years, arguably the best player of all time and Gareth Bale as their front 3, when we lost 7-0 to Liverpool we didn't even have a fit centre forward....

 

[Baxquux]

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Part of this is on him, even setting aside MM decision as main CM buy and insistence on Antony last season(which had knock on effect on budget). We know that he's afforded more of a managerial than head coach role, with corresponding levels of influence, so all he had to do was insist that we accepted the McT offer (enough to buy a back up midfielder from smaller league or with year left on contract) and to indicate to Maguire that he just wouldn't be played if he stayed, with all the ramifications for his England place. Soft-peddling things and being over-indulgent just isn't working. You can throw counterarguments around, but if a player doesn't fit and the market is negligible due to their contract and skillset, you just have to undersell and take a hard line instead on players you don't want to leave (ala Brighton).

 

[Revan]

Kane, Costa, Ramos, Rabiot, Rice, Min-Jae, Lavia, Caicedo, Muani, Osimhen, Raya and probably at least a dozen others I forgot about are missing from your list. There is a ton of former Eredivisie players among targets, there is no need to fudge the numbers.

I am not talking for players media linked with us, most of them are just nonsense. 10 of those I mentioned we signed (7 played in Eredivisie).

Timber was the main defensive target last season until he rejected us (after the Van Gaal talk) and we went for Martinez after that. We had an offer accepted for De Jong, but he did not want to come (or wanted the money Barca owned him) I grant you Gapko, he was the alternative to Antony but we didn't make a formal bid.

This is much different than Kane, Rice, or the other players in your list with whom we did not have a bid or any formal contact.

 

[Marwood]

Manager's change games through systems, of course they do. Players need to perform, but teams are set up a certain way and this can (and at times, should) change to circumstances within a game. Can't just leave it. ETH had a bad day at the office on Monday, that's obvious, look at that midfield. I will be astonished if that happens again.

But he has to look at getting rid of some players, and getting some more in. Maybe he needs to show more aggression in the transfer market, challenge the owners etc. We have one decent established forward at Man Utd and that's not good enough. He needs to deal with that.

Rashford will leave next season if this continues. That's my concern, yes, already.

You can change a system to affect a game but only assuming the players are doing the basics. If players are constantly giving the ball away what system would then work?

I'd be amazed if ETH abandons his midfield plan after one game.

 

[Lemoor]

This is much different than Kane, Rice, or the other players in your list with whom we did not have a bid or any formal contact.

This is kind of how United transfers worked in the last 2 years though. The formal contacts and bids only start when the personal terms are nearly agreed and we have a near certainty that the player is within financial means. De Jong has been the only obvious exception to this.
I don't think we ever got to the "formal bid" part with neither Timber nor Gakpo, even though it was reported by usually very reliable people that we were very much interested in both at some point. The only difference between them is that van Gaal was very publicly vocal about Timber's transfer and didn't say anything about Gakpo, but obviously this is not something that is going to be useful in any other case.

10 of those I mentioned we signed (7 played in Eredivisie).

Yea, and with the non-Eredivisie players we apparently have 100% hit rate, which is extremely suspicious.

 

[AneRu]

Well Erik, it hate to break it to you but you’re getting none of those unfortunately.

And he has to take some portion of the blame, why he railroaded the Mount signing ahead of this one still shocks me. It is compounded by the fact that we got Mount to come in to play an experimental position, one he has to learn, make major adjustments and there is a high liklihood that he would fail even after all that. We spent £60m to gamble on teaching an old dog new tricks.

 

[The Mitcher]

Different cases/times/context.
I only watched Giggs play from your examples. Cheating on your wife/sleeping with your sister-in-law are not crimes, no one can charge or convict you for that.
The domestic abuse case came long after he retired. He was Wales manager then and had to leave his job. Then the alleged victim came across as not reliable in the court hearing and after the hearing still no decision could be made.
For me this belongs to cases such as „We didn’t see/hear him doing / saying it“, „he could be guilty/but could also not be guilty“.
Whereas a certain other case as we all know is completely different. People will always believe more what they have directly seen/heard from the person‘s mouth for example.
So no matter how much people try to compare it to other (ex) players, this one is different.
The club will probably go with the „law“ and argue they shouldn’t be „above the law“. People can be fine with this stance or not, their decision. But incredibly desperate attempt to throw all cases into the same basket.
And even if you decide to throw all into the same basket because this way you feel good, it’s a huge difference if it’s an active player or a retired player. You can’t change history, you can only influence the present.

All the things those men did were considered bad then as they are now. The whole different time/context argument doesn't work.

 

[Ballache]

Ah I see, well we're supposed to be playing like Man City now are we? He got us 3rd and a trophy in his first season. He has plenty of credit in the bank - the £300-400 is fair enough but look at what Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle, City etc have spent in the same period. We're spending to stay in contention with that.

I never said that, however he is expected to take us up a level especially in regards to our style of play. He will 100% be under more pressure and rightly so...

 

[baskinginthesun]

I don’t remember a game where we won the ball in so many good positions but just didn’t execute the right pass to take advantage.

It felt like as soon as we won the ball the players had no idea what to do with it. The amount of times the wrong pass was played, or delayed was infuriating.

It looked like we had no threat up front and no pressing from our CF, Rashford. Stick Hoijund up there and we’ll instantly look better. Someone who is a focus up front and will be the first to press.

It was infuriating to see us win the ball in excellent places and then the move peter out after 1 or 2 passes. I'm not sure if that's because Rashfords movement wasn't working or the lack of width offered from Anthony and Garnacho. The play either got bunched or the playmaker dithered. Maybe it's match sharpness. Hopefully it gets sorted in the next couple of matches. Or maybe when Hojland plays we might see a bit more directness.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Let's contrast the way their fans treated Hodgson vs the way our fans treated Moyes.

United fans are by far the most patient in European football - to a fault, really.

Yeah I’d definitely say patient to a fault. We are willing to give many players 2+ seasons of significant minutes before deciding they are crap. Meanwhile Madrid on the other end of the spectrum will boo a player 5 months in if they aren’t up to par

 

[Howl]

It was infuriating to see us win the ball in excellent places and then the move peter out after 1 or 2 passes. I'm not sure if that's because Rashfords movement wasn't working or the lack of width offered from Anthony and Garnacho. The play either got bunched or the playmaker dithered. Maybe it's match sharpness. Hopefully it gets sorted in the next couple of matches. Or maybe when Hojland plays we might see a bit more directness.

A lot of it is going to be because of this. If you can recall Rashford's shot in the first half ~10 mins in where Antony gets the ball with Rashford ahead of him. Rashford kept running straight between Antony and the centre back instead of dragging the defender wide or anywhere really. He then gets the pass from Antony but is too wide to really have a possibility of a goal and the attack peters out. A better striker there has better movement and we have a real chance to score.

 

[sparx99]

And he has to take some portion of the blame, why he railroaded the Mount signing ahead of this one still shocks me. It is compounded by the fact that we got Mount to come in to play an experimental position, one he has to learn, make major adjustments and there is a high liklihood that he would fail even after all that. We spent £60m to gamble on teaching an old dog new tricks.

There is nothing about the role we are asking Mount to play that is unfamiliar to him.

 

[Borys]

I actually think he has proven to be a very good manager (in terms of dealing with tough situations and improving players). But it is yet to be seen if he's actually a good coach. Question marks here based on his time at United.