Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[Revan]

One saying he wants the manager sacked, its one admitting hes overlooking the actual real issues causing the managers struggles (Glazers). Nothing would change with a new manager, therefore sacking him would be completely pointless. He. is. not. the. problem

Maybe, maybe not. Similarly, Martial is shit and replacing him would be grand. Yes, he has played for us only under the Glazers regime, and yes, the Glazers are a far bigger problem. But replacing Martial would still be a good idea. Wouldn't you agree with me?

Now replace Martial with EtH. And the same stands.

 

[Rozay]

Of course it does. They are actually watching players all over the world playing, that is literally their job.

The manager's main job is coaching players, do the tactics, analyze the opponent. It is a full-time job. So asking them to do another full-time job, well, unless they never sleep, is a big ask.

It’s also a scout’s job, of which we have plenty. The absence of a DoF is not the absence of a recruitment structure. Ten Hag is not a scout, nor is he our head of recruitment. He gets a veto. He gets one in the current structure, and he would get one if he had a DoF. In fact, he does have a DoF, and he gets one. Ten Hag is not ‘doing another full time job’. People must think we have about 3 employees or something.

I have no issue to the principle of experts scouting and recruiting players. I have an issue with the insinuation that their job title matters. Unless we go down the road of bringing in players our managers do not want (i.e - removing their veto), then it’s all semantics. DoF, recruitment team, chief scout. Makes no difference, function is the same, and all are just as capable of identifying the right player as they are of identifying the wrong one.

If your job is to identify players for Manchester United and you keep on identifying poor ones, then your job title isn’t the problem, we just need better personnel. If we use a recruitment team instead of a DoF and they recruit good players, then there is no problem. A change in structure guarantees no success at all with signings. The right players do that.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Sack but for who ? And why would it go any different than all the other managers post-Ferg ? And would we even commit to a bold choice with a potential takeover looming ?

Pretty much. If there was an obvious pep/klopp available, more people would warm to the idea, otherwise it's just more uncertainty and does feel knee jerky.

 

[rpitchfo]

We don’t look fit enough, we don’t look strong enough, we look clueless while playing.

It matters not a hoot what we think. Half a season of this and he’s gone

 

[NewGlory]

Sack him and bring in de Zerbi

And when de Zerbi also fails, sack him as well and bring in Poch to repeat the failure.

#chelsea

 

[Revan]

It’s also a scout’s job, of which we have plenty. The absence of a DoF is not the absence of a recruitment structure. Ten Hag is not a scout, nor is he our head of recruitment. He gets a veto. He gets one in the current structure, and he would get one if he had a DoF. In fact, he does have a DoF, and he gets one. Ten Hag is not ‘doing another full time job’. People must think we have about 3 employees or something.

I have no issue to the principle of experts scouting and recruiting players. I have an issue with the insinuation that their job title matters. Unless we go down the road of bringing in players our managers do not want (i.e - removing their veto), then it’s all semantics. DoF, recruitment team, chief scout. Makes no difference, function is the same, and all are just as capable of identifying the right player as they are of identifying the wrong one.

If your job is to identify players for Manchester United and you keep on identifying poor ones, then your job title isn’t the problem, we just need better personnel. If we use a recruitment team instead of a DoF and they recruit good players, then there is no problem. A change in structure guarantees no success at all with signings. The right players do that.

Of course, he is. He shouldn't be, but unfortunately he is.

Otherwise, I would find it very hard to believe that from hundreds/thousands of players they scout, that the best our scouts could find was an expensive goalkeeper who played for him, an expensive CB who played for him, an expensive winger who played for him. Another defender who played in the same league when ten Hag coached. Another midfielder who played in that league too. Another midfielder whom ten Hag coached in the past. And from all the loans, there was a striker who played there too.

That is roughly half of the players we signed who somehow are related to him, and 4 players who have played for him in the past. People are living in a parallel universe if they think that EtH is not the one in charge of transfers. And our DoF is a DoF only in name, as someone said, we could have hired a food massager for the manager and would have had the same effect.

For comparison, Pep got Thiago from Barca to Bayern. No one to City.
Klopp has no ex-player of him from Liverpool. Ancelotti got no one at Madrid.

No manager of a big club I can think of since SAF left has taken as many ex-players as EtH has done. It is genuinely insane how the club allowed, if not encouraged, it to happen.

