Good managers are as hard to find as electricians these days, especially ones that play electric football.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
- Start date
I know right, so annoying..
The situation is much more like you've taken a huge dump that's blocked your toilet and you've hired a plumber and given him some money to nip to the shop for some tools. You chuck him some cash and just let him get on with it, but a while later you start to realise he doesn't seem to know what he's doing. He says he spent all the money you gave him but all you can see is that he bought one of those toy stethoscopes and has been listening to the pipes for hours and tells you to shush whenever you question him. You later catch him taking a dump in your still blocked toilet and when you confront him he doesn't even stop and just says "heh". You feel really stupid for giving your money to this man but at this point you're willing to pay him to just get him out of your house.
Bro, Bayern Munich, one of the top 3 football clubs in the World, are about to hire Ralph freaking Ragnick as their coach. It ain't like you can have your pick at the moment. Whoever comes now will be a huge gamble.
Been there, done that! If they do hire him, they will fire him in 3 months. So, what?
So we take a gamble then instead of sticking with a manager who has already failed.
Ok, I assume you are referring to the current season. Do me a favor and tell me which coach would've won anything with the current set of players and the amount of injuries?
Keeping ETH is a huge gamble too tbh.
There's coaches that would have done better, and had us actually positive about the direction we're going in. There's not a single poster that doesn't understand we've had injuries, but I think many of us think it was possible to do better with what we've had available. We've had strong options in attack all season, plenty of options in midfield. I'd argue that two of our defenders have been our best players this season and those that have filled in have been fine on an individual basis for the most part. Everybody said Maguire would cost us games but he's been solid at the back. Most weeks we've only been a couple of players off our first choice 11.
I don't know if anyone could have won a trophy this season but I'm fairly sure there's a few coaches out there who could have prevented us from conceding 20 shots per game with a positive goal difference at least.
Strong options in attack? Are you taking the piss mate... 2 midfielders are our top scorers...
1 CF all season who gets injured most of the time, left winger who hasn't scored in the Premier League, an inconsistent 19 year old, and we have Rashy.
Not mentioning Sancho and Martial here. The way you make it sound is like we had plethora of options, resembling the time we had Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov and Ronaldo in attack.
Sigh, was just watching his Ajax team highlights.....night and fecking day compared to what we have to sit through every weekend.
Give me a list of teams with better options in attack in our league. Nobody has Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov and Ronaldo in our league. Not even City. Bruno is putting up amazing numbers again, but you conveniently missed him. The guy plays every game and creates chances for everyone. Rashford, Garnacho and Bruno is a talented 3 that most teams in the league would kill for.
Ancelotti and Postecoglou ofcourse. The Caf‘s current darlings.
This shots conceded stat is a red herring. We've got the joint 5th best defensive record in the league, conceding 50 goals - same as Villa. Which is impressive if you ask me as our defense has been devastated by injuries and we've been playing without a recognized left back for ages.
No one. Not even prime SAF could have gotten anywhere near top 4 in this unique, one of a kind season where we had to play 72 different cb combinations. Ten Hag overachieved by grinding out wins we don't deserve and keeping our GD from plummeting into the negative. He lets the opposition take 20-30 shots each game because it tires them out and because we have one of the best shot stoppers in the world. We need to keep him here at all costs and give him the best structure money can build, because he is the only one who gets it.
Would be staggered if none of them get a second league win this season over us,however I am more than happy to be proved wrong on that
Your job is to back up your statement that we have great options in attack and midfield.
Effectively Bruno is the only senior attacking player who has performed at a level needed to do any better then we are doing.
Garnacho is in his breakout season and is playing so much because there are no other options.
Rashford has been off the boil all season , not sure you can Blame ETH for him going out on the piss, but he’s just not mentally right. Who is the wonderful attacking alternative to Rash ? Amad? Another player who is not used the EPL.
Hoijland joined injured and is also in a break out season in the EPL.
