ETH on United philosophy: “Built a side to play direct football”… “Impossible to play like Ajax”

[Velvet Revolver]

We will never have. Every manager we hire falls into the trap of United way shite

it's crazy. Even Chelsea in their own crazy years have managed to won PL and CL! and we are stuck at Carabao Cup Winners mentality

 

[Cnaiür urs Skiötha]

Confirming what I feared. I am sure he initially had the plan to play more like the way he used to but is now stuck with a set of players on ridiculous wages who are not suited to this kind of football at all. Our incompetent board and owners insist of keeping these players respectively sell them only for prices no one is going to pay. And now ten Hag is forced to mumbling some nonsense of United DNA as he can hardly say "our squad consists of a bunch of overpaid players who are just not able to do what I want them to do".

I read a comment by Konrad Laimer after we played Bayern who said something about how they had to deal with our immense speed and directness but at the same time were confused about how chaotic our approach to football seems to be compared to most other teams. And it is obvious that ten Hag himself is also confused. It seemed as he had a plan for the future last season but because of the better players underperforming or being injured he lost the plot and is doing very strange things.

The signings of Mount and Onana were probably in the hope of transforming the team a bit more but right now I don't see light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Longshanks]

Impossible to play like Ajax, maybe. Does that mean sign a big physical striker and lump it up to him as plan A? Absolutely not, but that appears to be the main tactic at the moment.

Its lump it, hope to hold it, get up the pitch then counter press if (more like when) we give it away.

Or lump it , give it away immediately and spend ten minutes chasing shadows which is what was happening on Sunday.

We saw these tactics last season I forgave them slightly because of the De Gea factor but now? Unacceptable he has the players to play out and through high presses but he refuses and instead wants the team to go direct to Hojlund and bypass the midfield.

Hojlund is good at holding the ball up with his tback to goal but after that his all round play leaves quite alot to be desired looks a bit clumsy and unable to play intricate passes. He is very much a sledgehammer.

This isn't what the club bought ETH in to do, it's closer to Mourinho than anything else.

If this is how ETH wants us to play we should sack him. We bought him in to get us playing modern progressive high pressing football and he gets us playing kick and rush. Ridiculous

 

[ForceKing90]

The unravelling of Erik ten Hag.

 

[Reyoji-Utd]

EtH or any coach that wants to play pressing, ppssession dominant style have to have the players for it. He said it he have to change because of the forefront we have. Thats been the case for years, i think he refers it to Rashford and Bruno. They are best when we play counter football. Would he be able to sell Rashford and Bruno, fans wont want it, the boss wont allow it. These 2 been the poster boy for us the last few years.

So how he can play the Ajax way or any variant to it if he still have to play with 2 players that keep messing up the attack, cant keep possession, not much press ressistence, and only mostly effective when we play direct football.

If we want to implement a new mordern playstyle, we have to get on the same page from top to bottom and sell any players that cant or dont want to do it. However, we see that we have been half assing about changing anything and not any manager, i repeat any manager can fix us. We underestimate the players power and the unwillingness of the Glazers to stomach the wholesale change that needed to make us at least compete again.

We are step by step into the oblivion if we continue like this. The 600 millions we keep boasting about supporting us is dwindling match by match abd the new generation of fans will only care about City because lets face it winning is important to regain fame and prestige. Fans nowadyas care less and less about club as a whole, they care more and more about individual players and they wont aant to spend times on reading and researchong about what United is about if we dont at least winnig.

 

[Amir]

Confirming what I feared. I am sure he initially had the plan to play more like the way he used to but is now stuck with a set of players on ridiculous wages who are not suited to this kind of football at all. Our incompetent board and owners insist of keeping these players respectively sell them only for prices no one is going to pay. And now ten Hag is forced to mumbling some nonsense of United DNA as he can hardly say "our squad consists of a bunch of overpaid players who are just not able to do what I want them to do".

He's not forced to do anything. Yeah, we're stuck with some players - even though we wanted to sell them - but he's the one who chooses to play Maguire and McTominay. He was able to bring in Mount, and doesn't know what to do with him. He probably got a huge outlay wrong when he insisted on signing Antony. He wanted Reguilon, and then left him on the bench against City.

That's on him.

