Yep, anyone optimistically looking at us being 'only' 7 points behind City is in for a shock when the fixtures level out.
We're lucky to have as many points as we have so far. Goal difference is a big indicator, lack of goals is going to ruin us.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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We're lucky to have as many points as we have so far. Goal difference is a big indicator, lack of goals is going to ruin us.
I keep telling myself that. Then I slog through another 90 minutes of suffering and question decisions in life.
I cringed.
In fairness, the "show ignored content" button is very hard to resist
We have a tough run of fixtures over the next 6 weeks......
Everton A
Galatasaray A
Newcastle A
Chelsea H
Bourmouth H
Bayern H
Liverpool A
West Ham A
Villa H
Forest A
Let's assume performances are still indifferent and there is no mitigating circumstances like even more injuries, how many league points, as well as European progress, does Ten Hag need to save his job?
For me, it has to be at least 12 points from 24 and not to drop out of Europe all together.
Everton A
Galatasaray A
Newcastle A
Chelsea H
Bourmouth H
Bayern H
Liverpool A
West Ham A
Villa H
Forest A
Let's assume performances are still indifferent and there is no mitigating circumstances like even more injuries, how many league points, as well as European progress, does Ten Hag need to save his job?
For me, it has to be at least 12 points from 24 and not to drop out of Europe all together.
A lot depends on the new owners and whether they are performance based or results based, or even both. We don’t know what strikes a chord with them or what they think of the job ETH did last season, let alone this one. I should imagine things are about to change for the whole club now.
No, he doesn't need a squad of 32, but he is constantly needing to pick players he never bought in his first XI where Mount aside, it's obligated as his transfers were injured or unavailable. Amrabat himself has started games too. Him rotating with McT doesn't mean he's displaced but eludes more to squad management.So he needs to buy a full squad of 32 players to call the team his own?
He bought close to 11 new players
He gave Bruno the armband and renewed Dalot contract.
He is starting Scott McTominay ahead of his own signings Mount and Amrabat.
Varane was a main player for him alongside Martinez, his own signing, until his injury.
Rashford has been our best player under him and he never subs or bench him. Martial doesn't play anyway neither ahead of Rashford nor Hoijland. He's a squad player.
You are daydreaming if you think a manager will come in, throw the entire squad consisting of plus 30 players out of the window, then buy full new 30 players. Managers come in, sign their players, and keep players they like from the current squad. Which is what Ten Hag did.
This team is different from the one under Ole. Martinez, Onana, Caseimro, Hojlund and Antony all entered the main lineup. That's half of the team. The rest are Shaw, Varane, Rashford and Bruno.. All trusted by Ten Hag. Scott as I said is playing ahead two of his signings.
So that shows it isn't ten hags squad. What you said is complete and utter hyperbole and bullshit, considering I named 6-8 players that he never bought who have been prominent performers in his side.
Everton D
Galatasaray L
Newcastle L
Chelsea D
Bournemouth W
Bayern don’t care
Liverpool L
West Ham D
Villa D
Forest D
This would be my expectation so 8 points in the next 8 league games. Based on that schedule, anything above 12 points in the league will be considered a big success, 10-12 will be simply good, below 5 points will be bad.
Liverpool we will 100% lose, just hope we keep it under 3-0 somehow. Bournemouth I think should be a win. The other 6 games I think we could win any of them except West Ham and Newcastle, and lose any of them really.
CL I don’t care about anymore as we likely make it out of the group and I’d rather not be third to be honest.
Does his job need saving? He's not in a bad position in the league. But if you mean what he needs to do to keep the shit talk at bay, I'd want him to beat Everton, Galatasary, Bournemouth, West ham/villa and Forrest as a minimum. And I'd expect draws to Bayern and Newcastle.
It's all theoretically doable but we need to start getting more in game luck going our way, and we need key players back like Shaw and AWB on either side
After 18 months, you can't expect any manager to be able to field an XI of all his own players. And the job of a manager isnt to just manage his signing - he should be getting more out of all of his players.
