"United over-performed last season" is ETH finding excuses or facing facts?

[Plant0x84]

I think we did as expected really. Top 4 but way off a title challenge and good runs in the league cup (winning with the teams we faced is pretty reasonable), runners up in the FA cup and a bit disappointing in the Europa.
That's not an overachievement.

It was an over achievement based on the context of the season before under Ole and Rangnick, widely considered our worst PL season ever.

 

[Scholsey2004]

I dont know but personally i feel like we need a change. I thought Ten Hag would improve us technically and tactically but its not happening. I'd rather we moved to a more Tika-Taka style of play.

 

[#07]

If coming third, and winning the Carabao Cup, is overperformance we really are lost.

This is his you live in the past, football heritage, trophies are for the egos moment.

There's a lot of reasons why United is a basket case but this is just a coach trying to wash his hands of any blame.

I'm happy to say he's not the main factor but he's definitely a factor. This is excuse making to try and gloss over that.

 

[Maluco]

He shouldn’t be allowed to lower standards and this is the issue for all of those saying he should be kept until the end of the season.

Not only does it transmit the message that this type of underperformance is ok, but it allows him to give soundbites such as this one to shape the narrative and lower standards even further.

We are nowhere near as bad a football team as we have been since the league cup final. We shouldn’t be losing 14 games before the new year, we shouldn’t be losing 7-0 to anyone and we shouldn’t be 19th/20th for every single attacking metric in the league.

Giving him the stage to say things like this is detrimental and just weakens and worsens our position. He needs to go, and he needs to go now, if only to say that this isn’t acceptable. Any interim is a better choice than having to listen to this.

 

[sebsheep]

It was an over achievement based on the context of the season before under Ole and Rangnick, widely considered our worst PL season ever.

A season where we massively underperformed, ended up hiring a new manager and gave him £200m to spend. Unless you think that we did as expected in the Old/Ralf season then you can't really judge last season from it in that way.

 

[Sandikan]

It's his Van Gaal moment of saying to lower your expectations.
Except they're already so low that we shrug off defeats to West Ham and Forest because they're "away games" and to Bournemouth because they're "in good form".

 

[Abraxas]

You are correct, but the expectations for this season were based on overachieving last season.

Top 4 and a cup was excellent last season, but as others have pointed out we still didn’t always play great football. The reasonable expectation this season would have been a similar outcome but much more coherent and more entertaining style of play.

However, some people unironically thought we would have a tilt at the title which was never going to happen, so I think ten Hags expectations knowing his squad would probably be more realistic than the fans, but maybe be not so ambitious. It’s all relative.

Were they really?

If we remove performances and focus on tangible outcome, an improvement on last season would be a title challenge and/or winning something (if the winning something coincided with more convincing results overall)

There isn't really a significant half way house between getting in the top 4 and mounting a title challenge. But I genuinely don't think many actually expected that title challenge because we're simply nowhere near an elite side week to week on any metric, I certainly didn't, but I did expect us to at least maintain what we did after he spent significant money on players aligned to his vision.

There's still time but at the moment he is rather spectacularly failing to reach his own previous standards, nevermind any development beyond that which a fan may expect.

 

[Plant0x84]

A season where we massively underperformed, ended up hiring a new manager and gave him £200m to spend. Unless you think that we did as expected in the Old/Ralf season then you can't really judge last season from it in that way.

I think the Ole/Ralf season was absolutely dire. On the back of that, personally I was expecting to struggle last season too. It was a refreshing surprise to see us getting good results and putting on a handful of very good performances too. We’re back to reality with a bump this term!

 

[JimiboyX]

The most valid excuse that he could make is that he doesn't have a structure to support him, which has left him to pick all his own players, which he isn't good at and as a result, the squad is a mess. Except he can't use that one because it makes him sound a bit rubbish and diminishes the chances of him having a say on future signings.

Beyond that, only so many excuses you can make for a historically bad start and only winning two games by more than one goal (one of which was in the Carabao cup).

We obviously do have a rubbish set-up but we also haven't "overachieved" at any point in the last decade, despite what any of the managers might have insisted.

