Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[Mailo]

Replace the manager, and we'll be back here again in 2 years time.
Purge from the top, and clean out any cliffhangers and start again with young and hungry players with all to prove on no ballooned contracts. Then we'll reap the rewards. But this won't happen, and we'll again resort to firing the manager and be back here in 2 years time.

 

[Licha-Vidic]

The most mysterious thing is

Last season when we played "well" it was down to him. Not Glazers or those higher than him. ETH got all the flowers

But

This season when we play badly it's down to others, other than him.

Very peculiar way of looking at things.

ETH most damaging thing, is he refused to evolve during the summer. Even pep and klopp mutated heavily after their first season.
Sadly, this is on him. We have cried here heavily for complete change in our setup and structure but it seems he doesn't see the need for change.

If we wanted to change the setup, he would. He has all the powers. Club supported him even on ronaldo and Sancho episodes, thus if it's to bench people who can't play a certain way the club would have blessed him.

Its not a coincidence every other team knows where our limitations are, because it's very visible.

Big question is, where do we go from here?

 

[croadyman]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Sorry Utd PR central no one is buying it

 

[Buster15]

You forgot Liverpool

Yes of course. Thank you for reminding me.

 

[gaffs]

Ten Hag's priority should be making us hard to beat, especially without his first choice back four.

That doesn't mean park the bus. It means hold a shape, stay compact. We have seen all season that we are far too easy to play against and get broke on time and again.

 

[Teja]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

What a joke. It's more concerning if guys like Eriksen, Casemiro, Mount, Antony and Hojlund were not a part of whatever scouting radar we have.

 

[TsuWave]

Insane to see that list, plus the other Bundesliga players.

Yup. Laimer, Nkuku - even Luis Diaz.

 

[Mickeza]

Wait, he got rid of Ronaldo. That was one of the things he's done well apparently. Now it's an excuse?

This isn’t difficult. Taking Ronaldo, Cavani, Pogba, Matic, Greenwood and now De Gea out of the worst EPL squad in Manchester United history on free transfers makes that squad undeniably weaker. Regardless of whether those players are good enough they still need replacing with hopefully better ones. So this continual he’s spent 400m POUNDS OMG WHY ARE WE NOT WINNING EVEN THOUGH OUR ENTIRE BACK 4 IS INJURED is lacking context. It’s also ridiculous that in this thread apparently he’s solely responsible for signing players. He took over a team 20 plus points worse than City, Chelsea and Liverpool and 10 plus points worse than spurs and Arsenal - had several key players disappear from it on free transfers and has spent around 75m more than his rivals except Chelsea who he has spent far less than. That’s the context of it. Finishing third and overturning those huge points differentials against Chelsea, Liverpool and spurs was very impressive. We replaced Ronaldo with Weghorst for sods sake. This year has been shit. However, it would be really good when discussing how shit it has been if the fact he did a great job last year could be factored into the thinking when saying he’s useless - and possibly the mitigating factors of the injuries, the greenwood situation literally tearing the club apart, Antony situation, Sancho situation and last but not least the fact everyone at the club has spent the last 6 months not knowing if they’ll have a fecking job next week. This club is completely fractured - that doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

 

[UnitedSofa]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Heinzesight]

What next…Erik outs the squad leakers in his tell all ‘Hagatha Christie’ documentary?

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

The most mysterious thing is

Last season when we played "well" it was down to him. Not Glazers or those higher than him. ETH got all the flowers

But

This season when we play badly it's down to others, other than him.

Very peculiar way of looking at things.

ETH most damaging thing, is he refused to evolve during the summer. Even pep and klopp mutated heavily after their first season.
Sadly, this is on him. We have cried here heavily for complete change in our setup and structure but it seems he doesn't see the need for change.

If we wanted to change the setup, he would. He has all the powers. Club supported him even on ronaldo and Sancho episodes, thus if it's to bench people who can't play a certain way the club would have blessed him.

Its not a coincidence every other team knows where our limitations are, because it's very visible.

Big question is, where do we go from here?

Manager wins epl league and is sacked the next season. Off top of my head Conte, Jose and Ranieri.

Why were they sacked? Did they stop learning how to coach over the summer after they won the league?

When standards drop managers get the chop and blame regardless of whether it’s their fault or not.

 

[Teja]

It seems like it's over. Please get rid of Murtough first. Sign a competent sporting director. Plan the next coaching appt properly then sack Ten Hag.

If they just sack immediately and give it to Conte or some rando interim (Rooney, Carrick etc) I'll take a break from the club.