 

[Cassidy]

Pressing high while the structure leaves your team vulnerable isn't something to be lauded though. It just shows our pressing shape is suicidal because we often leave huge gaps behind the forward line anyways. And either way I was speaking more towards our creative and attacking stats not just how we press. For a "direct/transition" team, we don't do it particularly well.

We are making progress toward the goal as some metrics suggest, you were wrong that every metric suggests he doesn't have a clue.
Looking vulnerable out of possession and against the counter is understandable given our defensive injuries this season, its not great at the moment but I don't think you can say every metric supports the fact he doesn't have a clue as I pointed out

 

[Cassidy]

United is an issue, but we don't know how ETH views this. Maybe he didn't like the way things were done at Ajax so before he got the United job he insisted on full control. Or maybe he had a look at United and figured he doesn't trust the system we have here.

Regardless the club decides its policy

 

[FrenchRed]

We are making progress toward the goal as some metrics suggest, you were wrong that every metric suggests he doesn't have a clue.
Looking vulnerable out of possession and against the counter is understandable given our defensive injuries this season, its not great at the moment but I don't think you can say every metric supports the fact he doesn't have a clue as I pointed out

Quoting success at one metric (winning the ball back up the pitch) over and over in lots of threads as evidence of progress, doesn’t really show much if we are equally useless at everything else and losing games over and over.

Yes we have had defensive injuries, but it was ETH that left Varane and Reguilon on the bench and picked our 5th choice CB and a player out of position at left back.

I see no progress to a larger goal. Only indecision and bizarre decisions by the coach.

 

[Gordon Godot]

Quoting success at one metric (winning the ball back up the pitch) over and over in lots of threads as evidence of progress, doesn’t really show much if we are equally useless at everything else and losing games over and over.

Yes we have had defensive injuries, but it was ETH that left Varane and Reguilon on the bench and picked our 5th choice CB and a player out of position at left back.

I see no progress to a larger goal. Only indecision and bizarre decisions by the coach.

Sometimes you just need to watch a match to show how utterly appalling the team is. The complete absence of patterns or play or any semblance of coherence.

 

[Amir]

Regardless the club decides its policy

True. I fear United gave in about this when they appointed ETH because they desperately wanted him. The leeway we gave him is absurd.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

I'm going off-topic, but I still blame that 5-3 loss against Leicester for really messing things up. We looked great in the first half of that game and the football from the likes of Van Persie and Di Maria was awesome. I always thought that we just needed a few more key signings and we could have got somewhere with what he was trying to do. We made lots of scattergun style signings and there were too many misses. Not only that, but we ended up becoming too cautious and less keen to commit forwards, possibly because we were in fear of getting done like that again as we had been caught against Leicester.

I could see what Van Gaal was trying to do. I don't understand what Ten Hag is trying to do and it seems that he is less and less sure himself with the more games we play. It's actually getting to the point where we're just digging further into that hole. It's not getting results. I expect many fans were expecting a loss against City, but what we were looking for is a reason or reasons to think that we could go on to win the next game or the game after that. E.g. our chance creation would be better, or our pressing would lead to opportunities further up the pitch. But we didn't really see anything in that game. Nothing that makes me think things are going to change any time soon.

I feel that maybe this is where he needs stronger characters around him to navigate situations like this. Or, he needs to be a stronger character himself. He isn't big enough to drop players this season. But, he dropped Rashford last season for being late, so he can do it. He's just gradually become more cowardly...for some reason. I don't get it.

I agree. I have always brought up that game at Leicester. It was looking great the then LVG wet the bed.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Not if you know what you're watching and are capable of judging the progression of a team based on how they setup/play - rather than only results and/or what the media say.

Arteta's Arsenal were playing defensive, negative, shit football. That was a consensus opinion even among people who defended him. It was not much of a 'progress' toward their current style. It was just a bad idea that didn't work too well.

 

[croadyman]

So we sign a manager from Ajax to play a similar style that he did at Ajax. He then blows 400 mill mostly on all his old players from Ajax. Then he just decides 'oh fk it. Ill play long ball.'

Yeah there is no doubt he has spent far too much on players he has a connection with in some way. The only way this can reduce significantly ideally stop is to appoint that experienced and knowledgeable Sporting Director.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...NA-admits-hes-built-play-direct-football.html

If this is true, it’s shocking. Bought a stack of players at overpriced value to be more like Ajax and change the way we play. Now realises that this will never happen and claims he is trying to build a “direct” team.

