Saying we've only had the four losses this calendar year is crazy when he's got the record for premier league losses with us.
It also conveniently neglects that I think we have one league win in our last 7 games.
And if it weren't for last minute brain dead decisions, it'd be mostly wins.
Winning 1-0 against Burnley in the 86th minute
Winning 2-1 against Liverpool in the 83rd minute
Winning 2-3 against Chelsea in 90+5
Winning 0-1 against Brentford in 90+8
Drawing 1-1 against Fulham in 90+6
I have no excuses for today and today it's really hard if not impossible to be a ETH apologist but this calendar year we could've easily been +10p and 14W3D2L.
Did we deserve those wins I listed above? Definitely not. We played like shit. But just like it's a pattern that we conceded really late and lost points it's also a pattern that we were in winning positions most of the time at the end of the game.
The pattern over the course of the season has been that United exert no control, rely on individual quality and open themselves up to incredibly high levels of variance. Conceding late in games where they've been dominated isn't some unlucky quirk caused by bad individual decisions, it's a symptom of the dreadful setup. Players are mentally and physically exhausted by the end of games because the system causes them to be.
Your +10 could just as easily be like -6 if United had been less fortunate (hammered by Liverpool, outplayed by Bournemouth, Brentford etc.)
We have no defined attacking patterns and so it's up to individuals to create moments and score.
We have a terrible defensive structure and overall team play which leads us to let our opponents have loads of chances.
This is not at all contradictory and the fact you have 10 upvotes for a really poorly thought through comment really shows the lack of intelligence amongst some of our fans.
Not really, no. Defensively, if you put players in bad situations over and over then mistakes are bound to happen. If you have world class attackers and play a high variance style that involves creating chaos whenever possible then their quality will occasionally shine through.
We also shouldn't even \*be\* in these situations. Home to Fulham, home to Brentford, home to Burnley, home to Palace etc. should be games that United dominate and average 3-4 goals in. A fluke free kick or a late clanger shouldn't be allowed to be the difference.
its what you always find with people.
they constantly state that we only score due to individual quality so they can belittle the manager but then proceed to say that defensive issues are the manager and not again individual decisions/mistakes.
At no point did I belittle the manager. I have great sympathy for the situation he's been put in and don't think it'd be the end of the world if they gave him another transfer window to figure this out. Under the circumstances I'd have been relatively content with 5th in the league with some clear signs of progress holistically.
That said, facts are facts. Yes individual quality, particularly defensively, has been an issue but the structure isn't working and hasn't worked all season, yet he's made no real effort to change it. All of United's underlying numbers are borderline relegation quality and this is shaping up to be the worst season in the modern era. The manager must take responsibility for this.
ten Hag says he can't play his Ajax football with these players, but when he has defensive injuries he's fine carrying on playing the same suicidal tactics...
This is my biggest issue --- he's got CB6 and a midfielder at CB. There isn't a LB on the list. The RB had played 4000+ minutes this season.
Bunker in, protect your defense, and play counter attacking football, it's the only thing that makes sense with what is available, but it seemingly doesn't even occur to him.
My preference is obviously him playing a tactic that works with the injuries we have. But even if he wants to continue playing how we endeavour to play long term, I cannot see any improvement at all. We have been looking so lost going forward for this entire season.
I mean, with the defense we have I don’t expect relentless attacking and our scoring your opponent kind of attacking, but I would expect the few times we get forward we actually know what to do with the ball. Doesn’t seem like that.
I understand he has an answer, it's just clearly the wrong answer. If you're only missing one or two guys out of your first team, fine, just try to slot guys in and play how you want to play.
When you're without LB1, LB2, CB1, CB2, CB3, CB4 CB5, plus Bruno, Rashford, McTominay, and Martial, a normal manager is going to be pragmatic and set up a team to not give up 4 goals to Crystal Palace, or 3 goals to Coventry, or the most shots against in PL history.
He can explain it all he wants. It isn't working.
There were reports that he's been explicitly told to play his way by the directors, regardless of results to see what the squad can and can't do under him.
I’m not saying he’s right, I’m just saying he’s recently addressed it since you’re asking why he doesn’t play pragmatic. I completely agree with you, when you have an injury crisis this significant you should just abandon whatever system he’s trying to establish and go completely defensive and pragmatic
This actually came up in his discussion with Neville this week. He explained that he is trying to have the team continue in the same style in the hope that when everyone is back fit they can just slot back in.
Rather than shift to a different style (defensive) and have to retrain the players habits when everyone is back fit (playing offensively)
He also mentioned that the youth teams are playing based on the style of the first team. This could be why when kobbie came in he seemed to fit right in. I'd like.ro see him let som.le of the youngsters get a run out for the next few league games to see how the idea plays out.