 

[croadyman]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Jeez this is grim to say the least

 

[crossy1686]

As per posters here, ETH is responsible for everything. For transfer money and salaries and contract extensions.

He knew that coming in right? And refused Rangnick's help on this front no?

 

[Buster15]

I know its been tough with injuries, but Ten Hag needs to find his best team and stick with it. The midfield 3 is changing every game....

Burnley - Casemiro / McTominay / Hannibal
Palace CC - Casemiro / Mount / Hannibal
Palace - Casemiro / Mount / Bruno
Galatasaray - Casemiro / Mount / Hannibal
Brentford - Casemiro / Mount /Amrabat
Sheff Utd - McTominay / Amrabat / Bruno
Copenhagen - McTominay / Amrabat / Bruno
City - McTominay / Amrabat / Eriksen
Newcastle CC - Casemiro / Mount / Hannibal

And none of them are playing even remotely well enough. Casemiro is the obvious class but seems far too hot headed in the tackle which he should have learnt by now what he can get away with in the PL.

 

[DJ_21]

You want to compare him to Pep? That's a dangerous road to take when you're trying to defend him. His football is nothing like Peps.

Who’s defending him? His Ajax team played similar to peps.

 

[Chumpsbechumps]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I thought I was the only one who thought this about Varane and Casemerio. To be honest it looks like Cas will be fit for Brazil and have phantom injuries for us.

That suggests some of the players are throwing in the towel and would explain team selections and why substitutions haven’t made any differences.

The issue isn’t coaching, it’s that the coach has lost some of the squad and that’s usually the end in the manager sack race culture.

 

[croadyman]

It seems like it's over. Please get rid of Murtough first. Sign a competent sporting director. Plan the next coaching appt properly then sack Ten Hag.

If they just sack immediately and give it to Conte or some rando interim (Rooney, Carrick etc) I'll take a break from the club.

Yeah we simply have to sign a competent Sporting Director then let him make the decision on who to appoint as next manager

 

[crossy1686]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

If there's any truth in this you have to question why he's openly going to war with a squad he doesn't rate but then has to play. Mitten said today that the comments of "Eriksen came on because we needed more football" went down like a lead balloon with the players. He's obviously pushing buttons at this point.

 

[bosnian_red]

So the Glazers over in America potentially selling a stake affects say Garnacho training his hardest and giving his best on matchday? I don't buy it. It's only an excuse because we're losing. Day to day at the training ground won't look any different to last season.

It is inevitably related. Garnacho (or whoever, there's no indication he isn't training well) comes into training after receiving buckets of abuse online from fans because the club as a whole is failing. He says hello to staff who aren't in a good mood because there is uncertainty over their jobs. He feels the mood throughout being dampened. He sees the coaching staff and managers get chopped and changed, the same cycle of failure happening over and over again at a club, while the constants above remain with no change to the structure. Have you ever been in a workplace undergoing a lot of uncertainty? It becomes a very toxic atmosphere, very quickly. It is all linked, and a cloud of misery spreads across every aspect and you can't remain isolated on an island when you are the face of the club who receive all the stick.

 

[RedDevil@84]

He knew that coming in right? And refused Rangnick's help on this front no?

I am not ITK on what was discussed between ETH and the club.

 

[crossy1686]

Yeah we simply have to sign a competent Sporting Director then let him make the decision on who to appoint as next manager

Who though? And when has this worked? Any DOF that's ever done anything worth noting can't replicate it at another club than the one they originally did it at. They coast around and end up at Monaco or Roma before disappearing to a. consultancy firm or France's second division.

Tottenham hired a DOF, look how that turned out.

 

[MegadrivePerson]

People suggesting that achieving Top 4 isn't a real achievement. It is when you sign middling players on loan because your club is skint

It's not that the club is skint, it's more to do with wasting money.

Ten Hag has been given £400 million to spend in 12 months, the way that £400 million has been spent has been abysmal.

 

[crossy1686]

I am not ITK on what was discussed between ETH and the club.

You think he didn't know he'd be responsible for this when he took the job? Why would he refuse Rangnick if he didn't know his responsibilities?

 

[gaffs]

It is inevitably related. Garnacho (or whoever, there's no indication he isn't training well) comes into training after receiving buckets of abuse online from fans because the club as a whole is failing. He says hello to staff who aren't in a good mood because there is uncertainty over their jobs. He feels the mood throughout being dampened. He sees the coaching staff and managers get chopped and changed, the same cycle of failure happening over and over again at a club, while the constants above remain with no change to the structure. Have you ever been in a workplace undergoing a lot of uncertainty? It becomes a very toxic atmosphere, very quickly. It is all linked, and a cloud of misery spreads across every aspect and you can't remain isolated on an island when you are the face of the club who receive all the stick.

