I agreed to a point that DDG needs to be upgraded. Just like our RB situation, we know that there's something missing from them in EtH's style, but there are other higher priorities to be fixed.Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
I agreed to a point that DDG needs to be upgraded. Just like our RB situation, we know that there's something missing from them in EtH's style, but there are other higher priorities to be fixed.ETH is the first manager we’ve had in the last decade that other clubs would actually be interested in poaching from us so I do hope that the transfer situation doesn’t upset him too much and he gets the backing he needs
Must be that they think DeGea is a 20+ goal a season striker and Ten Hag is using him wrong.
Honestly if I was Ten Hag I‘d cut loose unless I was properly backed in the market.
We went a whole season without a decent striker ffs.
We went a whole season without a decent striker ffs.
There's an obvious reason for that, which can be fixed in the market.
If DDG is our first choice GK, nothing can be done to minimize that impact.
Not if we blow our money on a top-notch goalkeeper before we have a chance to buy the necessary attacking reinforcements.
Obviously in an ideal world we need both. The argument is just whether a top striker would have won us more points than a ball-playing keeper. Personally I'd say the striker would make more of a difference, but I can see the argument for wanting to start with the keeper, cos until he's changed ETH can't properly install his preferred way of playing. As far I'm concerned it's pretty simple, at a minimum we need 3 top class players this season - Goalie, Centre Forward, and Midfielder. If we only signed those three, but they were all top class, then that would be a great summer's business. If possible then we would also sign a Centre-back to replace Maguire, but in all honesty as long as he goes then I think a selection of Varane, Lindelof, Martinez and Shaw (with Malacia or Dalot dropping in at full back) is more than adequate. Then next season go for another midfielder, another centre forward and a full back.
EtH didn't completely abandon his preferred way of playing with a goalkeeper. He totally had to compromise up front without a reliable center forward and had to take advantage of the only goal scoring threat and in behind threat that was Marcus and he benefitted from it.
We saw many games where David punted long to bypass the midfield, knowing winning 2nd and 3rd balls was important.
Then others where we played out from the back or tried to. Got hurt a few times but also did well many times too.
That translates much better going forward, while seeing how a primary center forward and how it changes the dynamics of the final 3rd is extremely interesting.
Makes perfect sense. Can‘t score goals so replace gk. In fact, lets get two new ones, we will score loads.
Yeah it's totally unfair he's being fecked around
I'm glad we are back to CL football. The pinnacle of football. Post SAF for 1 decade we didn't have any important CL match at all. Hope ETH can bring us to latter stages of CL next season. Really miss those big European nights.
What wit!!!
I never said buy a GK but not a striker. I don't see any scenario where we don't buy a striker. But I see it's quite likely we'll get a new striker and go with DDG. I thought that was obvious.
My point is in a scenario where we get a new striker (whoever that is) and keep DDG as first choice GK, ETH will be gone in 2 yrs maybe even sooner.
So for me a new striker and a new GK are paramount.
We had a massive CL game under Solskjær where we made a record and came back against PSG.
We need a Striker more than a keeper. We lacked goals last season and our GD was awful. We had a decent defensive record. The thing is with DDG he’ll sometimes save you points and games by making ridiculous saves but he’s always got a mistake in him which can cost us quite a lot of points in the season. We didn’t get away with it last season because we had no goalscorer. If he’s our number 1 next season and makes the odd mistake we might get away with it a bit more if we have a top striker and we can our score the opposition. We obviously do need to replace him though as he doesn’t fit ETH style. But without having a striker we’re needing to keep clean sheets and grind games out 1-0. If we make mistakes and concede then we need to score at least 2 which we struggle with.
We need a striker more but we need both.
Although its early days, looks very much like we will be looking at our Tier 2 and Tier 3 options as Tier one is def of the table. Any talk of Kane etc is just nonsense to pretend we are sitting at the top table which we are not.
I think people need to be serious about our budget this summer. We may ‚only‘ spend 100-150 million which is not enough to get a top gk, striker and a midfielder.
He is not going to get fired because of our gk situation, that is silly.
If the team underperforms for two years he would be fired no matter who is in between the sticks.
Compared to other managers we had post Fergie, he actually has options. He can easily go to Real Madrid for example. The club needs to back him this transfer window or it can get ugly.
Sigh. Not sure if you are being obtuse on purpose.
The point is the team will be underperforming with DDG as GK. That will lead to ETH being sacked.
