The most important thing is we get owners in who can match his ambition.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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Without wanting to interupt your exchange, I think it is misguided to say WW was brought on "as a 10". As Adnan indicated, he often is brought on provide an outball to skip the buildup part. To do that, he will enter the space where the team is prepared to play balls into. Other players will then adapt their starting positions to a degree but, at least to me, I don't think, that this negatively changes the games for us. Often, we weren't great before he enters the pitch as well so singling him out to the extent I feel you do it, is probably a bit OTT.
An option for striker was needed and skillset wise it must have been a fit for ETH. Loaning him was good, way better than outright buying him. He'll be gone after the season, think the energy to bash him can be preserved.
Martial is barely fit and even when he is ge barely scores, and Weghorst never scores full stop. It's almost laughable even calling them strikers tbh. We could try literally another other player up front and it's unlikely we'd be any worse at scoring goals. I don't see what Ten Hag is hoping to gain by doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
Harsh on @Tom Van Persie
spot on!
Adnan mentioned it in the post you replied that the reason why ETH introducing him is more for tactical change that he needs to do for the team against the opposition. He brought on Weghorst against Bournemouth because Bournemouth started to push up and do high press, which means DDG will likely being pressed and choose to hoof the ball. Weghorst might not be the best header but he's better than Bruno and Martial to win those long ball from DDG. ETH is given limitation of the squad to play his system so he needs to make a tweak changes that suits the players' weakness but also capable to stop the opposition.
I have a strong feeling ETH doesn't like Martial much actually. We might keep him if we can get only one striker but even in that case my feeling is this is the last of Martial with us.
My main reservation about him is if he's learnt from his first year and knows the type of players needed to be successful in the PL.
People cite Pep and Klopp's first years, but the year after their first transfer windows they targeted PL ready players who were quality but also young and physically gifted. You could see this especially with how much VVD and Walker were chased. These types of players are so important for teams that push up high and leave gaps behind as they are a cheat code in how fast they cover ground and sweep up attacks.
Our style of play leaves us extremely vulnerable and this is why we've been hammered away from home in my opinion. We don't press quick enough to win the ball high up the pitch and when teams get by us we lack physically gifted players to quickly cover up spaces.
There are still certain games he starts Eriksen in CM despite it being extremely obvious that we will get overrun in midfield.
People cite Pep and Klopp's first years, but the year after their first transfer windows they targeted PL ready players who were quality but also young and physically gifted. You could see this especially with how much VVD and Walker were chased. These types of players are so important for teams that push up high and leave gaps behind as they are a cheat code in how fast they cover ground and sweep up attacks.
Our style of play leaves us extremely vulnerable and this is why we've been hammered away from home in my opinion. We don't press quick enough to win the ball high up the pitch and when teams get by us we lack physically gifted players to quickly cover up spaces.
There are still certain games he starts Eriksen in CM despite it being extremely obvious that we will get overrun in midfield.
Aren’t we hampered solely against the top 8 sides or whatever it is? His style of play gives us the best home record in the country so our away record against non top 8 sides must be fantastic if we can reach 75 points.
How is it a reservation, has he done anything to make you doubt this. His first window he brought in casemiro. When things were going well at start of the year he kept saying we have a long way to go. He knows the type of players we need whether we can buy them with the sake is another matter. I've no doubt he will bring in players that will suit his style of play if he can.
I think he has matched expectations this season in a year where our main top four rivals have been very weak. We may have to improve only to stand still next season.
We are more solid defensively this year, maybe due to paying up for the best defensive mid of all time but I do think we are generally more aggressive all over the pitch.
Compared to last season under Ralf we are better going forward but not sure that is a fair comparison given how bad Ralf was.
Compared to prior seasons we have lost a bit of the excitement we had in attack. People will point to personnel but we added a 100m attacker in this time, and shifted a player many blamed for our problems last season. I think this should where we aim to improve next season.
Beyond that our record in the big away games shows a lack of resilience that ETH needs to improve on as well.
We are more solid defensively this year, maybe due to paying up for the best defensive mid of all time but I do think we are generally more aggressive all over the pitch.
Compared to last season under Ralf we are better going forward but not sure that is a fair comparison given how bad Ralf was.
Compared to prior seasons we have lost a bit of the excitement we had in attack. People will point to personnel but we added a 100m attacker in this time, and shifted a player many blamed for our problems last season. I think this should where we aim to improve next season.
Beyond that our record in the big away games shows a lack of resilience that ETH needs to improve on as well.
I‘m more inclined to listen to managers who worked under him. He‘s definitely a good manager deserving of respect. Any manager could have failed at MU at that point.
This is so tiring. Where are the fecking strikers he could put there instead?
It is clear what Martial and Weghorst contribute and where they are failing. We just don‘t have better options, apart from playing Rashford there who isn‘t really a striker.
Who should we play there then?
Some of the posts here moaning and gurning and talking absolute guff, At the start of the season we all agreed that Ten Hag getting top four was our objective which he is liekly to succeed in anything else would be a bonus we could end up with two trophies all this despite being hamstrung up front, we would have maybe made the europa league final had we not ended up with fernandes wrongly suspended and then half our defence injured at a crucial point in the season. Anyone that complains about this the manager should bugger off and take their negativity elsewhere. We know we need to improve and thats where a good transfer window will really help us and then next season we aim to be closer to the top and then 3rd season with more investment then id expect a decent title push. QF champions league next season would be a realistic achievement depending on draws. People expecting the second coming of Fergie in 18 -24 months are absolutely mental. The gap between us and the cheats is massive.