 

[Amir]

We didn't over perform last season. We probably did a little over achieve, as I doubt many here would have expected us to finish third.

But it doesn't matter. We've taken a massive step back this season.

 

[berbatrick]

Rashford's output is down more than half (per 90 G+A, from 0.7 -> 0.34), even worse for Martial (0.7 -> 0.2). Their career average, which includes previous terrible seasons, is 0.6. I think, like these stats, it is more that this season is a drastic underperformance, while last season was slight overperformance.

Plus the injuries/zero form for Shaw, Casemiro, Mount, Varane, and Martinez. All having their worst seasons - shades of the Ole/Ralf season, where everybody was at their lowest.

e - if there had been logical recruitment in the summer, with 2 big signings at CM and striker, and cover at RB, I'd have expected 80+ points. With the shambolic signings made,I was hoping they could at least keep last season's level. And having seen the awful tactics, the hope was to at least get top 4.

 

[Stuu]

The core issue is the total fumbling of the summer transfer window. We finished third and had a great opportunity to get rid of some of the deadwood and solve some longstanding problems. Instead, he immediately went out and massively overpaid for a player (Mount) in a position we never needed. I don't know a single United fan who was excited by that transfer. Add to that the failure to get rid of Maguire and McTominay which might have brought in around 70-80m combined. Imagine he never bought Mount and sold those two. That's at least £140 million which could have been used to bid for a young world class midfielder and defender (or gone for Kane). We'd have been set for years. Hell, if we bid for Victor Osimen we don't even need to go for Hojlund (or at least could get him much cheaper since teams know we're not desperate). Such a wasted opportunity. It's sickening. He cannot be trusted with more transfer funds.

 

[sebsheep]

I think the Ole/Ralf season was absolutely dire. On the back of that, personally I was expecting to struggle last season too. It was a refreshing surprise to see us getting good results and putting on a handful of very good performances too. We’re back to reality with a bump this term!

How well do you think we should've been doing over those seasons?

 

[tomaldinho1]

We definitely did - just think of how lucky we were in many games and basically Rashford’s purple patch hiding our issues.

The problem with what he says is with the additional spending, we should look at lot better now albeit there are big injuries.

 

[Jericholyte2]

There’s an element of truth to what he said; they over-performed because:
- Rashford decided he could be arsed for the whole season whilst playing for his new contract
- We managed very well in terms of injuries until about 3/4 through the season

This season he’s realised he can’t rely on Rashford and the injuries have been an absolute joke.

 

[Plant0x84]

How well do you think we should've been doing over those seasons?

I’ve already said I felt we would struggle in ten Hags first season. Maybe this season should have been last season in terms of achievements. He’s got it back to front!

 

[K Stand Knut]

‘Over-achieved’, IMO is the incorrect term to use in the circumstances of how much money we spent and the size of the club.

However, I do believe that we were affected by the fact that so many other clubs under-achieved and allowed us to look better on paper.

This squad is never the 3rd best in the league and even at the start of this season, if I really thought about it, I’d have said we’d struggle to finish top 4.

Liverpool, city and Arsenal are clearly streets ahead of us so 4th was ‘up for grabs’ but I still think that Spurs are a better team than us and it would be down to how well their new manager settled in, which still remains to be seen.

If we had finished 5th or 6th last season, we’d still look poor now, because we are poor but I think it might have reset a lot expectation levels and we might not be seeing the criticism we currently are.

It might have also helped to get rid of some of the shit but that’s for a different day

 

[RedSky]

Our attacking options is clearly better than what they're showing right now though. We've scored the third fewest goals in the League. We're wildly under performing as demonstrated by the CL Group.

He's just looking for excuses. Let's not forget that Ole secured a top 3 finish two seasons running before the awful final season. We wildly underperformed that year, recovered again last season to a degree and here we are wildly underperforming again.

 

[spiriticon]

We were overperforming when we were challenging for all cups, then we proceeded to screw up every one except for the Carabao Cup and then it became an average season.

