A month ago his in game decisions were criticized. I am being cautious since we just beat 3 relegation teams so no real surprises there and are still behind Newcastle. If we overtake City that will be impressive
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Solskjær was winning games by making people happy and putting smiles on everyone’s faces. Ten Hags winning games by developing the squad with a clear playing style and tactics. Massive difference.
Us overtaking City isn't what gets me excited, given the current position just relies on them messing up a game and us securing the points. That's just a set of fixtures going our way.
It is the overall transformation of the diabolical lot we saw on the pitch last season to what seems to be a coherent team. That wasn't easy to do when you had Ronaldo presenting an issue and a squad that must have been fairly low. I also still think this squad is badly lacking in some areas yet he has got consistency from them.
The criticism of his decisions was nonsense in my opinion. Fans always think they know what is best with subs and tactics but generally he gets them right and influences games. Not 100% of the time but more often than lesser managers.
Love the man. Love the standards he's setting and everything he's saying. We weren't good enough last night and didn't play the way he wants us to play but still came away with a good result. Obviously he knows 100000x more about football than I ever will and recognized that but I'm glad to hear him say it. Wish I could smooch him right on top of his big bald head.
Big few weeks coming up, it's nice that the rotation last night worked out for him. Hopefully we'll progress in the cups and have our strongest XI fit to face City and Arsenal. Should be two good games. Not the end of the world if we lose one or even both of them but I know he'll set the standards high. We're at least a season off of being able to dominate other big teams and pen them in their own half, which I'm certain the end goal is. We're not good enough yet to do it for extended periods but even 5-10 minutes of doing so against two of the most aggressive teams in the league would be encouraging. I'm sure we'll be pragmatic as well.
Big few weeks coming up, it's nice that the rotation last night worked out for him. Hopefully we'll progress in the cups and have our strongest XI fit to face City and Arsenal. Should be two good games. Not the end of the world if we lose one or even both of them but I know he'll set the standards high. We're at least a season off of being able to dominate other big teams and pen them in their own half, which I'm certain the end goal is. We're not good enough yet to do it for extended periods but even 5-10 minutes of doing so against two of the most aggressive teams in the league would be encouraging. I'm sure we'll be pragmatic as well.
Ole didn't have specific way of approaching matches. For him football was old school simple. Good attitude, fitness and there you go (I know I am oversimplifying but you get the gist). It worked till honeymoon period. But for ETH it seems he has meticulously implemented a playing style, pattern. This is a good foundation to build future team.
Of course we will see ups and downs. But as long as ETH is backed I think we are in safe hands.
You mean when he figured out Maguire?
No patterns of play, overly reliant on individuals and no actual style of play. People didn't say these things for no reason, and now ETH is showing within 4 months of taking the job what a proper modern coach can do. I love the player, but oleball was shit.
Also came across as a complete pushover when it came to squad management. Everyone knew he'd never win us a proper trophy besides a section of deluded United fans.
You may have different opinion but for me I am absolutely clear he had no particular style. In fact he was experimenting all along and learning on the job. Same with his other two assistants. Sometimes we were playing counter, sometimes trying to press like headless chickens. Bought players with no coherent style and then tried to figure out how to fit them. Almost for 3 years one of the biggest sports club was an experiment for novice, inexperienced coaches at that level.
Anyway, water under the bridge. I have very high regards for Ole as a player and always will. Moving on.
Talk about rewriting history. Beautiful football? Absolute nonsense, similar to all the AwB fanboying after he didn't completely stink up the place against Championship level opposition
Why? At that time, we clearly thought this was reminiscent of the football we wanted, with a lot of speed and penetration and some of the games when the players took the ball out of the press like against City was beautiful. I don't understand why you have to rewrite history and make it sound like it was all bad. Those performances were good and upward. Just because it all went down in the last season doesn't mean it was all bad. It's really not helping to see football with a weird prism.
This sentence pretty much sums up Ole’s stint in charge.