As of the previous game, he is missing two of his signings that should be starting - Casemiro and Marinez. Big losses, granted.
We had 6 ETH signings starting V Brighton and got thumped.
I would buy the argument, but the problem is, Ten Hag's signings this season, are preforming no better than those signed by previous managers.
I don't think it's as bad as it initially seems. Newcastle have an injury crisis of their own, Chelsea are all over the place. Bayern have already won the group with 2 games to go, so they are only playing for pride. Considering how competitive the Bundesliga is shaping up to be this season, they'd be fools to go full strength and give 100%.
Liverpool away is brutal. Galatasaray and Villa are challenging. Luckily none of these are consecutive games.
I should have rephrased "saving". I meant get to the point where questions are not getting asked, especially in the context of new management coming in.
16 out of 24 points would be a very good tally. As would 4 points from Galatasaray and Munich home. Very possible. You are right, getting the first chose full backs in would be huge. If Shaw is not back, i would at least like to see Reglion getting a run of games - Dalot at left back is not it.
I worry about Everton away. They have turned things around with wins against Bournemouth, West Ham away, Burnley (cup) and Palace away. They held Liverpool out for the majority of the game with 10 men.
I didnt say starting XI. I said squad. I also disagree with the "thumped" notion. Our first half was pretty good especially before it was 0-1.
Also, the ten hag signing not performing well argument is overcooked. Malacia has had knee surgery, licha needed surgery, hojlund came in injured (and you can argue he's proving to be better value than the alternative club targets in Ramos and Kolo Muani). Amrabat is a loan so who cares, regulon wasn't even his emergency choice right back and Antony has overhanging issues.
I agree onana, Mount should be showing more but the former has come into his own of late. Antony and Mount are so far red marks against him but his business as terrible as people make out. Just like his form isn't.
We were decent for 20 mins, then De Zerbi split his center backs and dominated possession and the game.
In my opinion, the Brighton game was the worst of this season given Ten Hag lined up with a weird midfield diamond, with McTominay at the right side of it. He was left trying to cover two men, therefore covered non.
The fact that Ten Hag couldn't effectively react to De Zerbi's tactical change was a real red flag.
No one is knocking the players injured. Not having Martinez is huge.
If Amrabat was tearing it up, you wouldn't be saying "he is on loan, so who cares".
My point was that you could make a valid argument for Ten Hag needing more of his own players in the squad, if it was the case that his signings were the ones that were performing. But very few are. The irony is that the ones that are popping up with performances and goals are the ones that he felt were surplus to requirements over the summer.
The true test is coming up in the next 6 weeks. We have had our easy run of games against relegation fodder. If he can't get a tune out of this team post the international break, then i can't see INEOS wanting to keep him around and provide players for him.
Christ this is grim, and we still want to keep the guy that gets those results while also playing crap football every week?
Why exactly?
I think we may struggle for a while yet, ten hag may be one of the best tacticians around but I think he’s really struggling with man management and creating or maintaining a team bond. Hopefully a win or two will change it around
Everton A - draw
Galatasaray A - draw
Newcastle A - loss
Chelsea H - loss
Bourmouth H - win
Bayern H - loss
Liverpool A - loss
West Ham A - loss
Villa H - loss
Forest A - loss
looks grim when I look back at this list and how I feel about these matches, hope I’m wrong about them
So possible new Director Of Football.
So should the new DOF also chose their own manager? Or reckon they can work with Ten Hag?
So should the new DOF also chose their own manager? Or reckon they can work with Ten Hag?
I really hope your predictions are wrong. He’ll be sacked before he gets all them losses. Think we’ll beat Bournemouth, forest, Chelsea. Not sure on the others.
It’s really just my expectations to be honest, has nothing to do with ten Hag.