This shows that ETH is out of his depth on so many levels for me, and should not be allowed to waste any more money. I’d prefer we ship him out asap and replace him with someone with a real vision for the team and that can actually coach that vision.

Quotes:

“‘We will never play the football we played at Ajax here,' he told ViaPlay after the defeat. 'I now have other players, that's not why I came here.'

'The player material you have determines how you will play. That's why we play here in a different way than I did at Ajax. That will have to be the case, because I can't play the same way here.

That is not in the DNA of Manchester United at all. The football at Ajax is very typical, here we will play much more directly. We also have the players for that, especially at the forefront.'”

There is zero shocking in what he said. United as a club has ALWAYS played more direct football than Ajax. Its how we train our youths and recruit our players. To expect to replicate Ajax ball with us is fool hardy. Especially when ALL of yall feigning shock had fits when LVG attempted to install tradtional Ajax ball through out the club in 2 seasons

Besides, no serious manager keeps the exact identical style from club to club. Pep himself never has. So why demand it of ETH? We all saw the style he is attempting to instill at United last year thag got us 3rd, a cup win and second cup final. We KNOW it works. Judge him this season when all his natural left sided defenders, crucial to his philosophy are available and fullu fit again and when he actually has his best 18 players fit and available for match days. If we STILL struggle then, grounds for complaint would be valid. Not now[/QUOTE]

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

I'm sorry, but this makes very little sense.

Why the feck did he then either request, target or at the very least sanction a number of players he's worked with before?

Because players can and should be able to perform in more than one system.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Because players can and should be able to perform in more than one system.

Why sign Antony who has only one leg?

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Perhaps Ten Hag is not good at assessing whether a player's skill set will work in a more demanding environment.

 

[sirAlexsglasses]

I’m confused, from what we are told, when interviewed he impressed with his vision, we assumed that ETH and the board will have been in agreement that It would be akin to the style he implemented at Ajax, otherwise why did we sack Ole and bring in ETH. If he has changed this then surely the board are aware of this and there would be serious questions asked? if not what was the vision given and agreed upon. I was firmly ETH in and he needed time, as I thought injuries and gradual rebuild would have us where we need to be……but I am deeply concerned at this and we need a statement from the club.

 

[samlee86]

Fans hear what they want to hear based on their Football Manager fantasies.

Ten Hag’s first press conference July 2022: “The style of football will be based on the type of players we have.”

Redcafe November 2023: “Why dont we play like Man City yet?”

He told us from day 1 but we didn’t want to believe it

 

[MackRobinson]

Doesn't have the midfield to play direct football. You don't even need world class midfielders (think Liverpool in previous seasons). They just need to be able to win and progress the ball consistently. Unfortunately, there isn't a single United midfielder that can do any of these things well.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Fans hear what they want to hear based on their Football Manager fantasies.

Ten Hag’s first press conference July 2022: “The style of football will be based on the type of players we have.”

Redcafe November 2023: “Why dont we play like Man City yet?”

He told us from day 1 but we didn’t want to believe it

I can see it interpreted several ways, one of them being "I need signings to play Hag ball, please back me"

 

[tenhagsimp]

I can see it interpreted several ways, one of them being "I need signings to play Hag ball, please back me"

What hag ball ? He purchased his own players and we still look like a ruderless ship floating around. Also anyone who say "the players are forced onto him" is talking bs cause its a common knowledge he has veto power in the club on transfers. He is digging his own grave and cant get out of it fast enough

 

[sglowrider]

Execution of the plan not working out so far is another issue altogether, what he said is not a problem, he never intended for us to play how Ajax did and he was not hired to do so, fans having a different picture in mind is not his fault. He has never once said he wanted us to play like Ajax and neither has anyone at the club

Then why was he so hellbent on wanting Frenkie de Jong? wasted a whole summer pursuing him.

 

[sglowrider]

He's not forced to do anything. Yeah, we're stuck with some players - even though we wanted to sell them - but he's the one who chooses to play Maguire and McTominay. He was able to bring in Mount, and doesn't know what to do with him. He probably got a huge outlay wrong when he insisted on signing Antony. He wanted Reguilon, and then left him on the bench against City.

That's on him.

Yeap. I don't get the 'stuck with some players' argument/excuse.

