75m for Zirkzee coming up
Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager
- Thread starter sewey89
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Just hope they do good business this summer. I already know they won't be playing the quality of stuff they did in the Championship for obvious reasons, but if he keeps them up that will be a great sign.
Acceptability is a concept tossed about far too freely on here by the more dramatic among us.
If all the posters who use that word use it literally, then there might be consequences, but the reality is that with the right context most things can be acceptable.
That said most of you should retain your high 'standards' and not accept things and find a club deserving of your high standards.
Yeah I really think he's the one if you gave me a choice of any manager that will eventually take this club back to the top. But I also don't necessarily blame INEOS for not willing to hire him immediately out of the Championship
Yup, it's one of those classic Caf clichés
Complaining about the decision, figured that was pretty obvious given the context of the entire 3,000 page thread and events that transpired yesterday.
Obviously if we are getting tonked by Ipswich in November I'm going to be fecking pissed
Everyone is. But maybe wait til it happens before being a miserable sod?
Is blind optimism the only acceptable outlook then? Because I remember seeing very similar posts to yours made last summer during our disastrous preseason and transfer window.
Survived by the skin of his teeth. Unconvincing from INEOS.
A hunch really. Maclaren I believe is way past his sell by date and given all the issues we saw last year I'd want an assistant to have the balls to point out it just isn't working and we need to change formation (admittedly they may have tried it). I want our assistant to be someone who can step in and step up if needed.
Steinberg vindicated
The problem is, the only other option was Southgate.
He really did. I still think if Berrada and Ashworth were in the building he would be gone.
No, it's not necessarily blind optimism. Lots of the whining is done with no access to the data. People pissed at Ineos with no idea what they are dealing with. People bemoaning the state of the club for years and expecting some magic wand to fix everything. I use football as an escape. We had a shit league season, won the FA Cup in the most enjoyable manner possible and undeservedly fluked into the Europa League. Martinez and Shaw are both back from injury. We will add 2 or 3 players. The manager has had one awful season in the last 10. We have more reasons to be optimistic than 99% of football fans.
I reckon we could pay a lot more than that for him if we negotiate thoroughly until the last few days of the transfer window.
Will they sack him for finishing say 5th in 2025 and 2026?
If yes, then it shows the decision they took to stick with him in 2024 (now) just prolonged the problem never solved any tangible problem.
If no, then it shows it's acceptable to finish 8th,5th,5th,
The goose is cooked for us, like Arsenal with Arteta.
If Arsenal sacks Arteta today then sticking with him from 8th position (2019) to date makes absolutely no sense. Because it hasn't achieved anything. Because whoever comes in, will have his own ideas.
But if Arteta wins a major trophy, then sticking with him all through will have paid off massively.
So ETH needs to win a major trophy in the time he is around or else, it would turn into a very expensive tactical blunder by the power brokers.
So,in more ways than one, with ETH remaining it has to pay off. No other way around it. And we have no room to escape.
Forgot 2 trophies in 2 seasons.
Name me 1 manager that waits for a player to be 100% fit before playing them?
Most players are always carrying some sort of injury.
I take it you dont rate Lisandro, Mount, Onana, Hojlund ?
Sounds like to me Wilcox was the one that still wanted to sack him while Brailsford and possibly others at INEOS were in favour of keeping him.
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The most unconvincing people in all of this would appear to be the managers spoken to by INEOS. If there was an outstanding candidate then they would have pulled the trigger. Too many red flags between them.
Sounds like they just couldn't agree terms with Tuchel.
Went through the results from last two seasons and it’s insane how many terrible results we have had. Last season felt so long that people have forgotten the kind of results that happened at the start of the season or last season. In the last two seasons we have had
Brentford 4-0
Bournemouth 3-0
Palace 4-0
Sevilla 3-0
City 6-3
Liverpool 7-0
This season we won only one away game against the top 10 ( Villa)
Top 4 went to 68 points this season but generally I think you need 70+ points for 4th so we will need to improve by 10+ points which seems very unlikely to me
Brentford 4-0
Bournemouth 3-0
Palace 4-0
Sevilla 3-0
City 6-3
Liverpool 7-0
This season we won only one away game against the top 10 ( Villa)
Top 4 went to 68 points this season but generally I think you need 70+ points for 4th so we will need to improve by 10+ points which seems very unlikely to me
Just read the article. Some interesting insights. We were closest to appointing Tuchel.
Still don't understand the process though - sounds like the decision had been made to sack him. Then fan sentiment after the FA Cup win seemed to change their minds. So we made this decision on one game and ignored the rest of the campaign?
Also I'm curious to know who came up with the tactical tweaks in the last 2 league games + FA Cup Final. Cause the article makes it sound like the shift to that 4-2-2-2 formation didn't come from ETH.
All of a sudden, journalists who 48hrs ago, didn’t know anything now know the inside story.
I suspect they realised they’d also be negotiating the terms of his departure within a two year window. His coaching credentials are obvious; so too is his lack of suitability at this point. Overall, I think he’s a headache best avoided.
I think several factors may have been underestimated: difference between PL and Eredivisie not just in quality but also style, as well as how different it is to manage a vastly dominant team in a weak league vs merely one of competitors in a strong league (you can get away with much less). It's quite obvious now that ETH is lacking in certain areas tactically and also does not have enough knowledge about the league so it's in club's best interest to address that by hiring people who can help him with that.
I was firmly in the Ten Hag out camp. What I saw last season was unacceptable by any metric, injuries be damned. Atrocious tactics, atrocious everything pretty much.
