Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[Duncan the Great]

I think you are right that Erik doesn’t want to drop certain players even though he probably should. I would like him to be bolder in that respect.

Tactics wise, he tries something a bit different yesterday which probably didn’t help because the players are confused enough as it is. The main 4141 / 3241 he’s been trying to implement is not working either but that’s because the players aren’t doing it right.

Some are saying EtH underestimates the Prem but, imo, it is more that he overestimates his players’ ability to follow instructions.

I just can't accept this 4141/3241/352 /451 and al the other permutations you or any one else thinks up, where in all this system bollocks is there room for box to box players the like of Robson and Keane? You have defenders midfielders and forwards and if they all work their socks of as a team all this garbage about systems means sod all. You could put a team out from the 50/60s with 2 full backs a, centre half, 2 half (wing) backs, left and right wingers.2 inside forwards and a centre forward, and providing they all graft they could play any modern system of the park. No one will ever convince me that the Puskas, Di stefano, Real Madrid team and Busbys Utd or the great 60/70s Brazil sides wouldn't hold their own against todays best no matter who coaches them or what system they play. Football is an easy game it's the coaches who make it complicated especially the useless ones.
Those who can, do. Those can't, teach

 

[el3mel]

Liverpool under Klopp did not dominate possession and won a league and UCL but I guess my mindset will never learn

The idea we have to play like City to win is silly

ETH has to do better but he does not have to play possession football if he does not want to.

Liverpool dominated possession in the majority of their games when they won the league ?

https://lfcstats.co.uk/20192020possession.html

Tiki Taka is different from possession. They don't pass the ball to death like City but they dominate most teams and control the ball for most of the game.

If you can't control the ball during the game you'll win feck all in modern football.

 

[Cassidy]

Source: https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2019-2020

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2018-2019

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2021-2022

Maybe you don’t get the difference between the 2 but thats ok.

United last season.

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2022-2023

 

[Cassidy]

He stopped benching players who cnnot be arsed. Bruno, Rashy, Casemiro, all should not be starting. Once he gets tough again, things will improve

Who should start ahead of Rashford Bruno and Casemiro?

Honestly sometimes our fanbase are on a complete wind up

 

[Anustart89]

I do think Amrabat will solve a lot of problems for us. But at the same time, if ten Hag does the diamond again, it'll be useless, as that just has massive holes on either flank that are very easy to exploit. Amrabat next to Casemiro should be very good though. Bruno as the 10, Mount on the right half spaces with Dalot overlapping him and Garnacho being an impact sub has a lof of positives in it. Or it should. We'll see how we do it.

Might look good in theory but if we end up giving the ball to Rashford for him to dribble his way past a few defenders and send a wild shot into the defenders or stands then all that promise will be for nothing.

 

[Mercurial]

He is?
He looks good, but nothing special. We have played 5 games so far and only won 2, and both times we were against the ropes just hanging on by the skin of our teeth. Wolves and Forest are most likely looking at relegation scraps this season but both teams came to OT and gave us a proper scare.
Last season was good all in all, but really nothing that made me feel that we had someone truly special on our hands.
He might still figure the PL out, what the hell do i know, but that elite tag seems a bit premature as of now imo.

He came with it is my understanding and so I thought the concensus was, but it's slipping at a faster rate, I'm not seeing any backup ruthless pragmatism "noloss mentality" or a contingency plan. This season it's his crew more than before and we're hurting more than ever. Not what I expected from us to be fair. Big bummer and a shocker so far.

 

[Cassidy]

Liverpool dominated possession in the majority of their games when they won the league ?

https://lfcstats.co.uk/20192020possession.html

Tiki Taka is different from possession. They don't pass the ball to death like City but they dominate most teams and control the ball for most of the game.

If you can't control the ball during the game you'll win feck all in modern football.

The had more possession because they aggressively pressed and transitioned well. That is exactly what ETH is trying to implement

 

[Smithy89]

We're just not a well drilled unit with a clear philosophy and that is down to the manager and his coaches. The fitness also needs addressing, it is embarrassing.

 

[BluesJr]

Who should start ahead of Rashford Bruno and Casemiro?

