Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[TrueRed79]

Dumb thread. All of you that want him sacked should concentrate your energy in the club sale thread. That's where the real problems lie. Yes the results could be better, but the USA tour, injuries and off field incidents are hampering any kind of progress. ETH isn't the problem and it's plain as day to see.

 

[Jeffthered]

No he wasn't. He had a purple patch.

Rashford's season last year was a 'purple patch'.

Christ.

 

[Marty1968]

Good grief - the fact that this is even a topic for discussion is ridiculous!! The club was an absolute shambles when he took over and its going to take more than a couple of transfer windows to sort it! When he took over we literally only had Bruno as a stand out player in our squad. Others were massively out of form, didn't want to be there or were just not good enough. He's worked wonders to get us a trophy and CL football with the team he inherited.

He's also had to deal with how many side shows, all of which could've disrupted the team (Ronaldo, Greenwood, now Antony, Maguire, Glazers).

Now, a team with a tonnes of injuries has lost 3 of the first 5 games. In another, not too unrealistic scenario, we beat Spurs (Bruno missed an easy header from 3 yards and a penalty we could've been awarded. 2-0 up at half time and that games done) and but for a nats whisker beat Arsenal. Then who knows what would've happened this weekend had our equaliser stood.

Yes it's a results business but at least it looks like we have a way of playing now (or at least trying to). The biggest concern for me is Casemiro's dip in performances.

 

[Melville Red]

The only ETH signing I didn’t like was Antony, once his one trick of cutting inside and shooting with his left foot was sussed out he has done nothing but slow down our attacks as he gets so far and stops, then passes back using his left foot.
He is counter productive and I’m really surprised that ETH having worked with and seen this player thought he was good enough for United.
I think Antony has done us a favour with his alleged shenanigans.
The other signings have been good, we loved “The Butcher” when he turned up and Casemiro, yes Casemiro has struggled this year but so has the whole team and as he plays in the middle of the park he is bound to come under more scrutiny than the rest, let’s see how he gets on once Amabrat gets going.
Mount? I am a tad confused is he cover for Erikson? And our new keeper? Far too early to pass judgement but does look confident and will grow into the position once our defensive injuries improve.
Our two loan signings last year were an emergency due to the time left in the window and the midfielder whose name I can’t spell was considering the circumstances excellent and Weghorst did his best ran around and put more effort into those months with us than Martial has shown in all the years he’s been with us.
Now we have all these damn injuries as well as the off field crap and it’s bound to effect the players and Erik, saying all that I’m still perplexed as to why he replaced Hojlund with Martial on Saturday,? If Erik wanted to break Hojlund in gently and save him for Wednesday then why not move Rashford up front and bring on Garnacho? A strange one indeed.
And no I would not even be thinking of sacking the manager, he needs another two years at least, hopefully within that time our wonderful owners would have fecked off.

 

[Pav1878]

Definitely not easy.

He is having to deal with many impacting distractions, all at one time, many of which a manager will never have to deal with over their entire careers.

Doesn't help that his new men (Mount, Amrabat and Hojlund - started 1 game) all started here with injuries. We haven't been able to get any momentum.

Exactly. It’s all about momentum. Hopefully we will be ok once everyone is fit and available.
Sadly it’s already looking like a CL place is the best we can hope for this season.

 

[bond19821982]

Successful in 55? Do you even know our away form?

So now you are changing the goal posts just to fit your agenda. Now you are concerned about our away form - not exactly being "successful "

I consider the whole season and compare it. I don't go for piece meals like away form or home form or goals scored. Means feck all if we don't win anything. But hey, just to prove an agenda, go ahead.

 

[bond19821982]

It depends what you mean by successful but we actually have lost at least 15 matches with him in charge. Some of the most successful ones probably being the 7-0 against Liverpool, 6-3 against City, 3-0 against Sevilla, 4-0 against Brentford, 3-1 against Aston Villa (should have been 6-1), the 2-0 vs Newcastle when they looked prime Barca, the 3-1 against Brighton and to be fair every match against Brighton except the one we fought tooth and nail so we can manage to go to penalties. Oh, there was also the successful loss against Spurs, the most one-man team in the league, who actually lost that man a month after getting a new manager.

A massive list of successful achievements.

So you are randomly picking about 10 games out of 55 where he had to live through all of those sagas. Yet, he gave us 3rd, a cup and an FA cup final.

