Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[Borys]

But if we sat back like that every week and conceded the same low quality of shots that leaves 1 flukey goal a game on the table then that XG would leave us with one of the best defensive records in the league?

if you consider all games in which a team aggregated xG at the level of 1.6-1.8 (Luton had 1.7, but just to increase the sample size), then the average of goals scored is 2.1; in 8/23 there was less than one goal scored. It doesn't matter how many shots were taken, this will get lost in a bigger sample.

Are you willing to take that chance that you concede 2 goals (on average) every week? Not to mention we might expect to face stronger rivals than Luton Town.

Regarding the "flukey goal", that is exactly the issue I have with allowing so many crosses, shots, and possession - you will concede a lot of "flukey" goals, just because of the volume of attacks coming your way. They hit the bar yesterday and had one very good chance when they missed the goal completely, so it's not like they were lucky to score one goal.

 

[Berbaclass]

Luton xG per shot

Liverpool - 0.101 (8 shots)
United - 0.082 (22 shots)
Arsenal - 0.085 (6 shots)
City - 0.0825 (4 shots)

We didn't concede particularly dangerous chances, it was just sheer volume that saw them accumulate 1.82 xG

 

[cyberman]

1.8 xG against a relegation fodder is also terrible.

I’m not even sure that’s true.
There a lot of flip flopping on whats a good performance on here that seems to be based on if United have done it or not.
last week we were told Villa dominated us because they created so many openings and chances yet one week later we create a lot more clear cut chances than Villa did, actually win and we’re lucky and it’s not sustainable.
If we play like that every week then it is sustainable when the almighty XG is that much in our favour. How’s that not true?

 

[DJ_21]

Can we then stop crying about not getting one player that only a few people are naiive to think would solve our problems? We didn't get De Jong, Eric has to make it work with what we have.
It's funny people moan about Casemiro, and yet he was one of the main reasons behind last season success and he actually gave ETH a lot of breathing space.

Seriously, some people actually think we have a "relegation zone" squad and ETH is working wonders with them getting a 2-1 win against Luton. Again, we are winning the games we should be winning (with or without Martinez), we just make it look difficult.

Don’t disagree with your past paragraph. I just think people moan for the sake of it. We win and people still moan. There’s games where we should have won based on perches but didn’t and then there’s games we win when the performance wasn’t that good. That’s just part of football people need to grow up and accept it. We’ve done the double over villa and Luton. Luton we should have but Villa are a difficult team as city will tell you. People still moaned about winning them and wolves away which is 2 tricky games away from home when we couldn’t even buy an away win at one point.

 

[DJ_21]

I think part of the problem, actually his biggest problem, is that he too often got exactly who he wanted.

Unless we truly believe that a football team needs Frenkie De Jong to play well.

That’s not what I’m saying. But Casemiro and De Jong have 2 completely different styles so ETH might have had to adapt his style due to it. Now we have a structure in place that will only sign players for a certain style and get rid of players who don’t give everything.

 

[cyberman]

if you consider all games in which a team aggregated xG at the level of 1.6-1.8 (Luton had 1.7, but just to increase the sample size), then the average of goals scored is 2.1; in 8/23 there was less than one goal scored. It doesn't matter how many shots were taken, this will get lost in a bigger sample.

Are you willing to take that chance that you concede 2 goals (on average) every week? Not to mention we might expect to face stronger rivals than Luton Town.

Regarding the "flukey goal", that is exactly the issue I have with allowing so many crosses, shots, and possession - you will concede a lot of "flukey" goals, just because of the volume of attacks coming your way. They hit the bar yesterday and had one very good chance when they missed the goal completely, so it's not like they were lucky to score one goal.

Liverpools top with 32xg against in 25 games. I’d say we’d be ok, especially if it opens up the space for our attack if our goal scoring output since the new year is anything to go by?

 

[Sarni]

I didn‘t watch the highlights of those games, but it is hard to imagine anyone getting more 1v1 opportunities than we did yesterday.

