And that's probably the main reason he should lose his job.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager / awaiting clarity from the club over his position
- Thread starter sewey89
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Thought I was on to a winner
Trust me, when I'm desperately trying to prove my point, it's not a 1 sentence long post. I literally said in my next post that it's not that relevant.And please tell me how you or 99.99% of people were aware of what Arteta was trying to do and saw progress when they were 15th at Christmas in 2020. Because other than some Twitter tacticos not one soul was saying Arteta's project is going somewhere.
I'm also not even ETH in. I'm totally indifferent to whether he stays or not. I'll support Ineos in both decision, as if they decide to keep him, that'll mean they think we can get back on track with the current manager and they have more insight and information than we do.
I think INEOS will stick to their guns and I'd admire them for it.
1. No outstanding candidates currently available.
2. We've tried a variety of coaches after Fergie and every single one failed. That can't be because every single one is bad. Given the game model they want to play, do they think ETH can coach a decent side if the players are given to him (e.g., pretend we made Ten Hag the manager of Arsenal, how would he get on?)
I really think we should go for Tuchel but absent him, I'd rather stick with Ten Hag over guys like De Zerbi, Potter, Southgate, McKenna etc.
1. No outstanding candidates currently available.
2. We've tried a variety of coaches after Fergie and every single one failed. That can't be because every single one is bad. Given the game model they want to play, do they think ETH can coach a decent side if the players are given to him (e.g., pretend we made Ten Hag the manager of Arsenal, how would he get on?)
I really think we should go for Tuchel but absent him, I'd rather stick with Ten Hag over guys like De Zerbi, Potter, Southgate, McKenna etc.
It's no surprise 3 failed managers are preaching about giving managers time though let's be honest.
Quite a lot actually, losing out on the Champions League next season costs the club anywhere from £60-140m next year, plus loss of match day revenue. If United were to miss out again next year it would be bad for Uniteds finances. Not only the lost prize money and match day revenue. But also potentially means the club lose existing sponsorship deals and can only get far less lucratives ones to replace them with no CL football to offer. As well as restricting the players we can attract.
Risking losing all that money to save the £5-7m it would cost to pay off Ten Hag's contract, to give him a year to ''see how he does'' probably isn't something Ineos would see as a sensible business decision.
I struggle a bit with the 15th at Christmas in 2020. Because that's around one year into his career as a manager against two years for ETH and that's around 14 games into that second season. It's difficult for me to understand the logic that I'm supposed to follow when you are using a smaller sample size for Arteta, let's say that Arteta was bad during his first year, things improved during the second part of that season and things improved even more during the following 6 months which take us to two years.Thought I was on to a winner
And please tell me how you or 99.99% of people were aware of what Arteta was trying to do and saw progress when they were 15th at Christmas in 2020. Because other than some Twitter tacticos not one soul was saying Arteta's project is going somewhere.
I'm also not even ETH in. I'm totally indifferent to whether he stays or not. I'll support Ineos in both decision, as if they decide to keep him, that'll mean they think we can get back on track with the current manager and they have more insight and information than we do.
So if we compare ETH and Arteta, we have a manager that has a decent first year, which is followed by a bad second year. And an other manager that has subpar first year and a pretty good second year. One regressed while the other improved.
You can look into the future now can you? Who’s to say he won’t get us top 4 next season? 1 bad season out of 2 isn’t bad when Klopp finished 5th last year and got them back into the CL straight away the year after. No one can predict next season. We could sign some really good players in the summer. I know we’ll be getting rid of some really bad ones. Villa probably won’t be as good next year, spurs are just spurs, Liverpool will be re building under a new manager so they could be a bit hit and miss throughout the season. The only 2 teams guaranteed top 4 really are probably city and Arsenal. Everyone els has to fight for the other 2.
The easier decision for them is to stick with ETH. If he does well next season then they’ll only get praise of everyone for their decision. If he doesn’t do to well then they’ll get stick but they’ll just point out that no one decent is available. And I know people will pick managers names out of an hat and say ‘ well they would do better’ would they though? That’s the question, we could get a new manager that’s worse. We’re forgetting ETH was most of this fan base first choice to take over 2 years ago.
