Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[Sarni]

Spurs ,Arsenal and Liverpool to me, actually. But obviously that were the matches we deserved something. Not counting the matches we deserved feck all but got something

I don’t think we deserved more than what we got at Liverpool. We had the best chance of the game but they did batter us throughout 90 minutes straight. We had 20-25 good minutes at Spurs but second half was just them playing out there, and at Arsenal we handed the game over to them and sat back for 90 mins (much like Anfield) but were slightly unlucky in not having Garnacho’s goal count.

With better luck we maybe get 2-4 points more here but I don’t feel particularly hard done by any of these games as we were clearly the inferior team in each of them.

Wolves, Everton, Fulham are three games were our opponents easily got better chances but failed to score, while we were evenly matched by Burnley and Sheffield as those games could have gone either way. Then you have three miracle comebacks against Villa, Forest and Brentford with Brentford in particular being extremely lucky. The only games where we genuinely felt comfortable and won this season were Chelsea and Luton at home.

We are a mid table side playing mid table football but actually quite lucky to be getting mid table results as I don’t think we would feel particularly hard done if we had 9-12 points less than we do at this point.

ETH fans here have pointed as our points tally back in early December and mocking everyone that thought we were underwhelming / performing badly but our results have aligned with the quality of our play recently and we will soon be where we ought to be. We are now 3 points ahead of Wolves, 6 ahead of Bournemouth with two games in hand, will probably soon fall behind Brighton, Chelsea and Newcastle and are already more than 10 points adrift from top 4 which will only grow. In the meantime ETH fanatics will just keep on believing it’s just injuries / players failing on purpose to get him sacked / referees / owners preventing us from executing his master plan.

 

[soapythecat]

We have been poor since the Carabao Cup final. I'd wager that overall results since the cup final would show a negative GD. We hung on like feck last season to finish top 4 but the warning signs were there and many on here suggesting he's not a good tactician. We didn't have anything like the injuries we had this season, in fact, Casemiro dropping in and out of the side was our only real concern if I recall.
He can't use injuries as an excuse not to attack. He's useless and it's showing. The goals we concede, the lack of intent attacking, the poor passages of play - they all look similar and have done since the cup win. That's not the players, it's the way we are set up, time and time again.

 

[frostbite]

Old news, but some people still insist that we should not blame ETH for the transfers, especially for Antony.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...g-says-taken-man-united-job-control-transfers

Erik ten Hag says he wouldn't have taken Man United job without 'control' over transfers

 

[DJBillRemfry]

Any team that has problems with their goalkeeper and their centre forward is going to struggle. Failings in those areas create crises of confidence in all the others.

 

[Pes6Monster]

I don't think so. We lost 7-0 to Liverpool on March 5th. Only 3 times in history we lost 7-0, the last time was in 1931. Biggest loss in 90 years for Man Utd! ETH should have been sacked right then.

This is frankly ridiculous.

Sacking a manager, only a few months into his reign, having won the club's first trophy in six years (his first attempt at a trophy, too) the week before, still in Europe and with the Glazers in full charge and why?

Because of one, ultimately facile, result.

 

[FromTheBench]

Its shambles.

Sack him get new manager bounce and move on.

 

[Pes6Monster]

Old news, but some people still insist that we should not blame ETH for the transfers, especially for Antony.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...g-says-taken-man-united-job-control-transfers

Erik ten Hag says he wouldn't have taken Man United job without 'control' over transfers

Still Joel Glazer with final say.

We'll see how EtH does with a proper football structure.

Its shambles.

Sack him get new manager bounce and move on.

Replace him with who?

 

[Fortitude]

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Even if this is true, and it very well could be, you create better contingencies ’in the event of’ than a proven failure whose biggest weakness of all is tracking runners and reading the midfield battle in terms of preemptive positioning.

Every time there’s reasoning as to why something is/is not, the counter to it makes it even worse regarding ten Hag.

Such a letdown vis-a-vis what I thought we were getting.

 

[oz insomniac]

Any team that has problems with their goalkeeper and their centre forward is going to struggle. Failings in those areas create crises of confidence in all the others.