This is also what I pointed to, we found a way to create way more opportunities playing like this, which is actually great because we are utilizing our attackers' strengths to a larger degree. I don't think we were particularly good at that earlier in the season, also because you cannot really play that kind of football with a winger like Antony.

Thing is, it works when the other team is more open because they are chasing the score like yesterday, or trying to win like Villa the week before. However, once you concede from one of those chances you give away, it's going to be a struggle.

 

[Sarni]

I’m not even sure that’s true.
There a lot of flip flopping on whats a good performance on here that seems to be based on if United have done it or not.
last week we were told Villa dominated us because they created so many openings and chances yet one week later we create a lot more clear cut chances than Villa did, actually win and we’re lucky and it’s not sustainable.
If we play like that every week then it is sustainable when the almighty XG is that much in our favour. How’s that not true?

We were very lucky against Villa, they had enough chances to kill the game.

I don't think we were lucky yesterday, we deserved the win, it's just that I don't like the fact that even under these circumstances (being gifted two quick goals) we cannot calm the game and just see it out like any top side should. That's been a perennial issue, even in recent wins it was the case in every single one of them - the only one where I felt we knew what we were doing was vs West Ham and even then we allowed Palmieri two brilliant chances.

No team is ever going to win the league playing like this, but it's perfectly possible that we can get to 65-70 points and finish around top 4.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

I see XG is never mentioned when it’s in our favour but
1.8 v 2.98 is sustainable and if we do play like that every game we will win a lot more games.
20 this, 20 that. The number is 4. 4 shots on target against us

It's really not. City and Liverpool, the top teams in England, average around two expected goals per game, which, all things considered, is an exceptional number. Furthermore, City, who are undoubtedly the strongest team in Europe under Pep, usually have an xGDiff close to 1. When you think about it, that throughout the course of 38 PL games the chances they create are steadily "worth" close to one goal more than the ones they concede, it's a clear show of dominance.

So, no, we won't be averaging 3 expected goals per game anytime soon. And to give you a hint as to where we find ourselves this season, Opta has us at 1.32xG and 1.69xgA after 25 games. In order to win the league, you need >1.80xG and <1.25xGA. These averages can't be fixed with a snap of the fingers.

I read something interesting, though, about the risks we're taking under ETH. Although both the attacking and the defensive stats need to be improved, when we go out on the pitch with an aim to do better in the attacking half, it has a negative effect on our (already bad) defensive part of the game. Similarly, when we manage to be more compact, our offensive stats have a tendency to plummet below our averages. Which is the marking of a bad football side.

 

[Sarni]

Liverpools top with 32xg against in 25 games. I’d say we’d be ok, especially if it opens up the space for our attack if our goal scoring output since the new year is anything to go by?

Liverpool have double the amount xG scored vs xG conceded. We have fewer xG scored than xG conceded, and not by a small margin.

It's also possible to recognize the improvement (on the attacking end) whilst admitting that the issues that have been present since start of season are still there, and over the long term they will prevent us from being a top team.

 

[cyberman]

It's really not. City and Liverpool, the top teams in England, average around two expected goals per game, which, all things considered, is an exceptional number. Furthermore, City, who are undoubtedly the strongest team in Europe under Pep, usually have an xGDiff close to 1. When you think about it, that throughout the course of 38 PL games the chances they create are steadily "worth" close to one goal more than the ones they concede, it's a clear show of dominance.

So, no, we won't be averaging 3 expected goals per game anytime soon. And to give you a hint as to where we find ourselves this season, Opta has us at 1.32xG and 1.69xgA after 25 games. In order to win the league, you need >1.80xG and <1.25xGA. These averages can't be fixed with a snap of the fingers.

I read something interesting, though, about the risks we're taking under ETH. Although both the attacking and the defensive stats need to be improved, when we go out on the pitch with an aim to do better in the attacking half, it has a negative effect on our (already bad) defensive part of the game. Similarly, when we manage to be more compact, our offensive stats have a tendency to plummet below our averages. Which is the marking of a bad football side.