He brought in 12 players either his choice or under his approval. Seems like he has taken a 180-degree change in his approach and now the players are just confused as to what he wants them to do. There were inclines of what he was trying to do in the pre-season.

Then when the injuries hit he looked like he panicked and had taken a total change from what he had planned on.

Now who knows what we are trying to do?

It is like in every game we are just hoping to keep our heads above water and then hope for some moment of individual brilliance or capitalise on the oppo's mistake.

If we were thumping in a lot of goals every game -- and letting a bunch too but yet winning I can at least tolerate.

But when you can barely score more than a goal every game, its just not acceptable.


There is just no courage or imagination in his 'new' approach.

 

[samlee86]

I can see it interpreted several ways, one of them being "I need signings to play Hag ball, please back me"

We’ve signed half the Eredivisie, what more does he want.

Having never watched the dutch league, Hag ball is clearly a myth.

 

[Fortitude]

Fans hear what they want to hear based on their Football Manager fantasies.

Ten Hag’s first press conference July 2022: “The style of football will be based on the type of players we have.”

Redcafe November 2023: “Why dont we play like Man City yet?”

He told us from day 1 but we didn’t want to believe it

That's not true though, is it? A manager leads by his principles and ideology. That defines them; even if you don't recreate an exact replica of one system, the core principle will always remain. This is how we identify every coach on the planet from Pep to Zidane to Allardyce to Mourinho or Conte to Klopp. You know exactly what they are about and even if they modify slightly, as all have them have done over the years, you immediately have a broad identity, which will always be bourne out on the pitch.

Ten Hag never had to come here and play exactly like Ajax did, but his core principles should be rock solid and unyielding. You can modify the surface layers, but their should always be an identity.

Re. The kind of players we have. Would boil down to the kind of players he blindly selects whilst neglecting the rest of his squad. He is solely responsible for what we field come match day, and from there, how we will play in terms of approach is predetermined; player X, with a massive proclivity to gifting the ball to the opposition, sets you on a different path to player Y, who likes to play a shorter passing game, and so and so forth, problems compound as the pieces fielded are almost diametrically opposed to one another. That's on the manager to address - he dictates the football we will attempt to play the moment the XI is set.

Evidently, we do not have an eclectic coach who can get a tune out of the team no matter what he fields, we also do not have eclectic players for the most part, so trying to force things along will give us what we see mostly: very uncohesive play massively lacking fluidity as each cog in the machine fails to fit snugly with another. There's a reason we make basic passing chains look tortuous as opposed to practically any opposition we face who all progress the ball to the optimum level their players are capable of (see even Sheffield United before they ran out of steam).

Individual brilliance should not be the only thing separating a big club from a smaller one. We have - even in this depleted state - far better resources and are supposed to be far better coached. It's what big clubs pay big money for, is it not? And if leading minds are at these smaller clubs, bigger ones will soon snap them up. So with that said, why are we so poor at showing this great divide? Why are dead certs for relegation and relegation battles playing us off the park for large periods of time, usually until they tire? Why do we never look greater than the sum of our parts?

The City game, alongside the comments after it, has become pivotal because we are screaming for an identity - something to hang our hat on as fans and say at least we're working towards this or that, but we've instead had suspicions confirmed that we are essentially blagging our way through the season with performance dictated by personnel and not an identifiable system of play. It can be said that that's actually a lead on from last season and the utter dependency we had on Rashford's goals.

Rashford has essentially become a single point failure, as we see this term, and no coach should be utterly reliant on any one player to that degree. It points to the manager and coaching more so than the player because there should always be contingencies in place. Rashford is being torn to bits on here, when a step back tells us others should be stepping up to bat, which is what happens at any club worth its salt.

In line with the above, the gamble the manager took to address this issue over the summer was to purchase a very, young, raw player who has never played in the PL before and has to find his feet as the leading man in wretched circumstances. That's a decision the manager took, at great expense. A lot of posters said he can become something special, but that he's not ready for the burden yet. Some even going as far as to say it's unfair to put that kind of pressure on a kid instead of blooding him in stages, behind an experienced forward. All of this is on the manager - if it works out, he's hailed a genius, but if it doesn't, many said it wasn't the right move for us and our circumstances.

