Erik ten Hag | United trigger contract extension

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
So we are year in.

We still really have no system I can see.

We pass around the back nicely now, but the forward ball is often too long, after we have given opposition time to get into position. And the ball forward is often poor, our offensive players are living off scraps.

I think we are way too defensive away from home. We need to be the team on the attack, bossing the game.

I think he needs to improve. Difficult circumstances granted.

Got rid of some dead wood, but not enough, brought in some dead wood - one for those Mount/Antony fans :p

I'm giving 6/10, he needs to improve, top 4 looks difficult this season. First season I gave him the benefit and top 4 wasn't a must for me, in the hope a style would become apparant. Second season it's a minimum.
 
1 year in

Good

He’s got rid of some high earners who don’t meet his standards, still more to go over the next 12 months.
A lot of squad players who were not good enough have also moved on.
I’d say in terms of this being his squad he’s about half way there.
He has set standards in training that all players must meet and when they don’t they face consequences. Rashford was dropped at Wolves.
Delivered the second highest points total of the post Fergie era in his first season. Took us from 7th to 3rd.
Delivered 1 domestic cup and reached the final in the other.
Beat the Spanish champions over two legs in a European tie
Had to manage us through a year of a potential takeover which must be incredibly disruptive behind the scenes.
Unbeaten at home in the league in over a year - 20 games.

Bad

Away form needs massive improvement this season we have played 2 of the best sides in the league away and both games could have gone either way, sadly they’ve gone against us. However, performance wise both were better than the crap we saw last season away to the top half sides.
Struggling to score goals and create good chances consistently in games.
We are not clinical with the chances that do go our way.
Set Pieces at both ends of the pitch are still a problem.
Fitness at the start of the season once again looks poor, our team looks miles off the pace.
Injuries think we are close to double figures on injured players already.
Hasn’t been able to shift Maguire, VDB or Sancho (not really his fault).

Summary

I think if he can match last seasons points total in the league and get us through a tough group in Europe then that’s progress. I’ll take a year of standing still to be honest the clubs going nowhere with the current owners in place. With the high earning crap players it’s going to take a long time to move them on and free up space in the squad.

I would give it 7/10 lots of positives but still a long way to go and the club have to stick with him.
 
He's doing okay, he just needs to hold his nerve, and stop listening to, and reacting to the negativity re. team selections.
 
Having a really poor start to his second season.
Bad signings

Why didn't we appoint that DoF, because it will be start from scratch again
 
ETH has had a whole lot on his plate in his first two seasons, he’s had to deal with players with egos which their performances don’t warrant.

I wouldn’t say the signings have been bad this season because it’s been 5 games. Been a poor start but so was last season and we turned it around.

Think it’s a little early for panic stations but it’s not like some of these players haven’t downed tools in the past, so I wouldn’t trust them to play for the manager when times get tough.

I still struggle to see what this team is to be honest and that can be levelled at the manager. He talks about having a clear identity but I don’t see that on the pitch. Whether that’s the players not doing as he wishes or unable to do it.
 
The squad has been left short again because the club cannot offload players that they’ve overpaid for.

We might just have to accept this season ends up being a backwards step as he slowly clears the squad of players who are not good enough.

Do we really think he wants to be starting McTominay or having to sub on Martial?

The off field stuff must be doing his head in as well.
 
jsp said:
The squad has been left short again because the club cannot offload players that they’ve overpaid for.

We might just have to accept this season ends up being a backwards step as he slowly clears the squad of players who are not good enough.

Do we really think he wants to be starting McTominay or having to sub on Martial?

The off field stuff must be doing his head in as well.
Click to expand...

I fail to see how he see's out the current season if this continues, we are worse off than we were at the start of last season. The signings this summer were by him and one is absolutely laughable. The other should never have been signed. Amrabat is a good signing on paper. Hojlund I'll reserve judgement on but looks sharp.

He's picking the wrong arguments. We've spent £50m on a keeper who shouldn't even be our #2.

He needs to turn this around and fast because right now he looks completely out of his depth.

We have 6 points against 2 of the worst teams in the league. Both games we got very lucky and were out played by Wolves and needed a lucky penalty and a dodgy red against Forest. Forget top 4. We'll be lucky to finish top 8 unless he makes some very tough decisions.
 