But the debate is if yesterday was sustainable so both numbers should be constant over the rest of the season?

 

[Marwood]

It's really simple. If you want to win trophies you have to control the ball the majority of the time.

No stats can get us away from that or somehow get us around it.

ETH will know this and to be fair its not like he's got lots of options to improve it.

 

[December_16]

Theres an awful lot of wrong in this post, but its down to your starting point of "if people dont want ETH sacked, then they are supporting the manager over what the club needs and have low standards". This is why you cant understand why some people arent gunning for his head. I dont know how many times it has to be explained to you, but people have been holding off on ETH because theres been alot going on thats been making his job harder. You can choose to ignore it all and say its "excuses" but its nothing to do with standards, its to do with factoring all the information about our season, not just "look at us in 6th , crap goaldifference, crap XG and/or crap possession and some of you think ETH is great".

I dont see anybody saying the football is great or acceptable. Why are you acting like you can see how much we have been struggling and acting like some fans are delighted with how we play ? You are obsessed with ETH, you are obsessed with him being sacked. After every game you are whining about him, thats obsession, being obsessed with the manager role. And then you project YOUR obsession about the manager on others, as if we are obsessed with keeping him. I am not obsessed with keeping him, I am just not obsessed with sacking him right now.

Ironically , one of the reasons some of us think ETH deserves a crack, at least until the end of the season, is because INEOs are coming in and giving him the kind of supports many of us have been calling out for our managers. Why are you mentioning INEOs ? Do you think they are going to run things better and give our managers a better chance to succeed ? Well doesnt that mean ETH has a better chance to succeed. Apparantly when he was at Ajax , things worked very well with ETH not having control over transfers. One could argue that when he Joined united there was no transfer board/professionals to help him target players (like every other united manager), so its not realy his fault. That said, Hoijland and Martinez havent looked bad, which is a better hit rate then any other manager since 2013.

But the gas thing is that I used to see alot of people say "Woodward/Arnold doesnt pick/coach the team". The Fellaini signing was the canary in the coalmine for me, ever since then our managers and our teams were on a hiding to nothing. The wasted money you are quoting is on the club, not on the manager. You cant think that "INEOs coming in is good" but at the same time think "Our managers keep wasting money", they are contradictory beliefs because the only reason our managers have wasted our budgets is because theres no structure in place and no good people to negiate signings. But this also get to the core of your problem. You think the manager is responsible for most of the issues, a modern day manager should only have to deal with the squad he has and the clubs responsibility is to manage that squad, including squad balance and players in/out . ETH is a coach, not a football manager like Barry Fry. ETH having to get involved as much as he has in transfers is a failure on the club, not a failure on his part. There was no transfer board/people to override him, thats not his fault, it was Arnold/Woodwards fault for not having a proper infrastructure in the first place.

And stop talking like you are seeing something nobody isnt. Everybody can see how we are playing. Everybody can see its been a poor season. ETH is not above criticism and our football hasnt been perfect. But we have explained ad nauseum why we think ETH may be able to bring it back and you keep making inncucurate statements that are basically " I have standards, you dont". No you dont, you want the manager sacked and cant understand why many fans arent as eager as you. Its that simple. For whatever reason, INEOs arent sacking him yet, so if you trust they are bringing in higher standards, you have to trust they have a plan with him and shouldnt be whining after every win.

I have no problem with somebody who thinks ETH should be sacked and is not gonna make it. Just sick of the ones who are relentlessly whiny about it.

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.

 

[stefan92]

But the debate is if yesterday was sustainable so both numbers should be constant over the rest of the season?

If you get the same numbers all the time, it would be fine. It would actually be very entertaining, when the average result would be someting like a 4-2 win.

However I also do think, that this is very unsustainable. If you allow a team as bad as Luton to have that many chances, how many would a better team have?

A win is a win, but there is still a lot of work to do to stabilize and improve the defence.