The problem with that thought, is that we have a centre forward but no one providing striker opportunities. Rashford and Anthony just go for it with little thought of providing chances to a striker, Garnacho is considerably better than both of them, yet currently not in the same postcode as a provider seen in teams like Arsenal Liverpool and City. Buying a proven goal poacher without a supporting cast shows how dumb our recruitment philosophy is.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Still Joel Glazer with final say.

We'll see how EtH does with a proper football structure.



Replace him with who?

"proper structure"

It just comes across as parody at this point. No one can be so naive

 

[Zen86]

Old news, but some people still insist that we should not blame ETH for the transfers, especially for Antony.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...g-says-taken-man-united-job-control-transfers

Erik ten Hag says he wouldn't have taken Man United job without 'control' over transfers

To be fair to him, it’s not like we had anyone else competent to handle transfers. No manager would ever have come here without having control.

 

[Sarni]

We have been poor since the Carabao Cup final. I'd wager that overall results since the cup final would show a negative GD. We hung on like feck last season to finish top 4 but the warning signs were there and many on here suggesting he's not a good tactician. We didn't have anything like the injuries we had this season, in fact, Casemiro dropping in and out of the side was our only real concern if I recall.
He can't use injuries as an excuse not to attack. He's useless and it's showing. The goals we concede, the lack of intent attacking, the poor passages of play - they all look similar and have done since the cup win. That's not the players, it's the way we are set up, time and time again.

We are -3 GD since League Cup final I think. We have won a single game by more than a goal this year while receiving a handful of spankings, last year between League Cup final and the end of season we did have 4 wins with more than 1 goal separation (2-0s against Forest, Wolves and Everton and 4-1 against Chelsea).

 

[Sarni]

"proper structure"

It just comes across as parody at this point. No one can be so naive

I don’t even know what that proper footballing structure is do to help him with his on the pitch tactics which are clearly the biggest single reason for our shortfalls.

 

[Herman Toothrot]

"proper structure"

It just comes across as parody at this point. No one can be so naive

With some bald guys wearing glasses above him, Erik will now be free to let his defenders know if they're playing an offside trap or not. Joel Glazer personally stopped him from getting the very basics right.

 

[Jev]

We have been poor since the Carabao Cup final. I'd wager that overall results since the cup final would show a negative GD. We hung on like feck last season to finish top 4 but the warning signs were there and many on here suggesting he's not a good tactician. We didn't have anything like the injuries we had this season, in fact, Casemiro dropping in and out of the side was our only real concern if I recall.
He can't use injuries as an excuse not to attack. He's useless and it's showing. The goals we concede, the lack of intent attacking, the poor passages of play - they all look similar and have done since the cup win. That's not the players, it's the way we are set up, time and time again.

A little before that too. Basically from the moment Wout started playing at the end of January, we’ve been playing dire football with dire results. So it’s basically a year now where we’ve seen zero signs of progress or patterns of play emerging, coupled with some disastrous signings that have set us back years, and our manager falling out with a handful of players (which will lead to us selling them on the cheap and set us back even further). He’s probably done more long-term harm to the club than Mourinho, only without the good results as long as it lasted.

 

[Amsterdam Devil]

He'll be fine for the Wigan and Spurs matches, the real test will now February when we have alot of games, and he should have Casemiro, Martinez, Maguire, and Mount back, plus Ineos will hopefully be in full control by then.

It's quite possible we could be real run together during that month, and suddenly things will look a lot different for him, and personally I really hope it does play out like that.

Or a month where a new manager can have a lot of time with his team, maybe even more than in the summer where we will probably go on a big tour somewhere again what takes a lot of energy and time from the team.

 

[Spark]

We are -3 GD since League Cup final I think. We haven’t won a single game by more than a goal this year while receiving a handful of spankings, last year between League Cup final and the end of season we did have 4 wins with more than 1 goal separation (2-0s against Forest, Wolves and Everton and 4-1 against Chelsea).

Everton 0-3, not that long ago?

We are shit though, so it doesn’t make your overall point invalid.

