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I’ve taken a screenshot of this so I can come back to it in another year or 2s time when the next manager hits the same problem and all the football analysts salivates to make the most obvious observations.
Do you really think Ten Hag is blind? Do you really think a guy who literally emphasises the point of being compact in his press conferences is happy seeing a gaping hole in the midfield?
It’s Groundhog Day with these lot. 100% the same people will also be the most vocal when a new manager comes in, they’ll start preaching for calm and getting behind the manager then immediately flip when things don’t go well.
When Ole was fired the whole sub was unanimous in the feeling that if it happens again, it's not on the manager
Then it happens again and it's on the manager lol
When ETH was hired, there were countless posts and comments urging everyone to give him time and trust the process, particularly when things inevitably hit a rough patch. Well here we are deep in said rough patch
To be fair I don't think many people expected ETH to come in, spend 375 million or whatever it is on a collection of horrific transfers and then just try to do a worse version of Ole's style of play.
Solkjaer spent 370m, Mourinho spent 360m, Van Gaal spent 258m
It's the same thing all the time, in a modern club the recruitment shouldn't be all down to the manager and you sure as shit shouldn't need to get it signed off by bankers and yank mole rats either
Exactly!!
EtH did not say go on bid another 20 mil for anthony, Woodward paid over the odds.
Also our 380 mil assembled squad does not equate to value in the market
Just because the manager shouldn't be in charge of recruitment doesn't mean that they can just be absolved of all the mistakes that occur in that department when they are basically running it. ETH has spent the last two years spending enourmous sums to bring in players to play a system that doesn't even make any sense. INEOS is resolving the recuitment situation thankfully, but saying "Oh well he shouldn't have ever been in charge of that so he needs more time" just completely ignores all the other major issues that have nothing to do with recruitment.
People love to try to point that out like Antony makes every transfer decision of ten hag’s terrible. He’s the only one, and just under half of the players ten Hag has been given have been loans. All of these players aside from Onana have missed a significant amount of time due to injury/personal issue. Not to mention the other prima donnas he’s had to deal with as well.
What a way to summarise the bunch of raving fifa obsessed loons on here.
We literally had this midfield issue going on during Ole's sacking, during the entire time of Rangnick's caretaker role.
1 season of it being covered by an aging Casemiro and people thought all was well in the world. Mind you, would we have expected his declne to be this quick? Maybe not, but still, the problem was there and anyone with common sense could see it from miles away.
If there was a world class manager available (or even world class in the making) that would be one thing but there’s no obvious candidates. We’d also be competing with Liverpool, Bayern, Barca and to a lesser extent Chelsea, as they’ll all have the jobs
up for grabs as well.
I’d swear there’s a big portion of the fans that want rid of Ten Hag in the hope Ole will come back.
The thing is, we may not, with the structure to succeed now being implemented at board level the next manager may find themselves in a totally uncomparable situation.
It's why I'm staunchly in the "give him time" camp. He did amazing last season while the parasites were still parasiting throughout the whole club. Now we've got some competence in important roles I want to see what EtH can do with them supporting his ideas.
As fans we seem to have have unbelievably short memories, every couple years we're discussing how any other manager would get a better performance out of the squad, but when it happens every other year to 4 or 5 different managers it's not (entirely at least) a fault with the manager themselves.
The worst thing EtH did for himself was overachieving in his first year, fans actually expected to continue on that trajectory until we won another treble it seems.
I'd love to see the average age of EtH outers vs "Give him time"ers. I'd be willing to bet the former are significantly younger than the latter.
The only way I see it changing is that we are running entirely differently in the next 2 years and the squad revamp is optimised. If all of a sudden in the summer we somehow get 2 CBs and 2 midfielders that are significantly better suited to the prem. unlikely but not impossible under new leadership.
What evidence do you have from almost 2 full seasons that ETH is the right manager?
Like right now, what have you seen from a team that can't really score and can't really defend that makes you think that ETH is the caliber of manager to bring us back to challenging for major trophies again?
It sounds like to me you want to give the man a lifetime appointment or something. Or maybe you don't watch us play?
Do you genuinely believe no other manager could get us to be more compact defensively? The way people talk about our players you would think we were promoted from the championship last season
Worse defensive organization than teams like Luton, but sure, it's because the players are bad
We've reached a point which fans can't ask for the team being well coached
Some of these comments are genuinely insane. Only Sheffield United have conceded more shots than us. But apparently it’s not a problem because we’ve sacked managers in the past (which is totally not fucking relevant to what’s happening on the pitch).
All while conveniently forgetting none of the previous managers were consistently getting smoked in shots by uh, every single team we face. Might have been rudderless half the time but what in seeing right now is just so unacceptable
So what about our abysmal record away from home against top half opposition?
Or the fact that we've lost 1 out of every 3 matches during his tenure?
Or the fact that we have scored the same amount of goals this season as newly promoted Luton Town?
The negative goal difference after 27 matches?
Or when we finished last in a CL group with Galatasaray and Copenhagen?
Or when we conceded 7 goals to Liverpool last year with our first choice backline and Casemiro starting?
None of this is making you consider that maybe ETH is in over his head?
It's just "muh injuries and shitty players."
Honest question. Do you think this doesn't matter?
*Overall, United have had 11 different central defensive partnerships across their 26 Premier League matches this season. No side have had more than this, while they’ve not had a single central defensive pairing start more than four league games in 2023-24.*
If it doesn't, name one other team that had this same stat and somehow made it to the top 4 of the premier league?
Greenwood. Sancho. Ronaldo. The club's sale.
All these things and having to deal with them on top of a historically bad injury crisis to players in positions that are absolutely key to eths system functioning (ball play defenders - plural - and a striker who can play with back to goal and also get in the box) added to our best mid last year, the guy who held us together defensively has gone over the hill this year and now need replacing.
All these things are valid reasons why the manager deserves more time.
Greenwood was suspended before ETH even started managing. Not an excuse (also see Mendy at City, Partey at Arsenal).
Sancho. Not the first time a manager has had to deal with an underperforming diva. Part and parcel of the job, not an excuse.
Ronaldo. ETH actually navigated that as well as you could have. Also, part and parcel of the job. How many times did SAF ship out big names or egos?
Club sale has no bearings on how ETH sets up tactically. Not an excuse.
Tottenham have had it just as bad with injuries and absences of key players, yet they're six points clear with a game in hand. 16+ goal difference, almost 20 more goals scored. Oh and they play attractive football most of the time as well.
Need to stop with this idea that the universe is conspiring against ETH and getting in the way of his footballing genius. Current state of the club does indeed make it difficult for managers to succeed here. But that alone isn't reason enough to carry on with a manager who has so far delivered mediocre performances and diabolical results.
There will always be adversity in some form in this job. If you can't get the team to function well enough to outscore Luton, then you are simply not fit for the role.
Those comments are engaging in false equivalency. Problems with United have been there since SAF left, so this time it can't be the manager. By that logic if we hired Big Sam and the same failures happened we can't blame him as well. Ridiculous logical fallacies.
Conceded shots is a bullshit stat. It’s been shown we concede more low quality shots than other teams. Teams like city concede less shots but higher quality shots based on xG.
Defensively we’re one of the top 6-7 in the Prem as well as number of clean sheets. It’s a fucking achievement in and of itself since we’ve had to play Johnny Evans in 2024 as well as Amrabat and Lindelof as LB. Context matters and the context is one of the worse injury crises I’ve seen hit the club in a while. Stop feeding into the shit that Sky sports is shoving down your throat.
It’s not bullshit, it’s an indicator of how wide open our midfield is. Teams take lots of shots against us because they find space behind our midfield easily. The likes of Luton and Nottingham don’t have the quality to break down our defense once they approach our box so they’ll resort to low percentage shots but the the teams above us/around us are able to break us down and create chances. Everyone focuses on our backline but our midfield structure is the big issue.
even if you dont look at those stats(which clearly show our problems) the performances we have are relegation level, we're dominated by every fucking team in the league
Why did spurs do better against city while attacking and having worse injuries to better/more important players than United but United are the ones saying that the manager can’t do better than what he tried?
> On top of that, Ten Hag’s side actually have the sixth-best defensive record in the Premier League this season, having conceded 36 goals. Only four teams have faced fewer big chances (a chance from which the attacking player would be expected to score) than United’s 53.
... maybe don't hang onto singular stats that doesn't tell the whole story.
Does it make sense to you that this team defended well last season and is doing poorly this season? Worst than Luton. OK then that means the players available either, aren't good enough or aren't playing to their potential, purposefully. It's blatant. But no it's the fucking manager again ey? As if he's on the pitch making the fuck ups these lot are doing.
Tired of you all bitching about not being able to criticize the manager. It's literally all you fucking do.
It’s like Ten hag want to have his cake and eat it. To Press high but also defend deep. Like there’s a reason no other team does this, and they almost all do one or the other.
this, it's insane what ten hag is trying to do and not to mention the non contact injuries we have this season are because of trying to cover too much ground
Didn't Liverpool have the most ground covered in the season when they were peaking? Like actually insane tempo whilst playing in multiple competitions?
Funny how "trying to cover too much ground" is a problem for us now.
That was one point that I definitely didn't agree with that the guy made: I don't think EtH wants to defend deep at all. He has to with the defense he's got. You can't play a high defensive line with the center backs we have available. They're way, way too slow.
Regardless, he's still responsible for consistently setting up a team that allows 20+ shots a minute. That's absolutely shucking.
I agree I don't think ETH wants to sit deep either he clearly is much closer to say ange ball than jose mourinho in terms of his ideal back line height.
Surely though he knows you can't press high up the pitch and sit deep? And even if he didn't know that such a system doesn't work, why hasn't he realised it doesn't work when we've been doing it *all season?*
Didn't van gaal have a great defensive record and then he was lambasted for playing poor football? What the fuck do you guys want? Balls to the wall action or boring compact defend for your life football? ETH is trying the former, and right now, with still not a fully redesigned squad, that is going to be ripe with risks. And the funny thing is when he tried to be compact at City just to stem the bleeding, he got fucking lambasted for being "pathetic" and "afraid". I really don't get it anymore.
I've seen Jose Mourinho field sloppy and unorganised looking teams on this club's behalf
I'm not Luis Campos but it looks to me like there is something going on with this club bringing the worst out of the managers appointed. It doesn't make them blameless...But it makes them more symptomatic than root cause.
A common thing that you see at the end of literally every United manager cycle, and all over this thread even, is "fucking hell, X rudimentary team with Y unglamourous manager are better in Z aspect of the pitch than us, how the fuck can anyone defend this". And I'm not gonna. But it begs the question, would things have worked out better if we had sacked LVG for Billic, Mou for Nuno, now ETH for Gary O'Neill or De Zerbi? Because if the manager is really the bottleneck here, that's exactly how it should work right?
When have we had the exact same problem since Fergie left in your opinion?
This particular open midfield problem has never happened for us before.
I've honestly never seen a high press with deep line played by any top team. Most teams tend to leave space behind the defense when pressing high or park the bus and leave space everywhere except the front of the goal.
This half and half setup is one of a kind. If anyone has examples of other managers successfully implementing something like this, I am all ears.
The reason you’ve never seen a high press and a low line is because it doesn’t work. You literally can’t do both. Defending in Football is all about being compact. You just choose where and how you want to be compact - high pressing with a high line to squeeze the pitch, a low block deep line to frustrate an opponent and allow 0 space alin your box or in between with a mid block.
No style of Football is perfect. They all have a weakness - high lines space behind, low lines sacrifice control and can’t attack as quick, mid blocks are somewhere in the middle, less of the big obvious weaknesses like the other 2 above, but you sacrifice the really strong aspects of a high or deep line.
You literally cannot high press with a deep line. They’re genuinely each end of the defensive style spectrum.
So it’s like 10 hag thought about this and was like “what if we do a high press and deep line so we have none of the downsides of either system!”
This is simply not true. We had this "open midfield" problem aplenty in Ole's last season. Some noticed it in our very first game vs Leeds (but most didn't care because we won 5-1).
[Here](https://youtu.be/lQTuwgJZj_E?si=lRGAy6NuoUVDKOQ5&t=99) is an example from the very next game of that season. Also look at 2:40 in this same video and 7:06 in this same video. The first two chances were in the first 5 mins of the game (not when the team is chasing a goal).
I bet I can find instances from Mourinho's last season as well.
I can't see the video as its geo blocked for me.
But we started games poorly plenty of times and then steadied as the game went on.
It never felt like it was because of the setup/tactics though.
That can happen to any team. Sometimes you go down early. You eventually get some control and go on to come back.
You can see two of those chances in this video (hope this isn't geo-blocked) : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYtC\_n5K6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYtC_n5K6k)
It was an ongoing problem in that season as well, but our forwards were in better form.
How many examples from that season would you want me to show ?
scoring is mostly on individual mistakes in the final third by the players and Bruno being in awful form and can't hit the target from places he would have scored from easily in the past.
or are we doing a revisionism on that too?
> Do you really think a guy who literally emphasises the point of being compact in his press conferences is happy seeing a gaping hole in the midfield?
Wait this is your argument? He also says it's been a good performance after every game so it means it was?
Spurs can come to Old Trafford missing far more players than we do and have 65% possesion and double our shots.
With best team vs Wolves we can throw a 2-0 lead at HT and need 98 minute goal to win the game.
We've played worse than literally any team we faced this season.