 

[roonster09]

It's really simple. If you want to win trophies you have to control the ball the majority of the time.

No stats can get us away from that or somehow get us around it.

ETH will know this and to be fair its not like he's got lots of options to improve it.

Yeah, I don't remember us controlling game for months now. It near impossible to progress as a team if you can't control any game.

We are 10th in possession stats, 4th worst in shots conceded. We have to improve big time at all phases of the game to become a good team.

 

[Who's Kissing Cameras?]

playing like we did yesterday is 100% sustainable.

 

[BorisManUtd]

It's really not. City and Liverpool, the top teams in England, average around two expected goals per game, which, all things considered, is an exceptional number. Furthermore, City, who are undoubtedly the strongest team in Europe under Pep, usually have an xGDiff close to 1. When you think about it, that throughout the course of 38 PL games the chances they create are steadily "worth" close to one goal more than the ones they concede, it's a clear show of dominance.

So, no, we won't be averaging 3 expected goals per game anytime soon. And to give you a hint as to where we find ourselves this season, Opta has us at 1.32xG and 1.69xgA after 25 games. In order to win the league, you need >1.80xG and <1.25xGA. These averages can't be fixed with a snap of the fingers.

I read something interesting, though, about the risks we're taking under ETH. Although both the attacking and the defensive stats need to be improved, when we go out on the pitch with an aim to do better in the attacking half, it has a negative effect on our (already bad) defensive part of the game. Similarly, when we manage to be more compact, our offensive stats have a tendency to plummet below our averages. Which is the marking of a bad football side.

I think this is also obvious just from watching our games this and last season. I have this stat (for some reason I can't put the image of it in this post) from early January 2023, where only Arsenal conceded less number 'big-chances' than United. However we all know how we struggled for goals last season while we mostly were compact. This season it looks like ten Hag's trying to improve our attacking play but there's been much more space left behind and we conceded so many chances. Last season I liked how we conceded small amount of not just chances, but shots. Of course completely different story this year.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

But the debate is if yesterday was sustainable so both numbers should be constant over the rest of the season?

What you're basically asking for is a miracle. When Liverpool and City historically average close to 2xG p/g, you can't expect United to keep creating chances worth close to 3xG p/g. It's an impossible bar to begin with. It becomes crazier when we're talking about an 1.5xG improvement on our current averages. These numbers don't change overnight. Also, as Borys is trying to explain, the quantity of the shots we concede is an important metric. First and foremost because it serves as a clear indicator that the ball is in our third of the pitch more time than it probably should. And, no, you can't expect to create anything even remotely sustainable when you concede chances worth close to two goals per game.

 

[Borys]

Don’t disagree with your past paragraph. I just think people moan for the sake of it. We win and people still moan. There’s games where we should have won based on perches but didn’t and then there’s games we win when the performance wasn’t that good. That’s just part of football people need to grow up and accept it. We’ve done the double over villa and Luton. Luton we should have but Villa are a difficult team as city will tell you. People still moaned about winning them and wolves away which is 2 tricky games away from home when we couldn’t even buy an away win at one point.

Is it really so surprising people care about the style of the win on a football forum? For me, the football we play is more important than the actual results. For example, if we make it top 4 because AC/Spurs drop off, and keep playing this terrible football with no control whatsoever, I would still want a new manager. On the flip side, if we finished 5th but with a clear direction and actual style that would be promising for the future, I would like the manager to be given more time.
There are games we should have won and didn't, there are games which we've won that we could've lost, our place in the table and goal difference tells the story of the season so far.

Liverpools top with 32xg against in 25 games. I’d say we’d be ok, especially if it opens up the space for our attack if our goal scoring output since the new year is anything to go by?

I don't trust our attack that much to be fair. Our attack is Hojlund and Garnacho at the moment, this is big ask to outscore every opponent.