Also, why on Earth he should have a veto on anything? If Pep, Klopp and Ancelotti, three serial winners who are several levels above him do not have such a veto, why EtH should instantly have one?

 

[lex talionis]

I don’t want him sacked but your request is hilarious.

It was meant in jest, but with a twinge at sadness at how ridiculous some club supporters have become. I can’t say whether ETH should be sacked at season’s end but to even have this discussion in mid-September is fukking bonkers

 

[leet]

Sack for spending 160m on Antony and Mount.

 

[kouroux]

One saying he wants the manager sacked, its one admitting hes overlooking the actual real issues causing the managers struggles (Glazers). Nothing would change with a new manager, therefore sacking him would be completely pointless. He. is. not. the. problem

That's how you see it though. I cannot agree with this logic. I could apply the same logic and say that focusing on the Glazers and acting like ETH is completely blameless is also wrong. He's had a lot of money given to him and he's wasted most of it. Everyone plays a role in this shitshow

 

[AndySmith1990]

We keep asking who would replace him. Where the feck did Brighton find their new manager? Why must we only pull household names out of a hat? Can we not pay some football experts to do some consultancy and identify decent coaches for us? Can't be that bloody hard when you have millions of quid at your disposal to solve a problem

 

[mav_9me]

This is exactly what I meant by misdiagnosis. It’s not on any individual. Pressing isn’t about running around like a crazy man, but being well drilled. Working hard in isolation means nothing. Rooney used to run around rabid in his early years, Bruno does at times now, and it is all for nowt. You just leave spaces for the opposition by running off alone. Individual players could have worked harder and it would have made no difference.

We lined up and were well drilled for the initial task we expected to face, same as against Spurs. All of Rashford, Højlund and the midfield did their jobs. Brighton were struggling to get out of their half. But once Brighton made a slight tactical switch, we didn’t change to combat that. That to me feel likes a managerial issue, rather than something I’d expect players to change themselves on the fly. The top coaches now regularly get their teams to adjust in-game and get tactical superiority.

While one player can't make a press, a team's press can become shambolic because one player doesn't press properly.

And this thing about Rashford I'm talking about isn't just today, I'm worried it's a long term thing hampering our pressing.

Other teams have done the same as Brighton using fullbacks higher up to beat our press.

 

[red_de_pologne]

Let’s at least allow the guy to play the midfield he bought for a game or two, and his new striker more than 90 mins?

 

[mav_9me]

Yup.

Before you could point to fixture congestion, lacking basic personnel to fill a position, tough situation etc and generally his moves were logical. He adjusted to whatever players we had to get the best out of them and get wins. This was him getting outcoached, in a very simple way. That's fine to happen sometimes. But you gotta adapt. The failure to adapt to a very simple tactical issue today was hugely concerning. It's like he had a blind spot to their space out wide, and thought our couple of chances on the break were worth that. It was a horrible tactical switch and that was easily the first time I'm pointing the finger 100% at the manager and nothing at the players. They weren't given a chance to succeed today by the shit system.

If he doesn't recognize this, he is gone.

I will wait to see what he does to fix the midfield.

 

[sullydnl]

Keep, obviously.

It's been a poor start to the season. But we've had a particularly bad spell of injuries, the three teams we've lost to are good teams and we've had some bad luck within those games. And it is just three losses, not the end of the world.

With Burnley, Palace, Brentford and Sheffield United up next and players coming back to fitness it won't exactly be a surprise if things get better from here. We'll see where we are at the end of that run, going into City at home.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Let’s at least allow the guy to play the midfield he bought for a game or two, and his new striker more than 90 mins?

Why? Are we expecting them to play 90 minutes of every match this season?

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Of course, he is. He shouldn't be, but unfortunately he is.

Otherwise, I would find it very hard to believe that from hundreds/thousands of players they scout, that the best our scouts could find was an expensive goalkeeper who played for him, an expensive CB who played for him, an expensive winger who played for him. Another defender who played in the same league when ten Hag coached. Another midfielder who played in that league too. Another midfielder whom ten Hag coached in the past. And from all the loans, there was a striker who played there too.

That is roughly half of the players we signed who somehow are related to him, and 4 players who have played for him in the past. People are living in a parallel universe if they think that EtH is not the one in charge of transfers. And our DoF is a DoF only in name, as someone said, we could have hired a food massager for the manager and would have had the same effect.