Forget about Top 4, forget about Carling Cup. If he can beat City in FA Cup final and stop them winning treble. This will be his best achievement and surpassed any expectation. In fact, win the FA Cup he is the most successful manger post SAF.
He will be our legend straight away. All hope on him to come out a master plan to beat City and hope Pep overthink again.
He will be our legend straight away. All hope on him to come out a master plan to beat City and hope Pep overthink again.
He's my mate.
Their answer would be a false 9 like Bruno or even McTominay. Heck, they've even suggested Marcus in there to get kicked from pillar to post.
Oh no, not you again. So I am a RR lover just because I answer on a bunch of posts with one mentioning RR. Alright. Lets not do it again. And I joined during Oles time here, so get your facts straight.
Chill baby! For what it's worth I am one of the few United fans on here that actually thinks Ralf was treated badly by the club and did as well as could be expected given the wider context and general shitty state of the club behind the scenes. I think he was brought in under false pretences - he'd clearly been given the impression that it wasn't necessarily just a quick 6 month caretaker job (hence him saying in his first press conference that he may stay on as manager), and at the very least was going to be kept on to be a key advisor in the restructuring of the club (which still needs doing tbh). I think he quickly identified many of the problems at the club, and identified some quality signings, but he approached the job from the perspective of someone trying to solve long term problems, and I think the club was confused about what it wanted from him. I daresay he would have approached things differently if it had been made clear to all parties (including the fans) that he was just being brought in to try and stop the season from falling apart. Unfortunately he wasn't able to sign anyone in January, and the players stopped working as soon as it was clear that there would be a new manager in the summer. I enjoyed listening to him speak about the game, he clearly knew what he wanted to achieve, and it was a breath of fresh air after 3 years of tactic free platitudes from Ole. The club changed their mind which left him high and dry and it was all just another prime example of the muddy thinking that has been a feature of United for many years now.All of which makes me appreciate what ETH has achieved so far even more ;-)
Couldn't agree more. Sounds like a very plausible explanation with the short term - long term question. I think, that is kind of his thing, I'm pretty sure he was pretty close to takeover Milan at some point but it finally broke down because he expected to get full control. Pretty sure this is the reason he has never been at Bayern as well.
All of which makes me appreciate what ETH has achieved so far even more ;-)
Rashford has more goals centrally this season than from out wide.
The idea that Rashford is a poor option up top now is completely baseless.
Yep ETH and Pep receive the same type of backing too. Brilliant comparison.
I mean ETH got plenty backed in his 1st season. Spent more than Pep did IIRC.
But it's also a problem with our structure that we're relying on ETH to pick players to sign. He should have minimal say in our transfer market dealings.
Should be a committee making that choice with input from our scouts/data team.
Marcus gets into positions which has allowed him to score goals, that's been the plan for the entire season as EtH and staff have had to rely on him because it suits his strengths and it is the most viable option when considering the team's choices, which are very thin.
Marcus is a LF who has been asked to play as a CF at times. Him being the primary goal scorer coming from the left or occupying center positions doesn't mean he's a CF nor the CF United need.
I never said he was a CF, but he's a much better option there than Weghorst.
I think our great home form has really distracted from how terrible we have been away this season.
Tbf I don't think the Glazers have lacked ambition. We have spent vast sums of money under them.
What they have lacked is knowledge and know how of how to run a football club. Not providing the manager with funds isn't something we can throw at them. Jose, LVG Ole and now ETH haven't been under funded. They all had good transfer budgets that were largely wasted.
And it was because of their selection of Woodward the player development, recruiting, data scientists, etc suffered and fell behind, which made United have an over reliance on expensive transfers rather than trying to find good value players.
And because United couldn't be efficient in the transfer market or with salaries, that's less money for other things such as training facility upgrades, OT upgrades.
Glazers have had blind ambition and such poor strategy because of the ineptitude of Woodward.
I love how we are comparing that ETH spent more than Pep. One had the best team the other one a bunch of losers.
Yes he spent more than Pep in his first season taking over a club that allowed unqualified clowns to make transfer decisions for years, vs Pep in his 6th or 7th season at City.
The away form is interesting - very good against the bottom half teams, very bad against the top half teams. How to play more effectively away against the better teams is definitely a prime challenge for ETH's problem-solving mind.
I mean, we are 5th in the away table, 1 behind Brighton and 4 behind Newcastle. 12 behind Arsenal. It's not good, but it's not like it's the worst thing in the world. Liverpool are 8th for example.
Do we have the best home form in the league this season? Thought it was City.
Yeah. The real issue is that we couldn’t string a winning run long enough in the league. The game schedule definitely played a big part of it. Liverpool was effected by the injuries and the aging of their squad. But when some attacking players came back from the injury, they were able to get a 7-game winning run (or 8?). Next season, I hope we can see a consistent performances in the league. But again, we need the right owner in first and foremost.
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A Haaland-lite and a good goalkeeper this season and he'd have challenged for the title. Hopefully we get that and more in the summer.
I don't see how this is compatible with DDG. I guess we shall see.
It isn't. We can't build up with him in goal. Either he goes, or he sticks around and we focus on becoming a top transition team (which, to be fair, also suits players like Fred, Fernandes, Rashford et al).
He's done a really good job. Take 3rd place in prem now, win the FA cup to do a double and we will be well placed for next year. Hopefully he's backed in transfer market to bring in a striker.
Sums it up nicely