Which would you prefer: ETH plays a high-pressing, possession game or prioritises results above all else?

[MadDogg]

There needs to be a balance in the short-term, but with signs that we are building towards more the former. The former is how you get consistent results long-term, whereas if everything is about getting results 'now' then you don't get that long-term improvement.

 

[Redfrog]

They should not exclude each other. That’s all the point after more then a year of coaching.

But I think we have never seen the « plan » executed on the pitch, at least for an entire game.

Since ETH came here and his two first defeat, it was always about surviving the next game.

I thought it will be different this year but now we can’t even see what he is trying to do.

 

[colombianmancunian]

I care to win at all costs not matter how we play. Fergie’s teams some times played beautiful, others times not, but mostly got wins.

 

[MiracleInMadrid]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

And it is more apparant than ever how big of a job that is. It requires a more transformative character than ETH has proven to be.

And to change the philosophy is also a big ask of the whole organisation and setup around the team. It requires a agile organisation who’s willing to take the neccessary steps to develop.

Neither the effort of the club or ETH has been enough to change things. It’s too big a ask for a manager to change all that alone. I’d say that only the likes of Pep or Klopp would have what it takes to really turn things around. They seem like bigger authorities in terms of changing the structures and morale within an entire organisation in a sustainable way.

Mourinho has had that as well, but just not in a sustainable way.

 

[Gazautd18]

High pressing possession game.
Looks like he's trying to priorize results and look where that's getting us.
We play like shit and haven't progressed.

 

[Lentwood]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

You still have to be assessed on something. You can't just take one of the biggest jobs in football, claim to be 'shaking up the whole philosophy' and then implement nothing and not get results either.

When I watch United I see an absolute mess. I see players who are trying for their manager but are ponderous and confused.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

Well when you spend 400m and 18 months in play some of the worst football in the league then yeah people are going to expect you to at least scrape decent results.

We didn’t play all that great of football last year especially towards the end of the season, but people passed it off as ETH not quite having the right personnel. He then went and bought 4 new players while having us play a much worse style than even last year. That’s not something people are going to be okay with.

Pretty sure the #1 priority of almost everyone in the preseason “expectations “ thread was to see us progress as a team in our playing style.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Also, for the record I wouldn’t mind if we played transitional style counter stuff if it meant we were scoring goals. But our squad sucks for that style as well.

 

[WaltJabsco]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

And this is the great dilemma for any manager that comes in. They can't drop the influential underperformers who can't or won't adapt to a structured style of footbal, but might pull a rabbit out of the hat to win a game here and there.

As fan's, the majority of us would probably accept a midtable finish if we could see a clear defined pattern of play being implemented, but that would almost certainly see the manager sacked and we're starting all over again.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

But ETH got top 3 in his first season. Why not build upon that? Instead chose to go the opposite way.

 

[Beachryan]

I think at the moment he's scared, which actually surprises me a bit. He's always come across as pretty bullish, so I'm shocked he's not doubling down with (whatever is) his philosphy.

But, for all those calling on him to just get on with the modern football already - think back to the first few matches this season, when we simply didn't put out a midfield. That was the formation for his masterplan: a 4131 essentially. But the defenders couldn't handle it, Casemiro couldn't handle it and the wide-forwards couldn't handle it.

I really think what he had in mind was a midfield upside down triangle, leveraging Mount's energy to do the running so Bruno could be the creative spark, and Casemiro would sit and do defensive things. But the latter just can't do it, which has totally ruined ETH's masterplan. Couple that with not having a LB worth the title to provide both defensive recovery speed and overlapping runs offensively, and it broke him. Further, doing that required a much higher defensive line, far more like City and Liverpool. Which is something you sipmly cannot do with Maguire, Evans or Lindelof. All of whom have to play, every match, because he only has 2 CBs who can make it work, and neither are typically available.