 

[Rista]

Old news, but some people still insist that we should not blame ETH for the transfers, especially for Antony.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...g-says-taken-man-united-job-control-transfers

Erik ten Hag says he wouldn't have taken Man United job without 'control' over transfers

It's wild because it should be obvious to anyone he at least had a massive say in transfers. But for some reason he is the first manager for whom excuses are made in this manner. Every other manager post SAF was held accountable for transfers, if anything the club was criticized for not backing them by giving them money and freedom to spend. But with Ten Hag people are pretending the club did him a disservice by letting him have control over transfers and handing him over 400 million. Somehow taking all that away from him and giving him players he doesn't want will make him perform well, even though he can't coach his own signings or the other players that he has at his disposal.

 

[Jev]

I don’t even know what that proper footballing structure is do to help him with his on the pitch tactics which are clearly the biggest single reason for our shortfalls.

That’s why it’s the perfect excuse. No-one really knows what it’s supposed to mean so you can always say that’s the issue.

 

[Sarni]

Everton 0-3, not that long ago?

We are shit though, so it doesn’t make your overall point invalid.

Forgot about that one! That was a pretty poor performance and a lucky win too though.

 

[Rooney24]

Its shambles.

Sack him get new manager bounce and move on.

Then sack that one 12 months from now and get the next bounce.

I’m all in.

 

[erikcred]

It's wild because it should be obvious to anyone he at least had a massive say in transfers. But for some reason he is the first manager for whom excuses are made in this manner. Every other manager post SAF was held accountable for transfers, if anything the club was criticized for not backing them by giving them money and freedom to spend. But with Ten Hag people are pretending the club did him a disservice by letting him have control over transfers and handing him over 400 million. Somehow taking all that away from him and giving him players he doesn't want will make him perform well, even though he can't coach his own signings or the other players that he has at his disposal.

He's evidently an excellent manager and at the same time, it's the club's fault for trusting him when he wants a player, because once upon a time, Salah was not Klopp's top target years ago.

That's the kind of mental gymnastics going on.

 

[Gordon Godot]

It's wild because it should be obvious to anyone he at least had a massive say in transfers. But for some reason he is the first manager for whom excuses are made in this manner. Every other manager post SAF was held accountable for transfers, if anything the club was criticized for not backing them by giving them money and freedom to spend. But with Ten Hag people are pretending the club did him a disservice by letting him have control over transfers and handing him over 400 million. Somehow taking all that away from him and giving him players he doesn't want will make him perform well, even though he can't coach his own signings or the other players that he has at his disposal.

This is why I want him gone, arrogant and out of his depth. So many red flags, it started when he refused to meet Rangnick, a highly respected coach who knew the issues with the squad and could recommend players from across Europe. But ETH had his knowledge of the Dutch league, so ignored him. Then not only signing Weghorst but playing him regularly. First as a forward and when it became painfully apparent he was useless up front he deployed him as a kind of Fellani to hold the ball up, but laughably he couldnt head or control the ball either. Remember he played Weghorst over Elanga, who he then sold to fund £80m on Antony, absolute awful player with no top level attributes, literally none.

It continues with Olana, Mount, Amrabat. His signings are woeful. Then not only awful tactics that are exposed every match, but terrible subs and no sign of any player improving.

Anyone who says give this idiot more time is a fool. We are in an even worse state than when he joined given his signings and woeful football. Our of Europe and out of top 4.

 

[erikcred]

I don’t think we deserved more than what we got at Liverpool. We had the best chance of the game but they did batter us throughout 90 minutes straight. We had 20-25 good minutes at Spurs but second half was just them playing out there, and at Arsenal we handed the game over to them and sat back for 90 mins (much like Anfield) but were slightly unlucky in not having Garnacho’s goal count.

With better luck we maybe get 2-4 points more here but I don’t feel particularly hard done by any of these games as we were clearly the inferior team in each of them.

Wolves, Everton, Fulham are three games were our opponents easily got better chances but failed to score, while we were evenly matched by Burnley and Sheffield as those games could have gone either way. Then you have three miracle comebacks against Villa, Forest and Brentford with Brentford in particular being extremely lucky. The only games where we genuinely felt comfortable and won this season were Chelsea and Luton at home.