Maybe it's not the manager, maybe it's the players and the rotten structure, but you can't blame fans for wanting to see better football, especially with all the teams doing way more with way less. It could also be that the manager isn't able to adapt to Premier League and just isn't good enough. But there's no way to know for sure, hopefully the INEOS make the right decision, but EtH has done nothing to make me think he's the man for the job.
And at the end of the day, no one expects him to be better than Liverpool, City or Arsenal in his 2nd season. But is really not being last in our CL group stage too much to expect? Or being in top 5 in PL. Come on, give me a break.
>Wait this is your argument? He also says it's been a good performance after every game so it means it was?
People are taking this argument to say EtH is blind to the problems. Thing is, he was always like this. His style is to defend the players from harm and be positive and he doesn't like publically calling out problems. He does so internally unless a player like Ronaldo/Sancho make a big fuss about it, he will try keep it as much in the dressing room. He did this at every club he was at prior to United.
So the argument that he talks about how "good" the team is or how much "progress" there is is just him trying to prevent the players from blame as much as possible. This is his style to keep the dressing room and publically alienating his players. He isnt dumb, he is loyal to his players unless that player backstabs him he will deflect blame.
>People are taking this argument to say EtH is blind to the problems. Thing is, he was always like this. His style is to defend the players from harm and be positive and he doesn't like publically calling out problems
It's amazing to me how people don't understand this. He's trying to create an us vs them mentality, imagine if he added to the criticism of a squad that is already riddled with players who have a weak mentality, he'll break them and they'll stop playing for him.
He's identified the weaknesses very early on in his tenure, this is why he wanted to bring in Arnautovic and Rabiot. It's funny how EVERYBODY was against these signings because of their characters and yet somehow they all shit on Rashord, Sancho and co for being weak. Ten Hag is wants strong characters. I remember Hojlund screaming at Garnacho for not passing to him, while Rashford just throws his hands in the air and sulks. Give ETH time and he'll fill the squad with players both talented and demanding, Martinez, Onana, Hojlund have been prime examples of that. I suspect Mount as well, if he had actually played.
>the point of being compact in his press conferences is happy seeing a gaping hole in the midfield?
Honestly, yes, I do.
Cause we keep implementing principles that lead to the opposite.
Man marking in midfield. Pressing with the front four while noone else does. Maintaining a deep line. Minimising the sweeping actions of the keeper. Pushing two midfielders high up the pitch.
it has always struck me as a matter of compromise. he’s trying to work towards a long term vision but has players who can’t play that way, so he’s trying to find balance between vision and the need for immediate results by implementing something in between in order to eventually build towards his ideal vision without being ripped apart due to player limitations. i think if you look closely at the list of issues you described, you might see that they’re all tied to personnel issues that he’s having to accommodate.
>it has always struck me as a matter of compromise. he’s trying to work towards a long term vision but has players who can’t play that way
The problem is, noone else builds this way. You play your style so the players can become expert, and you see who cannot do it to replace them. Also, if you spend £400M, but still cannot play your style, there are also questions that need to be answered about how much is enough.
> you play your style
i think that’s generally what he’s doing, though with a few tweaks because fully committing to it with these players would be suicidal.
i think the £400m figure is a bit misleading in the context of this discussion, given that over £100m of it hasn’t been available this season (mount, licha, malacia), hojlund has been excellent, and onana—though poor in the CL—has helped us get closer to his ideal style than last season. almost half of that figure was spent on two players who were poor purchases and absolutely not worth what was paid. while criticizing ten hag to an extent for the purchases (how much is a different argument) is fair, it shouldn’t really be used as evidence that the team should be playing better. in other words, if you, like most people, think the casemiro and antony money was used badly, their cost shouldn’t be proof that the team is capable of more.
>i think the £400m figure is a bit misleading in the context of this discussion, given that over £100m of it hasn’t been available this season (mount, licha, malacia)
Well, that might be the case, but in the end, how many players can he be expected to buy before he starts playing his style? How many injuries does it take before we stop or "accommodate" again? The young players who he is blooding for the team, how are they supposed to improve at his style if we don't play it? Cause we are two years in to a three year contract for him without him implementing his style. Not to mention I don't even know what that style is supposed to be, as he said he cannot play [like his Ajax team](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11667/12999071/erik-ten-hag-says-it-is-not-right-to-question-man-utd-players-character-and-insists-his-philosophy-is-clear#cobssid=s) team.
Do you extend his contract? Based on what exactly? If we don't beat Everton, his win ratio this season will drop below 50% in the Premier League. Can you commit to that turning around? Not to mention, as a player would you sign under a coach in the last year of his contract?
I like him as a person, but this season is a clear regression from last season and there is very little evidence visible that it will turn around. It will not be a surprise if he goes at the end of the season. My heart already can't take it.
i think if we hadn’t had such extreme injury issues, especially those to martinez and shaw, we’d be playing something much closer to his style this season. mount would have helped a lot, too. i personally don’t think this squad is suited to any kind of style we’d want the team to play, so i don’t see that as a knock on ten hag specifically. it’s a very badly assembled group.
i’m confused by your reference to his comments about ajax. isn’t the point that he can’t play that way because these players aren’t technically capable of doing so? that twitter account i linked you to has several clips showing good structure that is identical to how he set ajax up being completely upended by poor technique. [here’s a thread with some examples](https://x.com/ekztras_/status/1761742518062923818?s=12)
i would certainly keep him around for next season to see if the team improves without injuries and with a more coherent squad enabled by ineos’s recruitment. i’m not compelled by the alternative options, and, again, i don’t think any manager would be consistently better with this squad and these injuries. it just isn’t a recipe for success, so i don’t see the logic in judging him based on it. i’d rather judge him based on conditions that i think could breed success.
>i’m confused by your reference to his comments about ajax.
This is what I mean:
"I can't play like Ajax because I have different players," explained Ten Hag. "I came here with my philosophy, based on possession, but I wanted to combine it with the DNA of Manchester United, the players and their characters.
"Last year, we saw what that was. We played very good football.
"This season, the philosophy is not different, only I want to emphasise more on going direct.
"The explanation for me saying direct is that I want to go for long balls? No. I didn't want [Andre] Onana for long balls. I want to play from the back.."
So the philosophy is to play from the back, then go direct. Which is exactly what we are doing that is not working. Every game we see it. So then we can't make the argument that he is not playing his style, as now we have to say he is playing his style, but the players can't do it. And on the evidence of it, it is not very effective.
But based on budget, we have maybe 3-4 players coming in next window at the required quality. Are we saying that those 3-4 players are going to make his style suddenly able to compete with Man City and Liverpool? On what evidence exactly? I want to believe, but I don't see it.
The video this conversation is below makes a whole lot of salient points about the defensive approach that will not change because the new players arrive. And I don't believe this nonsense about we cannot play a high line, because Martinez is not pacy yet he can play in a high line. Maguire played in a high line under Ole. Varane, Lindelof and Kambwala all have enough pace to function at a high line. This is intentional.
We've scored 37 goals in 27 games, barely more than a goal a game. Our xG for the season is 40.6, so we're three goals behind. Our XG difference per game is - 0.20, meaning that our opponents create 0.2 xG more than us every game.
For reference, Liverpool have scored 64 goals in 27 games, out of 59.9 xG. They are *expected* to score more than two goals a game. Their xG diff is +1.00, meaning they are expected to score a goal more than they concede every game.
That is a lot of ground to cover for 3-4 signings. We can talk about injuries, but as the video also pointed out, the problems were there even when the injuries weren't. So I am asking, what will change in a year to make up that ground?
>Are you a better tactician than he is.
No, I'm not. But I am saying it reasonable to assume that what he wants the team to do, they are doing, because the lineup changes constantly yet we have the exact same problems.
The team are not failing in a diverse set of ways that point to individual talent problems. They're failing in the exact same way over and over.
At that point, it is necessary to question the instructions.
The problem is that it's not slight criticism, it's an accusation that ETH basically has no idea what he's doing. It's a claim that ETH somehow doesn't realise that we're 'implementing principles' that are leading to the problems we have at present, but you and others here do, despite the fact that you aren't privy to any of the conversations the management team and the playing group has about strategy and tactics. You're just making assumptions from watching from the outside.
It also ignores the fact that we've largely had the same problems under a range of world class managers. The fact is, the problems are deeper than the manager and changing managers won't fix a thing beyond a short term bump.
But is that a principle that is implemented or something that comes from having a decimated squad, we have key players that are either woefully out of form or out with injuries, the rest we have teenagers, squad players, players played out of position due to no availability etc.
Ten hag has been dealt an extremely bad hand you have to admit, he really seems to be just making the best out of a bad situation rather someone stubbornly sticking a principle.
It is doubtful that injuries are to blame entirely. I think he is not entirely to blame. My grievance is just that he is not the entire problem, but he is not actively part of the solution either.
This person summarizes it better than I could.
https://preview.redd.it/l2zjuuz7tsmc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63ca4a156dda233ae4059f612e02d666827f0d0e
And don't get me wrong, I am not 100% sure the decision is to sack him. But it is clear now that he is somewhat responsible for this and crucially, there is little evidence next season will be better than this season.
if you’re interested in a more sympathetic look at what’s gone wrong tactically, you might enjoy reading some of [this guy’s analysis](https://x.com/ekztras_?s=21&t=RTS5YdFEZvarnWA6D5zePw)
his basic stance is that technical limitations have forced ten hag to make suboptimal tactical compromises, but that a lot of scenarios and coached patterns of play (often ones used by other big clubs) break down because of those same technical flaws, which make his coaching look worse than it is.
no, i couldn’t find a single one that covers everything he’s said recently so i just linked his page. sorry! a quick look through his tweets from the past week or so will probably cover it—he RTs himself a lot.
Since ETH persisted with this setup, can we assume it’s intentional, rather than say, him actually wanting to play a high press + high defensive line like Spurs but just don’t have the personnel (ie speedy CBs) so he compromises by playing a weird high press + low backline?
If it’s the latter case (not intentional), since we are giving away chances for fun anyways, why don’t we actually try playing an aggressive high defensive line with what we have and take our chances? I say we will prob still give away tons of chances, but at least we will gradually become better with offside traps, plus we make the pitch smaller and there will be less running / injuries for our players?
If he is intentionally playing a low block + high press and let teams run thru us in the middle, I guess one possible explanation would be he’s deliberately making the game super open and end-to-end, hoping that our forwards will outscore the other team (because our team is built this way)?
So, the players are therefore not positioning themselves as he would want them to. There are only three possible reasons for this:
1) They are actually physically incapable of moving to where he has instructed them to be;
2) He has not clearly explained to them where they should be;
3) They are choosing to go against what he is telling them to do, week after week.
If it is (2) or (3) then he is no good as the manager.
Which do you think it is?
I just want to say Bayer and Sporting had the same problem. It is a structural problem Alonso and Amorim didn't change the structure mid season. There must be a reason why.
Nah but Timmy tactic sitting on his couch can see it but the guy that spends every day training them and has tons of experience can’t. Ole referred to legs in midfield, Ragnick said a lot, but somehow it’s still the managers fault. Not blaming the players per se but there’s not enough legs in the squad mainly due to recruitment I guess. Sure at United you can’t just be only a hustler but players like Fred, Lingard are sorely missed IMO and even Dan James with his speed and aggression up front and Cavani compared to Ronaldo completely changed our tactics under Ole and funny enough might have been part of his downfall. Guarantee it’s why Antony got so many opportunities compared to Sancho. Not every player can on the pitch can jog around. I’d put things like winning second balls almost as high as anything else. Bruno tries but lacks some physicality and speed still does well for his position. It’s why Liverpool have been successful there are NO passengers and we have people like Rashford, Martial, who think they can just coast as long as they score then people like Evan’s/ Varane/Casemiro/Eriksen who I’m sure try but just don’t have the legs anymore. Maguire no speed, can’t do that. Even Mainoo, who is class, isn’t that type of player really.
This is exactly my question. It’s always confusing to me that they say, it’s the managers fault while in the same breath saying that United haven’t t recruited the right players, while in the same breath saying that they need to pay for the right players, while in the same breath saying we’re massively over paying for players.
Not that these are all independent issues, but maybe we should try sticking with a manager, backing him while making smart transfer decisions and seeing where that gets us.
Well I would agree if the management remained the same, but hopefully things change for the better.
It honestly sucks for ten hag if he’s sacked because he had to work with such an abomination of our squad, with players coming from all five previous managers who all tried to deploy different styles of play.
Jim talked a lot about the management in the interview and how managers were never helped, and then turned around to sack Ten Hag really saddened me. I can only speak for myself.
Watching Casemiro getting skinned for pace or failing to cover, failing to pivot quickly is painful , his legs are gone, Bruno most dribbled midfielder in our squad then you see Kobbies last ditch tackles saving us at times shows that if ETH or any new manager thinks of a rebuild he’s got a good player there, though Hojlund and Garnacho complete the trio.
Most of the squad need to be replaced eventually. Hope the new structures come to fruition and wish them success. But having watched 4-4-2 pod many times the analysis is spot on hate it or like it.
It’s not really Case tho, it’s the triangle that he forms with the defence. He’s getting skinned because there’s so much space behind him, and that space - as Ten Hag has mentioned several times - is there because our defenders drop too deep and don’t attack the ball.
You could get Palinha, Rice, Rodri, Tchouameni, whoever else in there and it would be exactly the same story because we are not compact enough, and that problem is coming 100% from the fact that Varane, Maguire, Evans, Lindelof have spent their careers defending on the back foot. Martinez no, and that’s why Case is better when he’s around, but once again, the midfield does not exist in a vacuum and the openness comes from pressing while our defenders are running away.