I think he will keep the job until middle of next season at least regardless of results. Even if we finish low this year, he will be allowed to buy more of his players in the Summer and try to get the team to play better next year. If we are not competitive then, he will go. I think with new leadership at the club they will want to give him at least the Summer to fix things.
Ten Hag has spent an absolute fortune and moved many of players on. At what stage does he take responsibility?
I hope they’re wrong too but it does look a tough set of fixtures.
Bournemouth we really should win, Chelsea could go either way depending on how each team turns up, forest should be a win but they can surprise and dig in and could smell blood by that point
I’m sure he has many qualities as a coach but being a great tactician is definitely not one of them.
I did say may be. I think he is clued up on football, studies it and whatever else, may have great ideas but clearly it’s not working for him or the team at the moment.
I was more pointing out that I think he’s struggling with motivating the team and creating a never say die bond more than he’s struggling with understanding football itself. He doesn’t seem to be the most inspiring.
at the end of the day who knows what his best and weakest attributes are on the training field and in the changing room, it’s just clear to see that somethings not quite right. We had some good spells last season then it died off, maintaining that momentum seems a problem for him
5 losses in a row? 7 losses in 8? 1 win in 10? Come on that is not happening. We will probably win 5 of them.
Probably because those games haven't happened yet.
Five losses on the bounce(seven overall), one win and two draws. I hope you're very wrong too, but it's like you've never watched a PL season before. The losses could be wins and the ones you don't expect could be the ones we feck up.
Which 5
Zlatan is on the drink
Everton A - win
Galatasaray A - draw
Newcastle A - loss
Chelsea H - draw
Bourmouth H - win
Bayern H - loss
Liverpool A - loss
West Ham A - win
Aston villa - draw
Forest A - win
4 wins
3 losses
3 draws.
We don't draw much so maybe 541. We can beat villa .
Everton A - win
Galatasaray A - draw
Newcastle A - loss
Chelsea H - draw
Bourmouth H - win
Bayern H - loss
Liverpool A - loss
West Ham A - win
Aston villa - draw
Forest A - win
4 wins
3 losses
3 draws.
We don't draw much so maybe 541. We can beat villa .
We'll barely score 5 goals.
I don’t disagree with you, obviously anything can happen otherwise we’d all be rich from betting. But going into those games looking at our form against the teams we’re playings form, on a game by game basis, that’s what I thought would be the outcome of each game.
Hopefully you’re more near right than me
Me too. I'm hoping we can get back some of our starters before most of those games.
Everton A - win
Galatasaray A - win
Newcastle A - win
Chelsea H - win
Bourmouth H - win
Bayern H - win
Liverpool A - win
West Ham A - win
Aston villa - win
Forest A - win
Galatasaray A - win
Newcastle A - win
Chelsea H - win
Bourmouth H - win
Bayern H - win
Liverpool A - win
West Ham A - win
Aston villa - win
Forest A - win
It’s sad that I laughed when seeing these predictions. Also, not even sure if you’re serious
Ye they are very hard games. I think Everton are gonna be really tough to beat. There inform at the minute. That’s a game we really need to win though as in the same weekend our rivals are playing each other.
Love you spirit. If you get that spot on then you can do my next lottery ticket.
Not at all serious. I'd be very shocked if we lost five on the bounce, in a run of seven losses in eight games, though.
At this point, I'm not that arsed about the CL or dropping into the Europa League. Given our issues with keeping everyone fit, fewer games might be a blessing, and we're not going to realistically win the CL anyway. If we manage to get through, great. If we don't and drop into the Europa, I hope we do well. If we end up last in the group, might be a good thing.
Four wins, two draws, two defeats I reckon.
I made £150 off us losing to City so the spirit isn't always there.
Alex is likewise on the drink. But i know he's being "funny"
But i know he's being "funny"I’d call that a win-win situation. We win and you’re happy, you won 150 pound so should still be fairly happy.