We are a mid table side playing mid table football but actually quite lucky to be getting mid table results as I don’t think we would feel particularly hard done if we had 9-12 points less than we do at this point.

ETH fans here have pointed as our points tally back in early December and mocking everyone that thought we were underwhelming / performing badly but our results have aligned with the quality of our play recently and we will soon be where we ought to be. We are now 3 points ahead of Wolves, 6 ahead of Bournemouth with two games in hand, will probably soon fall behind Brighton, Chelsea and Newcastle and are already more than 10 points adrift from top 4 which will only grow. In the meantime ETH fanatics will just keep on believing it’s just injuries / players failing on purpose to get him sacked / referees / owners preventing us from executing his master plan.

That story's already changing through telling and retelling.

Saw someone on here yesterday saying that the Spurs performance was the best first half he's seen since SAF retired.

 

[ColvaleGoa]

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[DomesticTadpole]

INEOS Should sack in the morning if they want to show they mean business.

Not got control yet though, so can they make that decision and we know the brains trust in control at the moment will dither.

 

[DWelbz19]

Even if this is true, and it very well could be, you create better contingencies ’in the event of’ than a proven failure whose biggest weakness of all is tracking runners and reading the midfield battle in terms of preemptive positioning.

Every time there’s reasoning as to why something is/is not, the counter to it makes it even worse regarding ten Hag.

Such a letdown vis-a-vis what I thought we were getting.

We got duped. No “modern manager” worth their salt ends up in a position with the midfield make up with had last night.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Its shambles.

Sack him get new manager bounce and move on.

Who would we even get at this stage of the season, any manager currently at a club is unlikely to want to jump ship at this point, and who are we looking at who is out of work, Lopetgui, Potter, Conte, Ole, do we really want any of them?

So if we sack him then we'd probably just get an interim, and given the cost of doing that, and the fact it'd probably make very little difference to what we acheive this season then it doesn't make alot of sense to me.

To me unless it gets impossible then just keep Ten Hag until the end of the season, and if he can't turn it around, then a new manager with proper due diligence done by the new Ineos people in the summer please.

 

[RedUnited86]

I keep hearing him drone on about standards etc. What standards is he instilling when he's allowing the likes of Bruno, Antony, Rashford and Onana to get away with murder with their performances week in and week out.

It's time he fecked back off to the joker league he came from.

 

[AndySmith1990]

That story's already changing through telling and retelling.

Saw someone on here yesterday saying that the Spurs performance was the best first half he's seen since SAF retired.

It's called availability cascade bias. The more something is repeated, the more true it becomes. It happens a lot on forums where people are generally biased towards the subject of that particular forum

 

[Eugenius]

I don't think ETH should go. Even that team yesterday we were missing Licha, Shaw, Casemiro, Höjlund who would have all gone into the XI. Even maybe Mount you can say is a miss if he can find his Chelsea form.

We desperately need some oversight in recruitment though. We've been unlucky with injuries but our transfers this summer have been pretty awful. Onana has been worse than DDG so far, Amrabat is worse than Mainoo, Höjlund can't be our sole reliable #9, Mount completely threw off the midfield balance. And Antony has really caused us a big issue in terms of wingers, we are really lucky Garnacho came through.

 

[Its all gone Shane Long]

Goldbridge has fairly changed his mind this morning on ETH. Says he not changing his mind but is a realist.

 

[DWelbz19]

People are lying to themselves if they think we've been here before.

We've never been this bad before. We have 9 losses in 20 games. -5 GD. 22 goals scored in 20 goals. Our attacking metrics are up there with relegation teams. We have still not beaten a decent side away from home. Last in a relatively easy CL group. We've played well in like 3-4 games all season. We're an abject footballing side.

We have 14 losses in all competitions so far this season in only 28 or so games. The worst seasons of our other managers, we had like 15-16 losses in almost 50+ games.

Ten Hag has been backed more than any other manager and we've never been this bad. Anyone defending him is clearly a WUM at this point and I can't take their football viewpoint seriously.

