It's just crazy to me that people want to change everything at the club from the ground up. The players, the coaching staff, the CEO, the entire structure from top to bottom but specifically not the manager. They insist he would do better under "proper structure" but judging by the other thread on whether ETH should have a say on INEOS transfers, apparantly the answer to that is "yes" as well. So he's not to blame for transfers but should also still have a say. Sounds like a great job to me. I don't believe there's a fanbase that obsesses that much over a manager like we do.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Good post, interesting perspective too.
My only addition would be ETH has an ego, and he has to take responsibility for management of this squad. He always provides an answer, but rarely takes full responsibility.
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Given you have seen the best of Ten Hag at Ajax, can you explain why he has been not able to have any long last imprint on the football we play? There are no discernible passing patterns and any no defensive solidity. I am shocked at how poor we are positionally during different phases of play. Given he got Ajax teams to play attractive football with defensive stubbornness, what in your opinion has gone wrong? Or is Man United too big a step up for him?
I don't think it's about the patience of the fans or the manager's ability, concerning transfers.
What made Fergie massively successful was the ability to identify talent. We were NEVER a club going for galactico signings. Maybe 1 big signing from time to time, like RVN, Berba, RVP etc..
But he would find incredible youngsters and turn them into superstars.
Nowadays we are complete and utter clowns. Actually the only Fergie style transfers we did in the last 10 years, were Dan James, Pellistri and Amad in the Ole era. Every transfer window we are going after some insane targets, breaking the bank in the process. Di Maria, Depay, Pogba, Lukaku, Antony.... We never seem to be able to get a great PL player on a cheap and develop him.
We overpay so much and we just don't know what we are doing and it shows.
Actually in the current market it's mental that we somehow missed for example, Dominic Solanke, and we are not even after him. Or Joao Pedro. We are linked with Timo fecking Werner.
It surely can't be all on managers. The club is shambles and INEOS has to fix that in the first place, before we proceed with any rebuilding.
What made Fergie massively successful was the ability to identify talent. We were NEVER a club going for galactico signings. Maybe 1 big signing from time to time, like RVN, Berba, RVP etc..
But he would find incredible youngsters and turn them into superstars.
Nowadays we are complete and utter clowns. Actually the only Fergie style transfers we did in the last 10 years, were Dan James, Pellistri and Amad in the Ole era. Every transfer window we are going after some insane targets, breaking the bank in the process. Di Maria, Depay, Pogba, Lukaku, Antony.... We never seem to be able to get a great PL player on a cheap and develop him.
We overpay so much and we just don't know what we are doing and it shows.
Actually in the current market it's mental that we somehow missed for example, Dominic Solanke, and we are not even after him. Or Joao Pedro. We are linked with Timo fecking Werner.
It surely can't be all on managers. The club is shambles and INEOS has to fix that in the first place, before we proceed with any rebuilding.
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Non popular opinion, but I would not mind Potter. A very good coach that plays extremely sophisticated football. On the other hand, he probably does not have that extra factor to win titles, and definitely cannot handle egos.
As long as the idea is to bring lots of young players with high potential, while selling/releasing our players especially those that are getting old and those on high salaries, I wouldn’t mind Potter for a couple of years. Likely would not win us the league but if we bring back the God himself, Sir Alex Ferguson, we won’t win the league in the next two seasons. However, he can definitely coach.
He wouldn’t be my first choice, but I think he is an acceptable choice.
I think that would suit ETH perfectly. No need to change. But in order to do that, the squad needs to be savaged and we need to invest in a long-term strategy. I'd fear more that changing managers during the season would mean more of the same. January is a perfect test for the new football executives (even if they've not been ratified) to start booting out some players. We are carrying too big a squad for such a light load of games and we've got plenty returning from injury this month.
Potter is a good manager, potentially a top one.
A couple of injuries to key players at Manchester City and they look average at best, we have the vast majority of our starting 11 out with long term injuries and people are surprised we're shit this season, bit weird.
Alarming lack of patience really, Arteta most recently is a prime example. Sorting us out is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster and it's going to take time to get a proper foundation in place for any manager to succeed.
Alarming lack of patience really, Arteta most recently is a prime example. Sorting us out is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster and it's going to take time to get a proper foundation in place for any manager to succeed.