Circumstances were completely different. Ole came in as an interim and had the best new manager bounce I've ever seen because of how the players felt about the manager he replaced. As much as we love to criticize Pogba, a big part of that new manager bounce was due to Pogba deciding to be the unplayable player he was capable of being, and it all ground down to a screeching halt after Ole got the job full time.
100% facts. It was so obvious he was winging it the entire time.
He has a great team around him, its easy to forget that United no.3 is Steve Mcclaren, which must be a wonderful person for EtH to rely on, as well as his long term assistant Mitchell van der Gaag.
United is in safe hands!
Get the owners out and the future will look very bright indeed.
United is in safe hands!
Get the owners out and the future will look very bright indeed.
Another cautionary tale of what can happen when you’ve got someone in charge- ie Woodward, who then the becomes the director of football by proxy because the Glazers were too busy counting their hoards and hiding away back in the States to even care.
Really the finger should be firmly pointed in the direction of Joel and Avram for their disgraceful negligence of allowing this situation to unravel in the manner that it did.
Really the finger should be firmly pointed in the direction of Joel and Avram for their disgraceful negligence of allowing this situation to unravel in the manner that it did.
It's also just obvious seeing the effect of COACHING compared to the good start under Ole looking much more off-the-cuff type stuff. Even before we really started looking solid in recent months you could see in the first couple of games (including our losses) what players were coached and trying to do, they were just getting it wrong. You could see how the players were coached to build from the back, or where players were supposed to be off of the ball. In Ole's entire tenure until the bitter end we never had a plan of how to build out of the back under pressure besides "give it to Paul and hope he pulls off a worldy pass"
I think it's also notable that I've yet to disagree with a post-game assessment from ETH. He's never one to just be happy that his players are happy, or commending "a nice try". At the same time, it's not Mourinho levels of weird criticism. He balances critiques with compliments.
So nothing to do with him playing a balanced midfield of Matić Herrera and Pogba?
Things started going pear shaped the moment he gave that up and reverted to Jose’s horrid 4-2-3-1. God knows why.
Yep, Rangnick would be a more fair comparison, and we all know how that turned out.
This is accurate. Folk who pretend as if it was all dreadful under Ole are full of shit. It’s either selective memory or just being a bit of a pudding.
I’m glad that Ten Hag is here and we have moved on, but some of the revisionism is pathetic.
What do you say in english the thing he does with his mouth when he looks serious?
Or more simply it’s the man’s underbite
We lost Herrera and couldn’t replace him so we ended up with Fred and Scott and they had deficiencies in incisive passes, so we had to change. Sometimes, it’s just how we are forced to play rather than how we really wanted to play. That’s why a midfield instead of Ronaldo would have changed a lot of things. The 4/2/3/1 itself was useful in some situations but I think every time we tried to balance more with a Herrera type of role it backfired because we didn’t have the profile for it.
The most infuriating part is that I remember a game where Scott didn’t do those passes and at half time, he got drilled on it and starting doing it and then we scored! But he keeps forgetting to think about those passes. Fred was a bit better on those passes but he would miss a lot too. Maybe all of that could be trained but having a Eriksen early enough would have changed the football with Ole as well, again.
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How is Rangnick relevant here?
Posh Spice PoutWhat do you say in english the thing he does with his mouth when he looks serious?
We’re skint
No that's not right, that's her normal state, a pout would shatter your computer screenPosh Spice Pout
Both were interims?
To be fair, ETH has passed his first 15 games. It's his 25th games.
I actually have been impressed with ETH's substitutions so far. Lot of his subs been making crucial impact for the team's winning this season. And that reflects to a man who has prepared a plan B when plan A doesn't work. The plan B doesn't necessary need to be used as starting XI.I definitely dont recall ETH for having a great plan B at Ajax. On the other hand, he's very good at making plan A work, which I would argue is way more important then being able to pull of a hail mary now and then...
No it was not. I and others kept telling others that the football did not resemble modern sides like Klopp or Pep, or even Ten Hag's Ajax sides. The only reason why many have this belief is because Ole kept talking about it initially and fans kept repeating it. In other words, you were gaslit. If Ole brought back United's attacking football because it was our tradition and he kept saying he wanted to do that, then it must be true right?
