Fulham didn't even take their chances, they wasted so many incredible transition situations, could easily have been looking at a 5/6-1 today for Fulham if they had been half way decent going forward. The results and league position massively flatters the level of performances this season.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
As I’ve said many times I was one of those who really wanted ETH in when he was at Ajax but I’ll always admit when I’m wrong and on ETH I was very wrong, he’s completely out of his depth and the last few results leading up to today were simply the equivalent of putting a plaster on a broken leg.
Team selections, tactics, in game coaching, motivating and ability to see what’s plain as day to most because he’s too stubborn to admit he’s wrong or what he does doesn’t work are all killing us and he needs to go before he can do any more damage in the summer.
I don’t think Ratcliffe and his team are careless enough to disrupt this season by publicly saying ETH is a dead man walking but from what I got from his interview in the week Ratcliffe wants United to play as we used too rather than how the latest manager wants us too so if ETH doesn’t tow the line or get CL football he’s gone, I have no doubt Ratcliffe and his group will have a plan in place already for ETH inevitably leaving.
Team selections, tactics, in game coaching, motivating and ability to see what’s plain as day to most because he’s too stubborn to admit he’s wrong or what he does doesn’t work are all killing us and he needs to go before he can do any more damage in the summer.
I don’t think Ratcliffe and his team are careless enough to disrupt this season by publicly saying ETH is a dead man walking but from what I got from his interview in the week Ratcliffe wants United to play as we used too rather than how the latest manager wants us too so if ETH doesn’t tow the line or get CL football he’s gone, I have no doubt Ratcliffe and his group will have a plan in place already for ETH inevitably leaving.
Dalot was purchased as a teenage fullback with no professional experience. He didn't fail, he was a developing kid who had a very successful loan at Milan and then his performances started improving around the age of 22. Now he's a starter for his national team and a very good fullback.
That's the real description of Dalot.
Hes on very shaky ground now.Losing at home to Palace,Bournemouth and now Fulham in the same season is shocking, one defeat to any of them ok, that can happen but all three?.Its been a terrible season, injuries etc but I just can't see Sir Jim and his team keeping him on.Shame as I thought we'd kick on this season.
That is bad management.
For those that think the answer is, get him more players, what happens when one of them gets injured again?
He was the obvious hire. To be fair it's very difficult to account for a manager coming in and completely abandoning the principles that made people want him in the first place.
If we'd have known it was going to be the same old transitional shite we've been seeing then I doubt so many of us would have wanted him.
To be fair to Ten Hag, I don’t think he had a left winger available with Hojlund out. Rashford had to play striker and Forson, Diallo, and Antony all play on the right.
full Disclosure, I’m not a Ten Hag supporter.
Too many people here look only at results and ignore the underlying performances. For the last few weeks anybody who pointed out that the way we were playing was unsustainable was shouted down by the hivemind and called a "moaner" and all the other usual slurs.
I’m sure it’s already been posted, but how insane is this stat????
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Have been on the fence about ETH being sacked or not. I do think injuries have played a huge impact, but todays result is a turning point for me.
When we win, it’s unconvincing, when we lose, it’s deserved. Get a new manager in, in line with the new structure
When we win, it’s unconvincing, when we lose, it’s deserved. Get a new manager in, in line with the new structure
Yep. Ten Hag made so much sense on paper, he just turned out to be another charlatan. These things happen. The worst thing we can do is continue to prolong the inevitable
You beat your own point! Rashford is a purple patch player at best, barring the exception of last season when he was playing for a contract.
All of the players have been part of teams that downed tools under various managers and played some of the worst football in the last decade.
Lindelof is a fair PL player but people have readily called him part of the deadwood for years.
Shaw, sure has been good the last 18 months (under who again?) but again was part of teams that routinely choked.
Rashford, as above, a player who relies on purple patches rather than growing or gaining intelligence as a footballer.
I can agree with Lindelof, but he hasn't really been a starter. I don't mind him as a 4th back up.
Shaw may have been part of those teams, doesn't mean he did. We should get better in that position and sign someone that can compete with him and his injuries are annoying, but he's a good player.
Rashford is also a good player. He has skills which allowed him to go on these purple patches.
They aren't perfect, but the squad is definitely good enough to regularly win 2-0/3-1 with good play with a 25+ goal difference, 65+ points, averaging 55% + possession and scoring at least 65 goals.
Utterly bonkers stat...but as for how to change that next weekend? I can't piece a team together that's defensively solid with the likes of Casemiro, Bruno, Eriksen, McTom.
This is probably too reductive, but there are basically two camps.
Pro Ten Hag: players don’t perform, players aren’t good enough, we have too many injuries, it’s poor recruitment / Glazer’s fault.
Sack Ten Hag: He’s a horrible tactician, our poor recruitment is his fault, pre match prep is weak, in game adjustments are poor.
Frankly, it’s probably both.
I’m actually interested to see what SJR does. It is probably time for Rashford, Bruno, Maguire to move on.These are the only real holdovers from the Ole era. Scotty and Shaw too I guess. You don’t steal Man City and Newcastle executives (and pay a penalty) unless you are going to make major squad upheavals along the way.