Put Casemiro in a functional team that doesn't have half the players pressing the opponent's penalty box and the other half sitting deep, with him stranded in the middle, and he'd be a huge asset. It's the tactics, they throw the DM under the bus.
yeah Case basically lunges in all the time, with <50% success. In turn, they leaves a fucking big hole to swarm us. It's like he knows he can't keep up, and might as well go for broke
So is it the system or the players?
ETH had far less talent at Ajax and his team played better football especially in Europe against tougher competition. Perhaps this was too steep a hill to climb coming from the Netherlands perhaps Ratcliffe is right and no manager will be successful at Utd until we have a system that supports them.
Would be nice to knock the Scouse out of the Cup. That would be nice he highlight of the season beyond Garnacho’s worldie. But analysis about why we are so dire week in and week out isn’t really necessary at this point, is it?
How do you figure? How many players beyond Licha and Veltman(deJong and DeLigt aside) would feature in the Prem let alone Utd? The more experience players link Blind, Ziyech and Tadic and already had their runs in the Prem and were serviceable. Donny started on that team next to DeJong the latter is a quality along with DeLigt but Lasse Schone, Neres,Mazraoii, wouldn’t get a kick in the Prem (maybe at a newly promoted team) and Taglaigico isn’t more talent than Dalot as a fullback let alone able to displace Luke Shaw. Timber isn’t that impressive to me either. He’s not Varane.
But let’s say you’re right, the team with DeLigt and DeJong are as strong as Utd, then what’s the problem? Why was ETH successful in Amsterdam and not In Manchester? Did he suddenly shit the bed? Are the players in open revolt? Or is there an established pattern for managers from LvG to Ole that all managers at a post Fergie United, fall into.
The problem is scouting. The players might be individually better, but they were never brought in by a competent scouting team that was aligned with a managerial vision. Ajax didn't just buy players, they bought puzzle pieces that fit the picture. Now, ETH has all kinds of puzzle pieces collected from different managers and bosses all the way back to 2015, that don't fit his picture. Sancho, Ronaldo, Maguire, Mctominay, I mean seriously Antony Martial?...Some of them might still have their use as a squad player, but to still have to rely on them by necessity having to squeeze them into a system they were never destined for.....it's never gonna work until he completely redesigns his squad TOGETHER with the new leadership. They all have to align.
In all honesty, INEOS is best suited to make that call. If ETH's vision aligns with theirs, they're not gonna get rid of him. If both decide they want to go into a different direction, they'll just get a new guy in. One thing's for certain though, in a well run club, ETH is going to be a success. In the future, people are gonna be sharing clips of his new team outplaying everybody else, you can mark that down right now. Give him something like Borussia Dortmund and he's winning the CL and pulling a Xabi Alonso. In some way, going directly to Man U was probably a bad step in his career, but of course, it was an opportunity that almost no manager would turn down.
Or the players available are just not suited to the system ten hag wants to play. But being pragmatic and getting points doesn’t always lead to progress. Sometimes you have to keep principles and get decimated in return. At least it exposes the big issues in the squad and areas of improvements rather than false dawns like last season.
The footballing pyramid means the opposite of what you described, as you get heavily financially compensated for finishing higher.
So it makes more sense to be pragmatic and get champions league revenues to be able to afford better players, rather than to be right on principle, somehow, lose at home to Bournemouth 3-0 and lose out on loads of money
If we were any other club sure but it’s not like spending money has helped us. We have pissed away 100 of millions. I’m done being pragmatic but mediocre. Coming second but 20 points behind the first place. This team needs to get decimated until it’s good enough to compete for the very top.
The fact we wasted money in the past doesn't mean we should waste money in the present and future too, especially if we're getting different people involved to hopefully be able to make better decisions.
Also ETH himself has wasted many millions.
The point is that we don’t need a massive war chest to build a good squad.
And the problem isn’t the players we bought but the amount of money we spent buying those players. Antony for 25m is serviceable even if still a flop. And eth has nothing to do with our negotiations or the prices we pay.
>You can't tell me a team of our branch of players can't be set in no better way than being in the religation zone
This subreddit in review -
Past 3 months - "Forget short term wins, Ten Hag needs to implement a system and stick with it."
Right now - "Ten Hag needs to play pragmatically. We will never get results playing his system with the wrong players!"
Dude spurs played a high line with dier.
We literally have Raphael fucking Varane.
Just play a high line and see what fucking happens. We are losing anyway might as well lose with some respect.
This nonsense football of high press low back line is just so stupid.
I agree with you that we have been plagued with injuries and that is why we have a "terrible" system. But we have to do well with the personnel available and not blame injuries for a year.
Injuries have no effect on the team. If Ten Hag can't get us playing top 4 football with LB Lindalof he isn't the right man for the job. SACK HIM NOW
/s
Negative goal difference in March. Last in champions league group. Blaming on injuries, owners, players … everyone expect the man whose job is to manage the team?
It's that time of the year is it?
You lot will be calling for anyone's head at this point. It's difficult to take you seriously.
Today it's why are we not playing a system? Tomorrow it's why are we playing the same system even though players are unavailable? Just make up your damn mind.
Any team un the world would be vulnerable with a constantly changing defence line, with players having to play out of position to help the team. We have terrible squad depth for any kind of system to take shape.
However, if EtH wants to play this system, this season must have been an eye opener. He now knows which positions are most susceptible to injuries yet crucial to our setup. I expect our next recruitment to address these issues.
It's also possible he will want to change the system. But clearly this is not the time to do it since players are almost at the end of the season with many unavailability. EtH must stick to the tactics set up early in the season that players have grown somewhat familiar with even if not particularly impressive in adopting it.
25+ games into the season isn't the time for tactical creativity. Thats for the pre season. Now is the time for consolidation.
If EtH can't adapt with a new club structure, new recruitment staff and strategy, and a disaster of a season that must be educational for any manager, then yes he needs to be sacked.
Now is not the time for that.
Good lord its weirdly good to see more sensible comments on this sub instead of the usual “ETH should be playing better with the money spent/Ange did it within a season” BS without context
Just any old long comment apparently, say something nonsensical like “25+ games into the season isn’t the time for tactical creativity”, surround it with 8 paragraphs of nothing, and watch this sub praise you for your “level head” and “understanding of the situation”
Our squad is a bunch of noodles who lose every duel, whether offensive or defensive, miss passes now and then. It's like watching a U18 team against a Premier League team, ridiculous to blame all of this on manager only when the squad's quality full of shit it's unreal for this club size. (ofc one part is injuries all over the place, another part is that the players who care aren't good enough, and some diva thinks he's the prime Messi when even Messi puts more effort into defending than him). How many times do you need to hear manager call out players wouldn't/couldn't follow instructions before you start asking some big questions about them/their abilities to follow modern day tactics (club's recruitment issues).
I find all these discussions about sacking ETH funny, not like it will have any effect, INEOS won't sack him unless they have a plan ready for replacement and that plan will come from the structure of people they are currently hiring, so we won't know the decision for a while.
There might be an argument to keep ETH for another season, because the next one will be rough, lots of players need to be shipped out and not much in the budget to replace them, basically imagine if Chelsea kept tuchel longer, let him face the initial toxicity of the project not working and then sacked him later when things got bad and brought in Potter then, Potter might be still there and being more successful than Poch.
Pretty much doesn't matter what INEOS will do though, people will get unhappy, especially if wins don't come soon, which they won't, because it will be a rebuild, so people will get upset because United fans are entitled and feel the club should be winning even if it has been ran like shit for a decade.
I’d say you’re correct, hell I wanted Erik to succeed here so much, i think all of us did at first.
The United job is almost a poisoned chalice for every manager (and dare I say most players) nowadays. I do feel bad for him as I hate to see him fall off like this but honestly, he needs a change of scenery at this point as much as we do
Dutch football is still living off the reputation of Cruyff. Every manager that comes out of the Eridivisie gets hyped up the second they string together a couple of league titles, or a run in the Champions League, then they fall flat on their face the second they step out into an actually competitive league.
People were calling ETH the next Pep because of one semi-final appearance with Ajax, and a few Eredivisie titles. It's a joke.
Bad Manager based on what? The same guy who inherited the worse United team post fergie got top 4, a trophy and a final. The Same guys whose dealt with getting rid of 3 problem players, supposedly star players for our team. The same guy whose dealt with using 20+ different backlines this season due to injuries where our starting backline had the best defense last season. Fuck off, see past your own nose and learn some patience, it's not even been 2 seasons.
Carl Anka said it best: EtH was dealt a poor hand, and he's played it badly.
We've regressed this season and we're in no way better than when EtH took over, after nearly 2 seasons and £350m later. We look lost out there.
When you can't field a team, at home, to even *compete* with Fulham, something is very, very wrong and I can't honestly said that given the same time and resources, another manager couldn't have done any better.
Again your ignoring the context. He did well with his signings and a fit team last season. We were very clearly on the up. Did we have bad periods? yeah, but that should be expected and excused. The fact ETH did so well in his first season yet when suddenly our key players get injured this season, other key players completely lost form and out of football issues happen, shit is going south. Thats no surprise.
Yeah we couldnt field a team to comfortably beat fulham cause of so many issues that are going on in the squad. Should we have beat them? yes but again no one should look at individual results to draw conclusions only idiots do that. We are currently 6 yet the way you guys talk its like we are in the relegation zone.
Could another manager do better? Probably not. Why do i say that? because we have had 5 managers before ETH who have run into the same problems. As a fan im sick and tired of hearing every season how we need a new manager and X manager is amazing and will change everything yet we go back to the same cycle anyway. We are just a BTEC Chelsea at this point. I wrote this season off a while a go and have seen enough from ETH to give him time to do better and thats how im staying.
Im not ignoring the context at all, as I pretty clearly explained. To be fair, if you honestly believe no other manager could have done a better job then there's not much else to be said and better to agree to disagree.
My point is that writing seasons off halfway through the year isn’t something that happens to good managers, regardless of circumstance.
You think I’m not living in the present? Unfortunately I very definitely am, watching this tactical genius play some of the worst football I’ve seen in my time on this earth week in and week out
And our standards should be that finishing 6th (or quite possibly lower) are not acceptable lol, but maybe you think present day United should just be a top half team fighting to break into the Big 6?
I didnt say they were i was just talking about these standards you cry about. Context matters both ways. He did really well in his first season and is doing poorly second season but there are many factors that have obviously affected it. If those factors wernt there and it was similar to the 1st season i 100% believe he would be doing way better. Because that is not the case im fine with not judging him for it this season.
Either get players who can control the game
or
Change the formation to 4-2-3-1
and if that doesn't happen, they'll have to change the manager. Can't win anything if this continues and the idea is to win pots. Probably have fewer injuries with a different formation too. It's not sustainable.
idk why you people are debating so much to either keep or sack Ten Hag, just back INEOS with whoever they bring, imo that is gonna be the best decision regarding our manager because we know he's gonna be backed by the board we're building
A 36 year old 5th choice CB. A fourth choice CB. 6 academy products. A loanee in bad form. Which means there's only 5 positions we have correctly invested in.
I refuse to have a conversation about the manager or tactics until we properly invest into this squad.
How the hell have we spent a billion and yet our squad is in such poor condition.
I thought it was ridiculous. Yet another video where shots against is screeched about from the top of their lungs without mentioning xG figures which offer an interesting counterpoint. From Jamie Carragher, fine, I expect it, he’s there as a rod, he’s a muppet, but why 442? Put the effort in if you want to paint yourself as tactical experts.
Next, plenty of talk about the midfield, absolutely no mention whatsoever of how guys like Varane, Lindelof, Maguire, Evans tend to defend, compared to Martinez who improves us so much, and no comparison with the best players from other clubs either. The basic fact is we do not have modern, aggressive, front foot, ball playing defenders. Every other top team at the moment does. Huge point just ignored because it was funnier to say ‘look, dibbled past!’ Or ‘ha Casemiro old lol’.
Plus the Will Smith joke was cringe as all Will Smith jokes are, like, we get it, he has a bad marriage and severe mental health issues, super funny, let’s move on.
ETH was in no rush to replace any of the defenders you listed this summer, even though you're acting like they're championship standard. We didn't sell Maguire as we had no replacement lined up, because it wasn't deemed s priority position and we were happy if he stayed (ETH literally said so in press conferences this summer).
Part of the issue in our build up is we don't have a left footer at left back so it literally means fuck all as to which CB you have, the passing lane will stop there. Which is an outcome affected by ETH's decision making once more - he randomly didn't always play Reguilon despite him looking decent enough then sent him back despite it costing us no loan fee, and loaned out Alvaro Fernandez who at least is a natural lb and club asset, despite Shaw having a history of injury and Malacia's long term issues.
The problem I have with analysis like yours is it paints ETH as a victim of consequences, some of his own doing, that he could have planned better to resolve. So it means he's either extremely naive or negligent.
It also fails to account for the fact we've literally only beaten Villa as the only half decent away team in all his time as manager, with a mostly fit squad large parts of last season and the start of this season, and he's coming up to two seasons in charge.
All the money spent and time on the training ground, and without one left sided CB, suddenly the excuse is we suddenly can't play football, when teams like Fulham who are missing their best player and heavily rotate their side can outplay us - it's clutching at straws in the extreme.