What do you even mean by
Yes I think you are being silly. We had a good defense this year including the gk. Obviously our issues at the other end are more important.
How you can argue this after we win golden glove, is silly
We need to get a top striker, or we might lose Ten Hag.
What exactly are we upset about today, then? Ten Hag not dropping Dave for Butland or Ten Hag not having bought a 100m keeper by the 10th of june? Is he going to be sacked for that before the new season starts or after?
ha ha, spot on
This comes from people who should know better saying over and over that a new modern gk would transform our attack.
A capable striker would've meant we scored more goals and won more points in the season just gone by due to the football we played due to ten Hag being compromised by the goalkeeper and hence we played a more direct transition based game, especially against teams who were adept at pressing us high
But a goalkeeper who can provide the numerical superiority in the build up phase will make it a lot more difficult for the opponent to press us high and hence will make a much bigger impact in creating a smoother build up phase and have a bigger impact on the system.
Listen to Guardiola below, and he explains why it's difficult to press teams who have a capable keeper in possession. And he goes on to say that a GK who can link the play will make the forwards more effective. He even mentions United, and says that we're a long ball team because we can't keep the ball and go long to Rashford.
I could be wrong but I fully believe ten Hag will at the very least sideline De Gea next season. And the new keeper doesn't have to be world class at shot stopping either, and just being the plus 1 in possession will be enough to be a big positive in comparison to De Gea within the positional play principles.
But a goalkeeper who can provide the numerical superiority in the build up phase will make it a lot more difficult for the opponent to press us high and hence will make a much bigger impact in creating a smoother build up phase and have a bigger impact on the system.
Listen to Guardiola below, and he explains why it's difficult to press teams who have a capable keeper in possession. And he goes on to say that a GK who can link the play will make the forwards more effective. He even mentions United, and says that we're a long ball team because we can't keep the ball and go long to Rashford.
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I could be wrong but I fully believe ten Hag will at the very least sideline De Gea next season. And the new keeper doesn't have to be world class at shot stopping either, and just being the plus 1 in possession will be enough to be a big positive in comparison to De Gea within the positional play principles.
Good points. They are based on a few assumptions though about Ten Hag tactics.
We all assumed Ten Hag was going to play some kind of possession based football style. We never did though, not even in pre-season.
I think we can say we are not going to be a Guardiola type side where hold onto the ball as much as possible and constantly try to create overloads. Guardiola needs the best ball players in every position, we won‘t need that.
Instead, it looks like we will be pressing high more and attacking directly, rather than a safer possession based approach.
That does not mean we are not going to improve playing out the back. Ten Hag wants our players to play progressive passes through the lines to quickly bypass the press, if teams press us high. We have done that to some extend but need to work on it.
We have defenders and midfielders capable of playing progressive passes, but they are not the most press-resistant with the exception of Martinez.
A new gk needs to be a capable ball-player but doesn‘t have to be Ter Stegen or Ederson.
Also, I think people are looking at the gk vs striker issue backwards. They think a new gk will help us score goals, while I think scoring more goals will relieve pressure on our gk. Mistakes are more costly when you have trouble scoring goals.
So I think a top striker is going to transform us more than getting a new gk. I want both though, if it can be managed.
So I think a top striker is going to transform us more than getting a new gk. I want both though, if it can be managed.
I don’t think anyone wants an either or situation, Vebruggen is €15 million euros and could allow us to buy a top ST, whisky we phase Dave out.
Ideally we could afford both at top tier pricing but it doesn’t seem realistic.
Erik ten Hag has mentioned himself that he wants to play out from the back and play the game in the opponent's half. And it's important to have a keeper who provides the plus one in possession. Those are the words of a head coach who wants to exert control over the opposition.
It's very difficult to implement positional play with a keeper as limited as De Gea is in possession. So whenever we faced a team that was adept at pressing us high, we lost control of the game in possession because De Gea cannot provide the plus one in possession.
To control the game in possession or attempt to dominate possession the keeper absolutely has to provide the plus one in possession. Because the keeper is the free-man in the build up phase against high pressing teams. Forget Guardiola and Man City, we don't even compare to Brighton when it comes to building play from the back or keeping possession. Below are two examples from Brighton's first and second choice keepers providing the numerical superiority against both Man City and Liverpool.
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We absolutely need to upgrade other positions in the first phase, but a keeper who can't provide the numerical superiority against the high press needs to be removed first imo.