Sorry, but any fan who has a common sense will take it.

 

[resimad7]

I loved his honesty and bluntness after the losses early last season but tbh I have had to cringe at his post match conferences so far this season.

The composure has gone, he is visibly rattled and making excuses, early signs of pressure getting to him as he knows the urgency of the situation (his words last season).

A 5th or 6th place finish this season and he is out the door and he knows that.

 

[The Hilton]

We were prepared for what we expected Brighton would do. And it worked good for about 20minutes. After which it seemed that some adjustments have been made at Brighton (pushing FBs higher) to exploit the weakness of all diamond formations, the wide areas. Dominated, Dismantled, all just subjective stuff. Some people will see it this way, others won't. At the end of the day, Brighton was clearly the better team and won deserved. A few players left a lot to be desired. The manager tried to adjust to opposition or current squad conditions or both. He didn't have an answer on Brightons adjustments.

In isolation, that is, what the weekend provided on new data samples.

Pushing those FBs higher left Rashford 1 on 1 with their CB multiple times though, had he not wasted those opportunities the game would have been a different story. Acting like it was a brilliant tactical move, rather than a gamble that paid off thanks to our profligacy, is inaccurate.

According to understat (https://understat.com/match/21940) we had the better chances (slightly higher xG) up until the 77th minute, before they were able to catch us on the break when we were really pushing and gambling.

 

[mancan92]

Honestly losing to Brighton at home like that. When they also have a hugely depleted aswell is a really bad point against him.

 

[clarkydaz]

Honestly losing to Brighton at home like that. When they also have a hugely depleted aswell is a really bad point against him.

6 changes i believe, including the goalkeeper

 

[reelworld]

We got thrashed 1-6 against City because Evans got sent off.

And we did have a good spell last season. With obvious weaknesses. We all thought that a couple of tweaks to improve those weaknesses would lift us, but Ten Hag instead went backwards by trying to change the whole team. When we were playing well, but with Weghorst and then Martial - it was clear to us all that a top striker would improve us plenty. All we needed was a top centre forward and a top midfielder and we’d have been far better than last year. Ten Hag instead over-complicated the summer window.

This.
It's doing my head in how simple it is to improve us from last summer, and he went on and over complicate things

 

[Coops73]

Keep. There’s no manager on gods green earth that could sort out this shit show while the Glazers are still in charge.

 

[NZT-One]

Pushing those FBs higher left Rashford 1 on 1 with their CB multiple times though, had he not wasted those opportunities the game would have been a different story. Acting like it was a brilliant tactical move, rather than a gamble that paid off thanks to our profligacy, is inaccurate.

Don't think I said anything about brilliant tactical move. Tactics are a give and take, you do one thing, the other manager will react. You go in one area, the other coach will at least to make use of the areas that suffered to be strong in other areas. Going wide is the first counter measure to a diamond. Nothing brilliant about it. But that doesn't help your argument because this "simple" counter measure meant that our plan against Brighton stopped working. We may have had a few low quality chances here and there, but still, they continued to play from the back with all the comfort in the world knowing they will be able to find the free man.

Your statement sounds like they were just lucky. I don't think, that this accurate at all. Could also say we gambled with our formation change which had them struggling a bit for 20 minutes only to adjust and get more comfortable after that.

According to understat (https://understat.com/match/21940) we had the better chances (slightly higher xG) up until the 77th minute, before they were able to catch us on the break when we were really pushing and gambling.

Better chances maybe but no high value chances. They did contain us just fine. Didn't do it for 100% of the time, not even prime Barcelona could do that to us in 2008, but overall, they were the better side for many reasons that weren't just "they were lucky"

 

[mancan92]

6 changes i believe, including the goalkeeper

Yep there is genuinely no excuse for a loss like that against that Brighton team other than simply not being good enough tactically.

 

[lex talionis]

Brighton were toying with us even when we had the ball for the first 15 minutes. The were measuring up what our tactics were and easily dissected them and then dissected us for the remaining 75 minutes.

 

[DrBenjamin]

What good tactical changes and subs have Eth so far done during his coaching spell at Manchester United?

 

[The Hilton]

Don't think I said anything about brilliant tactical move. Tactics are a give and take, you do one thing, the other manager will react. You go in one area, the other coach will at least to make use of the areas that suffered to be strong in other areas. Going wide is the first counter measure to a diamond. Nothing brilliant about it. But that doesn't help your argument because this "simple" counter measure meant that our plan against Brighton stopped working. We may have had a few low quality chances here and there, but still, they continued to play from the back with all the comfort in the world knowing they will be able to find the free man.