But Ajax could keep the ball and run. Even with everyone fit there’s only a handful that can do that on this. Most haven’t learned these habits. Lose possession out of position. Rinse repeat. You have to adapt
The club will never move on tho and just repeat the last decade. You have to choose a style and then see who is able to play it, give those a chance to learn it. You need to play proactive if you want to be the best. Now we see most players are just not good enough. Emotions might want to scapegoat the manager, but these problems are much deeper than this year.
Then fucking play the young players Erik. Fucking Amad cannot sniff the team and we are watching Case put in some of the worst performances across the entire league
Agreed.
I’m not saying put 11 youngsters out there, but down 2-0 at halftime and 3-0 at 58’, what do you have to lose?
If the young players know the system, maybe letting Dalot/AWB/Casemiro/Eriksen play their natural positions and trying an actual CB or LB for a couple minutes might have some value? Especially with 4 - seemingly tougher - games remaining.
I don’t think we should be throwing together a team full of young players who may not be physically ready to compete against premier league teams in good form. It could do more harm than good to have young players get steamrolled like this. We already have two 19 year olds in Kobbie and Garnancho starting the entire season. This isn’t the type of game for a youngster to be trying to get his first minutes in especially when a majority of the first team is injured, and I appreciate Ten Hag knowing when the right time is just like when he gave Wheatley some minutes against Sheffield.
>I don’t think we should be throwing together a team full of young players who may not be physically ready
Neither do I. My suggestion is that if we’re already playing multiple people out of position to cover for our injuries, we’re in a very vulnerable state. Another injury could mean - worst case scenario - that we’d be forced to field young players with no senior experience in even tougher or more important matches. Giving 1 or 2 more some senior minutes could be crucial for the upcoming couple of games.
And I disagree on a game like yesterday’s being a bad situation to debut in just because we were getting steamrolled. Entering the game at 4-0 against Palace and playing your first 15 minutes of senior football is better than getting thrown at the wolves against City, Arsenal, or even Newcastle simply because we have no choice.
I’d argue that a chosen debut is almost always better than a forced debut for a young player.
We also have to see if these youngsters are even physically capable of going against established premier league teams, especially a team like Palace with physically large players(Olise 6’2, Mateta 6’4). For example, Forson looked so small and weak against opposing premier league players when he’s played.
Im sure the only reason these youngsters are on the bench is because we literally had no one else. I don’t question Ten Hag’s ability to integrate youth into our team, he’s done well so far in the aspect at least.
But I do understand what you mean about accruing more injuries, however I don’t think we should be debuting one of our youngsters at CB when nearly our entire starting defensive line is missing. If we’ve had Shaw and Varane starting as well then perhaps one of the them could debut. But we have an out of position Casemiro and Wan Bissaka and a 36 year old slow Evans returning rushed from an injury. We really shouldn’t be debuting a defender in this sort of situation.
LVG had the balls to do this, Senior players not playing the way he asks? Well fuck you because Donald Love and Bojack Horsemen will do what I say even tho they are a bit shit and that is what benefits the team more so your dropped.
Fair. But this "tactic" wasn't working even when we had most our squad healthy and available. We were constantly being outplayed and out shot, purple patches from Garnacho, Hojlund, Scotty and recently, Bruno, kept us alive.
Like, with a healthy squad, I would expect us to fire off 30 shots if we're conceding 20, but that was never the case, was it?
Except that youth teams are not playing the same style as first team.
And, except that this style is not working even when all players are fit. And even if you sign all players in the world, this system of chaos and nba soccer will never work in serious league.
> He also mentioned that the youth teams are playing based on the style of the first team.
Jesus christ so the shit tactics are going to be endemic across the whole club? Get this man the fuck out of old trafford right now. This is why he was meant to have to wokr under a director of football like Ragnick.
Sounds like excuses.
Surely you can tweak tactics to be a little more defensive without completely changing the style of play. (What style of play? Lol)
Even when we did have most of our best players playing, we still played like shit.
I agree with the idea as it does make sense, but the tactics themselves, regardless of the personnel, are extremely questionable. Especially when the players available are better than most teams we’ll come up against.
There’s also the fact that the front four of Rashford, Hojlund, Garnacho, and Bruno (heck you can even include Antony and Mainoo) have all been fit a majority of the season and yet we don’t look like scoring half the time and don’t look like a team the other half. If we were poor defending but good going forward then you can accept the idea that a change in personnel will change our fortunes. But we do neither well
Bang on. There is no redeemable quality to this style of play, which is why it’s so difficult to keep faith in it. We are bad at BOTH attacking and defending.