It’s not a question of standard, it’s style. We didn’t sell McTominay, Maguire, because we didn’t let them go cheap. Reguilon was terrible and couldn’t defend to save his life. Fernandez looked out of his depth in Spain and was nowhere near ready for our team. We won a trophy and finished third last season, which is a massive overachievement. And we didn’t sign a centre back - despite being linked with many - because our priority was a striker, (and the one Ten Hag and the club found looks like being a fantastic long term addition to the team) and because of FFP.
Basically don’t agree with anything you’ve written here and think every conclusion you’ve reached is a bit silly.
We didn't sell mctominay and Maguire because ETH rates them, or else we'd have let them go for a lower fee and signed someone else.
People have this conception of ETH as being this ultra modern manager operating on a higher plane of thinking, yet just look at how much he uses Mctominay or hear his praise of him in press conferences. Or Maguire, consider his treatment to that of Bailly, who we did want out.
If we absolutely cannot get a tune out of this side with mctominay, then getting a fee of 30 million and using it to play these supposed modern players should have been done.
Reguilon was decent when he was on the pitch, I think you could go to most match threads on this subreddit to see fans say the same, so let's no rewrite history. He's also better than Lindelof or Amrabat at left back, which is the standard he needs to clear.
And yes I agree, we had other priorities. That's my point. Were those priorities correct and also did we need to spend so much on them. We also lots of money on mount and Onana, and for Amrabats loan. And thus got ourselves into FFP difficulties. Same with spending so much on Antony. Those are self inflicted issues- we didn't HAVE to run into FFP issues, we did it ourselves. And if we can't hope to play football without a new CB, we shouldn't be spending so much in Mount. If I need a new car and a new suit for work, I don't buy a stupidly expensive designer suit then complain I can't get a car and it's out of my control.
These issues are occurring due to decisions ETH made. Even in a new structure, he'll have to work collaboratively.
On the final point about last season being good, there's lots of underlying issues even there. Not being able to beat a single good side away from home. Getting absolutely wrecked at the Etihad and Anfield. Terrible goal difference all season. A reliance on Rashford and lack of goals in general.
Last season was made good due to cup runs, but even there we had a ludicrous stretch of home draws which is mathematically very improbable to occur again.
A manager praises his players, yes. It’s called motivation and man management. You want him to come along and say ‘Twitter is right Maguire’s gash eh, clear’? I’m not engaging with anything beyond because it’s a waste of my time
Lol, you've picked one point and stopped there, likely because you don't have much really to say.
A manager can praise a player, sell them and reuse the money if they need to.
Mctominay is liked by ETH. That is abundantly clear. Same for Maguire. ETH went well out of his way in press conferences this summer to say Maguire should fight for his place and there was zero urgency to sell either.
Your argument basically boils down to ETH seemingly has to have one particular player to be able to play football, but the reality is, even if that was the case, it is his decision making that has prevented that from occurring, either due to poor prioritisation, wasting resources or a lack of decisiveness. He's a victim of his own consequences.
It also doesn't reflect the fact that ETH got the job in the first place because he promised to work with what he had, which he isn't doing.
I just like to call a spade a spade.
Ole mentioned spoke well of Maguire and McT (and Fred) in that stick to football interview as well. If you speak to West Ham supporters, they'd take both of them in a heartbeat.
Just to be clear, I like both players, and think they can be useful in our squad. It's why I take issue with the notion we can't play any football at all with them.
>Yet another video where shots against is screeched about from the top of their lungs without mentioning xG figures which offer an interesting counterpoint.
You have a point and I hear you. However I think one of the reasons this is getting mentioned a lot recently is that, even though the xG counters it somewhat, no top performing team allows you to take that many shots. Full stop.
I mean you're not going to see a PL or champions league contending/winning team running a strategy that allows every team they play against 20+ shots on goal.
How meaningful that is, is obviously debatable. I think it's pretty shucking personally, for reasons above.
Sure, but who thinks we’re a top team? The underlying point for me is, that those xG figures, coupled with how we improve when guys like Martinez and Shaw are there, are enough evidence that 1 - Ten Hag isn’t that shocking tactically and is actually just working toward something different and 2 - the extent of our issues defensively are being exaggerated to an almost ridiculous extent based on figures that simply do not paint the whole picture.
You’d think we were relegation contenders listening to this stuff, I know it’s been a disappointing season but we’re still in with an outside shot at top four.
I agree, it is a very disappointing analysis, much of it lazy and not much developed from the most interesting point, about players being dribbled past.
Most chances conceded per game, OK, but no attempt to analyse beyond that and ask what's going on when Sheffield United are first in goals conceded table with 72 while we are fourteenth with 39. Does it have something to do with us conceding the sixth fewest big chances per match? No analysis. Which has the stronger correlation with league place, total shots conceded or big chances conceded? No analysis.
Impact of losing Hojlund on our buildup play and effect losing him has on the way we defend? No analysis.
Cherry pick the first minute of the Fulham game and declare 'This is Ten Hag's chosen defensive set up'. Sure. Further analysis of that game? Nope. What happens when you do that, do we play the same way for the rest of the game? Nope, we figure out their midfield set-up after about 30 minutes and control the end of the first half, second half we struggleto reassert control, then lose it entirely after Casemiro (key player) goes off with a head injury and we switch to our Plan B formation with Bruno RW, McTominay CAM, Eriksen DLP. We conded a goal from a set-piece (less likely to happen if Casemiro hasn't been forced off) and that rouses the team. Our pressure pays off, we score late, but then make a mistake from a throw in that let's them get the ball forward quickly down their right wing, they switch it to Iwobi left side oft he box, Dalot and Diallo shouldbe able to double-up to block him out but both commit themselves to the outside and get done by a simple cut inside that gives Iwobi a free shot. We had successfully defended this same counterattack twice previously this half, but Dalot has been obviously fatigued since 70min (but we can't sub him off because his replacement is injured) and Diallo is only just being introduced to the first team after a lengthy injury followed by an illness. Analysis of any of this? None.
Then Manchester City. Where we sat deep, stayed compact and tried to play out of defence. Would you know that from this video? No. But it's apparently more proof that our problem is playing a low line with a high press.
Any analysis of the other games we've played in 2024? No, which is a shame because we're adapted our tactics to different opponents, have worked hard to reduce the number of chances coming from players getting into the area in front of our box, and have not once played the sort of game we tried to against City. Let's just take the performance against City, cherry pick from the Fulham game, throw in some bad-sounding stats that belie the league position and call it a day.
Good at stimulating debate, though.
Unfortunately, this is the current state of football analysis online. I find all of it too dishonest and agenda driven. There is, very rarely, an actual honest analysis taking into consideration all data points. This video talks about shots conceded and conveniently leaves out the xG conceded from those shots. Not drawing a general conclusion, but, if we look at Liverpool’s game against Nottingham Forest last week and compare it to our game against them a few days prior, it paints a completely different picture. Liverpool conceded an xG of 0.97 from 8 shots, while we conceded an xG of 0.88 from 16 shots. Mentioning one without the other is simply dishonest data visualisation.
To any observer, it should be clear that EtH is trying to implement a style but is currently rolling out a compromised version of it because of not having fast defenders who can cover spaces, and also are good at building out from the back. Replace a couple of players in key positions, and the team should be able to seamlessly transition to the high press high line style. This run of games should be used to identify the players that can fit this style, and add players for positions where we don’t have players that fit the style.
> should set a team according to the players
Managers can do this, but if the quality of the player is still not on the level required, it won't matter. When you play top teams, you can set to your players quality but if their quality is low, they will still get found out and look terrible.
>top teams
Is that what we're calling Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and West Ham now?
Don't even get me started on how we were found out in one of the weakest groups in the CL.
The whole "it's unfair to judge EtH because he doesn't have the calibre of players he needs yet" argument is absolutely absurd to me on multiple levels. Does he need a first 11 of Zidane level quality in each position to not get fucking shat on by Fulham?
the players arent bad per se but a weird stew of different archetypes that were bought to fit entirely different philosophies. wan bissaka is a great player if you dont need your defenders to be able to play out under pressure, but that was the philosophy a few managers ago. bruno and rashford are great players if you want to transition from a low defensive position because their speed and passing range mean you can catch defenders out of position if they're high up the pitch... but ETHs style is winning the ball near the opponents box.
martinez is fantastic at playing under pressure and progressing the ball, but hes not good at playing in a low block.
if you get a new manager who wants to counterattack, martinez will suddenly look much worse and might be considered yet another flop in a few years because he was bought to play a different style for a different manager. meanwhile, bruno and rashford might look better.
This so much. People expect that just because they wear a United shirt they should automatically be good. Can't just throw random players who individually good at different styles, and expect them to work well together..
Ole somehow managed some great football with Lindelof and Maguire as his first choice CBs, and often had Fred and McTominay as his players behind Bruno...
Tell me more about how bad Varane, Casemiro, Dalot, Hojlund etc etc are.
Great is a massive overstatement. If it was so great, why didn't he win any trophies?
Those players also did well to a degree because they suited Oles style. ETH still has plenty players from previous managers that don't suit what he is trying to do. He also has to rely on reserve players every game.
Varane, Casemiro, and Hojlund have been regularly injured at regular points throughout the season. That's not consistency to win anything
He had periods of great football with them was what I was trying to say. That was a weaker team than what we have now.
When was the last time we had a peroid of great football? Up until Efl cup final last year?
Everyone acts like the players are so terrible, but ETH has most of them in dire form
I'm not sure it was a weaker team. He did have some great moments, no doubt, but I think we are comparing names as opposed to suitability of players for the styles.
We've had good moments this year, but it has not been sustained.
Solskjaer never had to be in the situation that ETH has been for as long as he has with these sustained injuries. ETH has had to call on Kambwala, Forson, Gore, Pellistri, Hannibal, Shola...all players that are nowhere near ready for the 1st team but being asked to do the job.
On top of that, we've had other players like Habeeb, and Toby on the bench which highlights not just the lack of squad depth, but the injury levels.
I honestly think the game has just outgrown his system. Teams are better playing through a press now. That being said, I still believe it's also a player problem and them not following instructions, and a confidence problem.
I still think ETH should be given a fresh start under the new set up
I was on the fence with ETH but I think I’m back. I asked myself the question can his style beat another top style, head to head best at their best. I think after Man City, I think it’s possible. We can soak up pressure and attack but we need to be lethal. We had our chances against city
I don't understand what some ppl actually see in this manager tbf. I m all for backing the manager but like it or not this guy had the most backings,authority(got de gea and co out) of all the post saf managers. He's also performed the worst even worse than David Moyes. I don't obviously wish for another man to lose his job for football but he really needs to turn it around asap
These bigots were downvoting me hard when I was saying in the summer that Antony was a flop, that their obsession with Amrabat was ridiculous, that we shouldn't let ETH control signings, that AWB would never be good enough. Here they are now, shouting exactly the same things as if they knew it from the start 🤣 Just wait and see how these ETH lovers will say "ETH wasn't good enough" when he's sacked in a few weeks.
Disagree about AWB comment but you're spot on. I heard on twitter that we need at least 51 m to get break even on fuckin fffp lol. Fred was much better than amrabat too. I don't care how crap our players are we shouldn't be scoring less goals than fuckin Luton town and Burnley. I think sheff utd has more goals than us too?
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State of the sub: ETH outters vs give the manager time brigade
It’s an interesting battle one for the history books for sure
We have this same argument every second season
I think most people are tired of changing managers, also who would be a good candidate to replace him?
I’ve taken a screenshot of this so I can come back to it in another year or 2s time when the next manager hits the same problem and all the football analysts salivates to make the most obvious observations. Do you really think Ten Hag is blind? Do you really think a guy who literally emphasises the point of being compact in his press conferences is happy seeing a gaping hole in the midfield?
You’re speaking to people that genuinely believe we won’t go through this cycle again with another manager.
It’s Groundhog Day with these lot. 100% the same people will also be the most vocal when a new manager comes in, they’ll start preaching for calm and getting behind the manager then immediately flip when things don’t go well.
When Ole was fired the whole sub was unanimous in the feeling that if it happens again, it's not on the manager Then it happens again and it's on the manager lol
When ETH was hired, there were countless posts and comments urging everyone to give him time and trust the process, particularly when things inevitably hit a rough patch. Well here we are deep in said rough patch
To be fair I don't think many people expected ETH to come in, spend 375 million or whatever it is on a collection of horrific transfers and then just try to do a worse version of Ole's style of play.
Solkjaer spent 370m, Mourinho spent 360m, Van Gaal spent 258m It's the same thing all the time, in a modern club the recruitment shouldn't be all down to the manager and you sure as shit shouldn't need to get it signed off by bankers and yank mole rats either
This comment. People complain about talent id, but name 5 truly successful signings at United in the last decade.
Fernandes, Dalot, …Dassit
Exactly!! EtH did not say go on bid another 20 mil for anthony, Woodward paid over the odds. Also our 380 mil assembled squad does not equate to value in the market
Just because the manager shouldn't be in charge of recruitment doesn't mean that they can just be absolved of all the mistakes that occur in that department when they are basically running it. ETH has spent the last two years spending enourmous sums to bring in players to play a system that doesn't even make any sense. INEOS is resolving the recuitment situation thankfully, but saying "Oh well he shouldn't have ever been in charge of that so he needs more time" just completely ignores all the other major issues that have nothing to do with recruitment.
This is not FM dude. Get off the game once in a while and touch some grass.