So that’s two forwards who are in their first proper season and a senior player whose form fell off a cliff. That’s 3 of our 4 most played , attacking players.
Where are all these attacking options you are talking about ? What other top teams are relying on players out of form or really having their first proper season in the league ?
Even in midfield we really need Mainoo, another player in their breakout season in the EPL. Casemiro, like Rashford , has looked like he’s tapped out. Two of our best performers in CM and attack from that season have effectively been redundant this season. So who are all the quality options available to ETH?
Implying ETH has a squad of top quality forward players is bollox. And don’t give me “but Anthony” sh*t, one bad signing shouldn’t be this much of a problem, a lot of you over play that card.
That’s not even looking at Defence which has been decimated all season.
There are good and fair criticisms of ETH and reasons for people to want him sacked, but implying he has a really strong squad of options this season is bollox.
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With Bayern close to appointing Rangnick, Barcelona extending Xavi and Liverpool being close to appointing Slot the argument of ‘we need to keep him because we won’t be able to get anyone’ goes out the window. We would have a free pass at a number of young, up and coming managers now.
If we keep ten Hag (and we will) it will be because we genuinely believe him to be the best manager for us, not because we can’t get anyone else in.
If we keep ten Hag (and we will) it will be because we genuinely believe him to be the best manager for us, not because we can’t get anyone else in.
To be fair he inherited a young team that was already drilled the right way and played same kind of football under Bosz. It was a completely different job. He’s quite clearly not capable of doing that here.
I think in our case now though, with our new structure and this team, we need an experienced coach. We don't have the squad to drop in a young an exciting coach, we have too many personnel issues for them to succeed.
I don’t think we really need that. We need someone who can come and implement sustainable playing style and slowly rebuild the team. Expectations and pressure at United are by far the lowest of all top European clubs, it’s probably lower than West Ham now so even for someone like Amorim he’d have an easier time here. It’s exactly the kind of job where I think a young manager can develop and eventually hit the right level.
The issue with a young exciting coach is ambition. We need someone who's not trying to prove to the world they're a great coach but is indeed a great coach. We saw Ten Hag this season just refuse to change his system despite not having the players and that's exactly what we'll get with other young coaches. They have one idea of how football should be played and they will enforce that on the team regardless of the players because they don't have the patience to play some type of hybrid football for a season or two until we can get the players in.
You say "other young coaches" as if EtH was young. Isn't it more of the opposite, that he became stubborn like a typical old guy? (On top of being Dutch obviously)
I think it goes without saying that he's a Dutch man doing very Dutch things.
Bayern are looking for a manager to win them League titles and Champions League titles. Next season a coach getting us in or around the top 4, not losing 20 odd games a season would be an upgrade.
Keeping Ten Hag is a huge gamble, arguably a bigger gamble than a new coach.
Is the poll being trolled? 
I'm actually starting to think that INEOS will give him another season. I believe that it would be a symbol of accepting mediocrity. Even the Glazers wouldn't accept this season.
It is what it is. It's frustrating seeing them target key positions off the pitch, but possibly neglecting/stalling on the most important position of them all. The manager.
ten Hag isn't their man. They didn't hire him. There'll never be an easier opportunity to part ways with a manager.
If next season starts badly after keeping him on, it will reflect badly on them. That's the risk they'd be taking. Even worse if they did extend his contract.
INEOS have known that they would be getting control at United eventually. Months ago. They must have assumed that recruiting Ashworth wouldn't be as complicated as it has turned out. He's the biggest stumbling block.
It is what it is. It's frustrating seeing them target key positions off the pitch, but possibly neglecting/stalling on the most important position of them all. The manager.
ten Hag isn't their man. They didn't hire him. There'll never be an easier opportunity to part ways with a manager.
If next season starts badly after keeping him on, it will reflect badly on them. That's the risk they'd be taking. Even worse if they did extend his contract.
