Good posts with great points
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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We have a very clear idea of even the worst vision of LVGball via the World Cup he managed prior to coming to us. At the very worst, we would have gotten a superstar forward with a lot of free reign behind the rigidity of the midfield. He absolutely adores the wide man who can cut in and score a ton of goals and be a nightmarish proposition and we saw it with Martial and Robben how much freedom of expression they were granted.
His principles were very clear and defined and there's no way he wouldn't have implemented dynamic wingplay to both flanks if he'd have been given the time to do so.
Fans were so extremely intolerant of Van Gaal's football that they had no interest or desire to see what the finished article would've been. I'm quite certain it'd have been a dynamic entity beyond the final 3rd with an attacking line that would have suddenly had all the disparagement about the build up put to bed. Martial's football under Van Gaal had us believing he could go on to be something very special, and Robben really was in his element being given the offensive burden for the NT.
Fantastic post! Thank you!
And yet it's more logical to explain the range of one nil beatings of average to low opposition was worse in terms of play, attacking than the woulda coulda shoulda if my aunty was my uncle yada yada. Even if a rival had 5000 shots on target, that doesn't mean they would have given us a mauling. Many teams fall back after going one, two goals ahead. They don't chase big beatings at all. Big maulings are the result of a huge collective failure. And in ETH's defensive, how shambles we sometimes looked and in many a game just got behind even 2 goals, we fought back and clawed our way out. That play, I never ever saw under LvG. Back to your point: I never saw a game we collectively failed for 90 minutes where 5 or more goals against, was justified. Not this season.
We might not be the best, we have organisational issues and performing over 90 minutes but we produce good, very good games with lots of shots on target, plenty of overloading the opposition in this 2nd ETH managed season. It is actually one of ETH's trump cards for this season. Everyone including me had him buried round november 23 yet somehow we produced one of the best, a record breaking display of shots against opposition to One Billion pound Chelsea. Only 5 weeks ago ETH and his team, gave godly Klopp and his merry band a beating he still hasn't recoverd from. Again, never saw that with LvG (even if he did beat LFC convincingly, it was 1 nil). Then the Chelsea game 2 weeks ago. Turns out that Palmer really is something else. Yet we also nearly had them, when Everton just had a huge beating from them. We didn't despite all our organisational problems. The fight, that is what I believe in under ETH. The lethargic LvG, I fell asleep.
For the record, I grew up with LvG. I love the man. His Ajax showed play I hadn't before. I didn't even like football untill I saw 94 95 Ajax play. But come 2015 that icon was aging. Even if his tactics in general were rigid, a young Argentinian Spurs coach Pochetino schooled LvG at Old Trafford. That game, not one minute we had a grip on his new style of high press. LvG, as usual, stayed glued to his seat.
ETH and his ilk are a new breed, play differently and it shows. Even if I think you have a point why give ETH time when we didn't with others, I am still not convinced ETH should go.
Oh, and LvG got sacked after the FA final in may. In a way if you must compare, then please give ETH till that date.
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Thank you for this post. The anti-Martial agenda of short-termism and blatantly made-up narratives is really tiresome.
I've noticed this cycle of us playing terribly as usual and ETH defenders temporarily seeing the light post match. But then gradually the "injuries", "bad luck" and "structure" arguments keep coming back and by the time we play our next game the ETH in sentiment is strong again.
It is absolutely fine to hire another coach that we don't plan on keeping for a decade and sack him after one season if it doesn't work out. We need to stop being terrified of doing that.
We've got some cracking players now. The players LVG had were either past it, for the most part, or just not good enough. He didn't have a Bruno type creator and we were boring as a result.
I'm not saying I enjoyed that period under him, I was one of the vocal ones against him. But I'll call a spade a spade and say I think he did a better job in a time when our recruitment was even worse than it has been recently. Some of the signings we got him were absolute dross.
That's why they're not worth listening to.
Yeah after 24-48 hours the delusion creeps back in. I've experienced it myself with similar managers, for the first 6 months of Moyes I kept convincing myself it'll all come good eventually.
Also there’s probably a few MOTD watchers so they don’t watch the full match. MOTD may just show our chances. I remember chatting to someone about the Bournemouth game who thought we played quite well from MOTD.
Van Gaal would have absolutely hated Bruno. His possession-style was extremely conservative and he'd have zero patience for someone like Bruno losing the ball. The precise reason it was so easy to coach us into that style is the same reason it was so often completely ineffective. It was slow and conservative, more focused on keeping the ball than progressing up the pitch. There are first-hand accounts from players who scored or assisted still getting a bollocking from van Gaal for doing so with their first touch instead of controlling the ball first.