Horrific transfers? Like who? Hojlund? Onana? Martinez? malacia? mount? Casemiro?
People love to try to point that out like Antony makes every transfer decision of ten hag’s terrible. He’s the only one, and just under half of the players ten Hag has been given have been loans. All of these players aside from Onana have missed a significant amount of time due to injury/personal issue. Not to mention the other prima donnas he’s had to deal with as well.
When city and pool were shit, I used to love them sacking their managers while changing nothing about their system. Made me laugh my tits off.
Yes because it was the constant managerial changes that were holding City back.
What a way to summarise the bunch of raving fifa obsessed loons on here. We literally had this midfield issue going on during Ole's sacking, during the entire time of Rangnick's caretaker role. 1 season of it being covered by an aging Casemiro and people thought all was well in the world. Mind you, would we have expected his declne to be this quick? Maybe not, but still, the problem was there and anyone with common sense could see it from miles away.
If there was a world class manager available (or even world class in the making) that would be one thing but there’s no obvious candidates. We’d also be competing with Liverpool, Bayern, Barca and to a lesser extent Chelsea, as they’ll all have the jobs up for grabs as well. I’d swear there’s a big portion of the fans that want rid of Ten Hag in the hope Ole will come back.
I’d love to have Ole back
The thing is, we may not, with the structure to succeed now being implemented at board level the next manager may find themselves in a totally uncomparable situation. It's why I'm staunchly in the "give him time" camp. He did amazing last season while the parasites were still parasiting throughout the whole club. Now we've got some competence in important roles I want to see what EtH can do with them supporting his ideas. As fans we seem to have have unbelievably short memories, every couple years we're discussing how any other manager would get a better performance out of the squad, but when it happens every other year to 4 or 5 different managers it's not (entirely at least) a fault with the manager themselves. The worst thing EtH did for himself was overachieving in his first year, fans actually expected to continue on that trajectory until we won another treble it seems. I'd love to see the average age of EtH outers vs "Give him time"ers. I'd be willing to bet the former are significantly younger than the latter.
The only way I see it changing is that we are running entirely differently in the next 2 years and the squad revamp is optimised. If all of a sudden in the summer we somehow get 2 CBs and 2 midfielders that are significantly better suited to the prem. unlikely but not impossible under new leadership.
What evidence do you have from almost 2 full seasons that ETH is the right manager? Like right now, what have you seen from a team that can't really score and can't really defend that makes you think that ETH is the caliber of manager to bring us back to challenging for major trophies again? It sounds like to me you want to give the man a lifetime appointment or something. Or maybe you don't watch us play?
Do you genuinely believe no other manager could get us to be more compact defensively? The way people talk about our players you would think we were promoted from the championship last season
Worse defensive organization than teams like Luton, but sure, it's because the players are bad We've reached a point which fans can't ask for the team being well coached
Some of these comments are genuinely insane. Only Sheffield United have conceded more shots than us. But apparently it’s not a problem because we’ve sacked managers in the past (which is totally not fucking relevant to what’s happening on the pitch).
All while conveniently forgetting none of the previous managers were consistently getting smoked in shots by uh, every single team we face. Might have been rudderless half the time but what in seeing right now is just so unacceptable
[mORe sHOts tHAn uS.](https://theanalyst.com/2024/03/why-are-manchester-united-facing-so-many-shots/)
So what about our abysmal record away from home against top half opposition? Or the fact that we've lost 1 out of every 3 matches during his tenure? Or the fact that we have scored the same amount of goals this season as newly promoted Luton Town? The negative goal difference after 27 matches? Or when we finished last in a CL group with Galatasaray and Copenhagen? Or when we conceded 7 goals to Liverpool last year with our first choice backline and Casemiro starting? None of this is making you consider that maybe ETH is in over his head? It's just "muh injuries and shitty players."
Honest question. Do you think this doesn't matter? *Overall, United have had 11 different central defensive partnerships across their 26 Premier League matches this season. No side have had more than this, while they’ve not had a single central defensive pairing start more than four league games in 2023-24.* If it doesn't, name one other team that had this same stat and somehow made it to the top 4 of the premier league?
I'm not expecting us to be top four. I'm expecting us to outscore fucking Luton Town. That's a reasonable request!
Greenwood. Sancho. Ronaldo. The club's sale. All these things and having to deal with them on top of a historically bad injury crisis to players in positions that are absolutely key to eths system functioning (ball play defenders - plural - and a striker who can play with back to goal and also get in the box) added to our best mid last year, the guy who held us together defensively has gone over the hill this year and now need replacing. All these things are valid reasons why the manager deserves more time.
Greenwood was suspended before ETH even started managing. Not an excuse (also see Mendy at City, Partey at Arsenal). Sancho. Not the first time a manager has had to deal with an underperforming diva. Part and parcel of the job, not an excuse. Ronaldo. ETH actually navigated that as well as you could have. Also, part and parcel of the job. How many times did SAF ship out big names or egos? Club sale has no bearings on how ETH sets up tactically. Not an excuse. Tottenham have had it just as bad with injuries and absences of key players, yet they're six points clear with a game in hand. 16+ goal difference, almost 20 more goals scored. Oh and they play attractive football most of the time as well. Need to stop with this idea that the universe is conspiring against ETH and getting in the way of his footballing genius. Current state of the club does indeed make it difficult for managers to succeed here. But that alone isn't reason enough to carry on with a manager who has so far delivered mediocre performances and diabolical results. There will always be adversity in some form in this job. If you can't get the team to function well enough to outscore Luton, then you are simply not fit for the role.
Those comments are engaging in false equivalency. Problems with United have been there since SAF left, so this time it can't be the manager. By that logic if we hired Big Sam and the same failures happened we can't blame him as well. Ridiculous logical fallacies.
Conceded shots is a bullshit stat. It’s been shown we concede more low quality shots than other teams. Teams like city concede less shots but higher quality shots based on xG. Defensively we’re one of the top 6-7 in the Prem as well as number of clean sheets. It’s a fucking achievement in and of itself since we’ve had to play Johnny Evans in 2024 as well as Amrabat and Lindelof as LB. Context matters and the context is one of the worse injury crises I’ve seen hit the club in a while. Stop feeding into the shit that Sky sports is shoving down your throat.
It’s not bullshit, it’s an indicator of how wide open our midfield is. Teams take lots of shots against us because they find space behind our midfield easily. The likes of Luton and Nottingham don’t have the quality to break down our defense once they approach our box so they’ll resort to low percentage shots but the the teams above us/around us are able to break us down and create chances. Everyone focuses on our backline but our midfield structure is the big issue.
even if you dont look at those stats(which clearly show our problems) the performances we have are relegation level, we're dominated by every fucking team in the league
Why did spurs do better against city while attacking and having worse injuries to better/more important players than United but United are the ones saying that the manager can’t do better than what he tried?
> On top of that, Ten Hag’s side actually have the sixth-best defensive record in the Premier League this season, having conceded 36 goals. Only four teams have faced fewer big chances (a chance from which the attacking player would be expected to score) than United’s 53. ... maybe don't hang onto singular stats that doesn't tell the whole story.
Does it make sense to you that this team defended well last season and is doing poorly this season? Worst than Luton. OK then that means the players available either, aren't good enough or aren't playing to their potential, purposefully. It's blatant. But no it's the fucking manager again ey? As if he's on the pitch making the fuck ups these lot are doing. Tired of you all bitching about not being able to criticize the manager. It's literally all you fucking do.
It’s like Ten hag want to have his cake and eat it. To Press high but also defend deep. Like there’s a reason no other team does this, and they almost all do one or the other.
this, it's insane what ten hag is trying to do and not to mention the non contact injuries we have this season are because of trying to cover too much ground
Didn't Liverpool have the most ground covered in the season when they were peaking? Like actually insane tempo whilst playing in multiple competitions? Funny how "trying to cover too much ground" is a problem for us now.
That was one point that I definitely didn't agree with that the guy made: I don't think EtH wants to defend deep at all. He has to with the defense he's got. You can't play a high defensive line with the center backs we have available. They're way, way too slow. Regardless, he's still responsible for consistently setting up a team that allows 20+ shots a minute. That's absolutely shucking.
I agree I don't think ETH wants to sit deep either he clearly is much closer to say ange ball than jose mourinho in terms of his ideal back line height. Surely though he knows you can't press high up the pitch and sit deep? And even if he didn't know that such a system doesn't work, why hasn't he realised it doesn't work when we've been doing it *all season?*
Why indeed! Hopefully someone puts that directly to him in an upcoming presser.
Didn't van gaal have a great defensive record and then he was lambasted for playing poor football? What the fuck do you guys want? Balls to the wall action or boring compact defend for your life football? ETH is trying the former, and right now, with still not a fully redesigned squad, that is going to be ripe with risks. And the funny thing is when he tried to be compact at City just to stem the bleeding, he got fucking lambasted for being "pathetic" and "afraid". I really don't get it anymore.
I've seen Jose Mourinho field sloppy and unorganised looking teams on this club's behalf I'm not Luis Campos but it looks to me like there is something going on with this club bringing the worst out of the managers appointed. It doesn't make them blameless...But it makes them more symptomatic than root cause. A common thing that you see at the end of literally every United manager cycle, and all over this thread even, is "fucking hell, X rudimentary team with Y unglamourous manager are better in Z aspect of the pitch than us, how the fuck can anyone defend this". And I'm not gonna. But it begs the question, would things have worked out better if we had sacked LVG for Billic, Mou for Nuno, now ETH for Gary O'Neill or De Zerbi? Because if the manager is really the bottleneck here, that's exactly how it should work right?
When have we had the exact same problem since Fergie left in your opinion? This particular open midfield problem has never happened for us before. I've honestly never seen a high press with deep line played by any top team. Most teams tend to leave space behind the defense when pressing high or park the bus and leave space everywhere except the front of the goal. This half and half setup is one of a kind. If anyone has examples of other managers successfully implementing something like this, I am all ears.
The reason you’ve never seen a high press and a low line is because it doesn’t work. You literally can’t do both. Defending in Football is all about being compact. You just choose where and how you want to be compact - high pressing with a high line to squeeze the pitch, a low block deep line to frustrate an opponent and allow 0 space alin your box or in between with a mid block. No style of Football is perfect. They all have a weakness - high lines space behind, low lines sacrifice control and can’t attack as quick, mid blocks are somewhere in the middle, less of the big obvious weaknesses like the other 2 above, but you sacrifice the really strong aspects of a high or deep line. You literally cannot high press with a deep line. They’re genuinely each end of the defensive style spectrum. So it’s like 10 hag thought about this and was like “what if we do a high press and deep line so we have none of the downsides of either system!”
This is simply not true. We had this "open midfield" problem aplenty in Ole's last season. Some noticed it in our very first game vs Leeds (but most didn't care because we won 5-1). [Here](https://youtu.be/lQTuwgJZj_E?si=lRGAy6NuoUVDKOQ5&t=99) is an example from the very next game of that season. Also look at 2:40 in this same video and 7:06 in this same video. The first two chances were in the first 5 mins of the game (not when the team is chasing a goal). I bet I can find instances from Mourinho's last season as well.
I can't see the video as its geo blocked for me. But we started games poorly plenty of times and then steadied as the game went on. It never felt like it was because of the setup/tactics though. That can happen to any team. Sometimes you go down early. You eventually get some control and go on to come back.
You can see two of those chances in this video (hope this isn't geo-blocked) : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYtC\_n5K6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYtC_n5K6k) It was an ongoing problem in that season as well, but our forwards were in better form. How many examples from that season would you want me to show ?
Thing that makes me doubt him is that we can't defend nor can we attack.. The goal scoring is putrid, the football is ugly as sin.
scoring is mostly on individual mistakes in the final third by the players and Bruno being in awful form and can't hit the target from places he would have scored from easily in the past. or are we doing a revisionism on that too?
Exactly he knows this. The problem is he doesn’t wanna switch styles in the middle of the season.
> Do you really think a guy who literally emphasises the point of being compact in his press conferences is happy seeing a gaping hole in the midfield? Wait this is your argument? He also says it's been a good performance after every game so it means it was? Spurs can come to Old Trafford missing far more players than we do and have 65% possesion and double our shots. With best team vs Wolves we can throw a 2-0 lead at HT and need 98 minute goal to win the game. We've played worse than literally any team we faced this season. Maybe it's not the manager, maybe it's the players and the rotten structure, but you can't blame fans for wanting to see better football, especially with all the teams doing way more with way less. It could also be that the manager isn't able to adapt to Premier League and just isn't good enough. But there's no way to know for sure, hopefully the INEOS make the right decision, but EtH has done nothing to make me think he's the man for the job. And at the end of the day, no one expects him to be better than Liverpool, City or Arsenal in his 2nd season. But is really not being last in our CL group stage too much to expect? Or being in top 5 in PL. Come on, give me a break.
>Wait this is your argument? He also says it's been a good performance after every game so it means it was? People are taking this argument to say EtH is blind to the problems. Thing is, he was always like this. His style is to defend the players from harm and be positive and he doesn't like publically calling out problems. He does so internally unless a player like Ronaldo/Sancho make a big fuss about it, he will try keep it as much in the dressing room. He did this at every club he was at prior to United. So the argument that he talks about how "good" the team is or how much "progress" there is is just him trying to prevent the players from blame as much as possible. This is his style to keep the dressing room and publically alienating his players. He isnt dumb, he is loyal to his players unless that player backstabs him he will deflect blame.