I’d really like to see us sell these guys, not just for us, but for them too. I do think the future is brighter with a Garnacho, Hojlund, Mainoo, Licha spine. Also, I think Ten Hag needs to go. I think you want a manager to get the squad to play better than the sum of their parts, and that is just not the case. The eye test, the traditional stats like GF/GA/GD, shots against and possession % back this up. The advanced stats like xG and xGD also confirm this. He’s just not a good manager or coach, or at least he’s not good enough for the Premier League and Man Utd.
Pro Ten Hag: players don’t perform, players aren’t good enough, we have too many injuries, it’s poor recruitment / Glazer’s fault.
Sack Ten Hag: He’s a horrible tactician, our poor recruitment is his fault, pre match prep is weak, in game adjustments are poor.
Frankly, it’s probably both.
I’m actually interested to see what SJR does. It is probably time for Rashford, Bruno, Maguire to move on.These are the only real holdovers from the Ole era. Scotty and Shaw too I guess. You don’t steal Man City and Newcastle executives (and pay a penalty) unless you are going to make major squad upheavals along the way.
I’d really like to see us sell these guys, not just for us, but for them too. I do think the future is brighter with a Garnacho, Hojlund, Mainoo, Licha spine. Also, I think Ten Hag needs to go. I think you want a manager to get the squad to play better than the sum of their parts, and that is just not the case. The eye test, the traditional stats like GF/GA/GD, shots against and possession % back this up. The advanced stats like xG and xGD also confirm this. He’s just not a good manager or coach, or at least he’s not good enough for the Premier League and Man Utd.
Spot on
Being destructive and negative in football is the easiest thing to do, that's why most teams are 'spoilers' who are set up to stop the opposition playing football than play football themselves. The difficult parts of football are all around the attacking and scoring goals part of the game. We could easily go and stink the place out midweek and maybe get a result but Ten Hag has completely given up and is playing this 'no midfield' brand of football because he thinks he's auditioning to keep his own job and wants us to score goals. You have to build from the back if you're ever going to consistently win anything.
Agreed
ETH being shite doesn't negate the fact that Ole, and all our other post-Fergie managers were nowhere near good enough.
Exactly. Tired of seeing Ole cults and Jose cults pop and rewrite history. Won't be surprised eth cults start rewriting his time when the next manager is here.
Good post. Both the eye test and various stats point towards us being awful in so many aspects of the game. And the injuries only excuse so much. Plenty of teams have injuries but they don't crumble like we do. EtH has had the time and ressources to build a squad and implement a style of play that would ensure that we don't look absolutely clueless in attack, lose control of games and concede the second most shots of any team in the league. He simply has to go.
People are attached to the idea of the manager rather than the actual manager. I do understand it to an extent. I really wanted Ten Hag to succeed for example because I wanted him for a long time and because I thought he had a great first season. But now it's evident to me his ideas aren't going to cut it for us if we want to be a top team. There's nothing wrong with that, we just need to move onto the next one.
Reading this quote out of context makes you think we actually won today or something.
It’s the not the players, it’s the structure.
But honestly my lineup would be
Onana
Dalot Varane Evans Lindelof
Casemiro Mainoo Eriksen
Amad
Rashford Garnacho
Play similar to last season in more of a mid block instead of trying to press high. Eriksen/Mainoo/Amad can control the game well enough with the composure each has and Garnacho and Rashford are free to run the channels wide and still offer the transition threat.
It's even more mental when you realise we played Fulham at OT, not Madrid at the Bernabeu or City at the Etihad...
When he comes up with we should have won remark then you know he’s lost the plot
He's fecking delusional with the comments he keeps coming out with. Doesn't matter how bad we play, he'll pretend it's all great. Frankly he's more irritating than Moyes and the loser mentality he broght here
In his post match presser, seems to believe we did Ok against Fulham because we had "chances". 
Did you see them play at various low points under Jose, Ole, Ralf and now EtH? Or is always the manager's fault? Rashford's been abysmal in two of the last three seasons at the club and that's under three different managers, Shaw has one great season at a time and then follows it up with a poor one EVERY single time (not always his fault, injuries etc) and Lindelof has been the epitome of meh/alright ever since he was signed by Jose. These are not consistently great players at all. How on Earth anyone can defend some of them is beyond me when they have a history of just not delivering the goods season after season or being part of failure after failure.
The two key points aren't mutually exclusive- you can think EtH is bad and should get the sack but some of these players just don't deserve another chance, they really don't. The worse thing i can think of is if in six months time players like Rashford and Shaw start to perform again and we get the usual "it was all the previous managers fault, these players are fine" and then a year later they mysteriously turn bad again and another manager is sacked.
Inconsistency or periods of poor form doesn't mean they have been a failure. Without Rashford's goals neither Ole nor Ten Hag would have achieved half the results they managed, for example.
It s very simple,under Glazers we bought wrong players,we hired the wrong manager
403 of those were 40 yarders
Tactically Ten Hag is probably our worst manager post SAF. The amount of shots we concede under him is ridiculous. Even under Moyes we had games where we were in full control.