I think that is such BS.

The only people worrying about their jobs will be the likes of Arnold and Murtaugh. That fear isn't working its way down to players. That is just an excuse.

 

[flappyjay]

Replace the manager, and we'll be back here again in 2 years time.
Purge from the top, and clean out any cliffhangers and start again with young and hungry players with all to prove on no ballooned contracts. Then we'll reap the rewards. But this won't happen, and we'll again resort to firing the manager and be back here in 2 years time.

The cycle continues unfortunately. I was naive to think something would change this time even with an inexperienced dof. Turns out it was just done to keep people quiet about the role.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Ten Hag has been given £400 million to spend in 12 months, the way that £400 million has been spent has been abysmal.

Ten Hag was not given a specific amount. The club negotiated with the selling clubs and accepted high transfer amounts that led to the value becoming 400M.
It is not to claim that if ETH were given all the money, he would have done a better job, but it should never be his job to discuss or decide the transfer amounts. The club needs to appoint competitive people to negotiate decent transfer amounts and/or go back to ETH and say that his selected player is too costly and would not be bought.

 

[Matt007a]

It's hard to really pinpoint what or where things are going wrong.

You'll never convince me that ETH can't coach players. His previous record and the testimony of people who worked with him in the past prove that he can. Despite that we look like we've never set foot on the training ground and our players have never met. Some of his selections and substitutions are puzzling and his insistence on playing a midfield that can't run or defend is worrying.

Ole might not have been great but if you look at what McKenna and Carrick are doing now you'd have to say both are good coaches as well. Yet the previous regime was the same, winning games on individual moments and counter attack rather than having a coached style of play.

That would suggest we've just got players who either can't be coached or don't want to be. Whether that's because they're lazy and his methods require a lot of running or because they simply want to collect their money and play however they please. We've had high player turnover since Jose told us that the players didn't want to be coached. Even since CR7 came in and said our youngsters didn't want to learn we've had £400m worth of new players and several outgoings. I know we've still got some players like Martial who clearly have no interest, but by and large we got rid of the ones we thought were problematic. The Pogba's and Lingard's of the world.

You've got a culture from the top of the club that mediocrity is fine and you don't have to be the best in your field to get a job at United. In fact you don't have to have any experience at all to be a director of some sort at our club. What exactly have Fletcher, Murtough or Arnold done at other clubs to suggest they're capable? Nothing! Does that feed down to the rest of the squad? I mean it feels like there is quite a bit of separation between players and Chief Exec and I doubt their paths cross very often. Maybe it's an easy excuse for laziness of certain players?

So much contradictory information I don't really know where to foot the blame. It's probably a bit of everything, which is really worst case scenario because the reality is you can't replace everyone and everything. I feel like we've reached a point now where even if ETH is/was the man for the job, he can't recover from this position. But at the same time I feel like replacing him would change absolutely nothing.

It's all very depressing!

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Do you think La primera is as strong as the EPL? Isn’t this part of the problem , that you just can’t get away with vulnerability’s in the EPL that teams get found out in EPL.

The EPL is not so strong to explain why United are on -5 GD and have lost half of all games. It extends beyond the PL too, United lost at home to Galatasaray and only beat Copenhagen by 1 goal. And as others have pointed out, United have struggled even in their wins.

 

[Zlatan 7]

Not sure if sarcastic, but thats exactly what these lot have doing for a while now. get the manager sacked

What lot? Because 7 of that team yesterday were ‘ten hag’ players.

 

[MegadrivePerson]

Ten Hag was not given a specific amount. The club negotiated with the selling clubs and accepted high transfer amounts that led to the value becoming 400M.
It is not to claim that if ETH were given all the money, he would have done a better job, but it should never be his job to discuss or decide the transfer amounts. The club needs to appoint competitive people to negotiate decent transfer amounts and/or go back to ETH and say that his selected player is too costly and would not be bought.

With the exception of Chelsea, all managers know that they have a budget to work with.

Ten Hag clearly made the decision not to renew De Gea and spend £45 million on Onana.

He also made the decision to spend £55 million on Mason Mount.

It's not true to say that we are skint, far from it. Only Chelsea have spent more on transfers in the last 12 months.