If anything, we're in a better place now to sack managers more quickly. Until now, we've allowed them to lead the shaping of the team, which has at least given arguments for more time some credibility. The manager is just going to be one of a few cogs in the machine going forwards.
I kind of understand where you are going but where is the upside? the only possible positive thing that comes out of it would be if ETH managed to somehow change things around and make significant progress, if he doesn't do that, we will:
- potentially have spent even more money on players the next manager may not like, or
- wasted an important transfer window
- have sent out a message that it is ok to manage the club to the worst season ever and retain your position,
- potentially seen players like Garnacho alienated, and Rashford further devalued
- had another season or half season written off whilst seeing teams like Villa and Spurs making progress
- missed an opportunity to move back ahead of Liverpool
- further loss of revenue,
Finishing 10th this season instead of 4th would lose us an estimated £13m (I know we may not finish 10th but 7th would still be £7m) add that to the approx £28m from early european exit, missing out on europe next season might cost us conservatively £60m, so in theory ETH this season will have lost the club somewhere in the region of £100m, that doesn't account for intangibles like shirt sales, subscriptions etc. which will all take a dive, this season could well have a massive negative impact carrying over for many seasons to come, consider that against FFP and sustainability, can we financially afford to risk another season under ETH
When ETH came in I was very positive, even when we were poor towards the end of last season I was upbeat for the progress we could make with the right signings, up until Novemberish, I was on the injuries brigade, once we get Mainoo, Shaw, Amad etc... back will see some improvement..... but then reality bites and we have just been so tactically inept, I just do not see how you can reward the abjectly awful tactics and coaching we have seen this season (irrespective of injuries) with another bite of the cherry.
I also cannot get on board with the "we need to stop sacking managers cycle" brigade, they have a fair point but it shouldn't mean we keep a man who has been factually our worst manager (this season) since long before SAF
I've generally avoided reading the forum over the past month or so, and haven't posted during that time either. I did a thorough read of the past 30 odd pages and can only conclude that we have some very delusional fans.
To be fair, I'd say 90% have seen the light. Benito seems to have gone into hiding and VP89 is pretty defeatist/neutral. You'd usually find them posting 10+ times per day defending ten Hag. Now it's mainly Plant carrying the baton.
This is comfortably the worst season post SAF. We've lost a record breaking 17 games this season. Not even the 18/19 and 21/22 seasons were this bad in terms of defeats.
We have a -1 GD in The PL
We had a -3 GD in The CL
We had a 0 GD in The League Cup
And if we didn't draw weak opposition like Wigan and Newport, we'd most likely have a poor GD in The FA Cup also. It's currently +6.
That means we have a GD of just +2 for the entire season. It's mid April! That's ridiculously bad.
Nearly every United attacker has struggled to score goals under ten Hag. And not just this season:
Ronaldo scored 3 goals from 16 games under ten Hag
Weghorst scored 2 goals from 31 games under ten Hag
Martial has scored 11 goals from 48 games under ten Hag
Hojlund has scored 13 goals from 13 goals from 35 games under ten Hag
Elanga scored 0 goals from 26 games under ten Hag
Rashford has scored 38 goals from 95 games under ten Hag
Antony has scored 10 goals from 77 games under ten Hag
Garnacho has scored 14 goals from 76 games under ten Hag
Sancho has scored 7 goals from 41 games under ten Hag
Pellistri has scored 0 goals from 24 games under ten Hag
Bruno has scored 26 goals from 101 games under ten Hag
Mount has scored 1 goal from 17 games under ten Hag
Martial, out of all people, actually has one of the better goals to minutes ratios. Apart from a 3 month stretch for Rashford last season and a 6-7 week spell for Hojlund this season, nobody has looked a consistent goal threat under this manager. McTominay has been a more reliable source of goals than some of them, which says it all.
Bruno Fernandes was only on 8 goals for the entire season until a recent hot streak. He's scored 5 penalties this season. He's not a consistent source of goals from open play under ten Hag.
It's been a dire season. We should be on at least 20 defeats this season. It could actually have been worse somehow.
To be fair, I'd say 90% have seen the light. Benito seems to have gone into hiding and VP89 is pretty defeatist/neutral. You'd usually find them posting 10+ times per day defending ten Hag. Now it's mainly Plant carrying the baton.