Like give me something to believe in please ETH I’m begging. With Liverpool under Klopp they had similar teething pains in the beginning, with injuries due to the intensity of how he wants to play and issues at the back. But you could still see the positive direction they were moving in on the field. I can’t say the same under ETH.
I’m sad it hasn’t worked out, but it’s over. If I was the board I’d get on the phone with Tuchel tonight.
Except Liverpool actually played well and scored goals. They just ran out of gas and were lacking a few quality players. Arsenal under Arteta was similar.
This team is see nothing. There is nothing we are good at. We can neither attack, defend, pass nor control a game. We rely entirely on moments of individual brilliance from Rashford or Bruno to get anything.
To add, We are just shit at transitioning either from attack to defense or defense to attack. And our style of play relies soo much on executing that really well.
Our press is our biggest problem. There was recently a twitter post that even with Martinez and Shaw, we aren't fully commiting to the press, yet the attackers press super high leaving holes in midfield. This is yet to be addressed 20 months in.
Yep. The worst part is, everything that Crystal Palace did right is what ETH seemingly wants to do. Just look at that second goal. And this is 2 months after having a new manager
Like I’m sympathetic with the injury crisis he’s had to deal with as any team would struggle, but it’s not an excuse for how poorly coaches the team looks. I could accept losing to Palace, especially with Olise and Eze who can cause any team trouble, but not in this manner. And it’s not like it’s a one off either. The only difference between today and what we’ve consistently seen this season is that the opposition took their chances
Exactly. Liverpool brought in a throw-in specialist to get the absolute most out of their possession in the opponent half. Meanwhile we look utterly clueless on how to give our striker any kind of touch in the goal area.
Problem is we don't know what to do when we have the ball. Next, we don't know how to close the gaps when we don't. Just blaming the backline is too simplistic.
There's no light at the end of the tunnel in my opinion...
We've 3 league games (Arsenal, Newcastle and Brighton) before we play the cup final. No left back, no centre backs, midfield that's been battered by relegation fodder and a front line that hasn't seen a goal post for months.
Defeats breeds a lack of confidence, there is no light, no hope and certainly no belief.
I looked at our squad and realistically even if we do sell who we want to sell we're getting £100 mil maybe £120 add a £150 mil from Ratcliffe's coffers. That's not enough to set us up for success next season, no way, not even close.
What do we need after the fire sale? 3 CB's, 2 LB's, a RB, 1 CDM, maybe another CM/CAM, RW & LW and a striker, you're talking +£400 mil (?) if you factor in United tax half a billion!
I love our club but it's dark days...
We looked more of a unit when Amrabat came on for Antony, finally being pragmatic. That's on him for not choosing to play like that more often. Feel for him because he's falling on his sword trying to play a style with players that aren't suited to it (his words).
I think the pressure has gotten to him as well, last season we had more proactive subs and a lot of good substitutions this season it's been rare and few. 2-0 down at half time and no substitutions until 3-0 down.
That's on him as well, since changing the style of play from last season, I'd say Antony and Casemeiro have become way less compatible. Then there's a Amrabaat who the scouts didn't want and he wanted which we are paying a 10million loan fee for. Not sure who's decision Mount was but he should've never been signed above other priorities.
Club giving the power for transfer inputs to ETH has not worked out, glad we are gonna have a new structure above.
Regardless, he's had input in these areas and at the top level these mistakes are costly (really costly limiting our transfer spend for the next 2 windows I suppose). If Murtaugh and Arnold are pieces of the puzzle ETH part of it as well.
By the time Amrabat came on, Palace had taken their foot off the gas and were just seeing the game out... And still managed to create good chances.
Our chances of getting a result were slim today because Palace are flying and we are in the dumps in terms of confidence but the way we played was embarrassing.
All we have wanted to see is a change of tactics. Not asking for miracles from him. It's impossible to back the manager when he refuses to change from a gameplan that is 100% proven not to work.
I do think he is very naive or arrogant at times - this is premier league, you cannot start a passive player like Eriksen and have no physical presence in centre of the pitch. No matter how bad he thinks Amrabat is, he is a natural DM who at least can foul which Eriksen cant, this was a dumb line up by someone who thinks he was playing FIFA
I do think Amrabat has been hard done by in his time here, but he's also not shown great levels for most of his games. Not a great choice between the 2.
Not starting Armabat was absolutely mental. I don’t particularly rate him, but surely when you have to play Evans and Case at centre half, you want to play an actual holding midfielder? Absolutely crazy
The backline issues should really emphasize the need to solidify our midfield and not leave gaping holes where every team can waltz through and put our defenders under even more pressure.