It's a fair point but doesn't account for his awful judge of players and inability to really improve any of the players during his time. And therefore the question is: why would you continue to give him money to spend on trash. And if a recruitment team found a gem for him, can he be trusted to get the best out of it.
Presenting the above as facts doesn't make them facts.
2 weeks with these players, and Graham would be potted. They'd eat him alive.
You're missing the point. It's pointless to go into a debate about individual players, if you'd asked the same question towards the end of last season the answer would be completely different. We're struggling badly with injuries, to the point where Johnny fecking Evans is one of our most important defenders. We essentially have no central midfield and our attempts to sort it out resorted in a desperate loan deal for Amrabat, followed by long term injuries to our remaining midfielders to the point where McTominay, someone we hoped to sell, became a key player. New league to settle into in terms of how you approach matches, an inherited mess beyond repair where there's no real foundation for managers work on, poor players on long term contracts with high wages, injury crisis.
Potter went from a well functioning club to a dysfunctional Chelsea, that ended well didn't it? Pochettino doing wonders? Yet some seemingly expect the fecker to walk into the club and transform it in a positive direction, an even bigger mess than Chelsea. Probably the same people that thought it'd be a brilliant idea to hire Rodgers before Leicester crashed.
The answer here should be fairly obvious, back the manager. People underestimate the importance of well functioning systems and the effect it has on both managers and players, like Caicedo struggling at Chelsea vs Kante being a midfield on his own. If Ten Hag is unwilling to work in the structure that INEOS wants, ala Rodgers at Liverpool, then obviously that's it.
I'm not missing the point. I originally said that despite the injuries he has still made awful signings and failed to improve existing players.
You then questioned that but refused to give examples of good transfers (in other words why he should be trusted with more money) or where he has improved players (hence why he should stay).
I agree that players need functioning systems. But your argument seems to absolve him of responsibility for creating this. I would argue it is his primary role and even with last seasons results many people feel he has failed to get us working cohesively and functioning as a unit.
There are bigger systemic problems at United and changing him won’t solve everything we know that. But nevertheless he is one of the main problems we should address.
Yep. I feel like Chelsea and United have a lot in common at the moment.
I wish we looked that average. Their average is better than our best. 20 games, 22 goals. Even when we win it looks like shite. Two reasons to get rid of ETH:
1. Last year we scored 58 goals in the EPL (1.53 per game), fewest of the top-6, 30 less than Arsenal who finished 2nd and allowed the same number of goals (43). This year we are WORSE (1.1 per game). Most of our injuries are on defense, so that's not an excuse.
2. The offensive players signed by ETH SUCK:
Antony 95m Euros, 0 goals or assists this season.
Hojlund 74m Euros, 1 goal, 0 assists this season
Mount 64m Euros 0 goals or assists this season
Weghorst (Loan last season) 0 goals in 17 PL games 2 goals in 31 appearances
I don't know what his talent is but it is certainly NOT as an offensive tactician.
I stopped watching back in November because as I said, even when we win, it's disgusting to watch.
Feel like that's exactly what Chelsea were planning to do. It's unclear still if it'll pay off, they have a good core of young players growing together. Maybe when they peak in 2-3 years they'll dominate. But are we willing to endure 2-3 years of mediocrity as fans?
This is the FM / burn everything to the ground and start fresh way to build up the club again.
You’re clearly missing the point since you keep bringing up the same things. Again, if you’d asked the same questions about improvements and new signings last season, the answer would be different. It’s simple, this season we’re without a number of key players and even their backups are struggling with injuries, to the point where Johnny Evans has turned into a key defender for us. Johnny Evans. How on earth do you expect continued improvements in such a scenario where we don’t have a midfield or defence, where we have to rely on fringe players. But no, obviously it’s shit management that the rest of the players aren’t thriving in such an environment. It just doesn’t work like that. Is Antony a complete dud? Maybe, maybe not, a year from now the answer could easily be different to what it is today. The early days of Arteta at Arsenal, Potter at Brighton vs Potter at Chelsea, why things take time, yet you’ve decided that the manager, after 1,5 season at the club, is one of the main problems. Mental.
The poor performances didn't start this season, we've been going downhill since the League Cup final. ETH can't handle the job and needs to go.
Terrible comment: Villa game tactics weren‘t going to work against Forrest, who like to sit deeper.