 

[BelfastRed2021]

The state of some of our so called fans is mind boggling and embarassing time to drop the entitlement and actually support the team and manager for once

 

[Berbaclass]

Manchester United have already started planning for the summer transfer window with Erik ten Hag and John Murtough.

It is already highly unlikely that Dan Ashworth will be able to have any influence over the window. #MUFC [@RobDawsonESPN]

 

[NLunited]

It is actually totally possible to play tactics like yesterday every week and win the league IF THE PERFORMANCE IS MORE CONSISTENT.

I think Ten Hag is pissed we slacked off after going two goals up. Our pressing became ineffective because of it and we allowed them too much time on the ball.

The other part is that we did not punish them for their kamikaze tactics by being sloppy in playing through them and with finishing.

There still is a mentality issue in the squad that prevents us from maintaining performance levels during a game.

I think the tactics were spot on yesterday initially. One could argue Ten Hag should make changes after the 1-2, but the result and chances created were good.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

The state of some of our so called fans is mind boggling and embarassing time to drop the entitlement and actually support the team and manager for once

"People who criticize the manager aren't real fans"

 

[JJ12]

Hope Ten Hag stays

 

[DJ_21]

Is it really so surprising people care about the style of the win on a football forum? For me, the football we play is more important than the actual results. For example, if we make it top 4 because AC/Spurs drop off, and keep playing this terrible football with no control whatsoever, I would still want a new manager. On the flip side, if we finished 5th but with a clear direction and actual style that would be promising for the future, I would like the manager to be given more time.
There are games we should have won and didn't, there are games which we've won that we could've lost, our place in the table and goal difference tells the story of the season so far.

Fair enough. We all have our own views. I don’t think we’re playing as bad as Mourinho style or Oles last few months. We dominated first half against wolves away from home. Thought we played decent against villa and defended well… defended well against West Ham and scored some good goals. Our issue is keeping it up for 90 mins. Like against Luton we was 2 up in 7 mins. We should have scored at least 5 but instead we let them back in and made it a nervous game.

 

[bucky]

The shot count thing is overblown but the real concern should be how much of the ball they had in our half.

Considering they had few shots on target and barely troubled Onana beyond a lucky deflection it's not exactly damning nor are Luton the worst team in the league.

Quality of shots would worry me. If we conceded 20 big chances on the regular I’d be 100% Ten Hag out because clearly something isn’t working. But 20 shots for 1.75xg is 0.0875 per shot. Am I happy to average a less than 10% chance of scoring on an average shot against us? Yeah because it suggests sides are taking pot shots or half chances.

We are 17th for shots conceded per 90 minutes in the league, we have allowed the same amount of shots as Luton over the course of the season (with us having played one more game than them), we are 12th for xG against.

 

[Gordon Godot]

It is actually totally possible to play tactics like yesterday every week and win the league IF THE PERFORMANCE IS MORE CONSISTENT.

I think Ten Hag is pissed we slacked off after going two goals up. Our pressing became ineffective because of it and we allowed them too much time on the ball.

The other part is that we did not punish them for their kamikaze tactics by being sloppy in playing through them and with finishing.

There still is a mentality issue in the squad that prevents us from maintaining performance levels during a game.

I think the tactics were spot on yesterday initially. One could argue Ten Hag should make changes after the 1-2, but the result and chances created were good.

Its not, this is a silly post. No one is going to win the league playing like we did yesterday with the standards of the top teams these days. The game has moved on, the top teams will destroy you if cannot retain possession. Posts like this are embarrassing and why the debate becomes so polarized between the ETH in or out. We are miles away from the necessary standards, how anyone can watch the match yesterday and see that is beyond me. What does putting stuff in capitals mean? Our whole structure, tactics and coaching seem to be awful. It cannot always be about 'mentality', just another excuse for the manager. The question is why we cannot defend basic crosses and why we cant take the sting out of match when we are 2-0 up. It was exactly the same when we went ahead against Villa. Of course, a lot of that comes back to coaching, team shape and inability to retain the ball. Honestly, go away and watch some football and then post something more sensible.

