Antony is the only poor signing. Mount hasn’t played. Onana is a massive upgrade on De Gea and could easily play in a top team no problem.
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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Varane, Rashford, Dalot, Sancho, Maguire, Fernandes, Garnacho, Wan Bissaka and Shaw.
I'd say they're all good enough to be part of a title winning squad.
Going off the fact probably 90% of our signings since he arrived are either Dutch, former Ajax or former Ten Hag players.
Then basically Ten Hag is our recruitment team. He wanted control and he got it.
Sancho is a dud. Laughable that he's included, frankly. Big fish, small pond mentality.
Maguire is wholly unsuited to the style of football we want/would need to play. Similar for Wan-Bissaka. Both would be rarely used back-up options at best.
I can see the arguments for the others, but even then, Fernandes and Rashford regularly look abysmal in posession, and we simply can't afford that if we're to progress.
I'd have actually included Shaw, myself, although I'm tired of his constant injuries and his habit of playing shite for about two months every other year.
Just goes to show how incompetent we are to allow him go into his final contractual year. We should have tied him down for the long term by now.
Hold on there mate, you asked me a pretty generic question to be fair. You said which players were here in 2022 that a manager could make use of in a title winning squad.
All the players listed circa 2022 I reckon would have been universally regarded as good enough to play for a manager (with an unspecified style) as part of a title winning squad.
Shouldn't be too difficult for us to find some title winning clubs to sell some of them to then
They didn’t score goals under Potter though, and neither did Chelsea.
Rashford is one of the players who need to go. I have him on my shirt but we need to lead the clearout with him. No time for sentimentality. He's not putting in the effort, so get someone that will. Until that happens all managers will have the same issues. Players throwing them under the bus.
In the context of the players Klopp had from the squad he inherited, which you (and/or others) seem to be trying to serious downplay the strength of in comparison to the squad Ten Hag inherited.
If we go that route, their 2018/19 squad had Firmino, Henderson, Milner, Alexander-Arnold, Sturridge, Gomez, Lovren, Lallana and Origi from the squad he inherited, all making double figure appearances in the league. That's before we consider that they released Can the summer of 2018, who went on to play 29 games as Juventus won Serie A, and had previously sold Coutinho, who went on to win three league titles and a Champions League with Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Even fecking Lucas won a Coppa Italia with Lazio, and played 30 games in a season that they finished 5 points off the top of Serie A, after leaving Liverpool.
if the bar is now "good enough to play for a manager (with an unspecified style) as part of a title winning squad" then the number Klopp inherited is at least 12.
Sounds good, as long as we go direct when it is the best option.
Sooooo…… how you gonna change things so that we play more attractive football and get more points than Ten Hag with this squad?
I don't see it unfortunately, especially with the bolded players. Other than Varane and Fernandes, i don't think any of the players have ever actually experienced a proper title challenge in their entire careers. Maybe Sancho did at Dortmund at some point? I can't remember.
I think sometimes we as fans got a bit carried away with our second place finishes because we really just won the battle for the best of the rest and finished miles behind City on both occasions. It's depressing to think we haven't had a proper title challenge in over ten years.
Nope. It happens all the time and it's not weird at all. Big clubs in England has been doing. Bayern has been doing it .
I’d settle for just winning and controlling games but then again I’m kind of old fashioned like that.
Sure I have no issue with that. Realistically it would look pretty similar to how we played last season, which would probably be much better considering you are subbing in Hojlund/Garnacho/Mainoo/Onana for Weghorst/Antony/Eriksen/De Gea. Our biggest issues last year were that we were incredibly toothless in final third outside of Rashford, and we couldn't distribute/build from the back with De Gea against the best pressing teams. I've abandoned hope of "progress" in a modern footballing sense at this point but christ I'd at least like to see some adjustments made (or even attempted really). Continuing with the suicidal pressing structure for the sake of it would just further my belief that Ten Hag isn't the guy going forward.
Winning games, yes. I think we're going to struggle to control many games with the players we've had available this season.
It's been evident for a while that we haven't got the personnel for anything too technical, high-intensity, or that requires a high-line, so I'm not sure we hasn't (at least on a temporary basis), allowed the players to just sit a bit deeper, because we've absolutely had the personnel to win, and often, with a more counter-attacking focused tactic.
As it is, he's settled on some bizarre hybrid of that and his preferred system, and all its managed to do is emphasise the weaknesses.
I think of "control" as having control of the game state, not necessarily suffocating a team high and hoarding possession. You can control games even out of possession if you are completely nullifying threats and then showing intent and creating danger when you do regain possession. Obviously being able to do a City and just choke a team out around their own box is the simplest way to control the game, just saying I don't think of that style as the only one.
In that case I'd agree, but given the mention of "22 shots" in a previous post, I'm not entirely sure crossy meant that.