Honestly sometimes our fanbase are on a complete wind up

We have options for all of them and they shouldn’t be playing in their current state because they’re useless. Names fool people.

 

[el3mel]

Maybe you don’t get the difference between the 2 but thats ok.

United last season.

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2022-2023

53% average possession throughout the season is actually a pretty low one for a top 4 team who plays against defensive teams most of time, in comparison to the rest of top 4 and Liverpool with their 60% average possession almost every season. Only Newcastle had lower possession than us with 1% only less and they didn't play attacking football last season.

 

[el3mel]

The had more possession because they aggressively pressed and transitioned well. That is exactly what ETH is trying to implement

More like that's what the fans are trying to convince themselves that's what he's trying to implement. I see no indications for that except for what people are telling us to believe.

 

[Cassidy]

53% average possession throughout the season is actually a pretty low one for a top 4 team who plays against defensive teams most of time, in comparison to the rest of top 4 and Liverpool with their 60% average possession almost every season. Only Newcastle had lower possession than us with 1% only less and they didn't play attacking football last season.

Liverpool have been with Klopp for years. They were not having 60% possession in Klopps first season.

 

[Cassidy]

More like that's what the fans are trying to convince themselves that's what he's trying to implement. I see no indications for that except for what people are telling us to believe.

Aside from what he has said from his own mouth plenty of times

 

[ManUtd1999]

Ten Hag got United to 3rd, which is better than what other managers did.

Our position in the league:
2020-21 (OGS): 2
2019-20 (OGS): 3
2017-18 (JM): 2
2014-15 (LVG): 4

As you can see, every manager prior to ETH who led us two years or more managed to get us to top 4, or even top 2/3. OGS did that twice just before being sacked. ETH basically is repeating what they've accomplished league position-wise. I am not talking about style of football and so on, but just making the point that his predecessors matched or even bettered the third place finish of last season.

 

[el3mel]

Liverpool have been with Klopp for years. They were not having 60% possession in Klopps first season.

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2016-2017

Liverpool had 62% possession average in their first full season under Klopp.

Just stop, it's clear you're at the wrong here.

 

[Who's Kissing Cameras?]

Maybe you don’t get the difference between the 2 but thats ok.

United last season.

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2022-2023

6th ranked in possession but finished 3rd. That style of play isn’t sustainable long term if we want to be winning games consistently.

 

[el3mel]

Aside from what he has said from his own mouth plenty of times

He talks the talk. Mourinho also said he wanted to play attacking football while we were parking the bus every game. I only assess what I see with my eyes.

 

[Cassidy]

6th ranked in possession but finished 3rd. That style of play isn’t sustainable long term if we want to be winning games consistently.

No one is saying it is

 

[Ronaldinho's snakebite]

I mean you don't have to use trophies. Ten Hag got United to 3rd, which is better than what other managers did. The trophy is only used as an argument from people that say trophies are all that matters, because no manager had United in the top 4 and win a trophy in their first season.

Of course, all of that is irrelevant for people who are just not happy with the football played as evidence for future success, which all of the managers have failed at.

Honestly this mentality is the reason why we can't improve as a football club anytime soon.
Ffs he only got 3rd just because other top 6 rivals were dogshit. Chelsea were shit, spurs were rubbish, Liverpool were off form. We nearly bottled the 3rd place if not for Newcastle collapse towards the end of the season.

 

[Cassidy]

He talks the talk. Mourinho also said he wanted to play attacking football while we were parking the bus every game. I only assess what I see with my eyes.

So you now saying we don’t attempt to press teams and win the ball higher up the pitch? You’re saying we don’t attempt to build up in a more possession friendly manner?

Execution being poor at times does not mean it isn’t what we try to do.

 

[el3mel]

So you now saying we don’t attempt to press teams and win the ball higher up the pitch? You’re saying we don’t attempt to build up in a more possession friendly manner?

Execution being poor at times does not mean it isn’t what we try to do.

No we don't.

 

[JPRouve]

Who should start ahead of Rashford Bruno and Casemiro?