I mean there's plenty to criticize him for, but when you try to push an untrue narrative it just makes you look silly.
Let's break down that "400m"
2022/23
-Antony: Probably the biggest mistake we've ever made on the transfer market value wise, but it wasn't ETH who splashed 80m on him, as the Glazers panicked got involved in our transfer dealings after the two opening defeats to Brentford and Brighton, which resulted in us paying up a ridiculous fee for Antony.
-Casemiro: He was identified and recommended to him by the club, and he okayed it. Obviously not great value, but I don't see what ETH should've done. We had no one added to the midfield other than Eriksen at that point, and similarly to the Antony deal, there was panic, the club offered a great DM to him, and he okayed it. If you think the manager should've said "not for 60 million", then you probably think it's like FM or FIFA. Want to add that it was obviously more of a short-term signing rather than building the squad for the future in Casemiro's case.
-Malacia: Cheap punt for 13m, has been generally promising when he played. I don't think ETH is at fault for a potentially botched operation that aggravated his injury or if Malacia is missing due to mental health reasons, similarly to Sancho last year. Good value for a young player for the present and long-term.
-Martínez: 49m initial fee, he's an incredible player who's great at either CB or that LCB/LB role that Arsenal and City play. Great signing. Good value for a young player for the present and long-term.
-Eriksen: Good signing for free, was very useful up until his injury.
-Sabitzer, Weghorst, Butland, Dubravka: Largely irrelevant loan deals. Weghorst was useful because we had no striker. Sabitzer had some good performances in those 6 months he spent at the club. Around 5.25m in loan fees for these players.
2023/24
Hojlund: One of, if not the best young striker we could've bought as an alternative to Kane. Probably similarly to Casemiro, it was a recommendation from the scouting department and ETH decided to go for it. Very shrewd bit of business for 64m, for a 20 year old who's ready to contribute from day 1 and is a 30 goal per season striker in a functional system where he doesn't have to feed off scraps. Good value for a young player for the present and long-term.
Mount: 55m for a player in the last year of his contract. Probably just about value if you look at his ability, CV, and age. Can't really get a 24 year old midfielder with his ability and achievements in football for less than that these days. Him being injured all year is obviously something that no one saw coming, and the player hasn't had the chance to make an impact yet. Value for a young player for the present and long-term, but I'd personally exclude his transfer fee from the total amount spent on transfers so far, when judging ETH.
Onana: Very good technical keeper, ball-player and passer that's a necessity for any possession-based side these days. 43m was just about value for him, again considering his ability, achievements in football, and age.
Amrabat: 7m loan fee for him, well, he's done well when he wasn't playing left-back or a single pivot #6 in that dysfunctional 4-3-3. I admit he's not a single-pivot DM that we require, but in a 4-2-3-1 that we've played in the last few games, and the whole of last year, he's good value for a potential 17m fee if the deal is made permanent.
Bayindir: Around 4m, not really a relevant signing once again.
Reguilón: Free loan because of an injury emergency situation. Not really relevant and did okay when he played.
Evans: Free signing, not really relevant to our long-term squad building anyways.
All in all, I'd say around 300-310m was spent on young players with potential long-term, key roles in the squad, and around 250m if you exclude Mount from the list...which I personally think is fair. 250m in 4 windows for a top 3 biggest club in the world going through a big rebuild, is honestly a joke. Even if it was 400m, it's nothing special. We should've been going for 4-5, or even more significant arrivals per summer, not the 3 per season policy the Glazers had instilled, revealed by Ole in his interview. Or at least should've added significant players in the winter windows, like Chelsea and other clubs managed to.
Malacia, Martínez, Hojlund, Mount, Onana. I think these are the signings you should judge him on. Casemiro was a mistake value wise, but not solely down to him. Antony was a huge mistake, but once again, not solely down to him. Hojlund will 99% be a huge success, but not solely down to him, as I really doubt it was ETH who initially mentioned his name to the club.