Your statement sounds like they were just lucky. I don't think, that this accurate at all. Could also say we gambled with our formation change which had them struggling a bit for 20 minutes only to adjust and get more comfortable after that.


Better chances maybe but no high value chances. They did contain us just fine. Didn't do it for 100% of the time, not even prime Barcelona could do that to us in 2008, but overall, they were the better side for many reasons that weren't just "they were lucky"

You're extrapolating tactical success based on the result, rather than looking deeper. Our plan against Brighton didn't stop working when they pushed the full backs up, we had loads of opportunities after that happened, had Rashford been more efficient, or selfless, or had the ball not gone out by a millimetre or two for the disallowed goal, then we score and it's a different story.

If us having marginally better chances mean they contained us, then by definition it means we contained them marginally better? They scored 3 goals from a lower xG than we scored 1.

To be fair I don't think either team contained the other completely, but the only real difference between the teams was that Brighton were clinical and scored from their chances, while we wasted lots of opportunities and missed the chances we did create. This is of course up until the last 15 minutes or so when we were forced to chase and left too much space in behind, but by that point we had to gamble.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Rashford's season last year was a 'purple patch'.

Christ.

He had really good 3 months and then the whole team stopped performing after the cup win, including him.

He had 3 premiere league goals, 2 assists after our win against Leicester on 19th Feb. 3 goals 2 assists in 3 months.

"Christ".

 

[Sky1981]

So now you are changing the goal posts just to fit your agenda. Now you are concerned about our away form - not exactly being "successful "

I consider the whole season and compare it. I don't go for piece meals like away form or home form or goals scored. Means feck all if we don't win anything. But hey, just to prove an agenda, go ahead.

I honestly cant see anything resembling success. Maybe at par at best but success? Come on

We're outplayed by anyone in the top 9, and failed to score most of the times..i dont know how you describe that as successful

 

[NZT-One]

You're extrapolating tactical success based on the result, rather than looking deeper. Our plan against Brighton didn't stop working when they pushed the full backs up, we had loads of opportunities after that happened, had Rashford been more efficient, or selfless, or had the ball not gone out by a millimetre or two for the disallowed goal, then we score and it's a different story.

If us having marginally better chances mean they contained us, then by definition it means we contained them marginally better? They scored 3 goals from a lower xG than we scored 1.

To be fair I don't think either team contained the other completely, but the only real difference between the teams was that Brighton were clinical and scored from their chances, while we wasted lots of opportunities and missed the chances we did create. This is of course up until the last 15 minutes or so when we were forced to chase and left too much space in behind, but by that point we had to gamble.

Maybe I do. And maybe you are trying your best to see something what maybe isn't there only for it to feel better. Brighton scored 3 cutbacks goal against us. They had a recepe that worked. Time and time and time again. If you want to tell yourself that it was a tight game, be my guest. Wouldn't call that a completely lunatic standpoint but I know that some fans get creative only to preserve their views. Again nothing wrong with it. But believe me, talk to 10 neutrals and they will tell you that Brighton was the better team and we looked rather clueless. Ifs and buts aren't exclusive to United, other teams also have close calls and so on.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

The biggest worry for me is if they do eventually press the button and sack him the new manager wouldn't want any of the players ETH has actually bought.

The next manager needs to be told "work with what you've got", as all other clubs do. No more of this manager-driven recruitment and squad building, which just leads to endless rebuilds.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Maybe I do. And maybe you are trying your best to see something what maybe isn't there only for it to feel better. Brighton scored 3 cutbacks goal against us. They had a recepe that worked. Time and time and time again. If you want to tell yourself that it was a tight game, be my guest. Wouldn't call that a completely lunatic standpoint but I know that some fans get creative only to preserve their views. Again nothing wrong with it. But believe me, talk to 10 neutrals and they will tell you that Brighton was the better team and we looked rather clueless. Ifs and buts aren't exclusive to United, other teams also have close calls and so on.

Yeah at no point I thought Brighton were in any trouble. We gave them 0 headaches.

 

[RedOrange]

Maybe questions need to be asked of Rashford if he can't create a goal from a dozen 1 on 1's with some guy named van Hecke who cost less than £2 million.