For comparison, Pep got Thiago from Barca to Bayern. No one to City.
Klopp has no ex-player of him from Liverpool. Ancelotti got no one at Madrid.

No manager of a big club I can think of since SAF left has taken as many ex-players as EtH has done. It is genuinely insane how the club allowed, if not encouraged, it to happen.

Also, why on Earth he should have a veto on anything? If Pep, Klopp and Ancelotti, three serial winners who are several levels above him do not have such a veto, why EtH should instantly have one?

Spot on. Job titles and org charts on a sheet of paper don't change the fact that to this day, the manager is obviously the one who is de facto calling all the shots.

 

[El-Manos]

yes

Absolutely not. Has proven feck all

 

[Ubik]

For people who say that we have had too many managers and it cannot be their fault, there is no such a thing as too many managers.

We have had 5 managers since SAF left. And a couple of caretakers.
Real and Bayern have had 7 full-timers. And a couple of caretakers (Bayern only).
Barca had also 5 full-timers and a couple of caretakers.

Those three clubs are ultra-successful.

Btw, Chelsea has had 8 full-timers and a few caretakers. They also have won 2 league titles and 1 UCL more than us in those years.
At the same time, Milan has had 9 managers (not considering caretakers). Inter has had 9. Juventus 4.

In other words, there is absolutely nothing wrong with hiring and firing managers. Pretty much every club does that. Kind of the exceptions are City and Liverpool but even there, City has Pep, who is by far the best manager in the game. Before him, the UAE people had three other managers (and one caretaker). And until Liverpool got Klopp (second/third-best manager in the game), their current owners had 3 managers in 5 years. Atletico might be another exception who have had Simeone forever, but there are not really that big club, more like Simeone kinda made them 'relatively big'.

So yep, hiring and firing managers (even successful ones like Ancelotti whom won Madrid La Decima) is ok. Keeping underperforming managers is not ok.

The argument isn't that firing managers is bad, it's that firing managers will change nothing because this club is fecked everywhere. How many of those other clubs you've mentioned have hired and fired five consecutive managers without winning at least a league title, let alone a champions league? How many have spent as much as we have without getting any player you can comfortably class as among the best in the world? Most of those Barcelona teams had several of the greatest players to ever play in their side. Ditto Real. Bayern have near uncontested hegemony over one of the main footballing nations.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Why? Are we expecting them to play 90 minutes of every match this season?

Thats what I was going to say. If his A game relies on 11 players only then whats the point of a squad?

 

[Matt851]

He is gone, I want him to stay but knowing this league and considering what has already happened he won't survive Liverpool, City, Newcastle, Bayern etc. Add in a West Ham or Aston Villa it's just a matter of time but his fate sealed.

The concerning thing is that he has been given such leeway over transfers, it yet again feels like another manager will want to change everything. No one thinks mount is a cm other than eth, and no one thinks Antony is a top right forward (even assuming his issues are sorted)

 

[Swearing Budgie]

Is it still knee jerk if we lose our next three games? When is it not knee jerk?

I think sacking a manager after getting smashed 7-0 by Liverpool is perfectly reasonable. It’s what a big club would do.

 

[RedHeadRed93]

Who do we replace him with?

 

[The Hilton]

There are no excuses for ETH this season. He has to take responibility for tactics, subs and signings. I do not believe that Murthough signs players such as Mount and Antony against ETH wishes. I did not expect a title challenge this season but based on recent results we will not reach top 5, maybe not even top 8. He should resign asap if THE STRUCTURE above him is such a huge issue and he cannot sign the players he wants. Why would anyone work under those circumstances?

OK so now we're dropping the idea that De Zerbi would have done better? That's good, because it's ridiculous, but then it begs the question, who would you bring in instead?

To be honest though, you simply aren't being reasonable. ETH believes he can turn us into a top team, as he did with Ajax, given time, he was brought in to help effect cultural changes beyond just football and tactics, all of which take time. Why would he resign when he has the belief he can turn us into winners?

 

[frostbite]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Joke if it's true.

Did ETH also ask us to rename the club to "Ajax United"?

 

[vanderpants]

As someone that works at Carrington his popularity has been nose diving over the past few months, the medical staff have criticized him alot.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Joke if it's true.

We should also bring over all the Dutch clubs to replace the English clubs in the PL.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

We should also bring over all the Dutch clubs to replace the English clubs in the PL.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

As someone that works at Carrington his popularity has been nose diving over the past few months, the medical staff have criticized him alot.