 

[RedDevil@84]

You think he didn't know he'd be responsible for this when he took the job? Why would he refuse Rangnick if he didn't know his responsibilities?

My post you quoted was about transfer amounts and salaries. Are you saying that Rangnick's proposed part time consultancy role was to negotiate transfer amounts and salaries?

 

[Strelok]

That's not how I remember it. In fact, I remember a lot of discord in the back half of last season when the wheels came off after the League Cup win. From the "title challenge" that lasted about a week to the 7-0 at Anfield to Wout Weghorst's continued presence in the team and the limp surrender in the Europa League quarter-final, there were plenty of complaints and cracks beginning to appear. I certainly don't recall any talk of "miracles" from March onwards. More like desperation to somehow crawl over the line and get top four, in the expectation that the squad would be further overhauled in the summer and this season would go much better.

You're probably right because I'm not a regular poster in this thread. But before that time when ETH was basically godlike in the caf I remember this very well because if anyone dared to say a bad thing against ETH would got jumped on and I really hate that cultist behavior.

 

[gaffs]

It's not that the club is skint, it's more to do with wasting money.

Ten Hag has been given £400 million to spend in 12 months, the way that £400 million has been spent has been abysmal.

Massive waste of money.

Antony, Mount and Casemiro are awful deals.

I would have gone for Joao Palhinha, Olise, Maddison (all Premier League Proven) and you would still have had change for a center back.

To think what we are paying Mason Mount, unwanted at Chelsea, more a week than Maddison, when Mount only had a year left on his contact, as well as £20mil more on the transfer fee. It hurts.

 

[crossy1686]

My post you quoted was about transfer amounts and salaries. Are you saying that Rangnick's proposed part time consultancy role was to negotiate transfer amounts and salaries?

I was under the impression Rangnick and his consultancy firm (whatever that is) would be our DOF, does that involve just sourcing players and squad building? Or does it extend to negotiating also? I don't know but it's hard to say that wouldn't be an improvement on what's currently happening and I'm not sure why the manager would veto that if they have no experience in that field.

 

[Gupz]

The main issue is that we were not able to sell the problem players and there was no money to just replace these players without selling first. I mean everyone agrees that players like Maguire, Lindeloff, Mctomminay, Sancho, Dalot are not good enough. Okay they had their heroic moments, but overall they are not consistent enough for the level we want to be in. Last season they already got benched and became deadwood. The most logical step was to loose them permanently and replace them for players who at least have the benefits of the doubt to be an upgrade.

I really expected Ten Hag to go that way, but instead he seems to be too soft and stubborn by keeping these players onboard and giving them a 4th/5th chance believing that they are good enough, while we all already know they are not. And then the injuries hit the fan and he is forced to fall back to these deadwood players. This plus the combination of the key players being out of form results in this sh*tshow.

 

[Matt851]

Everything must be seen with context imo. It's actually fecking rare for the caf to be able to agree on something. And most posters agreed that what he did was a true miracle back then. You can have look in this very thread around that time and you'd see I think.

No one in their right mind thought it was a miracle. He wasn't in the running for manager of the season. We had a good season, aided by some other top teams having bad seasons, but the arse fell out of the season after the caribou final

 

[Licha-Vidic]

Manager wins epl league and is sacked the next season. Off top of my head Conte, Jose and Ranieri.

Why were they sacked? Did they stop learning how to coach over the summer after they won the league?

When standards drop managers get the chop and blame regardless of whether it’s their fault or not.

True as you say, and it re-confirms my stand.

Win the league previous season, it's on you as a coach.
Perform poorly next season, it's on you as a coach, you're sacked.
.
But for us here, good play is on ETH but bad play is on Glazers and Board.

 

[Matt851]

Who though? And when has this worked? Any DOF that's ever done anything worth noting can't replicate it at another club than the one they originally did it at. They coast around and end up at Monaco or Roma before disappearing to a. consultancy firm or France's second division.

Tottenham hired a DOF, look how that turned out.

Tottenhams transfer business over recent years is now looking rather good tbf. Hard to know whether patirici had an impact on this year's transfers or recruiting ange though

 

[crossy1686]

Tottenhams transfer business over recent years is now looking rather good tbf. Hard to know whether patirici had an impact on this year's transfers or recruiting ange though

I don't think he lasted a couple of full seasons did he? His whole purpose was to support Conte and they couldn't even convince Conte to join them at first, let alone bring in the players he wanted and spend the money he needed to be successful.