This is comfortably the worst season post SAF. We've lost a record breaking 17 games this season. Not even the 18/19 and 21/22 seasons were this bad in terms of defeats.
We have a -1 GD in The PL
We had a -3 GD in The CL
We had a 0 GD in The League Cup
And if we didn't draw weak opposition like Wigan and Newport, we'd most likely have a poor GD in The FA Cup also. It's currently +6.
That means we have a GD of just +2 for the entire season. It's mid April! That's ridiculously bad.
Nearly every United attacker has struggled to score goals under ten Hag. And not just this season:
Ronaldo scored 3 goals from 16 games under ten Hag
Weghorst scored 2 goals from 31 games under ten Hag
Martial has scored 11 goals from 48 games under ten Hag
Hojlund has scored 13 goals from 13 goals from 35 games under ten Hag
Elanga scored 0 goals from 26 games under ten Hag
Rashford has scored 38 goals from 95 games under ten Hag
Antony has scored 10 goals from 77 games under ten Hag
Garnacho has scored 14 goals from 76 games under ten Hag
Sancho has scored 7 goals from 41 games under ten Hag
Pellistri has scored 0 goals from 24 games under ten Hag
Bruno has scored 26 goals from 101 games under ten Hag
Mount has scored 1 goal from 17 games under ten Hag
Martial, out of all people, actually has one of the better goals to minutes ratios. Apart from a 3 month stretch for Rashford last season and a 6-7 week spell for Hojlund this season, nobody has looked a consistent goal threat under this manager. McTominay has been a more reliable source of goals than some of them, which says it all.
Bruno Fernandes was only on 8 goals for the entire season until a recent hot streak. He's scored 5 penalties this season. He's not a consistent source of goals from open play under ten Hag.
It's been a dire season. We should be on at least 20 defeats this season. It could actually have been worse somehow.
We will always have those happy Weggy memories from last season, that'll be the real thing we all look back on and smile about once Ten Hag has got the chop.
You've clearly put a lot of effort into defending Martial so apologies for giving it short shrift but to quote Roy Keane...if you think you can rely on these two (Rashford and Martial) to get United back to where they want to be then "you're living in Cloud Cuckoo Land".
The whole point of my post (btw) was not to suggest Martial (or Rashford) have been deliberately getting managers sacked. My point was, they're unreliable...and it worries me to hear ten Hag say he was counting on them for goals this season. It probably explains why he spent £60m on Mount, rather than another CF...and that seems to come down to a misjudgement on his part about what he had.
To summarise, if you've been managing Manchester United for 12-months and you're supposed to be an elite-level coach...and yet you think you're going to get reliable output from those two players at the highest level...then your judgement is worryingly awry.
He may have given freedom to Bruno to create and take chances, as he did other players in his previous teams and even Di Maria to an extent. Or he may have helped Bruno to be a more rounded player. I remember Herrera getting a bollocking for being in the box and being so advanced, even though he scored in the end. I don't want to make excuses for LVG as it was chronic to watch, but I do appreciate that he got us comfortable on the ball pretty quickly. I don't know which period I disliked most between that, Ten Hag and Ole after the initial bounce where we did look decent for 5 games.
He basically ran Di Maria out of the club. I know Di Maria never wanted to be here in the first place, but van Gaal quite clearly had no time for anyone who chose the risky option.
As I said, van Gaal got us comfortable on the ball because he coached a very easy to play, possession style. There was no risk to it. It was sideways and backwards, with little to no end-product. People seem to have become so obsessed with "recognisable-style" that they're now completely ignoring whether those styles are actually effective.
But LVG had at least shown in the past that he can turn that 'very easy to play, possession style' into something that does work at the top level. That's all I'll say as I'm not going into defending a guy that I couldn't wait to see the back of. But basically, it could have been better with more creativity in the team. I'm sure LVG didn't want us to pass around the back all match, he's not a complete fool.
Re Di Maria, he was probably partly to blame but I knew as soon as we were linked to him that he didn't really want to be here. Then after the robbery at his home etc, it was quickly down hill. I think the club made a mistake in signing a guy that didn't want to be here, LVG made a mistake in not trying to work with him a bit better to get him in the right headspace and at least producing as he could. I don't think LVG had an issue with Di Maria taking risks, per se, but I think he didn't appreciate the mistakes he was making.