Any chance you could give us more details (without doxing yourself obviously)?

 

[Plastic Evra]

For people who say that we have had too many managers and it cannot be their fault, there is no such a thing as too many managers.

We have had 5 managers since SAF left. And a couple of caretakers.
Real and Bayern have had 7 full-timers. And a couple of caretakers (Bayern only).
Barca had also 5 full-timers and a couple of caretakers.

Those three clubs are ultra-successful.

Btw, Chelsea has had 8 full-timers and a few caretakers. They also have won 2 league titles and 1 UCL more than us in those years.
At the same time, Milan has had 9 managers (not considering caretakers). Inter has had 9. Juventus 4.

In other words, there is absolutely nothing wrong with hiring and firing managers. Pretty much every club does that. Kind of the exceptions are City and Liverpool but even there, City has Pep, who is by far the best manager in the game. Before him, the UAE people had three other managers (and one caretaker). And until Liverpool got Klopp (second/third-best manager in the game), their current owners had 3 managers in 5 years. Atletico might be another exception who have had Simeone forever, but there are not really that big club, more like Simeone kinda made them 'relatively big'.

So yep, hiring and firing managers (even successful ones like Ancelotti whom won Madrid La Decima) is ok. Keeping underperforming managers is not ok.

Chicken & egg problem. Are they successful because they change managers or can they replace the gaffer so often because they are successful ?

I also think the particulars do matter : Yes Barca had 9 coaches since Pep left. But Luis Enrique, Valverde and Xavi directed approx 2/3 of all these games (correct me if wrong).

Chelsea post Di Matteo : 12 coaches but 4 of them account for 70% of all games (Conte, Mourinho, Lampard, Tuchel).

Real Madrid : 7 coach changes after Mourinho but a Zidane and Ancelotti repeat. The Frenchman and Italian directed 87% of all games over that period.

 

[The Hilton]

Is it still knee jerk if we lose our next three games? When is it not knee jerk?

I think sacking a manager after getting smashed 7-0 by Liverpool is perfectly reasonable. It’s what a big club would do.

Yeah absolutely, any large defeat should be an automatic sacking. Remember when Fergie was sacked after losing 5-1 to City? And then again when we lost 6-1 to them at home? Not to mention 5-0 losses to Newcastle and Chelsea.

Big clubs are generally run by people level headed enough not to throw their toys out of the pram based on a single result.

 

[Mainoldo]

We keep asking who would replace him. Where the feck did Brighton find their new manager? Why must we only pull household names out of a hat? Can we not pay some football experts to do some consultancy and identify decent coaches for us? Can't be that bloody hard when you have millions of quid at your disposal to solve a problem

What are you on about. Except for Arsene Wenger from Japan in 96/97. When was the last time a world elite club hired a nobody and was successful?

 

[sparx99]

League cup mate, which is next to the community shield a mickey mouse cup. He would have lost against Pep, as usual.

It may sound hyperbloic now, but it will trickle down eventually to you as well. Give it time, if you dont see it now, you will soon. Just watch closely.

I’ve never understood anyone who follows football dismissing the league cup.

Was it a crap trophy when City won it four times in a row? Or worth nothing when City won a domestic treble? Or when Liverpool won it as part of their cup treble? Or when Mourinho won it in his first season at Chelsea?

It’s the least important trophy, sure. But there are only four available each season and I’d rather collect a bunch of league cups to add to our honours list than nothing at all.

 

[bosnian_red]

If he doesn't recognize this, he is gone.

I will wait to see what he does to fix the midfield.

I think he will. He's a smart tactician. Always has been. If he suddenly gets swallowed up by the pressure of all the shit going wrong and can't figure it out... well then he'll be replaced pretty quickly.

 

[kouroux]

Yeah absolutely, any large defeat should be an automatic sacking. Remember when Fergie was sacked after losing 5-1 to City? And then again when we lost 6-1 to them at home? Not to mention 5-0 losses to Newcastle and Chelsea.

Big clubs are generally run by people level headed enough not to throw their toys out of the pram based on a single result.

SAF had a lot more credit in the bank

 

[Revan]

Yeah absolutely, any large defeat should be an automatic sacking. Remember when Fergie was sacked after losing 5-1 to City? And then again when we lost 6-1 to them at home? Not to mention 5-0 losses to Newcastle and Chelsea.