But the decision has been taken and I don’t intend to spend this season dissecting it and crowing every time we have a setback.
the ideal scenario now is that he succeeds. Egos don’t matter. We’ve all planted our flag in the sand, and now it’s time to get behind him and hope that he rewards the faith shown in him. We all want a successful Man Utd. I only wanted him out because I didn’t think he was the man to provide that, but now he’s staying, I will only be hoping he proves me wrong.
There’s no point carrying this division into the season and making this place toxic. I know this plea is like trying to stem a tsunami with an umbrella, but if we spend all season bickering over this decision, this place will become completely intolerable. If it isn’t already.
But the decision has been taken and I don’t intend to spend this season dissecting it and crowing every time we have a setback.
the ideal scenario now is that he succeeds. Egos don’t matter. We’ve all planted our flag in the sand, and now it’s time to get behind him and hope that he rewards the faith shown in him. We all want a successful Man Utd. I only wanted him out because I didn’t think he was the man to provide that, but now he’s staying, I will only be hoping he proves me wrong.
There’s no point carrying this division into the season and making this place toxic. I know this plea is like trying to stem a tsunami with an umbrella, but if we spend all season bickering over this decision, this place will become completely intolerable. If it isn’t already.
Yeah worrying that they've let one game have so much sway. Not a good idea.
The telegraph article said the coaching staff made him change approach, Ten Hag wanted to go 'toe to toe' with City. Will he really change next season from his ridiculous tactics?
All factors ok cool.
Individual games last season that I remember specifically where ETH was out tactic'd by his opponent:
4 - 0 v Palace.
1 - 1 v Burnley - Oh yeah they got relegated and sacked their manager.
3 (4) - 3 (2) v Coventry - after leading 3 - 0 at halftime and not losing in the final minutes by virtue of VAR.
2 - 2 v Bournemouth.
4 - 3 v Chelsea - after leading in the 90th minute only to end up losing.
1 - 1 v Brentford - scoring in 90+ minutes only to immediately concede.
1 - 2 v Fulham.
0 - 3 v Bournemouth.
0 - 1 v Crystal Palace.
1 - 3 v Brighton.
Oh, and then there's the absolute disastrous Champions League campaign, finish bottom of a group that consisted of Copenhagen and Galatasaray.
Don't forget being dumped out of the League Cup by Newcastle at home.
Struggling to control the game and beat Newport in the FA Cup.
These results alone should have seen him go months ago.
But wait, there's more:
9 games lost at Old Trafford.
14 games lost in the PL.
19 games lost in all competitions.
85 goals conceded in all competitions.
58 goals conceded in the PL.
57 goals scored in the PL.
Negative goal difference.
Lowest ever position finish in the PL.
Highest number of shots faced in a PL season.
These are not isolated incidents, and on the whole point to a manager who is tactically poor and inflexible amongst other things. You also cannot chalk all of this up to "injuries" (this is, after all, why you have a whole club full of players, from the youth teams to the reserves to call upon if needed) or the takeover.
Poor in training, poor at managing injuries and on and on and on.
We have also been on a bit of a tailspin since the previous season and just before the league cup final (when he had his strongest teams available). We shouldn't be struggling to beat the bottom teams in the PL, definitely not getting battered by them consistently.
He's also been in the job for 2 years and has been backed more than any other manager we've had (to the tune of £400m+)
So taking all these factors into account, just from this season he is statistically our worst ever manager and should have been replaced.
Did people also forget the 7 - 0 at the hands of the Scousers?
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I'd say that if he hasn't got those abilities, then he should be replaced by someone who does rather than bringing in someone to hold his hand.
It’s cool if you want to list the bad times but I’m sure I could list games too where we’ve beat teams who are currently better then us or where we played well too.
My question wasn’t if there were poor moments but why are people stupid for trying to find the positives or rational?
As has been stated injuries will affect the team whether people want to admit it or not. It also showed when other teams lost comparative player too. This also with issues over Greenwood, Antony and Sancho. Also key players playing inconsistent and trying to implement new players. So it wasn’t just injuries that unsettled the team.
As much as the buck does stop with the manager there’s also intangibles that could have meant we were Europea league champions the season before and even this season when we got some form a key player then got injured again.
Nobody is saying that the manager hasn’t made mistakes or that he couldn’t have done better at times. However they also see that there were issues he couldn’t predict or had to react too. If these issues can be resolved some can see that the work done in season one can be built upon hopefully. Whether it happens remains to be seen but saying it won’t from now is just assuming the worse.
Mourinho won 3 trophies(the community shield is also a trophy,no?) in one season and still turned out to be crap. INEOS have proved to be miniGlazers but with more bureaucracy. Even a team like Nice is just another yo-yo club.
Oh look, The Athletic have a lot of information to share now.
What is the point of all this now? fecking bullshit peddlers.
Baldies looking out for baldies, that's sweet.
Really? You dont think we can improve by 10 points?
If we have had our worst season ever, worst injuries, you dont think a fully fit squad can win 4 extra games?
Yeah I'm pretty disappointed to be honest, but he's still here and we can't change that now. So I will support him and the team and keep my fingers crossed that he turns it around and succeeds.
We'll see.
Several players have visibly improved under him regardless of this season. Dalot, Garnacho, Mainoo, Hojlund, Amad, McTominay. It's not all doom and gloom.
Would have been interesting to see Tuchel, however clearly they couldn't find common ground. I never felt De Zerbi was much of an upgrade on Erik which probably sounds daft
why? They’d just put a clause in his contract that would be in our favor if he is dismissed.
I'm not being a miserable sod?
I'm not going to lie and say I'm thrilled about us sticking with ETH obviously, but like I said I've moved on. I just don't want to see standards dropping even more to where we are sat excusing a poor 3rd season under a manager because of certain events. I've already said I'll be thrilled to be wrong if we came out of the gate looking transformed after this summer with fresh faces and a healthy squad playing great football.