This still smacks to me of rose tinting the past. United under Jose and Ole really weren’t that different from Jose season 2 until Ole’s sacking, we played the same system, were reliant on direct balls, willingly sacrificed any attempt to build possession in advanced areas - the personnel changed and the quality of players ebbed and flowed but we never built an organised press, never could pass out from the back and never built possession in advanced areas. ETH basically did the same as they did last season as well, it’s effective when you have a stacked squad because it’s low risk and defensive. It will, however, win you absolutely nothing at the highest level.
The fact you say ETH’s Ajax tenure means nothing to you reeks to me of someone with at least some bias. That is exactly what should be relevant to any fan when assessing a coach - have they done it previously? Is it recent? Was it at the highest level? United have hired post SAF 5 managers until ETH you could not say ‘yes’ to the above basic questions. It is a joke the club has been run in this manner. ETH is the first sensible hire in 10 years and is actually trying something different as unsuccessful as it has been so far. He might not be good enough but at least he has a track record. ETH did what we needed last season with an added bonus of minor silverware, this season HAS to be when we see the stylistic change and as bad as performances have been, that’s what I think is happening, it’s a team struggling to change but trying at least.
Liverpool are a better team than us, they have better/equal players in most positions and a better manager (I hope this opinion changes but Klopp is a great manager). I don’t think the gap is that big between us and they aren’t at the level they were a couple of years ago because VVD is a bit average now and yes they have to bed in anew midfield but they have a) a proven world class goal scorer and b) no European football. It will be very easy for them to rest and manage players whereas we’re already missing multiple first teamers.
This is without even going into the issue of Bruno and how he fits into a possession heavy team.
You're mostly right, but Rozay is right about Ole being better than Mourinho in goal scoring. One difference I've always noted from Ole is that he did get United better at counter attacking. Not always measured in goals, but how dangerous United looked while counter attacking. That's something I thought Mourinho's specialty was, and yet was massively disappointed in how his United sides counter attacked.
Although part of that could be due to the emergence of Greenwood, which Mourinho did not have access to. Ole gets credit for getting more out of Martial and Rashford.
But yeah, Ole's way of football wasn't conducive to winning the biggest honors. Right now, the ideas of Ten Hag should facilitate that, but he has yet to achieve it and thus gets no credit in that department yet.
Someone either on here or the United reddit page made a good point - the manager needs to be just as ruthless on the pitch as he is off it. It's all good and dandy phasing Sancho out of the squad for being a petulant nob, as it was dropping Rashford for being late, but the manager also needs to hook off or drop Rashford for how selfish he's been on the pitch until he gets the message. Likewise for underperformers like Casemiro.
That's been my problem with Ten Hag. He's not stubborn enough with how he initially wanted United to change. I could understand rolling back those changes after the first 2 matches last season. But it's hard to swallow the same still happening after another summer of transfers and another preseason. The current squad have had enough time under your instructions to carry them out better than what we're currently doing and he's brought in enough players that it should be enough to perform to his liking. If the players won't do their job, it's up to Ten Hag to be stubborn and demand that of his players. How else can you demand besides discipline? Discipline in the form of playing time allocation.
At least the fans can get behind an idea where you can see us slowly improving in those areas via transfer windows. Onana is already starting to venture forward a fewer amount of times since preseason and the first matches. Our transfer approach in midfield does not reflect the initial idea of getting Frenkie. Eriksen and Amrabat are the bare minimum. A player like Frenkie doesn't grow on trees, but I would have expected a bigger effort in solving that issue. Instead we got a player like Mount. A player I'm still hopeful about, but one that I immediately wasn't sold on.
There are good signs though. He hasn't played McTominay as much as his predecessors did (although a little too much for my liking), he phased out de Gea, and has made our defense (when healthy) much better in possession. But I'm not seeing the same amount of verticality in our passing (not long balls) that we initially saw in his first preseason. I'm seeing far too much conservatism with regards to younger players. LVG was so stubborn in his approach that he would rather player a younger player in hopes of filling in the gap than just rolling out the same ol same ol. Of course, that doesn't mean you immediately get rid of a player that doesn't perform those duties to your liking, but you're still less conservative in trying out other younger players in hopes they properly grapple with first team football. Which goes back to what I originally thought. If a player isn't giving you everything, maybe make it more obvious that you're willing to bench them in hopes another player solves the issue of playing to your instructions. Doesn't mean you don't bring them back after that replacement fails, but you at least try.
Or these could be his instructions and he's far too pragmatic for my liking.