I kinda of Admire Ten Hag's insistence to play the way we have been trying to play for better part of this season despite it being a car crash of the season it would be fascinating to see if he would get rest of the season and if he can actually get it to work with some changes in form returning personnel going forward .
Just to add had he done this last season fan base might have been more receptive .
Since LC final we only had 3 decent games that I can remember.
2 x Chelsea, Aston Villa, all three at home. Less is say about our away form is better.
We endured 11 years of mediocrity, another 2-3 won’t kill us. In an ideal world, we probably wouldn’t need that and would spend huge immediately. But we have spent so much that we have no money left so there is no quick fix out of this mess.
After 1.5 years of EtH’s coaching, we are arguably the worst coached team in the league. While he might be a good coach, something has not been working between him and the squad.
Moyes inherited a miles better squad than we currently have. But no; not any manager can succeed in a club simply because the structure exists to do so. What I am suggesting is that it is impossible to judge ETH now because his squad is a mish-mash of former managers (who were also failed due to the systemic challenges) and overpaid wastes of space which Moyes didn't have - but started the trend of bringing in (at least we could get rid of Fellaini etc in the end - he'd probably be one of our better players now which shows how far we've fallen btw). If you just sack ETH you have exactly the same problem for the next manager in charge. As I keep saying, I wouldnt necessarily be against sacking ETH if we get a DOF in, a proper scouting system in place, and start to develop a playing mentality from academy level all the way up to first team, and if we sort out our wage structure so its possible to actually sell shite players rather than have them boss the dressing room because they have the security of tenure of a US college professor - if you put that in place and the guy fails, then of course, bring a new guy in. What I'm saying is dont set up the new guy to fail just as OGS and now ETH have been.
He should of started that on season one, identified the players who could play to his needs for the squad and got rid of everyone else, whilst our structure doesn’t help, our signings have been terrible and some of them head scratching for how we want to play football going forward.
Instead, year one he sacrificed his principles for pragmatism and this year we are a nothing team who can’t score, even if we have a fit squad I’m not sure how much better we would be.
Yeah it has been bad.
Not at all. He uses the personnel the next game in different positions while they had a great game (garnacho right wing). I get the tactics should be different thats not Einstein level. However breaking things regarding personnel is next level bs. Removing Manioo for Mctominay is bs. Especially when Mctominay is a dog turd player and even worse cm.
Players need to be played in positions on merit, not the loyalty to the manager.
Our best XI is probably:
Onana, Wan-Bissaka, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro, McTominay/Amrabat, Antony, Bruno, Rashford, Hojlund
We have Martinez, Shaw and Casemiro out. Even if we count Mount (who was actually a bench player when he was available), it is 4 players out but I definitely would not count Mount as he'd only make us worse and make our tactics even more suicidal than they already are by plugging him in midfield. 3 is not vast majority of 11.
Besides we had all of them available at the beginning of season when we were playing equally bad. All of them played against Wolves in our first game of season where anyone could notice the issues with our tactics, we were extremely lucky to come away with a 1-0 win which was not deserved at all. 3-1 loss to Brighton at home which could have easily been higher scoreline, Martinez and Casemiro were still with the team. The exact same issues have persisted throughout the season, injuries are not the reason why we have looked clueless and pretending Martinez and Casemiro returning will suddenly change our fortunes is delusional. We have looked as inept this season with them as we have looked without them.
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Mount is a better player than Antony. By some distance. If he can get match fit, get some games under his belt, he's a big improvement if played on the right.
Four players coming in who improve you is a big deal.
Not sure what Mount is but more of an AM than a wide player? Even though Antony is rubbish, replacing him with Mount would leave us even narrower and easier to contain?
Garnacho is a far better option than Antony. He had a blinder against Villa there and should be tried there going forward once Hojlund returned from illness.
I just don’t get it. He really looks out of ideas walking the sideline. And resigned to his fate.
Mount would not be in the team ahead of Antony. He would be there next to Casemiro if anything.
We had all those players available early in the season and were playing the same brand of suicidal, chaotic football and getting dominated by Wolves and others. It’s not a matter of injuries.
I agree but Garnacho has also been available all the time. Martial is our only forward who has been out for an extended period of time and I won’t even get into explaining why it doesn’t really matter.
The problem is quite a few people don't really see it this way. He might be a good coach but we're not really a well coached side.
This will have certain posters frotting at the mouth