This does not mean that there weren't good performances. Any performance where United score a few goals is good and Ole definitely had those. I would definitely credit Ole for bringing back those entertaining wins, of which I did not think United had with Moyes, LVG, or Mourinho. However, I would not say the football was amazing. United largely relied on counter attacking, which isn't even bad on its own and can be entertaining. The problem is that it mostly just relied on our superior individual talent to make something from nothing, and of course when those players have lots of space on the counter, can score goals. But when out of possession, or with possession United under Ole wasn't all that good.
This is where Ten Hag has United playing better. I see the side playing better in possession, I see more verticality in our passing, and the quickness in how we progress the ball and win the ball back is much better.
And I'm not one to blindly defend Ten Hag. Earlier this season I was defending him because I felt that he should be given more time to prove his ability to get United playing modern football. I was defending him, but at the same time I also noted that United reverted back to a more boring side. I call it as I see it. It's now clear that Ten Hag purposely had United revert to a more pragmatic side to instill confidence because slowly but surely we can see this United side start to display what we saw in preseason but against better sides.
Yes but Ole let standards drop, he isn’t strict. He’s mr nice guy. Ten Hag won’t accept anything less than perfect every game and whoever doesn’t do as he’s told will be dropped.
I'll take a win and a draw, but I'll go full muppet if we manage to win both, if any of this happens we stand a go chance to clinch the league.
With Ole we started very well but gradually it became worse, much worse.
With ETH actually we did not start well, we were all worried after the first two games, and gradually we are getting better and better. We don't know if this improvement will last, it is still early, but all the signs point out to a serious manager with high standards.
With ETH actually we did not start well, we were all worried after the first two games, and gradually we are getting better and better. We don't know if this improvement will last, it is still early, but all the signs point out to a serious manager with high standards.
What am really buzzing about is his team management. He dealt with the Ronaldo gate very well and I really like how he has handled the Maguire issue well. You could see clearly those who are performing and those who aren't.For years we have been complaining about the dead woods in our team and how to get rid of them. So far,he has really dealt with that as well. And these are small issues that set a team on high,once manged well.
Am really satisfied with EtH so far.
I believe there is no need to even compare OGS and EtH. The difference is as clear as daylight. EtH has a clear plan,OGS didn't have. Simple as that.
What really infuriated me was that final pass from Fred. He mostly seemed to misplace it. And McTominay was even worse. You could clearly see our deficiencies any time we played. Thank goodness we have a serious upgrade now. We only need to strengthen some areas and keep improving and we will be good to go.
Ole didn't let his standard drop, he's clueless as to why his first 15 works so well.
He spend close to another 500m and still can't replicate his first 15 games
That's not a contradiction. During his first matches the squad hit a sweet spot between feel good vibes and still existing structure and discipline. He completely missed that he needed to maintain this balance for the long term and shifted more to feel good vibes without keeping up the standards, so the existing discipline got lost over time.
He has been using his squad nicely so far, but big part of that was forced changes - especially up front and at the back. I am not convinced if we have a plan B for tougher games (especially in midfield) so we will find out soon enough. It's more of a worry than a criticism.
Yep, you are correct. Look at AWB for example, not a great player but how many times under Ole or any other manager have we seen when we make a change like that, they look undercooked.
I'll give you a few examples, FA cup games V Norwich when Ole made wholesale changes, or even Villareal when Dalot played and got rinsed. AWB has played and we still play the same style.
I agree with the post match bit, he said we were lucky against Bournemouth, which we were, they had chances to score goals and we all know when its 2-1, its nervy, it gives opposition motivation, courage.
He knows there is alot to improve, I still think we are a bit too easy to play against, yes I know our record defensively but the eye test.
I still dont think we are that compact, Wolves had many many pre opportunities, their LWB was in acres of space all game. Against City and Arsenal, we need to be more compact.