Free transfers and loans are totally irrelevant IMO and should be dismissed. Players also generally need time, and always need a good environment they can excel in. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that those 5 players I listed can just turn shit overnight.
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I'm not comparing them as I think Arteta is significantly better, than ETH, or 99.99% of managers in top level football. However, improvement is often not linear, like I said, and Arteta's progress sure as hell wasn't visible from season to season, and it wasn't really linear. Like I said, it's pretty irrelevant and I'm not trying to make a point or compare the two managers...but most of the things that are brought up against ETH in this thread are also largely irrelevant or just straight up baseless and not even true.
The 15th at Christmas post was just a response to this question:
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If it doesn’t go well, which let’s admit, it is the most likely option they: a) look idiots, b) lose 100m+ considering the UCL money lost and the drop from adidas sponsor (the two no UCL in a row clause).
Keeping him is a high risk low reward option. Like betting that United will defeat City in the FA Cup final if the quote was 1.2.
Absolutely agree that a new manager could do worse, I've thought that all along. Still think we should give someone else a go though, recognising that they might be a gamble where there are no absolutely nailed-on certain to succeed candidates (if such a thing ever existed). It's because I don't believe ETH is up to the task. Better to take a punt in such circumstances.
He will be a very lucky man if he keeps his job. His midfield set up has been inexcusable. You can preach injuries, players out of form, outside issues, but ultimately the main problem this season has been his stubborn insistence on playing a ridiculous midfield set up that could never possibly work. Staying with that for so long entirely undermines any faith or trust I might have had in him, it led to a season where Utd have maybe played 4 or 5 convincing matches and that is being generous. Forget the results, the performances have been a shambolic mess, nothing to point to as a building point outside of playing young players.
Not like any of our opinions on here matter but if he is here next season he surely has to adapt to the situation at hand instead of the nonsense he sent out this season.
Not like any of our opinions on here matter but if he is here next season he surely has to adapt to the situation at hand instead of the nonsense he sent out this season.
666 say fire him 
If this is their logic I don't think it stands up to scrutiny. Mainly because even if an "outstanding" candidate isn't available, proceeding with a new face, a new voice, new ideas from a manager that isn't outstanding may well be superior than proceeding with a manager that isn't outstanding that also seems to struggle to motivate and focus the minds of the current players - irrespective of where blame lies for that.
The point of a new manager would also be that ETH has had his time and he is going to be swimming upstream next season, if we even do so much as have a couple of poor early results he's immediately on the back foot with players, and probably even fans.
If I was INEOS I would certainly have been paying huge attention to his interactions with this team and the media and his current disposition. It says a lot about how or whether he can recover things. I don't think it purely comes down to who is on the market, it also comes down to what ETH has done, shown or can do in the future.
We are the red devils after all...666 say fire him
I disagree that the effort is lacking from the players honestly or that anything can be solved through additional motivation. A change could improve tactics (someone tweaks the midfield / defence so they don't give away so many opportunities to run at our defence). Even in a game where we were relatively in control like against Newcastle, we could've given away a penalty, had a brief 3v1 situation and a decent number of counter attacks against us.
Honestly, it’s like people have had their minds wiped of the turd we’ve been served the entire season based on one game against Newcastle.
It’s not enough to save him, nor should it. We’re still on course for our worst ever Premier League season. We’ll almost certainly finish the season with a negative goal difference. Bottom of a Champions League group that consisted of the mighty Galatasaray and Copenhagen and unwanted recorded after unwanted record shattered with every passing week.
Three points against Newcastle and people want another season of it? Bunch of masochists.
It’s not enough to save him, nor should it. We’re still on course for our worst ever Premier League season. We’ll almost certainly finish the season with a negative goal difference. Bottom of a Champions League group that consisted of the mighty Galatasaray and Copenhagen and unwanted recorded after unwanted record shattered with every passing week.
Three points against Newcastle and people want another season of it? Bunch of masochists.