A new keeper doesn't need to be Ter Stegen or Ederson to replace De Gea but can be a stop gap like Manuel Riemann or Yann Sommer. It's extremely important to have a keeper who provides the plus one in possession as ten Hag put it. Otherwise a well coordinated high press will again cause us big problems as outlined below. And I haven't even mentioned his other glaring weaknesses.
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I fully expect ten Hag to remove De Gea from the first 11, even if it means signing a stop gap.
If hes not backed with a minimum of 4 players, thats 2 top strikers a BTB CM and another with more defensive duties then we will be worse off than this season. As a lot have said we can cope with the defence and goalie another 12 months if we need to. Obviously if the sale goes through then a WC 'modern' goalie would be great.
There is a lot of excellent discussion in the goalkeeper thread as well. As you and they there explain, it's not as simple as 'we need more goals and a keeper doesn't score those'. Ten Hag's whole intended playstyle is largely impossible with a keeper that cannot be part of his on-the-ball game. Obviously, United has done fairly well this season without such a keeper, and simply scoring more of the existing chances goes beyond winning games (being 2-0 up instead of 1-0 relieves pressure and allows for more rotation in the final quarter of games, etc.); but overall, I have started to think that United has two top priorities: a striker and a goalkeeper - with anything else (including midfield) being on the next priority tier.
Striker>Midfielder>Goalkeeper for me. We need backup for Casemiro and Eriksen badly.
Firstly which stop gap is good enough to fill that role. If we getting a stop gap then why bother with De Gea extension?
We could sign Costa, but our ffp limits will feck us over one way or another.
Posts below explain better than me.
@sifi36 and others in the goalkeepers thread have basically argued exactly that: let De Gea go (no extension of any kind) and buy two new goalkeepers that fit Ten Hag's needs - because keeping De Gea as a back-up would not make much sense, as Ten Hag would have to significantly adapt team tactics whenever De Gea would play. As the opening post of that thread shows, there are plenty of promising goalkeepers around Europe that would not cost much (you can get two within €20-30M) and would not be a downgrade on current De Gea, whose problem is that he is no good for on-the-ball play and has become a fairly average (in the EPL) shotstopper as well.
Obviously, there would be some risk, as neither of those goalkeepers might get to the level United ultimately needs. But again, De Gea is not special in any aspect of goalkeeping anymore, so there isn't much risk of losing out on a specific value-add to the team in that regard. However, given his sky-high wages, letting De Gea go would open up a lot of salary room for United. And if neither new goalkeeper is really good enough, it would be easy to let the worse one go after next season, let the better other one stay as back-up, and buy a more experienced (and more expensive) Ten Hag-style goalkeeper then, when there is a full transfer budget available again.
It seems to me that that would properly build towards Ten Hag's intended future without eating too much into the budget for a striker (and ideally a midfielder, I suppose).
Any stop gap goalkeeper with experience and ability to be the plus one in possession. You build a team around the system not individual players.
The extension still hasn't been ratified and there's 20 days left until De Gea's contract expires. But let's assume he is given a extension on a 2 year deal with incentives and bonuses related to how many games he starts like it has been reported. Then even then, that's pointing to a back up keeper contract.
Also clubs don't allow their first choice players to go into the final 6 months of their contract if the intention is to have them as their first choice starting players.
Again you are still assuming we are going to change our way of playing next season.
I believe we will not: we will build on this season‘s improvements. More pressing and fast transitions. Playing out from the back is something we will improve, but it won‘t be a change in style.
Ten Hag hasn‘t mentioned it and I haven‘t seen it on the pitch. I believe he has moved on in his philosophy.
Yes, this is what we need to do I think - assuming there isn't the budget for big signings up front, in midfield and at GK. Identify a decent, footballing keeper for a relatively modest sum, and use the budget for CF and MF. ETH can then get us playing the way he wants to, and we can worry about an absolute top class keeper next summer.
Our way of playing can't change with the current keeper and that's not a assumption but rather a view formed by watching the team play for the last decade. You can't succumb to high pressure as we do and expect to either play out from the back or press high because both functions are linked.
And Erik ten Hag has said he wants his teams to play in the opponent's half like he demonstrated at Ajax or how City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Brighton have shown in the EPL. And to do that, the build up phase starting with the keeper has to be at a high level or the plan will fail before it has taken off. Playing in transition should be the exception and not the norm, or else a keeper who is below average on the ball will expose other vulnerabilities in the team.