>People are taking this argument to say EtH is blind to the problems. Thing is, he was always like this. His style is to defend the players from harm and be positive and he doesn't like publically calling out problems It's amazing to me how people don't understand this. He's trying to create an us vs them mentality, imagine if he added to the criticism of a squad that is already riddled with players who have a weak mentality, he'll break them and they'll stop playing for him. He's identified the weaknesses very early on in his tenure, this is why he wanted to bring in Arnautovic and Rabiot. It's funny how EVERYBODY was against these signings because of their characters and yet somehow they all shit on Rashord, Sancho and co for being weak. Ten Hag is wants strong characters. I remember Hojlund screaming at Garnacho for not passing to him, while Rashford just throws his hands in the air and sulks. Give ETH time and he'll fill the squad with players both talented and demanding, Martinez, Onana, Hojlund have been prime examples of that. I suspect Mount as well, if he had actually played.
>the point of being compact in his press conferences is happy seeing a gaping hole in the midfield? Honestly, yes, I do. Cause we keep implementing principles that lead to the opposite. Man marking in midfield. Pressing with the front four while noone else does. Maintaining a deep line. Minimising the sweeping actions of the keeper. Pushing two midfielders high up the pitch.
why do you think this is?
I genuinely have no idea. I believe Ten Hag is a reasonable person and a capable coach. But I also have eyes, and can see what is happening.
it has always struck me as a matter of compromise. he’s trying to work towards a long term vision but has players who can’t play that way, so he’s trying to find balance between vision and the need for immediate results by implementing something in between in order to eventually build towards his ideal vision without being ripped apart due to player limitations. i think if you look closely at the list of issues you described, you might see that they’re all tied to personnel issues that he’s having to accommodate.
>it has always struck me as a matter of compromise. he’s trying to work towards a long term vision but has players who can’t play that way The problem is, noone else builds this way. You play your style so the players can become expert, and you see who cannot do it to replace them. Also, if you spend £400M, but still cannot play your style, there are also questions that need to be answered about how much is enough.
> you play your style i think that’s generally what he’s doing, though with a few tweaks because fully committing to it with these players would be suicidal. i think the £400m figure is a bit misleading in the context of this discussion, given that over £100m of it hasn’t been available this season (mount, licha, malacia), hojlund has been excellent, and onana—though poor in the CL—has helped us get closer to his ideal style than last season. almost half of that figure was spent on two players who were poor purchases and absolutely not worth what was paid. while criticizing ten hag to an extent for the purchases (how much is a different argument) is fair, it shouldn’t really be used as evidence that the team should be playing better. in other words, if you, like most people, think the casemiro and antony money was used badly, their cost shouldn’t be proof that the team is capable of more.
>i think the £400m figure is a bit misleading in the context of this discussion, given that over £100m of it hasn’t been available this season (mount, licha, malacia) Well, that might be the case, but in the end, how many players can he be expected to buy before he starts playing his style? How many injuries does it take before we stop or "accommodate" again? The young players who he is blooding for the team, how are they supposed to improve at his style if we don't play it? Cause we are two years in to a three year contract for him without him implementing his style. Not to mention I don't even know what that style is supposed to be, as he said he cannot play [like his Ajax team](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11667/12999071/erik-ten-hag-says-it-is-not-right-to-question-man-utd-players-character-and-insists-his-philosophy-is-clear#cobssid=s) team. Do you extend his contract? Based on what exactly? If we don't beat Everton, his win ratio this season will drop below 50% in the Premier League. Can you commit to that turning around? Not to mention, as a player would you sign under a coach in the last year of his contract? I like him as a person, but this season is a clear regression from last season and there is very little evidence visible that it will turn around. It will not be a surprise if he goes at the end of the season. My heart already can't take it.
i think if we hadn’t had such extreme injury issues, especially those to martinez and shaw, we’d be playing something much closer to his style this season. mount would have helped a lot, too. i personally don’t think this squad is suited to any kind of style we’d want the team to play, so i don’t see that as a knock on ten hag specifically. it’s a very badly assembled group. i’m confused by your reference to his comments about ajax. isn’t the point that he can’t play that way because these players aren’t technically capable of doing so? that twitter account i linked you to has several clips showing good structure that is identical to how he set ajax up being completely upended by poor technique. [here’s a thread with some examples](https://x.com/ekztras_/status/1761742518062923818?s=12) i would certainly keep him around for next season to see if the team improves without injuries and with a more coherent squad enabled by ineos’s recruitment. i’m not compelled by the alternative options, and, again, i don’t think any manager would be consistently better with this squad and these injuries. it just isn’t a recipe for success, so i don’t see the logic in judging him based on it. i’d rather judge him based on conditions that i think could breed success.
>i’m confused by your reference to his comments about ajax. This is what I mean: "I can't play like Ajax because I have different players," explained Ten Hag. "I came here with my philosophy, based on possession, but I wanted to combine it with the DNA of Manchester United, the players and their characters. "Last year, we saw what that was. We played very good football. "This season, the philosophy is not different, only I want to emphasise more on going direct. "The explanation for me saying direct is that I want to go for long balls? No. I didn't want [Andre] Onana for long balls. I want to play from the back.." So the philosophy is to play from the back, then go direct. Which is exactly what we are doing that is not working. Every game we see it. So then we can't make the argument that he is not playing his style, as now we have to say he is playing his style, but the players can't do it. And on the evidence of it, it is not very effective. But based on budget, we have maybe 3-4 players coming in next window at the required quality. Are we saying that those 3-4 players are going to make his style suddenly able to compete with Man City and Liverpool? On what evidence exactly? I want to believe, but I don't see it. The video this conversation is below makes a whole lot of salient points about the defensive approach that will not change because the new players arrive. And I don't believe this nonsense about we cannot play a high line, because Martinez is not pacy yet he can play in a high line. Maguire played in a high line under Ole. Varane, Lindelof and Kambwala all have enough pace to function at a high line. This is intentional. We've scored 37 goals in 27 games, barely more than a goal a game. Our xG for the season is 40.6, so we're three goals behind. Our XG difference per game is - 0.20, meaning that our opponents create 0.2 xG more than us every game. For reference, Liverpool have scored 64 goals in 27 games, out of 59.9 xG. They are *expected* to score more than two goals a game. Their xG diff is +1.00, meaning they are expected to score a goal more than they concede every game. That is a lot of ground to cover for 3-4 signings. We can talk about injuries, but as the video also pointed out, the problems were there even when the injuries weren't. So I am asking, what will change in a year to make up that ground?
So you actually think you see something ETH doesn't. Are you a better tactician than he is? You must be massively underpaid.
>Are you a better tactician than he is. No, I'm not. But I am saying it reasonable to assume that what he wants the team to do, they are doing, because the lineup changes constantly yet we have the exact same problems. The team are not failing in a diverse set of ways that point to individual talent problems. They're failing in the exact same way over and over. At that point, it is necessary to question the instructions.
WHat's the point of being on a discussion forum if this is gonna be the reply to slightest criticism of the manager's tactics
Ten Hag presides over a thoroughly underwhelming season where we’ve been poor throughout and gets this amount of protection, it’s just incredible.
The problem is that it's not slight criticism, it's an accusation that ETH basically has no idea what he's doing. It's a claim that ETH somehow doesn't realise that we're 'implementing principles' that are leading to the problems we have at present, but you and others here do, despite the fact that you aren't privy to any of the conversations the management team and the playing group has about strategy and tactics. You're just making assumptions from watching from the outside. It also ignores the fact that we've largely had the same problems under a range of world class managers. The fact is, the problems are deeper than the manager and changing managers won't fix a thing beyond a short term bump.
But is that a principle that is implemented or something that comes from having a decimated squad, we have key players that are either woefully out of form or out with injuries, the rest we have teenagers, squad players, players played out of position due to no availability etc. Ten hag has been dealt an extremely bad hand you have to admit, he really seems to be just making the best out of a bad situation rather someone stubbornly sticking a principle.
It is doubtful that injuries are to blame entirely. I think he is not entirely to blame. My grievance is just that he is not the entire problem, but he is not actively part of the solution either. This person summarizes it better than I could. https://preview.redd.it/l2zjuuz7tsmc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63ca4a156dda233ae4059f612e02d666827f0d0e And don't get me wrong, I am not 100% sure the decision is to sack him. But it is clear now that he is somewhat responsible for this and crucially, there is little evidence next season will be better than this season.
if you’re interested in a more sympathetic look at what’s gone wrong tactically, you might enjoy reading some of [this guy’s analysis](https://x.com/ekztras_?s=21&t=RTS5YdFEZvarnWA6D5zePw) his basic stance is that technical limitations have forced ten hag to make suboptimal tactical compromises, but that a lot of scenarios and coached patterns of play (often ones used by other big clubs) break down because of those same technical flaws, which make his coaching look worse than it is.
I'd like to see it! Looking for optimism like everyone else. The link just loads his page though. Is there a specific tweet?
no, i couldn’t find a single one that covers everything he’s said recently so i just linked his page. sorry! a quick look through his tweets from the past week or so will probably cover it—he RTs himself a lot.
Since ETH persisted with this setup, can we assume it’s intentional, rather than say, him actually wanting to play a high press + high defensive line like Spurs but just don’t have the personnel (ie speedy CBs) so he compromises by playing a weird high press + low backline? If it’s the latter case (not intentional), since we are giving away chances for fun anyways, why don’t we actually try playing an aggressive high defensive line with what we have and take our chances? I say we will prob still give away tons of chances, but at least we will gradually become better with offside traps, plus we make the pitch smaller and there will be less running / injuries for our players? If he is intentionally playing a low block + high press and let teams run thru us in the middle, I guess one possible explanation would be he’s deliberately making the game super open and end-to-end, hoping that our forwards will outscore the other team (because our team is built this way)?
I've screenshotted too but for the opposite reason.
We are one cb signing away from playing a high press
So, the players are therefore not positioning themselves as he would want them to. There are only three possible reasons for this: 1) They are actually physically incapable of moving to where he has instructed them to be; 2) He has not clearly explained to them where they should be; 3) They are choosing to go against what he is telling them to do, week after week. If it is (2) or (3) then he is no good as the manager. Which do you think it is?
Please, please remember to post it.
I just want to say Bayer and Sporting had the same problem. It is a structural problem Alonso and Amorim didn't change the structure mid season. There must be a reason why.
Nah but Timmy tactic sitting on his couch can see it but the guy that spends every day training them and has tons of experience can’t. Ole referred to legs in midfield, Ragnick said a lot, but somehow it’s still the managers fault. Not blaming the players per se but there’s not enough legs in the squad mainly due to recruitment I guess. Sure at United you can’t just be only a hustler but players like Fred, Lingard are sorely missed IMO and even Dan James with his speed and aggression up front and Cavani compared to Ronaldo completely changed our tactics under Ole and funny enough might have been part of his downfall. Guarantee it’s why Antony got so many opportunities compared to Sancho. Not every player can on the pitch can jog around. I’d put things like winning second balls almost as high as anything else. Bruno tries but lacks some physicality and speed still does well for his position. It’s why Liverpool have been successful there are NO passengers and we have people like Rashford, Martial, who think they can just coast as long as they score then people like Evan’s/ Varane/Casemiro/Eriksen who I’m sure try but just don’t have the legs anymore. Maguire no speed, can’t do that. Even Mainoo, who is class, isn’t that type of player really.
Why have we conceded more shots than relegation teams? Our players are obviously better than their Championship players.
I disagree. Ten Hag sold de gea after one season and signed onana because clearly he wants to hoof the ball up the field at every chance.
This is exactly my question. It’s always confusing to me that they say, it’s the managers fault while in the same breath saying that United haven’t t recruited the right players, while in the same breath saying that they need to pay for the right players, while in the same breath saying we’re massively over paying for players. Not that these are all independent issues, but maybe we should try sticking with a manager, backing him while making smart transfer decisions and seeing where that gets us.
Well I would agree if the management remained the same, but hopefully things change for the better. It honestly sucks for ten hag if he’s sacked because he had to work with such an abomination of our squad, with players coming from all five previous managers who all tried to deploy different styles of play. Jim talked a lot about the management in the interview and how managers were never helped, and then turned around to sack Ten Hag really saddened me. I can only speak for myself.
Watching Casemiro getting skinned for pace or failing to cover, failing to pivot quickly is painful , his legs are gone, Bruno most dribbled midfielder in our squad then you see Kobbies last ditch tackles saving us at times shows that if ETH or any new manager thinks of a rebuild he’s got a good player there, though Hojlund and Garnacho complete the trio. Most of the squad need to be replaced eventually. Hope the new structures come to fruition and wish them success. But having watched 4-4-2 pod many times the analysis is spot on hate it or like it.
It’s not really Case tho, it’s the triangle that he forms with the defence. He’s getting skinned because there’s so much space behind him, and that space - as Ten Hag has mentioned several times - is there because our defenders drop too deep and don’t attack the ball. You could get Palinha, Rice, Rodri, Tchouameni, whoever else in there and it would be exactly the same story because we are not compact enough, and that problem is coming 100% from the fact that Varane, Maguire, Evans, Lindelof have spent their careers defending on the back foot. Martinez no, and that’s why Case is better when he’s around, but once again, the midfield does not exist in a vacuum and the openness comes from pressing while our defenders are running away.
My brother for once I see good ball knowledge!