Suffice it to say you can run through the squad and scrutinise the composition and the decisions made, as ten Hag has spent a lot of money on players he's not getting much, if anything, out of, so 'the players we have,' is a large part his own doing, which is why that reasoning doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

There's an irony to the above, too. Given that Mount, Antony, Reguilon were barely utilised on Sunday and weren't deemed suitable for whatever it is ten Hag set out to do. That's £130m+ of his own signings he benched. We're not talking pennies here. So that line about personnel carries little weight when the manager is going out if his way to field teams that are making fans uncomfortable before a ball is even kicked.

Sadly, nearly everything that's gone wrong has been spoken about in great detail on here before it even proved itself a failure, and that's not from people willing it to fail, it's from concerned fans who immediately idenfied things that just looked wrong from the outset.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

That's not true though, is it? A manager leads by his principles and ideology. That defines them; even if you don't recreate an exact replica of one system, the core principle will always remain. This is how we identify every coach on the planet from Pep to Zidane to Allardyce to Mourinho or Conte to Klopp. You know exactly what they are about and even if they modify slightly, as all have them have done over the years, you immediately have a broad identity, which will always be bourne out on the pitch.

Ten Hag never had to come here and play exactly like Ajax did, but his core principles should be rock solid and unyielding. You can modify the surface layers, but their should always be an identity.

Re. The kind of players we have. Would boil down to the kind of players he blindly selects whilst neglecting the rest of his squad. He is solely responsible for what we field come match day, and from there, how we will play in terms of approach is predetermined; player X, with a massive proclivity to gifting the ball to the opposition, sets you on a different path to player Y, who likes to play a shorter passing game, and so and so forth, problems compound as the pieces fielded are almost diametrically opposed to one another. That's on the manager to address - he dictates the football we will attempt to play the moment the XI is set.

Evidently, we do not have an eclectic coach who can get a tune out of the team no matter what he fields, we also do not have eclectic players for the most part, so trying to force things along will give us what we see mostly: very uncohesive play massively lacking fluidity as each cog in the machine fails to fit snugly with another. There's a reason we make basic passing chains look tortuous as opposed to practically any opposition we face who all progress the ball to the optimum level their players are capable of (see even Sheffield United before they ran out of steam).

Individual brilliance should not be the only thing separating a big club from a smaller one. We have - even in this depleted state - far better resources and are supposed to be far better coached. It's what big clubs pay big money for, is it not? And if leading minds are at these smaller clubs, bigger ones will soon snap them up. So with that said, why are we so poor at showing this great divide? Why are dead certs for relegation and relegation battles playing us off the park for large periods of time, usually until they tire? Why do we never look greater than the sum of our parts?

The City game, alongside the comments after it, has become pivotal because we are screaming for an identity - something to hang our hat on as fans and say at least we're working towards this or that, but we've instead had suspicions confirmed that we are essentially blagging our way through the season with performance dictated by personnel and not an identifiable system of play. It can be said that that's actually a lead on from last season and the utter dependency we had on Rashford's goals.

Rashford has essentially become a single point failure, as we see this term, and no coach should be utterly reliant on any one player to that degree. It points to the manager and coaching more so than the player because there should always be contingencies in place. Rashford is being torn to bits on here, when a step back tells us others should be stepping up to bat, which is what happens at any club worth its salt.

In line with the above, the gamble the manager took to address this issue over the summer was to purchase a very, young, raw player who has never played in the PL before and has to find his feet as the leading man in wretched circumstances. That's a decision the manager took, at great expense. A lot of posters said he can become something special, but that he's not ready for the burden yet. Some even going as far as to say it's unfair to put that kind of pressure on a kid instead of blooding him in stages, behind an experienced forward. All of this is on the manager - if it works out, he's hailed a genius, but if it doesn't, many said it wasn't the right move for us and our circumstances.

Suffice it to say you can run through the squad and scrutinise the composition and the decisions made, as ten Hag has spent a lot of money on players he's not getting much, if anything, out of, so 'the players we have,' is a large part his own doing, which is why that reasoning doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

There's an irony to the above, too. Given that Mount, Antony, Reguilon were barely utilised on Sunday and weren't deemed suitable for whatever it is ten Hag set out to do. That's £130m+ of his own signings he benched. We're not talking pennies here. So that line about personnel carries little weight when the manager is going out if his way to field teams that are making fans uncomfortable before a ball is even kicked.

Sadly, nearly everything that's gone wrong has been spoken about in great detail on here before it even proved itself a failure, and that's not from people willing it to fail, it's from concerned fans who immediately idenfied things that just looked wrong from the outset.