 

[DomM]

I cant quite work out what style of play he is trying to implement. We have spent so much money on players yet still look disjointed and no nearer to looking like a functional team, what exactly is his style, what is this team trying to achieve? I see other teams with players that cost a fraction of ours, yet they play to a style and do it well, you know what to expect from them and even with injuries they continue to play to a system, we dont!! It always seems adhoc with us, nothing ever seems to flow, we dont have a particular style of play and some of our players are lazy.

 

[RuudTom83]

What good tactical changes and subs have Eth so far done during his coaching spell at Manchester United?

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Devil81]

The next manager needs to be told "work with what you've got", as all other clubs do. No more of this manager-driven recruitment and squad building, which just leads to endless rebuilds.

Well he'd be doomed as well then as it's clear the vast majority of these players simply aren't good enough.

The squad put together over the last two years is worse than I think we've ever had.

 

[AngeloHenriquez]

I don't think if we put De Zerbi in tomorrow we would be any better, genuinely. The club focuses so much on brand and player power, the management are pulling in different directions, we have had multiple legal scandals, one still ongoing. We have dressing room splits whereby a player is exiled and he has openly said some players are ignoring him.

We then say "Should we replace the manager?" Clearly we need to empower him, he has shown he is capable and that replacing the manager every few years is not a good strategy, the top teams in the country, Liverpool, Arsenal & City have held strong with their manager when terms were tough and believed in him and that's what I would chose to do.

 

[Berbaclass]

Well he'd be doomed as well then as it's clear the vast majority of these players simply aren't good enough.

The squad put together over the last two years is worse than I think we've ever had.

Every year the gap to City grows. Our main summer signings would be squad players at best for them.

 

[Berbaclass]

I don't think if we put De Zerbi in tomorrow we would be any better, genuinely. The club focuses so much on brand and player power, the management are pulling in different directions, we have had multiple legal scandals, one still ongoing. We have dressing room splits whereby a player is exiled and he has openly said some players are ignoring him.

We then say "Should we replace the manager?" Clearly we need to empower him, he has shown he is capable and that replacing the manager every few years is not a good strategy, the top teams in the country, Liverpool, Arsenal & City have held strong with their manager when terms were tough and believed in him and that's what I would chose to do.

He’s much more of a volatile character isn’t he? That wouldn’t be suitable at all at United. Think he’d get eaten alive. It’s okay for him at Brighton when pretty much all he has to do and all his focus is on coaching the team to the best of their abilities. Ten Hag has an awful lot more on his plate than that. Look at Potter to Chelsea as the real life example.

 

[The Hilton]

Maybe I do. And maybe you are trying your best to see something what maybe isn't there only for it to feel better. Brighton scored 3 cutbacks goal against us. They had a recepe that worked. Time and time and time again. If you want to tell yourself that it was a tight game, be my guest. Wouldn't call that a completely lunatic standpoint but I know that some fans get creative only to preserve their views. Again nothing wrong with it. But believe me, talk to 10 neutrals and they will tell you that Brighton was the better team and we looked rather clueless. Ifs and buts aren't exclusive to United, other teams also have close calls and so on.

It's ironic that you talk about fans creatively trying to preserve their views, when you ignore the evidence, and pretend our opportunities didn't happen, in order to cling to "Brighton good, United bad". I'm sure the condescending tone makes you think your argument sounds better, but to me it just betrays your inability to put together a decent argument.

As for the "neutrals" argument, that's just the appeal to popularity fallacy. Those same 10 neutrals would probably harp on about "Fergie time" and other myths; the average football fan has a very shallow understanding of football, often swayed by goals in order to decide what worked or who was better (sound familiar?).

 

[Leftback99]

Poor pre-season, bad start, underwhelming signings, off field issues, injuries (Mount now out for 4-6 weeks).

Already feeling like one of those seasons where nothing goes right. Opposite to last where most things went our way.

Posted this 4 weeks ago and somehow things have got far worse since.

With all the unavailable players he's in trouble.

 

[Ubik]

Every year the gap to City grows. Our main summer signings would be squad players at best for them.

To be fair on the latter point, that would probably be the case regardless. We're just constantly firefighting previous bad choices, and inevitably make more of them.

 

[Berbaclass]

To be fair on the latter point, that would probably be the case regardless. We're just constantly firefighting previous bad choices, and inevitably make more of them.

With proper recruitment and planning I don’t think so.