It's reminiscent of SAF's early days at the club where he had to change the whole culture of the club from top to bottom. It appears that unless there is a clear winning mentality and desire to return to the pinnacle of football filtering down from the top of the club, then the players will continue to put in mediocre performances and we will continue to stagnate.
 
It's not like SAF.

ETH has made some poor signing. Onana, terrible. Martinez and Casimero not performing, Mount, odd.

It's now his team, and we look worse than ever.

I think he's managed the Sancho stuff badly.

He's struggling, he does look out of his depth. I don't see him making it through a buy out
 
IDFD said:
I fail to see how he see's out the current season if this continues, we are worse off than we were at the start of last season. The signings this summer were by him and one is absolutely laughable. The other should never have been signed. Amrabat is a good signing on paper. Hojlund I'll reserve judgement on but looks sharp.

He's picking the wrong arguments. We've spent £50m on a keeper who shouldn't even be our #2.

He needs to turn this around and fast because right now he looks completely out of his depth.

We have 6 points against 2 of the worst teams in the league. Both games we got very lucky and were out played by Wolves and needed a lucky penalty and a dodgy red against Forest. Forget top 4. We'll be lucky to finish top 8 unless he makes some very tough decisions.
Click to expand...

So we just rip it up and start again? Spend another £300m that we haven’t got on the next guy who fancies a crack at the impossible job.

He will be judged by his signing but let’s wait until at least Christmas to judge these players. I am worried by them but got to give them time and who knows by Christmas we might actually see them on the pitch together.

Yesterday he had 9 players unavailable due to injury/discipline. 3 of his first choice back 4 didn’t start, 3 of his right wing options out, both his left backs out, 3 centre mids out. Shaw, Varane, Malacia, Amrabat, Mount, Mainoo, Amad, Sancho, Anthony and reports were AWB was ill and just made the bench.

There’s no way Martinez is 100% fit either he’s had to come off twice in the opening 5 games. Hojlund and Reguilon made their first starts of the season too. Brighton I’m guessing had those players together all week as don’t think many of them play international football.

Yesterday was worrying when Brighton worked us out after 20 minutes we didn’t adapt, maybe because of the players we have we couldn’t but it became much easier for Brighton to control the game in wide areas.
 
jsp said:
So we just rip it up and start again? Spend another £300m that we haven’t got on the next guy who fancies a crack at the impossible job.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't matter if the DoF did his job properly and didn't just buy what the manager wants

Why wasn't due diligence done Onana. Background checks on Antony and Sancho
 
Mr C said:
Wouldn't matter if the DoF did his job properly and didn't just buy what the manager wants

Why wasn't due diligence done Onana. Background checks on Antony and Sancho
Click to expand...

Would a background check on Anthony have flagged his current situation? I doubt it these allegations have come totally out of the blue.

Sancho I think does fall on him so does Varane and Ronaldo those signings to me have all been poor.

I really think Onana deserves a bit of time before he’s chucked on the scrap head.
 
I think they should do a character check of some sort in the future. When we get a proper DoF which feels like years that was mooted
 
I’m sure these checks happen they’re huge investments but you aren’t going to uncover the Anthony stuff but the questions over Sancho were known and would seem to have been deemed low enough risk that they went through with it anyway.

I do think there needs to be stronger over site on the managers signings but it would seem that ETH has full control, the worry is are the people behind the scenes finding us cheap solutions to some of our squad issues.
 
jsp said:
I’m sure these checks happen they’re huge investments but you aren’t going to uncover the Anthony stuff but the questions over Sancho were known and would seem to have been deemed low enough risk that they went through with it anyway.

I do think there needs to be stronger over site on the managers signings but it would seem that ETH has full control, the worry is are the people behind the scenes finding us cheap solutions to some of our squad issues.
Click to expand...
I do think the manager is having to make do with 2nd or 3rd choice options.
 
RVN said:
I do think the manager is having to make do with 2nd or 3rd choice options.
Click to expand...

I think there is an element of that with some but not all the signings. Clubs don’t always get their number 1 choices but they adapt and find alternatives.

The club don’t seem to be able to find a hidden gem that they can get who gives value for money.
 
Ten Hag has overcome adversity in his short United career and he’s going to have to do it again. They face a fight to make top 4 as they are fighting with a number of teams I think for the final position. They just didn’t have a good summer that’s the problem. They didn’t move the team forwards.
 