This sums it up perfectly for me. He has lost all of my trust after those comments.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Doesn't have the midfield to play direct football. You don't even need world class midfielders (think Liverpool in previous seasons). They just need to be able to win and progress the ball consistently. Unfortunately, there isn't a single United midfielder that can do any of these things well.

That's on him then. Why put 55m on Mount?

 

[Cassidy]

Then why was he so hellbent on wanting Frenkie de Jong? wasted a whole summer pursuing him.

For the same reason he was trying to integrate Mainoo this season. And the same reason he signed Amrabat on loan.

We do not have a midfielder who links defence to attack and helps us more in possession. Eriksen is the only one but he has his flaws and isn’t physically good enough defensively. He is also on record saying he wants us to be better in possession, that does not mean playing like Ajax

 

[VP89]

Why is he playing McTominay in that more advanced midfield role? And why did sub Amrabat and move McTominay into the dm role?

No idea for that specific play (I'd have preferred Mount in the advanced role).

But I'm just saying I'd be surprised if that move was long term. I still expect mount to be the more prominent player if he stays fit.

 

[Tosicsleftpeg]

I also have no idea what he's doing with the whole mctominay experiment, it's clear he is nowhere near good enough but we start him as a second striker looking for knock downs and play our best midfielder on the wing.

Looking at the team there is no way we can play possession football with our first team squad. Bruno, rashford are by nature very wasteful players who rely on space and trying things constantly. Hojlund looks a great player but gets no opportunities. Antony in think is desperately trying to play the ten haag style but he looks rubbish because no one else does the same, he tries to recycle the ball and close down but people want him dribbling like Rashford.

We really can't recycle the ball properly and find gaps in the defence and so we are forced to continually play as moments fc and rely on a counter attack where rashford gets a.strike on target, which at the moment is very rare.

 

[giggs-beckham]

What football are we trying to play?

We're dogshit as pressing.
We're dogshit at passing so can't keep possession.
We're dogshit at attacking.
We're dogshit at counter attacking.
We're dogshit at defending.

What are we moving towards? What's the plan?

We're dogshit at integrating youth players

 

[Gordon Godot]

This sums it up perfectly for me. He has lost all of my trust after those comments.

Yep, its impossible to defend him at this point, regardless of the ownership. There is a question whether the absolute morons in charge of football decisions need to go before any manager gets the support they need to succeed at a club like United, but at the same time its clear he wanted a big input on transfers and he isnt up to it. Indeed no modern manager is given the size of the task, which is why best teams have masses of scouts, data analysts and clear processes. we dont

 

[sglowrider]

That's on him then. Why put 55m on Mount?

To me, Mount was the first red flag. The budget could and should have been spent on a CB and then some -- when he could have developed Hannibal for the Mount role.

 

[Gordon Godot]

To me, Mount was the first red flag. The budget could and should have been spent on a CB and then some -- when he could have developed Hannibal for the Mount role.

Hardly the first. Spending all summer chasing FDJ, why? Then panic sign Cassimero, why did RM want to sell? Then Anthony, £80m for a mid table player. It was already clear he should have limited input on transfers

 

[lex talionis]

The summer of 2023 was a complete bust. The trip to America was a revenue-generating circus that set us up on the wrong foot and our transfers, bar Hojlund, were highly questionable.

What’s done is done but can we please stop making the same mistakes over and over?

 

[sglowrider]

Hardly the first. Spending all summer chasing FDJ, why? Then panic sign Cassimero, why did RM want to sell? Then Anthony, £80m for a mid table player. It was already clear he should have limited input on transfers

I gave him the benefit of the doubt the 1st summer window and season. Plus I needed to see what he was trying to do in his first season.

I think it's clear to everyone now that Mount wasn't the 1st priority. Then Antony wasn't a priority either considering that we had a plethora of RW then. Just had to make them work then instead of blowing 80million on Antony.

And I have always argued that its a no-win situation for Murtough & team -- dont support him and they get blamed. You do all Eredivisi with him and you take a massive risk.

 

[NLunited]

The grass is always greener on the other side. Hag does not want to play possession footy here, he has learned from LvG it won’t work here. The fans rejected it even though we were winning. ‚Boring, sideways chess football.‘

There is nothing wrong with transition football when executed well, it is a thing of beauty. Fits the culture of the club and our best players.