You simply cannot play the way he wants to (and we want to) with these players. With hindsight, especially given Martinez's injury, he needed to bring in a pacy, energetic centre back.

 

[Smores]

I think at the moment he's scared, which actually surprises me a bit. He's always come across as pretty bullish, so I'm shocked he's not doubling down with (whatever is) his philosphy.

But, for all those calling on him to just get on with the modern football already - think back to the first few matches this season, when we simply didn't put out a midfield. That was the formation for his masterplan: a 4131 essentially. But the defenders couldn't handle it, Casemiro couldn't handle it and the wide-forwards couldn't handle it.

I really think what he had in mind was a midfield upside down triangle, leveraging Mount's energy to do the running so Bruno could be the creative spark, and Casemiro would sit and do defensive things. But the latter just can't do it, which has totally ruined ETH's masterplan. Couple that with not having a LB worth the title to provide both defensive recovery speed and overlapping runs offensively, and it broke him. Further, doing that required a much higher defensive line, far more like City and Liverpool. Which is something you sipmly cannot do with Maguire, Evans or Lindelof. All of whom have to play, every match, because he only has 2 CBs who can make it work, and neither are typically available.

You simply cannot play the way he wants to (and we want to) with these players. With hindsight, especially given Martinez's injury, he needed to bring in a pacy, energetic centre back.

But its not a choice between a perfected system or nothing. If we were struggling in one aspect he'd have sympathy but we're failing in defence, midfield, and attack. We're not seeing any sort of plan across any of the pitch we're just seeing individuals play however they think best. That's all we are a team of individuals without a coherent plan.

Let's not start making grand excuses how he just needs this or that player, that's a well worn path used to defend previous failing managers.

Given our injuries results are expected to drop but we should still see an established style. There's plenty of teams with much worse players than even our backups who achieve that week in week out.

 

[fergiewherearethou]

What's his philosophy? I never saw it during his time here.
One thing is to say you want to play in a certain way and a totally different is to actually manage to implement it.
We can only hope for results to improve, but chances are slim considering our way we are playing.

 

[FortunaUtd]

And it is more apparant than ever how big of a job that is. It requires a more transformative character than ETH has proven to be.

And to change the philosophy is also a big ask of the whole organisation and setup around the team. It requires a agile organisation who’s willing to take the neccessary steps to develop.

Neither the effort of the club or ETH has been enough to change things. It’s too big a ask for a manager to change all that alone. I’d say that only the likes of Pep or Klopp would have what it takes to really turn things around. They seem like bigger authorities in terms of changing the structures and morale within an entire organisation in a sustainable way.

Mourinho has had that as well, but just not in a sustainable way.

Yep. The bolded is the biggest disappointment for me, and it means he is probably not strong enough a manager to achieve what we hoped.
Pep, Klopp, Conte, Mourinho, these guys are bonkers. De Zerbi seems to be too.
Ten Hag seems shy and rattled right now.

But as you say, the ball is also in the board's court, our CEO and our Director of Football Operations quite clearly not competent enough to run a top football club in need of resurrection, and to construct an environment where a head coach type like Ten Hag can function.
Paradoxically, Ten Hag has been given too much power while getting too little competent support. The "manager above all" concept has to be rooted out more thoroughly, not even a surprise after our history with SAF, but still surprising that it is still so pervasive in the club structure after ten years of evidence to the contrary.

We need to hope for board and sporting executive changes, people with more football competence and gravitas. The expected change in the ownership makeup could possibly be the best bet we get there. And then, Ten Hag's work needs to be assessed and quite possibly someone else hired for next season. There are candidates. De Zerbi, Nagelsmann, both brilliant coaches. I am sure there can be others.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

But its not a choice between a perfected system or nothing. If we were struggling in one aspect he'd have sympathy but we're failing in defence, midfield, and attack. We're not seeing any sort of plan across any of the pitch we're just seeing individuals play however they think best. That's all we are a team of individuals without a coherent plan.