INEOS have known that they would be getting control at United eventually. Months ago. They must have assumed that recruiting Ashworth wouldn't be as complicated as it has turned out. He's the biggest stumbling block.
Surely we are not that stupid to keep him after the end of season?
26.5% 
There's a huge difference between 'not winning something' and the utter incompetence we've had this season. Nobody would have won a PL or CL, but we have been unbelievably bad. Even in many of the games we've won we've been completely second best and relied on a moment of individual brilliance or luck. That's the biggest issue for me.
I'd have more sympathy and willingness to keep ETH if we were playing fairly well and it was obvious that we were developing a playstyle that could carry us to success in the future, but the injuries and players not quite being right for that playstyle led us to still lose quite a lot of games. Even if we'd had the exact same results at the end of the day, but there were good signs about where the team was heading it would be completely different.
However that's not even close to being the case. We are incredibly lucky to be sitting in 6th; we could easily (and probably should) be sitting outside the top 10 based on the level of actual performances. We're regularly second best even to poor teams, and it's the tactical decisions of the manager that seem to be causing most of those problems.
And just to top it all off, in the second half of this season as we've mostly been playing one game a week and our injury issues are decreasing (we've played a lot of games with only the leftback and one central defender not being in our strongest 11), things have been getting even worse. This is the time we should be expecting to see any benefits of how ETH has been training us to play, and that hasn't been the case at all. Teams with more injuries and smaller squads are dominating us, Championship sides are making tactical changes at halftime and taking control while ETH just keeps doing the same thing. It's embarrassing.
Sums it up this clusterfeck of a season nicely. Embarrassing should be the title of the season review DVD.
He's got his 70 million pound CF and his 90 million right winger. Both of whom have been available for the vast majority of the season. Neither have hit the required standard. It was his decision to cut Sancho off so he has to live with that. And Rashford and Bruno are good quality proven players it's his job to get the best out of them. And of course he has had an exciting young player from the academy who is having a good break out season.
All those players have been available for the vast majority of the season. He has pretty much his first choice attacking players available and we have been very poor offensively most of the season.
It's his job to get more out of them than what they have delivered. He has failed. That's management.
ETH isn't a young coach.
Correct. Amorim, Arteta, Xavi, Motta, Alonso, Hoeneß. All young coaches. De Zebri is approaching 10 years in management. Started young.
It's actually the one road we haven't gone down yet. I'd happily hire any of them (obviously Arteta is a no go). Amorim would be my preference.
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If he had been prepared to haul Rashford off the field even once or twice of his umpteen pathetic showings this season, or if he had given Amad a few more of the minutes he's continuously given to Antony, I'd probably still be in the Ten Hag in camp - willing to give him the benefit of the doubt over all the injuries and to see what he could do under a better, more coherent footballing structure.
But he has shown loyalty to players who have given him nothing in return, and he has failed to acknowledge and address that. Those same favourites will cost him his job and he'll have nobody else to blame but himself.
But he has shown loyalty to players who have given him nothing in return, and he has failed to acknowledge and address that. Those same favourites will cost him his job and he'll have nobody else to blame but himself.
Should we just stick with the Pep Guardiola is my idol until a Klopp level manager becomes available? I'm afraid we'll replace him in the summer with someone who isn't a first choice and then a Chelsea or a Newcastle snap up the next Klopp
If anything we’re a lot more likely to miss out on the next great manager by sticking with one we know isn’t good enough.
The three standout young coaches in world football are Amorim, Arteta and Alonso, in my opinion.
Only one of them, Amorim, is actually attainable. Arteta is likely to stay at Arsenal for a long time. City or Barcelona would be potential destinations should he leave on a high one day.
Alonso will likely replace Ancelotti at Real in year or two.
I'd be trying to secure Amorim's services this summer. He's obviously willing to leave Sporting, hence the Liverpool and West Ham links. Joining West Ham would be a bad career move.
I'm in this camp.