Big clubs are generally run by people level headed enough not to throw their toys out of the pram based on a single result.

Did they all happen in the same season? Was his only trophy that he won at United the mighty Carling Cup?

It is like, having a few humiliations in 25 years is not the same as in a single season. And being a legendary manager is not the same as being a nobody.

 

[Red Rash]

As someone that works at Carrington his popularity has been nose diving over the past few months, the medical staff have criticized him alot.

Ok I'll bite. Please elaborate

 

[sugar_kane]

Ronaldo
Greenwood
Maguire captaincy
Getting rid of De Gea
Antony
Sancho
The ownership saga
Having to sell about half of the squad because they weren’t good enough
Not being to sell a bunch of others due to their stupidly high wages
FFP restrictions

I’ve probably missed a few things, but the point is hopefully clear - Ten Hag has had to deal with an unprecedented amount of extra shit while still keeping things ticking over, where he’s got us so far has to be viewed in this context.

Can’t see any other manager having handled it better while getting the same results, and the very best (Pep, Klopp) wouldn’t touch us with a ten foot barge pole anyway if they were available.

The fan and media pressure is going to get horrendous if results don’t pick up, but we need to hold our nerve.

Most of our fans are idiots, and the media want to see us fail - they need blocking out.

 

[Revan]

Chicken & egg problem. Are they successful because they change managers or can they replace the gaffer so often because they are successful ?

I also think the particulars do matter : Yes Barca had 9 coaches since Pep left. But Luis Enrique, Valverde and Xavi directed approx 2/3 of all these games (correct me if wrong).

Chelsea post Di Matteo : 12 coaches but 4 of them account for 70 of all games (Conte, Mourinho, Lampard, Tuchel).

Both. The gaffer is not a deity in any other club. He sucks, he get fired. He probably doesn't even suck (see Del Bosque winning the league and instantly getting fired for reaching only the semis of UCL), he can still get fired. He is there to perform a job, and if that job is not done at an excellent standard, not this ridiculous waiting for the next 2, 3, 6 or until January 2026, he gets fired.

Which is as it should be. If a player does not perform (see Sancho) he gets benched or thrown out of the team. Correctly. People back the manager to do so. But if a manager does not perform, the same player scream 'give him another 2 years or such a ridiculous nonsense'.

Essentially, unless you are winning trophies every year like Pep does, most managers are 3-5 bad matches away from getting fired. United ones are one disaster season from getting fired. For some weird reasons.

 

[Rozay]

Of course, he is. He shouldn't be, but unfortunately he is.

Otherwise, I would find it very hard to believe that from hundreds/thousands of players they scout, that the best our scouts could find was an expensive goalkeeper who played for him, an expensive CB who played for him, an expensive winger who played for him. Another defender who played in the same league when ten Hag coached. Another midfielder who played in that league too. Another midfielder whom ten Hag coached in the past. And from all the loans, there was a striker who played there too.

That is roughly half of the players we signed who somehow are related to him, and 4 players who have played for him in the past. People are living in a parallel universe if they think that EtH is not the one in charge of transfers. And our DoF is a DoF only in name, as someone said, we could have hired a food massager for the manager and would have had the same effect.

For comparison, Pep got Thiago from Barca to Bayern. No one to City.
Klopp has no ex-player of him from Liverpool. Ancelotti got no one at Madrid.

No manager of a big club I can think of since SAF left has taken as many ex-players as EtH has done. It is genuinely insane how the club allowed, if not encouraged, it to happen.

Also, why on Earth he should have a veto on anything? If Pep, Klopp and Ancelotti, three serial winners who are several levels above him do not have such a veto, why EtH should instantly have one?

Who told you that these other managers don’t have a veto?

I don’t like the business we’ve done, and he has clearly had a big input in it, my point is - the alternative is him having no input, which I don’t think would be the case whatever structure we employed.

 

[Ubik]

Did they all happen in the same season? Was his only trophy that he won at United the mighty Carling Cup?

It is like, having a few humiliations in 25 years is not the same as in a single season. And being a legendary manager is not the same as being a nobody.

In his fourth season, before which he had won no trophies with us and finished mid table a couple of times (from Atkinson's side that had finished 4th multiple seasons), he lost 5-1 to City and 4-0 to Forest. Went two months without winning a game in the league. Finally got a trophy in the FA Cup and saved his skin.