Honestly sometimes our fanbase are on a complete wind up

Currently no one but ETH needs to pull his fingers and understand that Rashford isn't a midfielder and that his current 4231 assume that he is. Most of our issues have little to do with the board or some luck, it's either due to players not following instructions while somehow always playing the same way and do things that aren't actually natural or they are following instructions and those instructions are bad. As an example we almost always press with an asymmetric 4222, teams struggle with it during the first minutes and then quickly realise that they can bypass it by playing wide in their own third and narrow in the middle third because there is a massive gap in the middle.

ETH is being stubborn for no apparent reason, his 4231 doesn't work, the team isn't compact enough and the players have the very bad habit of slowly carrying the ball in transition instead of passing it and generally adopt a more direct approach.

 

[Cassidy]

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2016-2017

Liverpool had 62% possession average in their first full season under Klopp.

Just stop, it's clear you're at the wrong here.

Was this not his first season?

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2015-2016

 

[Mercurial]

It says more about ETH than Rashford.

How?

 

[Cassidy]

Currently no one but ETH needs to pull his fingers and understand that Rashford isn't a midfielder and that his current 4231 assume that he is. Most of our issues have little to do with the board or some luck, it's either due to players not following instructions while somehow always playing the same way and do things that aren't actually natural or they are following instructions and those instructions are bad. As an example we almost always press with an asymmetric 4222, teams struggle with it during the first minutes and then quickly realise that they can bypass it by playing wide in their own third and narrow in the middle third because there is a massive gap in the middle.

ETH is being stubborn for no apparent reason, his 4231 doesn't work, the team isn't compact enough and the players have the very bad habit of slowly carrying the ball in transition instead of passing it and generally adopt a more direct approach.

We did nor even play 4231 yesterday
Manager is too stubborn though for attempting to play a new system which tries to move Rashford out of the midfield

 

[stefan92]

No one is expecting him to, however when an opposition player is 5yds away from you and has the ball, I kinda expect a certain amount of effort from our players to make them make that pass, or put a tackle in.
Call me old fashioned but isn't our players jobs to stop the opposition from scoring ?
Three times yesterday Brighton strolled through us as if it was a non-contact sport.

And that shouldn't happen, that Brighton isn't attacked. However I have issues with blaming Rashford for this clip without context, because I see all these options:
- maybe he is just too lazy to attack (bad from him)
- maybe he was told where to attack and where to just channel a player softly somewhere (did he do it well? was that plan shit? don't know)
- maybe he misinterpreted an order where to attack and where to stay calm (again, his fault? bad communication from the manager? I don't know either)

None of these options look good for both Rashford and EtH and I get that complaining about Rashford is the easy thing to do (and I guess EtH did so as well when he said they didn't follow the plan), but as this keeps happening and EtH complaining about the players not following him it turns into an EtH problem.

His in-game management was never the best, but here he seems to not really have a grip on the team. Kind of a "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" situation.

 

[el3mel]

Was this not his first season?

https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...amStatistics/England-Premier-League-2015-2016

Are you now using the season he got the job midway in without having a transfer market before it to bring his players to prove your point ? And the stat is for the whole season including the period he didn't manage in, by the way.

 

[DRJosh]

I think we all know that, bugger we can do about that though.
Do you think the banks will call in the loans if Utd were to get relegated? Our income would plummet, now that will force the leaches out, perhaps we are witnessing a long drawn out plan.
Just like under the Doch we would bounce back stronger than ever.

Even that minuscule possibility fills me with some hope to be honest. Glazers are a nightmare that just won’t end

 

[OrcaFat]

I just can't accept this 4141/3241/352 /451 and al the other permutations you or any one else thinks up, where in all this system bollocks is there room for box to box players the like of Robson and Keane? You have defenders midfielders and forwards and if they all work their socks of as a team all this garbage about systems means sod all. You could put a team out from the 50/60s with 2 full backs a, centre half, 2 half (wing) backs, left and right wingers.2 inside forwards and a centre forward, and providing they all graft they could play any modern system of the park. No one will ever convince me that the Puskas, Di stefano, Real Madrid team and Busbys Utd or the great 60/70s Brazil sides wouldn't hold their own against todays best no matter who coaches them or what system they play. Football is an easy game it's the coaches who make it complicated especially the useless ones.
Those who can, do. Those can't, teach

Yeah, I’m not sure about all that. Pep can do and could also teach some of us a few things.