I can't deny what I see on the pitch at United, but what I saw of Ajax in that CL run seemed very exciting, I thought they absolutely dismantled Real Madrid. I don't think he is the coach we are seeing now and want to believe that pre-carling cup is his level but I just don't have any evidence to support it other than injuries.
How far in the past are we talking, because he hadn't won anything since 2010, and he was sacked the year after that because Bayern were hanging around 3rd and 4th in Bundesliga?
His actual success came in the 90s.
Well I was referring to WC 2014 mainly, which was considered a success for Netherlands. But still, he has shown it. Did win the Bundesliga and finish 2nd in the CL 5 years before joining, which wasn't so far back at the time we hired him.
I disagree. Playing in a low block and counter attacking is one of the simplest and easiest ways to set a team up.
Being able to play out from the back and keep the ball circulating are key components of any elite team. Brighton do both of these very well. What they're currently lacking is the final pass/confidence in the final 3rd of the pitch. Injuries to key attackers have played a part also.
LvG's style is a good base to build from. What let him and the team down were the fact that both Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin flopped massively and he was too loyal to Rooney who was over the hill by his 2nd season. Rooney was his captain and he respected him, but has alluded to him being past his prime.
I think it would have been interesting had LvG got a 3rd season. Martial was playing some of the best football of his career, Rashford was young and doing well in a ST role, Mata played the best football of his United career under him, Lingard was starting to come to the fore, and even CBJ looked decent at LB during those final few months.
I wonder would he have moved Memphis to a central position. That would mean dropping Rooney. Memphis became a very good AM/SS at Lyon and for The Nethelrands shortly after leaving us.
Add another DM/CM and it had the makings of a good XI.
Rashford
Martial--------Memphis--------Mata
Carrick----Herrera
Shaw-----Blind------Smalling------Valencia
De Gea
Martial--------Memphis--------Mata
Carrick----Herrera
Shaw-----Blind------Smalling------Valencia
De Gea
You forgot to mention Shaw. Shaw was arguably our best player during Mourinho's last season, the three players that he kept shitting on were by some distance our best players and the only one able to drag the team when things went wrong. While his favorites, Lukaku, Matic, Sanchez and to a lesser extent Rashfrod where embarrassing themselves on a weekly basis.
5 years is massive. Going back five years, Pochettino was a CL runner up, Ernesto Valverde was winning La Liga and Niko Kovac was winning Bundesliga. Do you want any of them as our next manager?
We also know that national team management is very different. Southgate's relative (to previous England managers) success with the national team isn't enough for anyone to take him seriously as a candidate.
WC 2014 was literally weeks/days before he was hired mate.
Poch still managing at a top club, Valverde still a good manager (just this week there's been posters saying they'd have him here).
I didn't say it was the easiest, I said it was a very easy to coach style.
You can get a team of 12 year olds passing the ball around slowly in a rigid formation.
...yes, and I addressed that in the second sentence. National team management isn't the same.
You literally brought up his club success five years prior to his appointment and claimed that it "wasn't so far back" when we hired him.
And Spurs dismantled eventual winners Real Madrid in the preceding season and then beat ETH's Ajax in the season you're talking about. Before that, Leicester City made it as far in the CL as we ever have in the last 10 years. Year before last, Villarreal were in the semis. These sort of runs happen in cup competitions, but we weren't queueing up to hire Poch, Ranieri or Emery.
Yep, although I'd say Pogba was the best.
That season under Mourinho could be broken down almost perfectly by month.
First month Pogba and Shaw played well.
Second month everyone was bad.
Third month Pogba and Martial played well.
Fourth month everyone was bad.
So nobody was having a truly good season, but the only three players that had any good periods were the three that Mourinho criticised the most. Meanwhile the two players Mourinho loved and defended more than any (Lukaku and Matic) were comfortably our worst. It was actually quite incredible how perfectly it seemed to line up with players performances being inversely correlated with how much Mourinho liked them.
New leadership generally like to get in and speak to people before making changes, even though they plan on doing so. It rocks the boat too much to start clearing out without speaking to people first.
Oh right, Alex99 from the internet said international football doesn't count as it isn't the same, so we can't count that? Unfortunately we don't all value your opinion as much as you. So you can 'address' it all you want, doesn't mean you are right.
I initially said he had shown he could do it at the top level - is the World Cup not the top level? You are the one that completely ignored the World Cup and said he'd done nothing since 2010/the 90's (bit of a contradiction, but I let it slide). He had done well 5 years prior, but was then hired by Netherlands. It's a bit difficult to keep achieving in club football when you are managing your national team.