He’s not a bad coach but he belongs in the group of clubs below the very top in the game, he’s no more fit to manage Bayern, Barca, Madrid, PsG, Liverpool, City, Arsenal, Milan.Atletico, Juventus, inter than he is United.
Ajax is his level and what’s more worrying when he leaves a club he’s such a control freak that club implodes, look at Ajax now sooner he’s gone the better.
He’s so stubborn and arrogant that he doesn’t realise that had he drawn 5 of those 10 he’s lost this season, he would be bang in a top 4 battle!
ETH has form for losing leads, especially 2 goal leads, he’s clueless and doesn’t know how.
Here’s the bigger picture Man United have played 203 Home games at Old Trafford since Sir Alex retired we’ve won 119 of those games that’s a win rate of less than 58% in a 11years. We’ve draw. 48 and lost 36. Scored 359 goals and conceded 188.
This suggests that we can’t find goals at old Trafford are incredibly inconsistent, have no actual style of play and are very much good season bad season bad season good season pattern whom ever the coach is ?
This is the biggest issue Our form at home as only been Title Challenging at home on 3 occasions. Once by LVG in 2014/15 where 44 points with a record of P19 W14 D2 L3 GS41 GC15 + 26, the second time by Jose in 2017-18 with a record of P19 W15 D2 L2 GS38 GC9 +30 and the best home record since Fergie by ETH who I Have no love for and want sacked simply because how do you go from this last year record of 48 points of P19 W15 D3 L1 GS36 GC10 +26 to this P13 W7 D1 L5 GS19 GC20 -1
How the F….do you spend £180m on top of the £220m the season before and go so backwards at old Trafford. The reason it’s called home advantage is because the home team has 90% of the fans and gets to design the pitch that suits the home squads players, grass length, width and size of the pitch. The reason is simple our arrogant prick of a coach has so much hubris and stubbornness he can’t see the bigger picture, you can’t play 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-2-3 in the PL unless you have the right players to play that way, he player 4231last season to suit the players and Casemiro who made the FIFPro team was still world class and Eriksen, Rashford and Bruno hit form at stages in the season.
To continue to try and play 4-1-2-3 or
4-1-4-1 with slow defenders who are aging and have to play deep so they don’t allow any Space and you only have one fit full back is insane,?
Eric has continued with this ridiculous strategy sold Fred who has the energy necessary to allow the team to play this way as he’s a hybrid 6/8 with high energy.
Replaced him with one of the slowest DM/CM we’ve ever seen in Sofran Amrabat and basically made our midfield the premier leagues biggest joke this season.
The midfield has no energy, can’t keep the ball and get overloaded on a the turnover when inevitably Garnaucho, Antony, Rashford or Bruno lose the ball, Kobie is the one find of the season but he’s still developing and he’s not the quickest around the pitch either. What could he have done differently?
With all the injuries, he should have played a more pragmatic 352 or 3412 in some of the matches and made the midfield and the whole team more compact, that’s why he’s paid £10m plus a year, he’s suppose to be an Elite Coach which he Clearly is not ?
If the top Tier of coaches is Pep, Klopp, Ancelotti, Zidane, X Alonso, Inzaghi,
And the Tier below ; Tuchel, Naigelsman, Jose, H Flick, Conte, U Emery, M Allegri , Arteta , L Enrique,
ETH sits in tier 3 with Pochetino and Ange Postecoglou and let me be clear I’d have both of them over him !
Screams mid-table to me. Would be lucky to finish in the Top 10 if that was the team every week.
Not hating on your post, just reaffirms my believe the squad isn’t capable of dominating possession against teams in the PL.
A team full of PL champions.
Our lack of physicality is shocking. Teams like Fulham, Villa and Wolves run all over us.
Varane, Casemiro, Maguire, Lindelof, Eriksen, Bruno all slow. Rashford lazy and ducks tackles. Mainoo and Forson are teenagers.
Look at Arsenal tonight. Forget about skills and technical qualities, first and foremost they are all superb athletes.
Varane, Casemiro, Maguire, Lindelof, Eriksen, Bruno all slow. Rashford lazy and ducks tackles. Mainoo and Forson are teenagers.
Look at Arsenal tonight. Forget about skills and technical qualities, first and foremost they are all superb athletes.
Without Rashford's goals we wouldn't have got top 4 last season that's correct. But for a player on 350K a week I think it's fair to expect that as what should be standard, not one good season in three under three different managers.
We've had great players in the past that have had poor periods of form/inconsistency and it's normal, some absolute legends like Schmeichal in the first half of 98/99 or Giggs in 02/03 or 07/08; the difference is those periods of poor form lasted a few months. It kind of feels like we're excusing entire and multiple seasons of inconsistency and rubbish from some of these players and shifting it all to the many managers we've had again and again. That doesn't mean those managers were blameless, I just can't understand how people can ignore these consistent failures from the players and then act all surprised when it happens again under a different manager.
I still cant believe he came out with that deranged guff straight after one of the most insipid, horrible games of football he's forced on us all season.
Right up there with Bournemouth and West Ham and the Newcastle mauling.
Right up there with Bournemouth and West Ham and the Newcastle mauling.