Let's not start making grand excuses how he just needs this or that player, that's a well worn path used to defend previous failing managers.

Given our injuries results are expected to drop but we should still see an established style. There's plenty of teams with much worse players than even our backups who achieve that week in week out.

When Klopp took over Liverpool, they played the way he setup Dortmund previously. The quality was just not very good because he had bad players. But we could see what he was trying to do. We used to have countless arguments with Liverpool fans on here in regards to results vs style because Liverpool had the style but Jose got us results.

Same with Pep. Won nothing in his first season but we could all see what he wanted to build.

We haven't seen none of what ETH wants us to do. I dont see improvements on our mistakes and I dont see an identity.

 

[The Hilton]

Im not even against that but the signs are that this would lead to more losses and ETH losing his job and the whole cycle starts again

That's the bind we're in unfortunately, we either accept some losses as part of the pain of transitioning to a new system, or we play the mid block forever and accept the more limited ceiling that approach offers.

 

[ToToMarshall]

I would rather he’d sacrificed last year’s results and success to implement a more sustainable and progressive style of play. The wave of optimism and good faith he came with was the perfect opportunity for him to get us all through some short-term pain for long-term gain.

What we ended up with was some weird half-way where our defensive line was very deep, we were slightly better at keeping the ball, but our attacking play was very iffy and we were reliant on Rashford to make something of nothing to win matches.

 

[giggs-beckham]

Possession based pass and move footy all day. The United way stuff is killing us. Reading between the lines, it sounds like it was a stipulation upon his employment from those above him?

 

[Insanity]

This question is exclusive to only United. At all other top clubs you have to play exciting football while winning football matches and competitions. It's not a either/or situation.

Also, this type of thread always come up when the manager is failing. The oxymoron is that we play neither exciting football or winning football, and never have since Sir Alex.

 

[In Rainbows]

Anyone who says they just want the style and feck the results are a bunch of liars. They will crawl out again and say they just want 3 points this is terrible blah blah

This is a false dichotomy. People that just want style, do care about results. It's just that they believe the results will happen eventually if the style of fun football is implemented. People that want style have always maintained that it's fine if results aren't there initially (key word), so long as it helps the long term goal of getting results.

 

[Hammondo]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

No one since lvg has done that though, it's kinda the same stuff over and over.

 

[RedStarUnited]

We want a manager to come in and shake up the whole philosophy of the teams playing style but if you don't get top 4 you're sacked.

Why is it one or the other!

Spurs are playing with a brand new philosophy after their last 2 managers and are also top of the table. ETH has signed about 9 outfield players at this point by the way.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Why is it one or the other!

Spurs are playing with a brand new philosophy after their last 2 managers and are also top of the table. ETH has signed about 9 outfield players at this point by the way.

They will ask you to wait till may.

 

[In Rainbows]

No one since lvg has done that though, it's kinda the same stuff over and over.

Yep. We as fans have been crying out for similar style coaching, but with a more modern approach. We've yet to get that as fans/as a club. We thought that Ten Hag was the answer for those cries, but it turns out he's far more pragmatic than we thought and prioritizes short term results above all else. Long term results are what matters.

 

[Neil_Buchanan]

Build the style of play, in fact I think this has been his fundamental mistake. Last season with the pressure off and little expectation because of the previous year he had a free pass to just get us playing well, feck the results. This whole ‘United must win ever game’ nonsense along with the ‘top four and a trophy minimum standard’ that appeared out of now (I had never heard this before last season) put too much pressure on them to be pragmatic about performances and priorities results and it has worked out terribly.

 

[Hammondo]

Yep. We as fans have been crying out for similar style coaching, but with a more modern approach. We've yet to get that as fans/as a club. We thought that Ten Hag was the answer for those cries, but it turns out he's far more pragmatic than we thought and prioritizes short term results above all else. Long term results are what matters.

He sounds depressed tbh, he had ideas and plans and he cannot do any of them.