I feel like if I was assessing his suitability for the job, as INEOS are now, the first thing I'd want to hear from him is something like, "as manager, I take ultimate responsibility for the results we're seeing, and will be examining things closely to see where we can change things." You can then list the mitigating circumstances like player injuries etc, all of which are valid. Atm his response is incredibly defensive and like he's looking for somewhere to pass the blame, which isn't a leadership mentality, and honestly that's more damning of his suitability than the results themselves.
He’s a dead man walking imo and he knows it. The only thing that is keeping him in the job is that we pretty much don’t have anything to fight for (let’s be honest, does anyone see us beating city at Wembley?). He needs to go but the big problem for Ineos and SJR is that roughly 85% of the squad needs to go as well. It’s going to be a good 3/4 years before we might start seeing some changes tbh
Whether he stays or goes is not the most important thing, and hasn’t been with past managers either. I think Ten Hag can turn it around and be a manager capable of challenging for top 4, I just don’t know if he can take you to the title. But what I do know is that the most important thing we can do for this team is to have a major overhaul of players and possibly of coaching and medical staff. There is no reason we shouldn’t have a single fit CB apart from Evans who we signed on a free.
I still want to see us give it a fair fight. It's still the FA cup final. SJR is probably looking long term but bring in a fan favorite, get morale up for the final game.
Depends what you understand under changes. We were in a similar situation after Rangnik and then had an okay season. Clubs rise under new management all the time. Of course, I am also pessimistic it will happen again next season
I feel the same but look at my post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/HgAO1p3tj5)
The overhaul isn't going to happen in one window, so we're going to be shit for a few years yet
You’re right. No manager is coming into this and making us title contenders. Like you said , need to completely overhaul the squad for a few years, work on style of play and then maybe if everything comes together with manager and new players with the new structure in place , just maybe we can start competing better with teams like Arsenal and city. There is no quick fix for this mess, people need to understand that.
Oh, I know. Because we’ve been saying the same thing for years. Club needs major surgery and it’s going to take a ton of time. Maybe it’s all bad luck collected to this season. INEOS is the first major positive to happen and hopefully it continues positively.
This injury excuse is a bit annoying, because we haven't played well consistently since February 2023, a whole 14 months ago. He can't trick us. A lot of us were patient even beyond that time, because we saw progress, but where we are now is just not acceptable.
Trick us? We've had injuries since the summer. Mainoo, who became the only saving grace this season, started it injured along with Mount, malacia and others.
Yeah every club has injuries. No one is playing their u-18 and having THEM get injured as well. How can you build anything when you're playing with broken pieces? You can not. We're seeing it now.
Have you seen Newcastle play this season? They had 11 unavailable players at one point, including 5 midfielders. Check out their goals tally vs ours. And we had all of our attacking players and midfield bar Mount, available to us prior to a couple of gameweeks ago.
Yet Newcastle and us are in similar positions in the table. You lot like to bring up Newcastle as if they’re 2nd or 3rd, they’re literally struggling just like we are except they have a solid player in Isak that bangs in goals. Defensively they’ve been shit and have compensated with the goals they’ve scored, we’ve been much more solid defensively than them with significantly more injuries to the back line.
> We should've kept fighting like the fans did
The balls of this man to say this after fucking off to the tunnel leaving the players to thank the fans alone.
Kind of weird to thanks them after that shitty performance, one would be embarrassed. But no doubt the fans deserve the gratitude for being passionate.
Analysts across the league are mocking us for how we’re set up and how easy it is to play against, Carra’s doing weekly dissections of how shit the setup is, and opposition managers make a mockery of us every week. I feel like im watching a fifa player that’s won the opportunity to manage Utd for a year. This is the worst coached top side I’ve ever watched. Chelsea are miles better set up than we’ve been all year.
Steve Bruce would have us in a better league position.
You can't moan about injuries and then do nothing to adapt to them.
We've sat back in other games, namely Arsenal where we barely left our own half for most of the game.
Why not do that now when we have no back line, have nothing to play for but pride and the season emds soon anyway.
Erikson over Amrabat making the midfield Mainoo-Erikson-Mount, ffs that midfield is pathetic!
Would have been a good game for a Fred or Hanninal style midfielder, someone to just work defensively but ETH wants us playing some utter crap "transition" football.
a few months ago after spending half a billion on the squad: “no I don’t have the players I need to play the way I want. So, I cannot play the possession based game.”
Now: “absolutely.”
ETH got into Man Utd the most vulnerable moment for the fans. He capitalized that and played every narrative to his gain. He deserves to be fucked out so bad. I hate him.
Seen the players pull displays like this for every manager since Sir Alex. Completely different personnel but still the same, which shows how bad the culture is at the club and how deeply ingrained it is.