Shaw is probably the most overrated player we've had. He's largely been average in a United shirt. The best spell of his career was around February 2021 to July 2021.
I think that Players' Player of the Year award in 2019 was mainly a case of charity from the players due to the rough time had with injury and his relationship with Mourinho.
I'd argue that Salah's record vs United is so good mainly because of some of Shaw's car crash performances vs Liverpool over the years. Watch them back.
Mourinho did treat Shaw harshly, but he's a lazy player who picks and chooses when he wants to perform. It's like he needs his position to be under constant threat in order to stay focused. When Brandon Williams 1st broke into the squad and the fans took to him because of his energy, Shaw upped his game and saw him off. When we signed Telles in 2021, he also stepped his game up. Malacia was definitely brought in as a potential starting LB, but Shaw once again upped his game and saw him off.
He's very talented, but he hasn't always looked after himself or stayed focused season after season.
4 goals and 28 assists after almost 10 years at the club doesn't warrant "Shawberto Carlos" tags.
So you think Southgate (or Zlatko Dalic) would make good candidates to be our next manager?
No, but that's just two managers. I think Nagelsmann would. There's been other national team coaches who have come back into club football and been good - a recent example is Enrique. It's a pointless conversation because I was initially talking about LVG's tactics/coaching/style of football. Nothing else. He still implemented all of this with Netherlands and had a good World Cup. That's the top and bottom of my argument and why I still feel that national team coaching is still relevant in that aspect. I agree international football is a different kettle of fish in the broader view and there's more nuance to club level management.
Did he implement it with Netherlands?
They had 34% possession against Spain, 49% possession against Australia, 32% possession against Chile and 41% possession against Brazil.
How Netherlands played in the 2014 World Cup was a far cry from how we played under him, especially in his second season with us.
What is worse, having an Interim manager or a manager that nobody believes in? I think we might be coming to this junction again soon.
We'll only have an interim once we're mathematically out of the race for CL, as it's cheaper for Ten Hag to be fired then. If we beat Coventry, he'll get the rest of the season so he can manage us in the FA Cup final.
They dominated against Mexico and Argentina in terms of possession, as well as in other games too. I can only speculate as to why some games they had less possession, even though they did win some of those games still. Perhaps he wasn't as strict about taking risks as we thought, or he didn't actually value pointless possession, or that he had different ideas for facing different teams. He did something right either way.
Just to remind you though, this debate started when you claimed that 'Van Gaal would have absolutely hated Bruno. His possession-style was extremely conservative and he'd have zero patience for someone like Bruno losing the ball.'. So perhaps he wouldn't have hated him had it led to results like he got with Netherlands.
There was literally one other game in that World Cup for them.
They out-possessed Mexico, Costa Rica and Argentina (57%, 68%, and 56% respectively), but they drew two of those games 0-0, losing the Argentina tie on penalties, and needed a late comeback (which included a stoppage time penalty) to not lose to Mexico.
He didn't have time to coach Netherlands into his ultra-boring, slow-as-shit, possession-at-all-costs style, so you simply can't draw any meaningful conclusions from how they played, and certainly can't use them as a model for how he wanted us to play. Ironically enough though, the three games he did have them winning the possession battle were arguably the three worst performances of the tournament.
He would have hated Bruno. Everything we saw from him during his time here, and everything we've heard about him since he went, paints a picture of a man who despised wastefulness, which is a pretty common element of Bruno's game. He'd either have been dropped or permanently shunted the wing.
As I said earlier, people have become so obsessed with "recognisable-style" that they've stopped caring about how effective those styles are, and it's led to, frankly, ridiculous claims about van Gaal.
Van Gaal pivoted to a more counter attacking approach during the second season. We were good at keeping the ball but bad at creating chances. It wasn‘t going to work with those players.
Don't think he is overrated, he was when he joined but not know, Shaw is just a solid PL left back, injury prone, that's it.
Look at us now without him.
World Cup Van Gaal and MU Van Gaal are completely different. The Dutch national team could not be successful with traditional Dutch possession footy, so Van Gaal changed the strategy to 532 counter attacking football.
It worked, but the limitations of the team became clear against Argentina, where we created very little.
We are lacking ‚control‘ right now, but LvG possession style football failed here and would fail again with this group of players.
BTW he would have loved Bruno; he is a brilliant player that he would have made use of. Van Gaal was not married to one strategy.