Doesn't factor in any reduction of wages and missed bonuses to players either. Still no to ETH next season though.
That speech?
What is that?
For me, personally, it fits in quite nicely with all the rest - in the sense that I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
I see that some take it as a "please don't sack me" thing (directed as his employers). But surely - not? How could that possibly work? "Heh, I gave them a speech in broken English and they - well, most of them - politely applauded, so...heh!"
What is that?
For me, personally, it fits in quite nicely with all the rest - in the sense that I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
I see that some take it as a "please don't sack me" thing (directed as his employers). But surely - not? How could that possibly work? "Heh, I gave them a speech in broken English and they - well, most of them - politely applauded, so...heh!"
Good post.
Why? Genuinely interested. Not a single one of the one we fired went on to have a good career at another big club afterwards. Why wouldn’t it be totally plausible that we fired wrong coaches 4 times?
You are comparing them otherwise there is no point mentioning Arteta especially when his improvement and Arsenal's have been linear or to be more accurate sequential.
How would describe this, 8th with 56 points, 8th with 62 points, 5th with 69 points and 2nd with 84 points?
If he is to stay, then he is going to be a very short leash in terms of fan patience even if we were to purge the squad and replace them with new players.
And he’d essentially be demoted from manager to first team head coach, if hes going to have limited say on transfers and Wilcox/Berrada/Ashworth are dictating stuff to him.
I don’t know why he randomly chooses certain games to be more compact and most games to play that gung ho way of his.
And he’d essentially be demoted from manager to first team head coach, if hes going to have limited say on transfers and Wilcox/Berrada/Ashworth are dictating stuff to him.
I don’t know why he randomly chooses certain games to be more compact and most games to play that gung ho way of his.
It's hard to say because of the confounding factor (did the United job failure make them toxic so they didn't get opportunities at the very highest level or are they actually bad?). I think LvG got on fine - he got the dutch job and did about as well as you'd expect. Same with Ralf / Austria. Bayern still wanted him a few weeks ago. McKenna too seemed like he was influential behind the scenes under Ole in setting the tactical direction and has done well outside. Moyes at West Ham had them finishing a few points behind us in two out of the last 3 seasons. None of these guys are the primary reason a club of United's resources and wage budget finishes 7th / 8th / whatever. Sure they're not in the same league as Pep / Klopp but they're more than good enough to get us finishing in CL spots atleast.
The one bit that's definitely true is that our player recruitment was shambolic over the 10 years. So are the pattern of coaching hires / fires (flip flopping between coaching philosophies by going from Moyes --> LvG --> Jose --> Jose lite in Ole --> Ten Hag). We've never really developed the squad over 3-4 years towards one unifying playing philosophy. We could do this independent of the manager -- maybe if Ten Hag is actually bad but we can decide that after fixing the recruitment first.
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8th to 8th with 6 points difference is not something people would generally call progress, just based on the numbers alone.
Also, 13 points improvement in 3 seasons isn't that impressive either, on paper.
I don’t even know where the notion that we need an “outstanding candidate” to replace Ten Hag to not be 8th - eleven points off of 4th and thirty one off 1st, with negative GD - came from
I'd keep him still, I want the squad fixed and structure to be in place first.
Even if we had a Guardiola clone come in this second we would still finish behind City, Arsenal and perhaps Liverpool. It takes time to get the deadwood out.
Guardiola basically had a few key Barca people taken to the club a year or so ahead, and their structure was and is still better than our current structure, our squad is shit in comparison too.
Even if we had a Guardiola clone come in this second we would still finish behind City, Arsenal and perhaps Liverpool. It takes time to get the deadwood out.
Guardiola basically had a few key Barca people taken to the club a year or so ahead, and their structure was and is still better than our current structure, our squad is shit in comparison too.
13 points improvement between the third and first season, so in 2 seasons, not 3.
It's one of the weakest arguments of the lot.
I hope he is out otherwise come Christmas next year, this thread will be toxic again.