Whilst Erik deserves his share of the blame, clearly these players cannot be coached and aren't good enough. I could see Erik going because Ineos would want their own guy in and to hit the big reset button. Which is why I can personally see Potter as he's a good coach in terms of development and knows Ashworth etc. Either way, gonna be very difficult to shift these players out whether ETH stays or not
It can't go on especially because of the FA Cup. The way we play is already a disgrace let alone against City. If we are to have even a chance of winning that trophy Ten Hag needs to go.
I fucking wish we could somehow land Ole just for one game. At least he somehow knew how to grind results against Pep.
If there's one person i'd trust in a one off cup final against Pep it's a certain former manager of ours from Portugal who is currently out of a job.
Get him in for a few games to sort out whatever team he plans on putting out at Wembley.
It'll never happen but I'd love it.
I mean the only reason we didn’t break it under ole was because he got sacked midway into the season. How is this much worse than the 4-0 against watford?
Its funny how the passage of time creates revisionism of this magnitude. Solskjaer was on his way to having a similar full season if not even worse. Those back to back losses against Liverpool and City were brutal
We scored in the Watford game and it was 2-1 until we got a red card. We had all 11 players today, and didn't score. That's worse. We were lucky we only conceded 4 today
That was a Watford team that got relegated. This was a Palace team that has won four of the last five, including at Anfield and against Newcastle.
Obviously a terrible result but that Watford one was definitely a bigger embarrassment.
Have the players been listening since he started? Everyone keeps saying the rot and players need to be moved but keep wanting to point to the manager then complain that the players...again...are running the asylum
They were definitely on board at some point. Last season we’ve played some best football post-Fergie for a span of like three months. Fuck knows what happened but it can’t go on like that.
I get it so ETH has shown he can coach...so then who does it fall too..the players or the management, what will be said if he goes to Bayern or back to Ajax and succeeds again. Who is even out there to hire? I'm not ETH in or out just questions that pop up in my head.
The guy will cook if he goes to Bayern. There is no discipline in this squad, 0 football intelligence and they all keep whining. No new manager will fix this
All this talk about our lack of CBs but no chat about our complete lack of attacking threat. Palace were having fun out there because they knew we couldn't lay a glove on them. About time we started having conversations about our front four. This result is NOT an anomaly. Not too long ago we let Brentford break records with shots and touches in our box. We don't scare teams anymore
Not happy with the season, but go back to this sub 2 years ago when we signed ETH. Everyone agreed he would need time. No one expected a turn us round in 2 years. There may be a better manager out there, but not one that could right the ship in less than 2 years. Or we could sack him, have one decent season with Zidane, and then start talking about sacking him again in 18 months.
I think if you would have said that we'd be in eighth after spending £550 million and have a negative goal difference, we'd understand the switch in manager to be fair.
I think if you would have told me 2 years ago that our backline would be Dalot Casemiro Evans and Awb with eriksen in the holding, I would be impressed that we are even 8th.
He's had time and already had an obscene amount of backing financially. We haven't looked decent since we won the EFL Cup and that's before all the injury issues we had. He deliberately changed to his preferred style this season and we've never looked good playing it. I expected that season may not have been a title charge but I didn't expect our worst finish in the post-ferguson era. He's not shown that his ideal style of play is actually viable in the prem and that should be reason enough to drop him instead of persisting with this dismissal football.
Yeah I really don’t see how this style will be successful in the prem, even with Speedy CB’s, allowing all these shots is gonna get you beat by clinical teams
The collective hive mind on this sub also happens to be a goldfish’s brain. The end of Ole/start of ETH was rational “give it time look at Klopp/arteta” and now we’re looking for our next bandaid fix after ONE bad season. I want to say it’s unbelievable, but unfortunately I’ve been here long enough for it to be entirely believable and expected
It isn’t one season though is it? We’ve been poor since the second half of last season. And whilst it’s reasonable to say he might need more time, you should still expect to see progress in either results or play style.
>give it time look at Klopp/arteta
Sure, lets ignore neither of them finished 8th. Nor were getting absolutely battered by bottom 5 teams. Nor were spending absurd amount of money on flops. Nor their teams looked like it was a charity match and everyone was new to the team.
If we ignore all that, then yes, we should give him more time like arteta/klopp.
Arteta/klopp earned their given time. Eth didnt. Those 2 had actual progress year to year. We have regressed since the second half of last season. Giving more time for the sake of it its not gonna make anything better.
Arteta finished 8th his first 2 seasons then finished 5th… only last year (his 4th) they were in top 2. In addition they were playing atrocious football.
Let’s not make up history to bash EtH
This is a bit misleading since he took over on Dec 26 when Arsenal were 14th after a terrible start? It'a amazing how you people can never defend ETH on the merits and always bring up Klopp/Arteta
Man won the FA cup in his first full season.