 

[cyberman]

If you get the same numbers all the time, it would be fine. It would actually be very entertaining, when the average result would be someting like a 4-2 win.

However I also do think, that this is very unsustainable. If you allow a team as bad as Luton to have that many chances, how many would a better team have?

A win is a win, but there is still a lot of work to do to stabilize and improve the defence.

But they didn’t many chances, that’s the point? It’s just an accumulation of nothing shots since they found it so hard to get in behind us or even get at our back 4.
A team being shit at recycling the ball and taking pot shots is on Luton, not us

 

[cyberman]

What you're basically asking for is a miracle. When Liverpool and City historically average close to 2xG p/g, you can't expect United to keep creating chances worth close to 3xG p/g. It's an impossible bar to begin with. It becomes crazier when we're talking about an 1.5xG improvement on our current averages. These numbers don't change overnight. Also, as Borys is trying to explain, the quantity of the shots we concede is an important metric. First and foremost because it serves as a clear indicator that the ball is in our third of the pitch more time than it probably should. And, no, you can't expect to create anything even remotely sustainable when you concede chances worth close to two goals per game.

But it’s not a miracle?
Here’s my main gripe and I’ll leave it at that. 20 shots on goal isn’t 20 shots on goal. How many shots did we close down and block out yesterday? They’re still considered shots on goal but we haven’t let them through. If we’re blocking down shots what more can we do?
from 20 shots only 4 was on target. We’re seeing broad stats here without any context and we haven’t the proper data to make any sort of judgement
It’s just piss poor from Luton losing their heads when they came near our box

 

[Borys]

But it’s not a miracle?
Here’s my main gripe and I’ll leave it at that. 20 shots on goal isn’t 20 shots on goal. How many shots did we close down and block out yesterday? They’re still considered shots on goal but we haven’t let them through. If we’re blocking down shots what more can we do?
from 20 shots only 4 was on target. We’re seeing broad stats here without any context and we haven’t the proper data to make any sort of judgement
It’s just piss poor from Luton losing their heads when they came near our box

That's the whole point of having some control over the game. Sitting back and counter attacking is only a form of control if you don't allow the opposition any chances. We let them too close, and conceded many (low quality) chances that aggregated into a big xG number. Again, the average of goals scored with xG at the level of 1,7 is about 2, so you should expect to lose 2 goals and your attack needs to score 3+. This is why no serious team will play this way.

I would understand if this was a game vs a top dog, not a team one point above relegation zone.

Edit: leaving stats aside, I just don't trust our backline to fight for too many crosses and Onana is still a dodgy keeper for me. So I would very much like if we put some effort to limit the opposition chances.

 

[Gordon Godot]

But it’s not a miracle?
Here’s my main gripe and I’ll leave it at that. 20 shots on goal isn’t 20 shots on goal. How many shots did we close down and block out yesterday? They’re still considered shots on goal but we haven’t let them through. If we’re blocking down shots what more can we do?
from 20 shots only 4 was on target. We’re seeing broad stats here without any context and we haven’t the proper data to make any sort of judgement
It’s just piss poor from Luton losing their heads when they came near our box

And what exactly is the point here? It was still a match that was low in quality with both teams surrendering possession and Luton were able to pin us back for periods whilst we could exert little if any control. So that's OK? Too many of these arguments are futile. There are plenty of matches like Villa where they created dangerous situations but a poor pass or last minute interception meant no actual shot so no XG, but we were still very vulnerable.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

But it’s not a miracle?
Here’s my main gripe and I’ll leave it at that. 20 shots on goal isn’t 20 shots on goal. How many shots did we close down and block out yesterday? They’re still considered shots on goal but we haven’t let them through. If we’re blocking down shots what more can we do?
from 20 shots only 4 was on target. We’re seeing broad stats here without any context and we haven’t the proper data to make any sort of judgement
It’s just piss poor from Luton losing their heads when they came near our box

Try playing games in which you'll constantly be allowing 20 shots p/g against the top half of the table and see where it will take you and whether it's sustainable or not. How many away wins has ETH against sides in the top-half of the table during his time here, again?