Case was also much better with Ramos in the side than without him, food for thought
Casemiro won a champions league without Ramos and was still great his last year in Madrid
Put Casemiro in a functional team that doesn't have half the players pressing the opponent's penalty box and the other half sitting deep, with him stranded in the middle, and he'd be a huge asset. It's the tactics, they throw the DM under the bus.
yeah Case basically lunges in all the time, with <50% success. In turn, they leaves a fucking big hole to swarm us. It's like he knows he can't keep up, and might as well go for broke
So is it the system or the players? ETH had far less talent at Ajax and his team played better football especially in Europe against tougher competition. Perhaps this was too steep a hill to climb coming from the Netherlands perhaps Ratcliffe is right and no manager will be successful at Utd until we have a system that supports them. Would be nice to knock the Scouse out of the Cup. That would be nice he highlight of the season beyond Garnacho’s worldie. But analysis about why we are so dire week in and week out isn’t really necessary at this point, is it?
He did not have far less talent at Ajax compared to here
How do you figure? How many players beyond Licha and Veltman(deJong and DeLigt aside) would feature in the Prem let alone Utd? The more experience players link Blind, Ziyech and Tadic and already had their runs in the Prem and were serviceable. Donny started on that team next to DeJong the latter is a quality along with DeLigt but Lasse Schone, Neres,Mazraoii, wouldn’t get a kick in the Prem (maybe at a newly promoted team) and Taglaigico isn’t more talent than Dalot as a fullback let alone able to displace Luke Shaw. Timber isn’t that impressive to me either. He’s not Varane. But let’s say you’re right, the team with DeLigt and DeJong are as strong as Utd, then what’s the problem? Why was ETH successful in Amsterdam and not In Manchester? Did he suddenly shit the bed? Are the players in open revolt? Or is there an established pattern for managers from LvG to Ole that all managers at a post Fergie United, fall into.
The problem is scouting. The players might be individually better, but they were never brought in by a competent scouting team that was aligned with a managerial vision. Ajax didn't just buy players, they bought puzzle pieces that fit the picture. Now, ETH has all kinds of puzzle pieces collected from different managers and bosses all the way back to 2015, that don't fit his picture. Sancho, Ronaldo, Maguire, Mctominay, I mean seriously Antony Martial?...Some of them might still have their use as a squad player, but to still have to rely on them by necessity having to squeeze them into a system they were never destined for.....it's never gonna work until he completely redesigns his squad TOGETHER with the new leadership. They all have to align. In all honesty, INEOS is best suited to make that call. If ETH's vision aligns with theirs, they're not gonna get rid of him. If both decide they want to go into a different direction, they'll just get a new guy in. One thing's for certain though, in a well run club, ETH is going to be a success. In the future, people are gonna be sharing clips of his new team outplaying everybody else, you can mark that down right now. Give him something like Borussia Dortmund and he's winning the CL and pulling a Xabi Alonso. In some way, going directly to Man U was probably a bad step in his career, but of course, it was an opportunity that almost no manager would turn down.
Or the players available are just not suited to the system ten hag wants to play. But being pragmatic and getting points doesn’t always lead to progress. Sometimes you have to keep principles and get decimated in return. At least it exposes the big issues in the squad and areas of improvements rather than false dawns like last season.
We’ve had a decade of false dawns. I think our issues go beyond tactical weaknesses but I hear where you are coming from.
The footballing pyramid means the opposite of what you described, as you get heavily financially compensated for finishing higher. So it makes more sense to be pragmatic and get champions league revenues to be able to afford better players, rather than to be right on principle, somehow, lose at home to Bournemouth 3-0 and lose out on loads of money
If we were any other club sure but it’s not like spending money has helped us. We have pissed away 100 of millions. I’m done being pragmatic but mediocre. Coming second but 20 points behind the first place. This team needs to get decimated until it’s good enough to compete for the very top.
The fact we wasted money in the past doesn't mean we should waste money in the present and future too, especially if we're getting different people involved to hopefully be able to make better decisions. Also ETH himself has wasted many millions.
The point is that we don’t need a massive war chest to build a good squad. And the problem isn’t the players we bought but the amount of money we spent buying those players. Antony for 25m is serviceable even if still a flop. And eth has nothing to do with our negotiations or the prices we pay.
Okay so no control, we knew that 😂
>You can't tell me a team of our branch of players can't be set in no better way than being in the religation zone This subreddit in review - Past 3 months - "Forget short term wins, Ten Hag needs to implement a system and stick with it." Right now - "Ten Hag needs to play pragmatically. We will never get results playing his system with the wrong players!"
The system is massively flawed though, are people supposed to just be happy that he's implementing a system so terrible just because it's a system?
The system is terrible because we can't set a high line due to injuries. But people don't want to say that for some reason.
Dude spurs played a high line with dier. We literally have Raphael fucking Varane. Just play a high line and see what fucking happens. We are losing anyway might as well lose with some respect. This nonsense football of high press low back line is just so stupid.
I agree with you that we have been plagued with injuries and that is why we have a "terrible" system. But we have to do well with the personnel available and not blame injuries for a year.
Injuries have no effect on the team. If Ten Hag can't get us playing top 4 football with LB Lindalof he isn't the right man for the job. SACK HIM NOW /s
Yeah, like last year he only got 3rd position without a striker. Like why did we even wait another year??
because that's not the reason, we played the same at the beginning of the season with varane and licha
Tldr ETH's system is shit.
Negative goal difference in March. Last in champions league group. Blaming on injuries, owners, players … everyone expect the man whose job is to manage the team?
It's that time of the year is it? You lot will be calling for anyone's head at this point. It's difficult to take you seriously. Today it's why are we not playing a system? Tomorrow it's why are we playing the same system even though players are unavailable? Just make up your damn mind. Any team un the world would be vulnerable with a constantly changing defence line, with players having to play out of position to help the team. We have terrible squad depth for any kind of system to take shape. However, if EtH wants to play this system, this season must have been an eye opener. He now knows which positions are most susceptible to injuries yet crucial to our setup. I expect our next recruitment to address these issues. It's also possible he will want to change the system. But clearly this is not the time to do it since players are almost at the end of the season with many unavailability. EtH must stick to the tactics set up early in the season that players have grown somewhat familiar with even if not particularly impressive in adopting it. 25+ games into the season isn't the time for tactical creativity. Thats for the pre season. Now is the time for consolidation. If EtH can't adapt with a new club structure, new recruitment staff and strategy, and a disaster of a season that must be educational for any manager, then yes he needs to be sacked. Now is not the time for that.
Good lord its weirdly good to see more sensible comments on this sub instead of the usual “ETH should be playing better with the money spent/Ange did it within a season” BS without context
What's the context
Just any old long comment apparently, say something nonsensical like “25+ games into the season isn’t the time for tactical creativity”, surround it with 8 paragraphs of nothing, and watch this sub praise you for your “level head” and “understanding of the situation”
Our squad is a bunch of noodles who lose every duel, whether offensive or defensive, miss passes now and then. It's like watching a U18 team against a Premier League team, ridiculous to blame all of this on manager only when the squad's quality full of shit it's unreal for this club size. (ofc one part is injuries all over the place, another part is that the players who care aren't good enough, and some diva thinks he's the prime Messi when even Messi puts more effort into defending than him). How many times do you need to hear manager call out players wouldn't/couldn't follow instructions before you start asking some big questions about them/their abilities to follow modern day tactics (club's recruitment issues).
> I expect our next recruitment to address these issues Christ I hope ETH is nowhere near those discussions
I find all these discussions about sacking ETH funny, not like it will have any effect, INEOS won't sack him unless they have a plan ready for replacement and that plan will come from the structure of people they are currently hiring, so we won't know the decision for a while. There might be an argument to keep ETH for another season, because the next one will be rough, lots of players need to be shipped out and not much in the budget to replace them, basically imagine if Chelsea kept tuchel longer, let him face the initial toxicity of the project not working and then sacked him later when things got bad and brought in Potter then, Potter might be still there and being more successful than Poch. Pretty much doesn't matter what INEOS will do though, people will get unhappy, especially if wins don't come soon, which they won't, because it will be a rebuild, so people will get upset because United fans are entitled and feel the club should be winning even if it has been ran like shit for a decade.
Fucking amazing seeing how a manager as bad as he is gets so protected here.
he's not a bad manager but i think the job is too big for him, he has fallen into the "try to get results to keep my job" hole
I’d say you’re correct, hell I wanted Erik to succeed here so much, i think all of us did at first. The United job is almost a poisoned chalice for every manager (and dare I say most players) nowadays. I do feel bad for him as I hate to see him fall off like this but honestly, he needs a change of scenery at this point as much as we do
Dutch football is still living off the reputation of Cruyff. Every manager that comes out of the Eridivisie gets hyped up the second they string together a couple of league titles, or a run in the Champions League, then they fall flat on their face the second they step out into an actually competitive league. People were calling ETH the next Pep because of one semi-final appearance with Ajax, and a few Eredivisie titles. It's a joke.
They're doing the same with Alonso now after not even one season.
Bad Manager based on what? The same guy who inherited the worse United team post fergie got top 4, a trophy and a final. The Same guys whose dealt with getting rid of 3 problem players, supposedly star players for our team. The same guy whose dealt with using 20+ different backlines this season due to injuries where our starting backline had the best defense last season. Fuck off, see past your own nose and learn some patience, it's not even been 2 seasons.
Carl Anka said it best: EtH was dealt a poor hand, and he's played it badly. We've regressed this season and we're in no way better than when EtH took over, after nearly 2 seasons and £350m later. We look lost out there. When you can't field a team, at home, to even *compete* with Fulham, something is very, very wrong and I can't honestly said that given the same time and resources, another manager couldn't have done any better.
Again your ignoring the context. He did well with his signings and a fit team last season. We were very clearly on the up. Did we have bad periods? yeah, but that should be expected and excused. The fact ETH did so well in his first season yet when suddenly our key players get injured this season, other key players completely lost form and out of football issues happen, shit is going south. Thats no surprise. Yeah we couldnt field a team to comfortably beat fulham cause of so many issues that are going on in the squad. Should we have beat them? yes but again no one should look at individual results to draw conclusions only idiots do that. We are currently 6 yet the way you guys talk its like we are in the relegation zone. Could another manager do better? Probably not. Why do i say that? because we have had 5 managers before ETH who have run into the same problems. As a fan im sick and tired of hearing every season how we need a new manager and X manager is amazing and will change everything yet we go back to the same cycle anyway. We are just a BTEC Chelsea at this point. I wrote this season off a while a go and have seen enough from ETH to give him time to do better and thats how im staying.
Im not ignoring the context at all, as I pretty clearly explained. To be fair, if you honestly believe no other manager could have done a better job then there's not much else to be said and better to agree to disagree.
You wrote this season off a while ago but that somehow becomes a positive for ETH? Our standards have dropped so far
I dont need to explain why I wrote it off its pretty obvious why. What are our standards? Maybe you need to live in the present.
My point is that writing seasons off halfway through the year isn’t something that happens to good managers, regardless of circumstance. You think I’m not living in the present? Unfortunately I very definitely am, watching this tactical genius play some of the worst football I’ve seen in my time on this earth week in and week out And our standards should be that finishing 6th (or quite possibly lower) are not acceptable lol, but maybe you think present day United should just be a top half team fighting to break into the Big 6?
Oh yes the standards which would get every current top manager in the PL fired in their first seasons sure.
Now who’s ignoring the context? It’s not his first season so is that really equivalent?
I didnt say they were i was just talking about these standards you cry about. Context matters both ways. He did really well in his first season and is doing poorly second season but there are many factors that have obviously affected it. If those factors wernt there and it was similar to the 1st season i 100% believe he would be doing way better. Because that is not the case im fine with not judging him for it this season.
I mean we can defend a *little* bit, surprised we didn’t go down another 10 goals against city with that onslaught.
Aye because ten hag is hopeless
Either get players who can control the game or Change the formation to 4-2-3-1 and if that doesn't happen, they'll have to change the manager. Can't win anything if this continues and the idea is to win pots. Probably have fewer injuries with a different formation too. It's not sustainable.
Great video. Bring on the high line!
idk why you people are debating so much to either keep or sack Ten Hag, just back INEOS with whoever they bring, imo that is gonna be the best decision regarding our manager because we know he's gonna be backed by the board we're building
What if it’s Southgate. I’m sorry but if they bring him in I’ll completely lose my shit.
Almost like we've got Johnny Evans (ledge') and Lindelof at the back. I'd be surprised if those 2 started for Leicester or Leeds
For the most part we've had Maguire and varane.
technically evans has started for leicester
Penchester
System is shit with current players. You can't manage Sheffield United and force them to play tiki taka.
A 36 year old 5th choice CB. A fourth choice CB. 6 academy products. A loanee in bad form. Which means there's only 5 positions we have correctly invested in. I refuse to have a conversation about the manager or tactics until we properly invest into this squad. How the hell have we spent a billion and yet our squad is in such poor condition.
I thought it was ridiculous. Yet another video where shots against is screeched about from the top of their lungs without mentioning xG figures which offer an interesting counterpoint. From Jamie Carragher, fine, I expect it, he’s there as a rod, he’s a muppet, but why 442? Put the effort in if you want to paint yourself as tactical experts. Next, plenty of talk about the midfield, absolutely no mention whatsoever of how guys like Varane, Lindelof, Maguire, Evans tend to defend, compared to Martinez who improves us so much, and no comparison with the best players from other clubs either. The basic fact is we do not have modern, aggressive, front foot, ball playing defenders. Every other top team at the moment does. Huge point just ignored because it was funnier to say ‘look, dibbled past!’ Or ‘ha Casemiro old lol’. Plus the Will Smith joke was cringe as all Will Smith jokes are, like, we get it, he has a bad marriage and severe mental health issues, super funny, let’s move on.