 

[DonkeyChops]

I remember thinking when Liverpool's seventh flew in that we should accept that we were over performing and that we couldn't expect the next season to quite reach those giddy heights.

 

[Alex99]

We overachieved last season in a similar manner to Newcastle. The ambition for both clubs this season, in their respective managers' second full campaigns, will have remained at least a top four finish (or a bloody good fight for it).

I don't think anyone would have batted an eye if we'd finished 5th to 7th last season, but the aim would have always been for us to follow whatever we achieved in Ten Hag's first season with, at the very least, a decent battle for top four (lasting until the final couple of games if we were to miss out), just like Newcastle would have got away with any sort of top half finish last season, with the ambition of snatching fourth (or fifth, depending on coefficients) this season.

 

[Cerberus]

He's absolutely correct and it's a damning insight into his capacity as a manger.

Last season he had Rashford in the form of his life and several teams underperforming while playing relatively practical football. It resulted in a League Cup victory to be fair to him which despite all circumstances is still a decent achievement. The problem is that League Cup victory is likely the limit of his ability as a manager. He's tried to implement his style this season and it's all unraveled. You can make arguments about injuries all day but not having a single dominant performance with his style of play except against Palace in the League Cup and Chelsea is genuine incompetence no matter what way you try to spin it.

His level is Dutch football and potentially a mid-table/bottom half Prem club. It's clear to see that the players don't believe in him and given his signings and in-game management I see no reason why they should.

 

[always_hoping]

He's obviously correct. Relative to the predictions of the betting markets, the media and even this forum, we clearly did better than was anticipated last season.

Indeed I don't recall many if any think before the 2022/23 season that United would get 75 league points and reach two cup finals winning one and losing the other narrowly to the best team in Europe.

This injury hit season has proven further of that over performed season last season.

 

[The Hilton]

We absolutely overachieved, unquestionably, we were an absolute mess when he took over and ended up third, with a trophy and another final, personally I expected us to have a season in the wilderness as we tried to play more proactive football.

That's what makes this season such a shame really, given how much further ahead than expected we were last season, we all expected to be on the cusp of great things by the end of this season, so for it to pan out the way it has is even more disappointing.

 

[jasT1981]

No Utd manager should EVER say we over-performed.

It might be true, we had 2 good cup runs and finished 3rd only to have this seasons shambles, but no Utd manager should ever publically be saying that.

 

[Spaghetti]

Over-achieved last season and this season he has already started McTominay in more games than he did last season.

Repeatedly playing proven failures is his downfall. Getting the best you can during an injury crisis is sometimes the best you can ask for. But when he keeps playing failed players and tactics, that’s when fingers are pointed.

 

[kundalini]

The season after Moyes came 7th, LVG finished 4th.

The season after LVG finished 5th and won FA Cup, Mourinho finished 6th and won EFL Cup and Europa League

The season after Mourinho/Solskjaer finished 6th, Solskjaer finished 3rd

The season after Solskjaer/Carrick/Rangnick finished 6th, Ten Hag finished 3rd and won EFL Cup.

These rebound seasons seem fairly common, though Ten Hag's was more impressive than the others.

 

[Acquire Me]

Spot on from EtH.

 

[crossy1686]

So we overachieved last season, but what did he say about this season? Are we underachieving or are we averaging out? Because there’s no way we’re the worst team in the league but the stats say we are.

 

[Betson]

Hard to argue , when you look at the squad even without the injuries it is not top 4 quality. But the issue for him is that the players he brought in are by and large poor quality as well.

 

[always_hoping]

So we overachieved last season, but what did he say about this season? Are we underachieving or are we averaging out? Because there’s no way we’re the worst team in the league but the stats say we are.

Under-performed he said and too inconsistent.

 

[glazed]

Last season we had a few temporary fixes in the shape of Varane, Erikson and Casemiro, class players approaching their sell by date. Plus we had good Rashford and Martinez was a very good buy. Take that lot away and we are a mid table side.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

He shouldn’t be allowed to lower standards and this is the issue for all of those saying he should be kept until the end of the season.