 

[Ubik]

With proper recruitment and planning I don’t think so.

I agree, but it seems to need more of a root and branch overhaul than I think we're willing/capable of whilst the owners remain (something I increasingly feel could be the case for a long time yet). The whole Rangnick episode is a case in point.

 

[IRELANDUNITED]

We’ve been on a continuous spiral of sacking managers, hiring another, being optimistic that this one will work out and then sacking that manager again. Until we learn that we need to fully stick with a manager and not always be looking for the next flavour of the month we will go no where. Look at Klopp with Liverpool, his first couple of seasons were very underwhelming, if he was at United a lot of fans would have called for him to be sacked several times. Same with Arteta at Arsenal. Ten Hag has shown more than enough evidence in his first 14 months at Old Trafford that he is the right man for the job, is it perfect? No of course not, but he has shown more than enough that he deserves time and backing. He’s also had several issues to deal with which he has dealt with well for the most part. If we sack him and get De Zerbi (flavour of the month) we will be back to square one. Stick with ETH and we’ll be glad we did in a few seasons time.

 

[AngeloHenriquez]

He’s much more of a volatile character isn’t he? That wouldn’t be suitable at all at United. Think he’d get eaten alive. It’s okay for him at Brighton when pretty much all he has to do and all his focus is on coaching the team to the best of their abilities. Ten Hag has an awful lot more on his plate than that. Look at Potter to Chelsea as the real life example.

That combined with the fact that Brighton have a very well setup approach where everybody is pulling toward a single direction, the football.

Here we are split between players looking out for themselves, a board looking to sell, management looking to keep their jobs and playing politics, other management concentrating too much on commercial, the whole thing is a mess to be honest which is why I see a sale as the only possible chance we have to ever rebuild.

 

[astracrazy]

Why would you sack him?

LVG, Jose and Ralph all essentially said after they left the clubs broken and I'd bet EtH would say the same.

The problem isn't EtH.

 

[NZT-One]

It's ironic that you talk about fans creatively trying to preserve their views, when you ignore the evidence, and pretend our opportunities didn't happen, in order to cling to "Brighton good, United bad". I'm sure the condescending tone makes you think your argument sounds better, but to me it just betrays your inability to put together a decent argument.

As for the "neutrals" argument, that's just the appeal to popularity fallacy. Those same 10 neutrals would probably harp on about "Fergie time" and other myths; the average football fan has a very shallow understanding of football, often swayed by goals in order to decide what worked or who was better (sound familiar?).

I think you started the tonality when you indicated that all I had to do would be to "look deeper" to then gloriously reaching your standpoint due to its absoluteness. But lets it here, if you think, the little xg graph over time is all it takes to depict a game, then we don't have much common ground to start with. I'd happily present you a stat for comfortable-ness where the heartrate of players is measured when they play calmly out from the through our lines. But unfortunately, this stat isn't available as of now. I also want to remind you, that I do not ignore our opportunities, I just called them "not high value chances" which they weren't. As I said, it wasn't a tight game. Nothing to do with United bad, Brighton good. It just wasn't a tight game. It is to a degree subjective, lets use this to end on a positive note.

I also think, you misunderstood my 2nd point. I mean 10 neutral fans who only watch the game without knowing what players are on and which teams are playing. Only the actions on the pitch without any context. Pretty sure they would agree that one team looked way more in control of the game. And it reflects in more or less all stats, be it possession, successful passes, number of passes, shots, xg whatever. Not like Brighton ran away on any single metric but overall, it paints a picture that aligns to what I have seen on screen.

 

[Cassidy]

I am not saying he should be immune to criticism. Am I happy about the current state of his management, and about the development the team has taken over the last half a year? No.
But still let us break down your argument.

1. Over those 60 games, long spells were very good. We also had deep cup runs and won one. All in all, last season has to be classified as a successful one, in no easy circumstances. To start off, this has to be punctuated with a period.