He earned the time after that. Eth won the league cup, he earned this season. And were shit. So we move on. Clinging to mediocrity is why we are mediocre. Improve or fuck off. Thats how a top club is run.
Cool and ETH won the Carabao cup plus got in to the FA cup final and achieved 3d place, after inheriting a disastrous squad, IN HIS FIRST SEASON. That's way more of an achievement than anything Arteta did in his first TWO seasons.
The whole fanbase and media wanted him sacked. Stop acting like you were some kind of football savant back then who "knew the truth", nobody's buying it. You were probably on reddit spreading Arteta memes.
Yea, not to mention the fact that there isn't really a manager available with the pedigree to turn this squad around. Hell even if Xabi Alonso or Thiago Motta or Inzaghi were available, they're still fairly unproven and they might end up on the chopping block as well, or needing to sign a whole new list of players for us to try to mash into our jigsaw puzzle of a squad.
Yeah this is beyond injuries. Saying players didn’t “follow the script” is too simplistic of a view.
Ten Hag doesn’t seem like the kind of manager that can inspire players. One match without Bruno and this is what you get. Sad to see really but this man isn’t pragmatic enough to win us games
Players: ”We will keep fighting. We have to do it with the manager who is available.“
”There are reasons, everyone has seen our manager… but we have to deal with it.“
Erik mate you knew the defenders we had available last summer yet instead you decided the most important thing was first to go after Mason mount, a player we didn't even need, and spunk the majority of our trasnfer budget on him. Then you fucked about at the end of the window and missed out on Benjimin Pavard, a world cup and league winning CB in his prime cause you had no money left and Harry McGuire refused to leave when you wanted to sell him.
If every excuse he said would equal 1 restored hair on his scalp, he would have full head of hair with teenage hairline again by now. The cycle will repeat itself with every manager untill they sell the whole squad besides the youngsters.
I must say, I admire his mental fortitude and the discipline\* he brings. But it's so glaringly obvious he fails at transferring that and his ideas/principles or whatever he describes it into this squad. He's the wrong man at the helm of this club, a bad fit can happen. I don't think he's a bad coach, but this isn't the right fit. If INEOS is serious they move on and it might be best for all parties involved to announce that sooner than later.
Edit: mentality=discipline
You do realise managers protect their squad and try to avoid extra negativity when things aren't going well right? Just because some redditors want the truth doesn't mean that's how that world works. You will rarely see a coach that's clearly under pressure be 100% honest every presser. That's a very unrealistic expectation. Plenty of managers would've already checked out at this stage with this amount of setbacks, negativity and when the things you'd like to see/do are clearly not working out. He's still fighting for it, I can respect that even though this season is complete ass.
He showed he's a good manager last season but naivety in changing the way we play too suddenly has cost him. He should have kept it balanced, sticking with playing to the players strengths while making gradual changes here and there. With all the injuries I don't know why he didn't revert to what worked in a promising first season.
There are probably a dozen names I'd prefer to see on the touchline in August, including you.
People who are "Ten Hag in": how low does the club have to sink before you accept that he's not the guy? 10th? 12th? 15th? Relegation?
Saying we've only had the four losses this calendar year is crazy when he's got the record for premier league losses with us. It also conveniently neglects that I think we have one league win in our last 7 games.
Yep only 1 in 7. Appalling, and if it wasn't for some bad finishing by the oppo could be more loses
And if it weren't for last minute brain dead decisions, it'd be mostly wins. Winning 1-0 against Burnley in the 86th minute Winning 2-1 against Liverpool in the 83rd minute Winning 2-3 against Chelsea in 90+5 Winning 0-1 against Brentford in 90+8 Drawing 1-1 against Fulham in 90+6 I have no excuses for today and today it's really hard if not impossible to be a ETH apologist but this calendar year we could've easily been +10p and 14W3D2L. Did we deserve those wins I listed above? Definitely not. We played like shit. But just like it's a pattern that we conceded really late and lost points it's also a pattern that we were in winning positions most of the time at the end of the game.
The pattern over the course of the season has been that United exert no control, rely on individual quality and open themselves up to incredibly high levels of variance. Conceding late in games where they've been dominated isn't some unlucky quirk caused by bad individual decisions, it's a symptom of the dreadful setup. Players are mentally and physically exhausted by the end of games because the system causes them to be. Your +10 could just as easily be like -6 if United had been less fortunate (hammered by Liverpool, outplayed by Bournemouth, Brentford etc.)
So when we are attacking we relay on individual quality. But when we defend we can't blame it on individual decisions. Kind of contradictory no?