I find it so weird that ten Hag is the one manager who’s been given this level of support by both the club and the fans. Away from what you mention in this post; he’s by far the most wooden, least charismatic, most dislikable manager we’ve had (bar Rangnick, probably) — he’s had the most public spats with the most players; spent the most money(?) etc…

Is it just a larger dissolving of club expectations in front of our eyes? Better treatment than genuine legends of football like Mourinho, a genuine club legend like Ole, a seasoned vet like van Gaal.

There’s virtually zero articles from the main writers about his tactical ineptitude, too. What am I missing?

 

[Pes6Monster]

"proper structure"

It just comes across as parody at this point. No one can be so naive

If the current structure at United represents 'proper' to you, it's you that is naive Andrew and indeed, a parody.

Nobody knows as yet how Ratcliffe's reorganisation will go, but it simply has to be better than the rancid shite we've endured since Fergie left. Only the most embittered ABU or pro-Qatar advocate could want it to fail.

 

[pocco]

INEOS not having full control of recruitment and the injury excuse will keep him in a job

Pretty sure there was a tweet about the agreement they have until they're ratified by the PL, in that they basically are in control and all football matters, including managerial sackings and appointments, must be carried out with their involvement. They've written an agreement to cover this actual scenario, they just need to take action.

 

[AndySmith1990]

If the current structure at United represents 'proper' to you, it's you that is naive Andrew and indeed, a parody.

Nobody knows as yet how Ratcliffe's reorganisation will go, but it simply has to be better than the rancid shite we've endured since Fergie left. Only the most embittered ABU or pro-Qatar advocate could want it to fail.

It's naive to think all of Ten Hag's shortcomings and failings will magically disappear by implementing "proper structure"

It's another bullshit narrative that is becoming repeated so often that naive people are certain it must be true, and the only reason Ten Hag isn't successful

 

[pocco]

I find it so weird that ten Hag is the one manager who’s been given this level of support by both the club and the fans. Away from what you mention in this post; he’s by far the most wooden, least charismatic, most dislikable manager we’ve had (bar Rangnick, probably) — he’s had the most public spats with the most players; spent the most money(?) etc…

Is it just a larger dissolving of club expectations in front of our eyes? Better treatment than genuine legends of football like Mourinho, a genuine club legend like Ole, a seasoned vet like van Gaal.

There’s virtually zero articles from the main writers about his tactical ineptitude, too. What am I missing?

I've been trying to figure this out too. It's so bad yet nobody wants to talk about it in the media - are they just bored? Perhaps they're enjoying it and don't want him sacked, and are waiting for the right time to stick the daggers in. Perhaps they know something we don't, that he'll only be sacked in the summer, and there's no point writing about it. I genuinely don't get what's happening right now, it's like we're in an alternative universe.

 

[Ricardo de la Vega]

It's naive to think all of Ten Hag's shortcomings and failings will magically disappear by implementing "proper structure"

It's another bullshit narrative that is becoming repeated so often that naive people are certain it must be true, and the only reason Ten Hag isn't successful

How do you know it's not the problem? How many coaches do you appoint and sack over ten, fifteen, twenty years before you say oh maybe there's a structural reason we are terrible?

 

[Fortitude]

We got duped. No “modern manager” worth their salt ends up in a position with the midfield make up with had last night.

Certainly feels more like we were sold the Brooklyn bridge than not. There are no excuses for continually making blunderous mistakes and having no contingencies to clean up your mess. He’s a joy for opposing managers to play against and worse still, they know he won’t react to their tactical amendments giving them ages to work on the exploits - there’s more certainty in us conceding in succession than turning games and the sheer predictability of that is a damning indictment.

He then compounds even that with his subs, which is why we get torched so often. Plug needs pulling because you’ll never ever get away with such limp tactical awareness in the PL; there’s not a single top coach who has been so unaware or ill prepared for this league. Not one. Which leads to the obvious conclusion that ten Hag doesn’t understand the league and its requirements.

 

[spiriticon]

Does anybody in the new and improved proper footballing structure have a veto on Ten Hag when he decides to play McT in midfield one more time?

We need that veto.

In fact, his whole team sheet should be quality checked by the DOF before it goes to the FA each match.