How are you gonna win and control the games with these players?
Doesn't want to play for him for some reason. But don't forget Rashford was the main reason ETH had a better first season last year.
I don't want a player that picks and chooses which managers he plays for or that will only play well when the mood around the club is good.
I am ready to contribute £1 of this 10M
You set that bar mate, not me.
For context I was answering a hypothetical question mate. You don't think those players are good enough to be members of a title winning squad?
As I've asked you before, can you even keep track of what you're actually saying?
I literally asked the question in response to you saying Klopp had only kept on Henderson:
If you haven't managed to infer the obvious context of the question, that's your problem, not mine.
Can you mate? You posed the question I asnwered it.
Didn't you get upset at an oposition fan yesterday because you thought they were interjecting themselves into others conversations and derailing the thread quoting people about things irrelevant to the discussion?
Personally I’m ok with EtH staying another season. But I can see both sides, and understand why people might prefer a new manager for 24/25.
But if he does stay, only having one year left on his contract, would no doubt become a rolling story which will be dragged into every press conference. Which is not ideal!
But if he does stay, only having one year left on his contract, would no doubt become a rolling story which will be dragged into every press conference. Which is not ideal!
The context of the question was evident.
I responded to you saying Klopp only really inherited Henderson by asking that question.
Did you not think your own statement was relevant?
Are you pretending to be thick? I was asking a question not making a statement.
The bolded part was me genuinely asking, which is why I thanked you for your reply. That should have been the end of the discussion but here we are.
I'll be the devil's advocate here and talk about some positives I see from ETH. That's not saying I am supportive of him staying on though.
Under previous managers, I feel that the United team had grown to become a really lazy team. Unwilling to press and run back to cover, jogging around the field team. ETH has demanded more from the players and this laziness seems to be wearing off. Some players have been unable to keep up with his demands and some probably got injured from it. However, when you look at city and Liverpool play, their players ran like they will never run out of energy. Perhaps he has the right strategy but players are just currently not up to it?
Under previous managers, I feel that the United team had grown to become a really lazy team. Unwilling to press and run back to cover, jogging around the field team. ETH has demanded more from the players and this laziness seems to be wearing off. Some players have been unable to keep up with his demands and some probably got injured from it. However, when you look at city and Liverpool play, their players ran like they will never run out of energy. Perhaps he has the right strategy but players are just currently not up to it?
Is context really that lost on you?
Your response to that was, "not many" which is why I asked what I asked.
Yes. For him I can vouch for that.
I'm not sure why he's tried to drag you into it, other than to deflect from his own daft line of argument.
We settled things fine, as far as I'm concerned.
I ask a question, you give me a list of 4-5 names, I say thanks and not many. Maybe you consider 5 a lot, I don't know or care.
What fecking argument?
What are you talking about?
Onana is not a massive upgrade on De Gea. He may have improved in recent weeks but his flaws are still there particularly how slow he reacts to any shot on target.
Again, is context really that lost on you?
You were quite obviously trying to argue that Klopp inherited a squad full of duds, while Ten Hag didn't.
You said "Henderson, who else?" in attempt to emphasise that point, and I gave you an additional list of players.
You then tried to downplay that by saying "not many" so I asked (and given exact phrasing is so important to you) how many of the squad Ten Hag inherited would play a significant role in a title challenging/CL winning team.
After asking you to list the "8-10" you claimed, because I suspected you were including Lovren/Lallana/Sturridge level players (Sturridge, who you'd already derided as a "busted flush"), you gave me a list that included Wan-Bissaka, Maguire and Sancho.
It is so painfully obvious that you were trying to overstate the quality of the squad inherited by Ten Hag while severely downplaying the quality of the squad inherited by Klopp. It's also painfully obvious that this "oh, I was just responding genuinely" schtick is an attempt at deflecting from the stupid argument you were making.
I get it, you want Ten Hag sacked. I also don't want him here next season, but let's not resort to making shit up, especially not when it paints that gurning prick at Anfield in a better light.
Is the context of my own posts lost on me?
The context you've derived from them definitely is.That's the second time you've asked this mate, I would have thought my last reply would give you pause for thought. What's more likely mate that I don't know what I'm thinking when I make a post or maybe, just maybe you've read a quick several word post that someone made and have assumed context that isn't there?
Reread the conversation, this time take my posts at face value and assume there's no hidden nefarious context.
By naming 8 players that I said could be good enough to be members of a title winning squad? What? Downplaying Liverpools by replying to your list of 5 with 'not many'. Again what?
This is genuinely one of the most baffling conversations I've had on here in a decade.
Listen mate, you've misinterpreted my posts, let's move on. I would rather drink a pint of Dettol than paint Weetabix teeth is any sort of positive light if I could avoid it.