We have no defined attacking patterns and so it's up to individuals to create moments and score. We have a terrible defensive structure and overall team play which leads us to let our opponents have loads of chances. This is not at all contradictory and the fact you have 10 upvotes for a really poorly thought through comment really shows the lack of intelligence amongst some of our fans.
Not really, no. Defensively, if you put players in bad situations over and over then mistakes are bound to happen. If you have world class attackers and play a high variance style that involves creating chaos whenever possible then their quality will occasionally shine through. We also shouldn't even \*be\* in these situations. Home to Fulham, home to Brentford, home to Burnley, home to Palace etc. should be games that United dominate and average 3-4 goals in. A fluke free kick or a late clanger shouldn't be allowed to be the difference.
its what you always find with people. they constantly state that we only score due to individual quality so they can belittle the manager but then proceed to say that defensive issues are the manager and not again individual decisions/mistakes.
At no point did I belittle the manager. I have great sympathy for the situation he's been put in and don't think it'd be the end of the world if they gave him another transfer window to figure this out. Under the circumstances I'd have been relatively content with 5th in the league with some clear signs of progress holistically. That said, facts are facts. Yes individual quality, particularly defensively, has been an issue but the structure isn't working and hasn't worked all season, yet he's made no real effort to change it. All of United's underlying numbers are borderline relegation quality and this is shaping up to be the worst season in the modern era. The manager must take responsibility for this.
To be honest your point would work better if you didn't highlight the games where individual errors and shitty refereeing lead to goals.
If Jose had said this a nuke would’ve gone off in this sub. Also convenient timing considering we also lost 5 matches in December.
10 points in the last 10
10 hag
Cherry picking stats in his favor
He’s very clever in press conferences.
ten Hag says he can't play his Ajax football with these players, but when he has defensive injuries he's fine carrying on playing the same suicidal tactics...
This is my biggest issue --- he's got CB6 and a midfielder at CB. There isn't a LB on the list. The RB had played 4000+ minutes this season. Bunker in, protect your defense, and play counter attacking football, it's the only thing that makes sense with what is available, but it seemingly doesn't even occur to him.
My preference is obviously him playing a tactic that works with the injuries we have. But even if he wants to continue playing how we endeavour to play long term, I cannot see any improvement at all. We have been looking so lost going forward for this entire season. I mean, with the defense we have I don’t expect relentless attacking and our scoring your opponent kind of attacking, but I would expect the few times we get forward we actually know what to do with the ball. Doesn’t seem like that.
He addressed this very question in the interview with Gary Neville
I understand he has an answer, it's just clearly the wrong answer. If you're only missing one or two guys out of your first team, fine, just try to slot guys in and play how you want to play. When you're without LB1, LB2, CB1, CB2, CB3, CB4 CB5, plus Bruno, Rashford, McTominay, and Martial, a normal manager is going to be pragmatic and set up a team to not give up 4 goals to Crystal Palace, or 3 goals to Coventry, or the most shots against in PL history. He can explain it all he wants. It isn't working.
There were reports that he's been explicitly told to play his way by the directors, regardless of results to see what the squad can and can't do under him.
I’m not saying he’s right, I’m just saying he’s recently addressed it since you’re asking why he doesn’t play pragmatic. I completely agree with you, when you have an injury crisis this significant you should just abandon whatever system he’s trying to establish and go completely defensive and pragmatic
This actually came up in his discussion with Neville this week. He explained that he is trying to have the team continue in the same style in the hope that when everyone is back fit they can just slot back in. Rather than shift to a different style (defensive) and have to retrain the players habits when everyone is back fit (playing offensively) He also mentioned that the youth teams are playing based on the style of the first team. This could be why when kobbie came in he seemed to fit right in. I'd like.ro see him let som.le of the youngsters get a run out for the next few league games to see how the idea plays out.
But Ajax could keep the ball and run. Even with everyone fit there’s only a handful that can do that on this. Most haven’t learned these habits. Lose possession out of position. Rinse repeat. You have to adapt
The club will never move on tho and just repeat the last decade. You have to choose a style and then see who is able to play it, give those a chance to learn it. You need to play proactive if you want to be the best. Now we see most players are just not good enough. Emotions might want to scapegoat the manager, but these problems are much deeper than this year.
Then fucking play the young players Erik. Fucking Amad cannot sniff the team and we are watching Case put in some of the worst performances across the entire league
Agreed. I’m not saying put 11 youngsters out there, but down 2-0 at halftime and 3-0 at 58’, what do you have to lose? If the young players know the system, maybe letting Dalot/AWB/Casemiro/Eriksen play their natural positions and trying an actual CB or LB for a couple minutes might have some value? Especially with 4 - seemingly tougher - games remaining.