One thing you said is true - good players are very important. Coaching and tactics is about getting the best out of them. But you knew that.

 

[The_Midfielder]

Sack Eth, get Steve Bruce

 

[DavidDeSchmikes]

Precisely. Too many players because we keep changing managers and let them just buy whatever they want, a lot of them past their sell buy date, so no sell on value, if we sign young players they get ignored so don't get developed. Then they rot here and go for free or a pittance, Then of course far too high wages so cannot even sell players to recoup money properly. Only ADM was sold properly. The upper management needs binning and proper people brought in.

the club is poor at selling players. David Beckham is our 4th most expensive departure

Take Mata (£37m), Matic (£40m), and Pogba (£90M+), 2 got released and 1 left on a free

 

[croadyman]

Obviously give him more time. An easier run of games coming up and with Amrabat/Holjund fully match fit, let's see how it goes.

However, if the shit continues to hit the fan when the going gets tough. He has to go. He's far from impressed since the League Cup win.

No one is easy for us,we could even drop points against Luton. Oh and Burnley will be well up for it next weekend as well

 

[zapp]

The mentality of the players hasn't been fixed. Still quite a few players from the terrible Ole/Rangnick season stinking up the place with the same issues resurfacing time and again. The signs were there last season but a lot of it was put down to lack of options/no rotation from the manager running the players ragged. ETH has had a tough job fixing that mess but last season was just papering over the cracks. How many times last season has he come out and said the performance wasn't good enough? Not up to United standard? Things get patched up for a bit and then a few weeks later another terrible and humiliating performance. How often have we outrun or outfought a team this season. Last season after the disastrous start we started to see that and he was lauded for it. Now it's just back to the same shit. Same thing happened under Ole. More effort initially before just tailing off into that shit they put on near the end of his reign.

If the senior players aren't following instructions or putting in the required effort then bench them. Give some younger players or squad players a chance. I'd rather see the young hungry players like Mejbri given a chance than the same old faces. The bare minimum should be matching or beating the opposition for effort and intensity.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

the club is poor at selling players. David Beckham is our 4th most expensive departure

Take Mata (£37m), Matic (£40m), and Pogba (£90M+), 2 got released and 1 left on a free

The DDG situation was badly managed as well. Let him have that last season, when he obviously didn't suit ETH, then offer him a renewal, the unoffer the renewal and we lose him for nothing.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

I went in to this season thinking getting top 4 would be a massive challenge as honestly just feels like the squad is weaker than last season to me. See what happens when Mount and Amarabat get up to speed but not really expecting much from them in terms of massively improving us.

Still building a team and although I think he should be doing better with the group of players he has I think realisticly next season is when he really needs to be judged. If he can’t make this team a consistent challenger for top 4 then maybe it will be time to look elsewhere.
Sounds awful Arsenalness making top 4 an achievement but that’s where we are as a club right now. Sort that out then build from there.

 

[JPRouve]

We did nor even play 4231 yesterday
Manager is too stubborn though for attempting to play a new system which tries to move Rashford out of the midfield

We definitely didn't play in 4312. Some sites may pretend that we did but we didn't, Eriksen and Casemiro touches are evenly spread respectively left and right side of the pitch, Rashford was heavily on the left and in his regular position, Hojlund was central as was Bruno, McTominay was slightly more inside than a regular right midfielder but wasn't involved in general midfield play and was not operating as a central midfielder.

 

[sugar_kane]

Give it Rachel Riley til the end of the season

 

[crossy1686]

Woke up this morning with the realisation we can’t trust him to spend another penny, therefore he has to be sacked.

 

[crossy1686]

We can’t trust him to spend any more money and he can’t keep saying Sancho is the reason we’re not winning games. Sack him and get someone in who has a plan that doesn’t involved spending hundreds of millions on players that aren’t good enough for the PL but did alright in the Dutch league.

 

[Ubik]

Woke up this morning with the realisation we can’t trust him to spend another penny, therefore he has to be sacked.

Do you think our transfer business got any worse under ten Hag, rather than just continue the consistent, wasteful awfulness of the last ten years?