Not only does it transmit the message that this type of underperformance is ok, but it allows him to give soundbites such as this one to shape the narrative and lower standards even further.

We are nowhere near as bad a football team as we have been since the league cup final. We shouldn’t be losing 14 games before the new year, we shouldn’t be losing 7-0 to anyone and we shouldn’t be 19th/20th for every single attacking metric in the league.

Giving him the stage to say things like this is detrimental and just weakens and worsens our position. He needs to go, and he needs to go now, if only to say that this isn’t acceptable. Any interim is a better choice than having to listen to this.

Good points but in particular the bolded part is something that can’t be emphasised enough.

He has not performed well enough to warrant keeping his job, end of.

The argument that we would be stuck with a caretaker is unfortunate but in cases like this unavoidable. If all clubs operated under the nonsensical constraints people are arguing for in this situation they’d never change managers.

The club have been so badly mismanaged over the last decade that the fanbase don’t understand what caretakers are. They come in because managers are sacked, they aren’t meant to be the next DoF [Ragnick] or the next Fergie [OgS], they are not ideal appointments but forced ones.

Him staying till the end of the season shows a continuation of the malaise that has set in at the club. Ideally he’d be doing well enough to get through to the Summer but he isn’t & that should be addressed.

 

[Zlatan 7]

How well do you think we should've been doing over those seasons?

We finished 2nd and 3rd the seasons before the last dreadful one with ole and then Rangnick so it’s clear that the 3rd season we under performed more than that was the norm. This narrative that ten hag created a miracle getting us 3rd is mad. We’ve hovered around 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th for years. This season is a new low no matter how people want to spin it.

 

[noodlehair]

If it was purely down to the ability of the players, then a team that's as consistently bad as we have been wouldn't be coming back convincingly from 2-0 down to beat the side in 2nd place.

He also did say we're underperforming this season so I don't think it's excuses or facts, and neither changes that its his responsibility for the team not to underperform so badly that they visible become 10x better when the fans shame them into it.

 

[Hammondo]

If it was purely down to the ability of the players, then a team that's as consistently bad as we have been wouldn't be coming back convincingly from 2-0 down to beat the side in 2nd place.

He also did say we're underperforming this season so I don't think it's excuses or facts, and neither changes that its his responsibility for the team not to underperform so badly that they visible become 10x better when the fans shame them into it.

You cannot judge anything on one game, coming back from 2-0 against 2nd place means feck all.

 

[Hammondo]

We finished 2nd and 3rd the seasons before the last dreadful one with ole and then Rangnick so it’s clear that the 3rd season we under performed more than that was the norm. This narrative that ten hag created a miracle getting us 3rd is mad. We’ve hovered around 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th for years. This season is a new low no matter how people want to spin it.

True but our competition improved as well.

 

[Hammondo]

Good points but in particular the bolded part is something that can’t be emphasised enough.

He has not performed well enough to warrant keeping his job, end of.

The argument that we would be stuck with a caretaker is unfortunate but in cases like this unavoidable. If all clubs operated under the nonsensical constraints people are arguing for in this situation they’d never change managers.

The club have been so badly mismanaged over the last decade that the fanbase don’t understand what caretakers are. They come in because managers are sacked, they aren’t meant to be the next DoF [Ragnick] or the next Fergie [OgS], they are not ideal appointments but forced ones.

Him staying till the end of the season shows a continuation of the malaise that has set in at the club. Ideally he’d be doing well enough to get through to the Summer but he isn’t & that should be addressed.

But who is going to do better? We are such an unrealistic fan base.

 

[sglowrider]

We flatter to deceive this season. Only two teams (Burnley and Sheffield United) have scored less than United -- both are at the bottom of the league while we are 7th.

Long may this continue.

 

[In Rainbows]

Seriously, bring up the Redcafe predictions for what our season would be last year. I feel like a majority of these posts claiming we didn't overachieve will have posts that directly contradict themselves. Comes across as pathetic from some of the fans.

Saying that we overachieved, doesn't mean you support Ten Hag btw. It's just an acknowledgement of facts. Same reason why he should probably leave. He clearly hasn't done a good job this season.