 

[cyberman]

And what exactly is the point here? It was still a match that was low in quality with both teams surrendering possession and Luton were able to pin us back for periods whilst we could exert little if any control. So that's OK? Too many of these arguments are futile. There are plenty of matches like Villa where they created dangerous situations but a poor pass or last minute interception meant no actual shot so no XG, but we were still very vulnerable.

If we’re getting to shots and blocking them then what more can we do? How’s that not good defending?
There should be a separate stat of a shot either being saved or going over the byline. Thats shots getting away from us to even suggest some sort of starting point.
We could have closed down every shot yesterday, block all 20 shots from even entering the box yet the stat would still read 20 shots on goal. It doesn’t show us anything in terms of the quality of a teams defending

 

[cyberman]

Try playing games in which you'll constantly be allowing 20 shots p/g against the top half of the table and see where it will take you and whether it's sustainable or not. How many away wins has ETH against sides in the top-half of the table during his time here, again?

So you think a top half team not getting a clear shot on goal is a bad thing now?
Name me any team who has a good record v top teams away from home. Here’s a fun thing for you to do, check out Peps over the last 18 months.
It’ll shock you

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

And what exactly is the point here? It was still a match that was low in quality with both teams surrendering possession and Luton were able to pin us back for periods whilst we could exert little if any control. So that's OK? Too many of these arguments are futile. There are plenty of matches like Villa where they created dangerous situations but a poor pass or last minute interception meant no actual shot so no XG, but we were still very vulnerable.

Yeah it feels like people aren’t factoring in that we played fecking Luton Town and are acting like we just beat Spurs in an end to end contest.

It shouldn’t be rocket science that conceding a ton of shots, xG, territory, and overall control of possession isn’t a sustainable way to play every match. We aren’t Mourinho’s Chelsea where we are impossible to break down and just wear teams down before striking quickly. Our settled defending relies loads on Varane in particular still being one of the best box defenders in the world, and we have a poor shot stopper behind them in net.

 

[city-puma]

People here have become truly crazy and nonsensical. Luton had 22 shots! They had more possession! They are 17th!
Talking about how the other top teams found it difficult there, is pure stupid! Go check out their stats in those games. Luton had mid single digit number of shots and small portion of possession in those games.
Our play is completely unsustainable.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

So you think a top half team not getting a clear shot on goal is a bad thing now?
Name me any team who has a good record v top teams away from home. Here’s a fun thing for you to do, check out Peps over the last 18 months.
It’ll shock you

There’s a large gulf between a “good” record and an abysmal one like we have. And citing Pep as an example really isn’t the best choice

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Liverpool have double the amount xG scored vs xG conceded. We have fewer xG scored than xG conceded, and not by a small margin.

It's also possible to recognize the improvement (on the attacking end) whilst admitting that the issues that have been present since start of season are still there, and over the long term they will prevent us from being a top team.

Regarding our low xG scored, I haven't dug into the data, but from watching us play I'd hypothesize it's driven by our unwillingness to shoot rather than by a lack of chance creation. Too many times we get into good scoring positions and try something cute like a couple extra touches or an unnecessary pass instead of just pulling the trigger.

This isn't meant to refute anything you've said, by the way - just an observation I wanted to bring up.

 

[city-puma]

The question should be which players to add can make this system work?
A new RCB and a midfield runner? Or, maybe it will never work at all in this league?

 

[horsechoker]

Another problem ten Hag has is he can't drop players for stupid decisions on the pitch because most of our back ups aren't good enough. I'd drop Casemiro for nearly getting sent off and randomly trying to score from his own half thus turning over the ball.



But who else can we put there that isn't a big drop off in quality?

Our backs up at LB are a drastic decrease in quality to compared to Shaw. We shouldn't have needed to rush him back.