2. About the money spent, most of it was to replace outgoing players. Matic, Pogba, Lingard, Ronaldo, and then De Gea, Bailly, Jones, Tuanzebe all left on free transfers. Fred, Elanga, Telles left for very little money. Obviously in order to replace them or even begin to try to improve the squad, money had to be invested. In that context, 400m really is not incredibly much.
Has that money been invested wisely? Partly yes, partly no, partly doubtful.
- The investments in Casemiro, Lisandro and Onana were necessary and good. Lisandro is quality and a fighter, exactly what the team needed. Casemiro was a great addition last season, a seasoned world class player to upgrade on Matic. The GK position desperately needed action, and we signed the GK of a CL finalist.
- The investment in Antony has not turned out to be good. Malacia, unconvincing but not terrible as a squad player.
- Mount, Amrabat and Höjlund, it makes no sense to judge them, as they have been injured and Höjlund is a kid just getting his first games. Mount is a hard-working, yet creative and forward-thinking midfielder whom just a year ago, in light of his heroics under Tuchel, would have commanded a much larger fee. Will he be the right choice, we do not know yet, but it is certainly not an absurd or wrong transfer to have made.
If you ask me, Höjlund was baffingly expensive, but let us not pretend that the striker market is ripe with bargains, and arguably the state of this position in the squad would have required even more investment.

But there we arrive at the nexus of Ten Hag's management and the overall club management at DoF and CEO level, which is quite clearly where the problems lie.
- The squad is riddled with problems stemming from the chaotic period our club has been going through. Manager recruitment has been confused, opportunistic, ill-timed, and so has been player recruitment. We are paying the price in that the squad is patchy, uneven and has basically been a value- and talent-destroying deadwood generator. Clearly that affects squad building - getting rid of players is unprofitable and difficult, restraining possibilities to get new ones. With regards to that last point, it does not help that the club negotiators have suddenly discovered the need to take a hard line on fees when it would be needed to get rid of a player. Of course, better negotiating and not being taken for mugs is what we all were screaming for, but holding out for more money just out of a sense of pride does not seem intelligent when it keeps us from moving on. But obviously I do not know the fine print and insides of finances, negotiations and FFP requirements.
- The club has attempted a structural shift/update with the position of a DoF and the change of CEO, albeit without bringing in proven expertise from the outside. I was willing, and sort of still am, to give Murtough a chance, but the input into squad planning and its execution from the DoF position is looking very questionable. Signings still tend to be opportunistic (Casemiro and Mount, even if both are quality additions and there is nothing wrong with taking opportunities) and there is no sense of a strategic and shrewd squad building apart from plugging present holes. It seems reactive, and many transfers came very late in the windows.
- In the absence of a proactive DoF line, there is a somewhat worrying tendency to amend squad planning by bringing in players Ten Hag knows. Now, DoF-manager constructs are always difficult to balance, and part of that balance should indeed be to let the manager have a couple of players he favours even if consequent scouting would suggest other alternatives. After all, the manager needs to engineer team chemistry and for that, his judgement and confidence is vital. But it does look like we need more expertise and decisiveness from the DoF side to balance squad building if, as the case of Antony shows, the manager gets it wrong, as can and will happen.

The DoF was installed by the board and works within the parameters set by them. Either he is just an extension of their general obtuseness towards running a football club (having been promoted from within), or rather his ability to act competently, decisively and proactively is hampered by that obtuseness. I am assuming it is a mixture of both, with the weight on the latter.
Because there is the main problem:
The club has been put up for sale, in the middle of Ten Hag's first season. If our owners were not much interested in Man Utd's essence as a football club before, they are now not at all so. The grave situation is that we are owned and run by people who are not invested in the club's future at all. It is not hard to conclude that this also means a reluctance or downright refusal to make consequential decisions and investments into the squad, instead we have been chasing cheapskate loans for anything other than the most needed core additions. That is the hand Murtough has been dealt, one year into his tenure. It also means board, CEO, DoF have no clear future at the club which surely can only add to the sense of disconnect between club, fans, manager, and board.

So are we going to acknowledge the severity of this situation, the hand that has been dealt to Ten Hag, or are we really going to senselessly debate about his sacking? Ten Hag was the right hire, he is a quality manager. He is not the only quality manager out there, but he is not the problem.
To adress your point about his tactics, he seems to be struggling, and I cannot help but feel this is connected to him trying to be pragmatic. Whether that is the right approach, I do not know, arguably the circumstances of the squad are not favourable for the free-spirited and commanding tactical reset we were expecting. But he has shown resiliance before, and he deserves our continuing if critical support. So do our players.

That being said, after the Bayern game, where really there is nothing to be lost, we have four games against weak opponents. Away to Burnley and Sheffield, home to Palace and Brentford. We need 12 points from those, nothing less, and no excuses.
Not even refereeing.

Good post this