The pressing is creating more chances but the players don‘t really seem on board with it, and are out of form. That‘s how I see our current crisis.

Something needs to happen surely, or it will be the end of Ten Hag.

You could bench a bunch of players, but that‘s not really an option either is it.

 

[Redstain]

That's not true though, is it? A manager leads by his principles and ideology. That defines them; even if you don't recreate an exact replica of one system, the core principle will always remain. This is how we identify every coach on the planet from Pep to Zidane to Allardyce to Mourinho or Conte to Klopp. You know exactly what they are about and even if they modify slightly, as all have them have done over the years, you immediately have a broad identity, which will always be bourne out on the pitch.

Ten Hag never had to come here and play exactly like Ajax did, but his core principles should be rock solid and unyielding. You can modify the surface layers, but their should always be an identity.

Re. The kind of players we have. Would boil down to the kind of players he blindly selects whilst neglecting the rest of his squad. He is solely responsible for what we field come match day, and from there, how we will play in terms of approach is predetermined; player X, with a massive proclivity to gifting the ball to the opposition, sets you on a different path to player Y, who likes to play a shorter passing game, and so and so forth, problems compound as the pieces fielded are almost diametrically opposed to one another. That's on the manager to address - he dictates the football we will attempt to play the moment the XI is set.

Evidently, we do not have an eclectic coach who can get a tune out of the team no matter what he fields, we also do not have eclectic players for the most part, so trying to force things along will give us what we see mostly: very uncohesive play massively lacking fluidity as each cog in the machine fails to fit snugly with another. There's a reason we make basic passing chains look tortuous as opposed to practically any opposition we face who all progress the ball to the optimum level their players are capable of (see even Sheffield United before they ran out of steam).

Individual brilliance should not be the only thing separating a big club from a smaller one. We have - even in this depleted state - far better resources and are supposed to be far better coached. It's what big clubs pay big money for, is it not? And if leading minds are at these smaller clubs, bigger ones will soon snap them up. So with that said, why are we so poor at showing this great divide? Why are dead certs for relegation and relegation battles playing us off the park for large periods of time, usually until they tire? Why do we never look greater than the sum of our parts?

The City game, alongside the comments after it, has become pivotal because we are screaming for an identity - something to hang our hat on as fans and say at least we're working towards this or that, but we've instead had suspicions confirmed that we are essentially blagging our way through the season with performance dictated by personnel and not an identifiable system of play. It can be said that that's actually a lead on from last season and the utter dependency we had on Rashford's goals.

Rashford has essentially become a single point failure, as we see this term, and no coach should be utterly reliant on any one player to that degree. It points to the manager and coaching more so than the player because there should always be contingencies in place. Rashford is being torn to bits on here, when a step back tells us others should be stepping up to bat, which is what happens at any club worth its salt.

In line with the above, the gamble the manager took to address this issue over the summer was to purchase a very, young, raw player who has never played in the PL before and has to find his feet as the leading man in wretched circumstances. That's a decision the manager took, at great expense. A lot of posters said he can become something special, but that he's not ready for the burden yet. Some even going as far as to say it's unfair to put that kind of pressure on a kid instead of blooding him in stages, behind an experienced forward. All of this is on the manager - if it works out, he's hailed a genius, but if it doesn't, many said it wasn't the right move for us and our circumstances.

Suffice it to say you can run through the squad and scrutinise the composition and the decisions made, as ten Hag has spent a lot of money on players he's not getting much, if anything, out of, so 'the players we have,' is a large part his own doing, which is why that reasoning doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

There's an irony to the above, too. Given that Mount, Antony, Reguilon were barely utilised on Sunday and weren't deemed suitable for whatever it is ten Hag set out to do. That's £130m+ of his own signings he benched. We're not talking pennies here. So that line about personnel carries little weight when the manager is going out if his way to field teams that are making fans uncomfortable before a ball is even kicked.

Sadly, nearly everything that's gone wrong has been spoken about in great detail on here before it even proved itself a failure, and that's not from people willing it to fail, it's from concerned fans who immediately idenfied things that just looked wrong from the outset.

Excellent points again, the identity is what the club invests time and resources into. In the case of Arsenal who are so frequently used to gratify poor managerial performance, Arteta would not be at Arsenal if he was doing what Erik is doing at present.