Indeed, none of the signings improved our starting 11, maybe Hojlund but there wasn't much needed to improve that spot.

If we didn't have tey money, they should have just bougt one decent player who improves the 11, not buy a load of pap

It's going to be a tough year on and off the pitch. Fans deserve more, it's been too long, suffering this nonsense mediocraty
 
Luckily they might only need to be top 5 to qualify for the champions league again under the new rules England may get awarded one of the additional places.

Hard to really say if they've moved the team forward when he hasn't had a chance to put all his new players on the pitch together yet.

Sadly it is looking like another long season where qualifying for the champions league is all we'll be fighting for.
 
In all three games we've lost this season there have been spells in those game where we were by far the better team so let's wait until all the new signings have played in the same team 4 or 5 times before we start writing the team off, I know it's a default for some of yous but give the team and Manager a chance, they might surprise you ....
 
Nice to know we can play well for 15 mins every 90. Do they give points out for that?
 
City aren’t brilliant for 90 minutes but what they can do is take time out of the game and control it for the vast majority. They might have 5-10 minutes where the opponent gets on top of them but that’s it.

Utd don’t look like they’ve worked on anything in pre season and with the European games kicking in we aren’t going to have much time to work on the tactical issues.
 

I really like the way he deals with the press yes he's making an excuse about the injuries which are valid but he also highlights the other problems which is the team are not currently performing well enough across the 90 minutes. They have good spells in games but they also have really bad spells.
 
Injuries are no excuse, he's had enough time to build a squad. 3 windows. I know he's not excusing it, but it shouldn't even be brought up.

Brighton aren't moaning that all their best players get pinched. Just get on with it

Pep last night is just laughable, moaning about injuries...pah
 
Come on man he's got 10 first team players out and 5 of them are probably in his strongest starting XI. AWB, Varane, Shaw, Mount and Anthony are all out. Hojlund and Martinez are clearly not fully fit so he's probably got 4 starters who are fully fit.

3 of his 4 full backs are out for months
2 of his 4 centre backs are injured and 1 clearly isn't fully fit after his injury
3 of his 6 centre mids are injured.
All 3 of his right wingers are unavailable.
Neither of his strikers are fit enough to play 90 minutes.

This is an above normal level of injuries.

Brighton are setup to deal with players leaving they get the replacements in before they sell and they plan to sell players because they know these guys will leave.

You can't go into these big games against top sides with this many injuries and expect to still be anywhere near your best.
 
whats going on on the training ground then? to get all these injuries

It's no excuse, city have the same problem, Arsenal last season, Liverpool too.

Just get on with it. We have a squad for this reason
 
I'm guessing 50-60 games last season plus a world cup has to be a factor.

Add in a lot of travel during pre season has resulted in pretty poor physical preparation for this season.

Martinez and Mount both coming back from long injury lay offs set backs are to be expected.
Hojlund and Amrabat both arrived injured neither really had a pre season with previous clubs due to injury.
Varane is injury prone
Martial is injury prone - although currently fit but lets be honest he'll be out in the next few days.
Malacia injury known before pre season.
Amad and Mainoo were both impact injuries in pre season.
Shaw and AWB both muscle injuries.
Sancho and Anthony are not fitness related.
 
Few stories in the press about some players being unhappy, they think the manager has favourites. Shocking I know!

Exactly the same stuff happened under previous managers and these stories start leaking out when results go bad and players still can't get playing time so start making excuses.

The club has to back him over the players they can't keep letting players get their own way.
 
a few rumours that the De Gea treatment didn't go too well. A player well liked by the squad.

Look, for me, his number is up. This whole thing is just following the same patterns as all the last managers. And until we get a proper structure in place, with football people running the football, and a DoF who knows what he's doing, a proper scouting set up. It wil be like this.

I can't see him being manager this time next year if we carry on like this.

This isn't what I want to happen, this is just what I think will happen.

This Burnley game is so important, if he doesn't win this, then the pressure will increase 10 fold. The press are already beginning to focus on the last transfer window, bad choices, mentioning the 400m he's spent

He needs to turn this form around sharpish

Sad times
 

Login or Register

Forgot your password?
Don't have an account? Register now
or Log in using
Back
Top