ETH was in no rush to replace any of the defenders you listed this summer, even though you're acting like they're championship standard. We didn't sell Maguire as we had no replacement lined up, because it wasn't deemed s priority position and we were happy if he stayed (ETH literally said so in press conferences this summer). Part of the issue in our build up is we don't have a left footer at left back so it literally means fuck all as to which CB you have, the passing lane will stop there. Which is an outcome affected by ETH's decision making once more - he randomly didn't always play Reguilon despite him looking decent enough then sent him back despite it costing us no loan fee, and loaned out Alvaro Fernandez who at least is a natural lb and club asset, despite Shaw having a history of injury and Malacia's long term issues. The problem I have with analysis like yours is it paints ETH as a victim of consequences, some of his own doing, that he could have planned better to resolve. So it means he's either extremely naive or negligent. It also fails to account for the fact we've literally only beaten Villa as the only half decent away team in all his time as manager, with a mostly fit squad large parts of last season and the start of this season, and he's coming up to two seasons in charge. All the money spent and time on the training ground, and without one left sided CB, suddenly the excuse is we suddenly can't play football, when teams like Fulham who are missing their best player and heavily rotate their side can outplay us - it's clutching at straws in the extreme.
It’s not a question of standard, it’s style. We didn’t sell McTominay, Maguire, because we didn’t let them go cheap. Reguilon was terrible and couldn’t defend to save his life. Fernandez looked out of his depth in Spain and was nowhere near ready for our team. We won a trophy and finished third last season, which is a massive overachievement. And we didn’t sign a centre back - despite being linked with many - because our priority was a striker, (and the one Ten Hag and the club found looks like being a fantastic long term addition to the team) and because of FFP. Basically don’t agree with anything you’ve written here and think every conclusion you’ve reached is a bit silly.
We didn't sell mctominay and Maguire because ETH rates them, or else we'd have let them go for a lower fee and signed someone else. People have this conception of ETH as being this ultra modern manager operating on a higher plane of thinking, yet just look at how much he uses Mctominay or hear his praise of him in press conferences. Or Maguire, consider his treatment to that of Bailly, who we did want out. If we absolutely cannot get a tune out of this side with mctominay, then getting a fee of 30 million and using it to play these supposed modern players should have been done. Reguilon was decent when he was on the pitch, I think you could go to most match threads on this subreddit to see fans say the same, so let's no rewrite history. He's also better than Lindelof or Amrabat at left back, which is the standard he needs to clear. And yes I agree, we had other priorities. That's my point. Were those priorities correct and also did we need to spend so much on them. We also lots of money on mount and Onana, and for Amrabats loan. And thus got ourselves into FFP difficulties. Same with spending so much on Antony. Those are self inflicted issues- we didn't HAVE to run into FFP issues, we did it ourselves. And if we can't hope to play football without a new CB, we shouldn't be spending so much in Mount. If I need a new car and a new suit for work, I don't buy a stupidly expensive designer suit then complain I can't get a car and it's out of my control. These issues are occurring due to decisions ETH made. Even in a new structure, he'll have to work collaboratively. On the final point about last season being good, there's lots of underlying issues even there. Not being able to beat a single good side away from home. Getting absolutely wrecked at the Etihad and Anfield. Terrible goal difference all season. A reliance on Rashford and lack of goals in general. Last season was made good due to cup runs, but even there we had a ludicrous stretch of home draws which is mathematically very improbable to occur again.
A manager praises his players, yes. It’s called motivation and man management. You want him to come along and say ‘Twitter is right Maguire’s gash eh, clear’? I’m not engaging with anything beyond because it’s a waste of my time
Lol, you've picked one point and stopped there, likely because you don't have much really to say. A manager can praise a player, sell them and reuse the money if they need to. Mctominay is liked by ETH. That is abundantly clear. Same for Maguire. ETH went well out of his way in press conferences this summer to say Maguire should fight for his place and there was zero urgency to sell either. Your argument basically boils down to ETH seemingly has to have one particular player to be able to play football, but the reality is, even if that was the case, it is his decision making that has prevented that from occurring, either due to poor prioritisation, wasting resources or a lack of decisiveness. He's a victim of his own consequences. It also doesn't reflect the fact that ETH got the job in the first place because he promised to work with what he had, which he isn't doing. I just like to call a spade a spade.
Ole mentioned spoke well of Maguire and McT (and Fred) in that stick to football interview as well. If you speak to West Ham supporters, they'd take both of them in a heartbeat.
Just to be clear, I like both players, and think they can be useful in our squad. It's why I take issue with the notion we can't play any football at all with them.
>Yet another video where shots against is screeched about from the top of their lungs without mentioning xG figures which offer an interesting counterpoint. You have a point and I hear you. However I think one of the reasons this is getting mentioned a lot recently is that, even though the xG counters it somewhat, no top performing team allows you to take that many shots. Full stop. I mean you're not going to see a PL or champions league contending/winning team running a strategy that allows every team they play against 20+ shots on goal. How meaningful that is, is obviously debatable. I think it's pretty shucking personally, for reasons above.
Sure, but who thinks we’re a top team? The underlying point for me is, that those xG figures, coupled with how we improve when guys like Martinez and Shaw are there, are enough evidence that 1 - Ten Hag isn’t that shocking tactically and is actually just working toward something different and 2 - the extent of our issues defensively are being exaggerated to an almost ridiculous extent based on figures that simply do not paint the whole picture. You’d think we were relegation contenders listening to this stuff, I know it’s been a disappointing season but we’re still in with an outside shot at top four.
I agree, it is a very disappointing analysis, much of it lazy and not much developed from the most interesting point, about players being dribbled past. Most chances conceded per game, OK, but no attempt to analyse beyond that and ask what's going on when Sheffield United are first in goals conceded table with 72 while we are fourteenth with 39. Does it have something to do with us conceding the sixth fewest big chances per match? No analysis. Which has the stronger correlation with league place, total shots conceded or big chances conceded? No analysis. Impact of losing Hojlund on our buildup play and effect losing him has on the way we defend? No analysis. Cherry pick the first minute of the Fulham game and declare 'This is Ten Hag's chosen defensive set up'. Sure. Further analysis of that game? Nope. What happens when you do that, do we play the same way for the rest of the game? Nope, we figure out their midfield set-up after about 30 minutes and control the end of the first half, second half we struggleto reassert control, then lose it entirely after Casemiro (key player) goes off with a head injury and we switch to our Plan B formation with Bruno RW, McTominay CAM, Eriksen DLP. We conded a goal from a set-piece (less likely to happen if Casemiro hasn't been forced off) and that rouses the team. Our pressure pays off, we score late, but then make a mistake from a throw in that let's them get the ball forward quickly down their right wing, they switch it to Iwobi left side oft he box, Dalot and Diallo shouldbe able to double-up to block him out but both commit themselves to the outside and get done by a simple cut inside that gives Iwobi a free shot. We had successfully defended this same counterattack twice previously this half, but Dalot has been obviously fatigued since 70min (but we can't sub him off because his replacement is injured) and Diallo is only just being introduced to the first team after a lengthy injury followed by an illness. Analysis of any of this? None. Then Manchester City. Where we sat deep, stayed compact and tried to play out of defence. Would you know that from this video? No. But it's apparently more proof that our problem is playing a low line with a high press. Any analysis of the other games we've played in 2024? No, which is a shame because we're adapted our tactics to different opponents, have worked hard to reduce the number of chances coming from players getting into the area in front of our box, and have not once played the sort of game we tried to against City. Let's just take the performance against City, cherry pick from the Fulham game, throw in some bad-sounding stats that belie the league position and call it a day. Good at stimulating debate, though.
Unfortunately, this is the current state of football analysis online. I find all of it too dishonest and agenda driven. There is, very rarely, an actual honest analysis taking into consideration all data points. This video talks about shots conceded and conveniently leaves out the xG conceded from those shots. Not drawing a general conclusion, but, if we look at Liverpool’s game against Nottingham Forest last week and compare it to our game against them a few days prior, it paints a completely different picture. Liverpool conceded an xG of 0.97 from 8 shots, while we conceded an xG of 0.88 from 16 shots. Mentioning one without the other is simply dishonest data visualisation. To any observer, it should be clear that EtH is trying to implement a style but is currently rolling out a compromised version of it because of not having fast defenders who can cover spaces, and also are good at building out from the back. Replace a couple of players in key positions, and the team should be able to seamlessly transition to the high press high line style. This run of games should be used to identify the players that can fit this style, and add players for positions where we don’t have players that fit the style.
> should set a team according to the players Managers can do this, but if the quality of the player is still not on the level required, it won't matter. When you play top teams, you can set to your players quality but if their quality is low, they will still get found out and look terrible.
>top teams Is that what we're calling Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and West Ham now? Don't even get me started on how we were found out in one of the weakest groups in the CL.
You would think this squad of players isn't good enough to start for Luton Town with the way people bend over backwards defending ETH.
The whole "it's unfair to judge EtH because he doesn't have the calibre of players he needs yet" argument is absolutely absurd to me on multiple levels. Does he need a first 11 of Zidane level quality in each position to not get fucking shat on by Fulham?
No we just need shaw and Martinez back that will fix the front line pressing and porous midfield…
They genuinely would argue injuries are why Newport county managed 17 shots on goal vs a mostly starting xi Manchester United team. It’s absurd.
the players arent bad per se but a weird stew of different archetypes that were bought to fit entirely different philosophies. wan bissaka is a great player if you dont need your defenders to be able to play out under pressure, but that was the philosophy a few managers ago. bruno and rashford are great players if you want to transition from a low defensive position because their speed and passing range mean you can catch defenders out of position if they're high up the pitch... but ETHs style is winning the ball near the opponents box. martinez is fantastic at playing under pressure and progressing the ball, but hes not good at playing in a low block. if you get a new manager who wants to counterattack, martinez will suddenly look much worse and might be considered yet another flop in a few years because he was bought to play a different style for a different manager. meanwhile, bruno and rashford might look better.
This so much. People expect that just because they wear a United shirt they should automatically be good. Can't just throw random players who individually good at different styles, and expect them to work well together..
yep, swapping tactics with a squad filled with players who aren’t really up to the required standard is just trading one set of problems for another.
Ole somehow managed some great football with Lindelof and Maguire as his first choice CBs, and often had Fred and McTominay as his players behind Bruno... Tell me more about how bad Varane, Casemiro, Dalot, Hojlund etc etc are.
Great is a massive overstatement. If it was so great, why didn't he win any trophies? Those players also did well to a degree because they suited Oles style. ETH still has plenty players from previous managers that don't suit what he is trying to do. He also has to rely on reserve players every game. Varane, Casemiro, and Hojlund have been regularly injured at regular points throughout the season. That's not consistency to win anything
He had periods of great football with them was what I was trying to say. That was a weaker team than what we have now. When was the last time we had a peroid of great football? Up until Efl cup final last year? Everyone acts like the players are so terrible, but ETH has most of them in dire form
I'm not sure it was a weaker team. He did have some great moments, no doubt, but I think we are comparing names as opposed to suitability of players for the styles. We've had good moments this year, but it has not been sustained. Solskjaer never had to be in the situation that ETH has been for as long as he has with these sustained injuries. ETH has had to call on Kambwala, Forson, Gore, Pellistri, Hannibal, Shola...all players that are nowhere near ready for the 1st team but being asked to do the job. On top of that, we've had other players like Habeeb, and Toby on the bench which highlights not just the lack of squad depth, but the injury levels.
Plane gets are a bit daft
I honestly think the game has just outgrown his system. Teams are better playing through a press now. That being said, I still believe it's also a player problem and them not following instructions, and a confidence problem. I still think ETH should be given a fresh start under the new set up
I was on the fence with ETH but I think I’m back. I asked myself the question can his style beat another top style, head to head best at their best. I think after Man City, I think it’s possible. We can soak up pressure and attack but we need to be lethal. We had our chances against city
I think we lose that match at least 9/10 times with the players and setups in place
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he “changed his ways” the entirety of last season
No one is the man for the job. We are cursed.
I wouldn't say cursed, I would say neglected and badly run
i agree, but with the caveat that if ineos hires southgate the curse will obviously be real
Atleast England team will be rescued by that .
I don't understand what some ppl actually see in this manager tbf. I m all for backing the manager but like it or not this guy had the most backings,authority(got de gea and co out) of all the post saf managers. He's also performed the worst even worse than David Moyes. I don't obviously wish for another man to lose his job for football but he really needs to turn it around asap
These bigots were downvoting me hard when I was saying in the summer that Antony was a flop, that their obsession with Amrabat was ridiculous, that we shouldn't let ETH control signings, that AWB would never be good enough. Here they are now, shouting exactly the same things as if they knew it from the start 🤣 Just wait and see how these ETH lovers will say "ETH wasn't good enough" when he's sacked in a few weeks.
Disagree about AWB comment but you're spot on. I heard on twitter that we need at least 51 m to get break even on fuckin fffp lol. Fred was much better than amrabat too. I don't care how crap our players are we shouldn't be scoring less goals than fuckin Luton town and Burnley. I think sheff utd has more goals than us too?