I hope a Man Utd manager thread should be talking about his success, tactics and quality. Not his mistakes, failures and sacking.
We need a new manager. Full stop.
I hope a Man Utd manager thread should be talking about his success, tactics and quality. Not his mistakes, failures and sacking.
We need a new manager. Full stop.
Do you see what you are doing? You see objective progress and try to turn into something else, it's kind of strange. And it's 18 points in three season, that's the equivalent 6 more wins in a season which represent 15.7% of games, that's a pretty big improvement.
Another way to look at this is, even if we had the 2009 Barcelona team, he would still finish behind City, Arsenal and perhaps Liverpool. Why would you want to ruin our new signings and waste a whole season based on a what-if.
I still feel there are other priorities.
How much would it cost to sack ETH? and if we choose a manager that is at another club how much would we need to pay to prise them away?
I think the squad needs a remodel, and the structure needs to be in place at the club.
Yet all the time he is costing us money that we need to rebuild, you are saying do things in order, well if we finish outside of Europe again that is £45m++ we lose, surely the order has to be secure European football and then look to next steps, get a manager in who can get the current group of players with a few additions to challenge for 3rd/4th, but with ETH we have fallen so far behind because of this disastrous season, I agree that we need a better structure, but that is not an argument to keep ETH, we just need to make whoever the manager is part of the process, for me he is too much of a risk.
Lets not forget that for the majority of the season we have been shipping goals due to the ridiculous way ETH set the team up to play, not injuries, not poor signings, not club structure, 100% because of ETH trying to work a system that quite frankly is impossible in the premier league, let alone with the squad he has at his disposal, you can change the structure, you can get rid of the deadwood and sign half a dozen new first teamers and all of them be successful, but unless ETH ditches the ridiculous 4-1-5 formation which goes 2-1-7 in attack it won't matter we will still be lucky to be in 8th
Also where does that leave the players? low in confidence, out of form, it all just feeds in to a downward spiral, which is what we have been on since before the end of last season
Changing the structure is not going to suddenly turn ETH into a tactical genius
I don't disagree of course, but we aren't working for the club either. We don't know what is happening behind the scenes, but every manager thus far has been an abject failure.
That points more to a structure problem than the manager. Also look at our injuries this season, our entire backline has been decimated so now Casemiro is playing out of position. The medical department takes blame for that, we sent Fernandez out on loan to Benfica because Shaw was supposedly going to be back, Malacia out the entire season.
We have Evans at CB on a year contract, that isn't ETHs decision, that is Murtough. The structure around ETH has a lot of blame this year. I don't think any manager that comes through the doors has all the tools right now.
I think we can easily get our pitchfork and torches out and blame the manager yet again, but I am thinking we have other priorities first.
We were also fecked due to a few officiating problems with penalties awarded against us at one point, we ended up dropping around 12 points because of that, so there are things just not in the control of the manager.
I agree its not perfect tactically, but we are seriously fecked in other departments.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/68694702
Cesc Fabregas says give Erik one more window to prove himself. Reminds us that Arteta needed 3/4 years before we saw the team we expected. It’s a fair point. (Can’t embed bbc video as media)
Cesc Fabregas says give Erik one more window to prove himself. Reminds us that Arteta needed 3/4 years before we saw the team we expected. It’s a fair point. (Can’t embed bbc video as media)
The arguments for keeping Ten Hag are getting weaker and weaker. "New manager could do worse". Like, not even Moyes would do worse. If we think replacing a Moyes level manager is too risky we shouldn't bother with anything then.
Around 7-10% of what we paid for Antony who we're going to lose tens of millions on.
Moyes did well at his level which is mid table. He was also mid table with us. Managing a national team is way different than club football.
I just don’t get the logic of keeping him a year and assessing him then. If we genuinely believe him to be world class, only needing better structure to work, then a year will not be enough. If our mindset is truly that ETH has proven to be one of the best coaches in the world hindered by years of bad business then give him at least 3 years and a clean slate, and assess him in 3 or 4 years. Next year he will largely have the same team he’s already failed with.