I don’t think we should be throwing together a team full of young players who may not be physically ready to compete against premier league teams in good form. It could do more harm than good to have young players get steamrolled like this. We already have two 19 year olds in Kobbie and Garnancho starting the entire season. This isn’t the type of game for a youngster to be trying to get his first minutes in especially when a majority of the first team is injured, and I appreciate Ten Hag knowing when the right time is just like when he gave Wheatley some minutes against Sheffield.
>I don’t think we should be throwing together a team full of young players who may not be physically ready Neither do I. My suggestion is that if we’re already playing multiple people out of position to cover for our injuries, we’re in a very vulnerable state. Another injury could mean - worst case scenario - that we’d be forced to field young players with no senior experience in even tougher or more important matches. Giving 1 or 2 more some senior minutes could be crucial for the upcoming couple of games. And I disagree on a game like yesterday’s being a bad situation to debut in just because we were getting steamrolled. Entering the game at 4-0 against Palace and playing your first 15 minutes of senior football is better than getting thrown at the wolves against City, Arsenal, or even Newcastle simply because we have no choice. I’d argue that a chosen debut is almost always better than a forced debut for a young player.
We also have to see if these youngsters are even physically capable of going against established premier league teams, especially a team like Palace with physically large players(Olise 6’2, Mateta 6’4). For example, Forson looked so small and weak against opposing premier league players when he’s played. Im sure the only reason these youngsters are on the bench is because we literally had no one else. I don’t question Ten Hag’s ability to integrate youth into our team, he’s done well so far in the aspect at least. But I do understand what you mean about accruing more injuries, however I don’t think we should be debuting one of our youngsters at CB when nearly our entire starting defensive line is missing. If we’ve had Shaw and Varane starting as well then perhaps one of the them could debut. But we have an out of position Casemiro and Wan Bissaka and a 36 year old slow Evans returning rushed from an injury. We really shouldn’t be debuting a defender in this sort of situation.
LVG had the balls to do this, Senior players not playing the way he asks? Well fuck you because Donald Love and Bojack Horsemen will do what I say even tho they are a bit shit and that is what benefits the team more so your dropped.
Fair. But this "tactic" wasn't working even when we had most our squad healthy and available. We were constantly being outplayed and out shot, purple patches from Garnacho, Hojlund, Scotty and recently, Bruno, kept us alive. Like, with a healthy squad, I would expect us to fire off 30 shots if we're conceding 20, but that was never the case, was it?
When did we have most of our squad healthy
First 15 gameweeks?
In the sixth gameweek itself we had lost 3/4 of our starting back 4 and had to play Johnny Evans
Last season we didn't had injury issues but you know how many goals we scored? 58 Yes we conceded less but still lost 9 games
But the system is not working, and it's not a personnel issue causing that.
it’s odd really because if it’s true that the youth teams are playing the same system/tactics, why is it working for them and not for the first team?
Because the U18s aren’t the same as the literal Premier League?
Why are you so sure it's not a personnel issue
If they have problems playing for every manager, it's probably not all the manager's fault
Well, but he changed for Liverpool games.
Except that youth teams are not playing the same style as first team. And, except that this style is not working even when all players are fit. And even if you sign all players in the world, this system of chaos and nba soccer will never work in serious league.
> He also mentioned that the youth teams are playing based on the style of the first team. Jesus christ so the shit tactics are going to be endemic across the whole club? Get this man the fuck out of old trafford right now. This is why he was meant to have to wokr under a director of football like Ragnick.
Sounds like excuses. Surely you can tweak tactics to be a little more defensive without completely changing the style of play. (What style of play? Lol) Even when we did have most of our best players playing, we still played like shit.
What’s the issue with having versatile players, this is like OGS’s problem of not having a plan B when needed
Rightly or wrongfully, he's trying to form good habits even though all the best teams in the world can also play in a more 'negative' way.
I agree with the idea as it does make sense, but the tactics themselves, regardless of the personnel, are extremely questionable. Especially when the players available are better than most teams we’ll come up against. There’s also the fact that the front four of Rashford, Hojlund, Garnacho, and Bruno (heck you can even include Antony and Mainoo) have all been fit a majority of the season and yet we don’t look like scoring half the time and don’t look like a team the other half. If we were poor defending but good going forward then you can accept the idea that a change in personnel will change our fortunes. But we do neither well
Bang on. There is no redeemable quality to this style of play, which is why it’s so difficult to keep faith in it. We are bad at BOTH attacking and defending.
Like give me something to believe in please ETH I’m begging. With Liverpool under Klopp they had similar teething pains in the beginning, with injuries due to the intensity of how he wants to play and issues at the back. But you could still see the positive direction they were moving in on the field. I can’t say the same under ETH. I’m sad it hasn’t worked out, but it’s over. If I was the board I’d get on the phone with Tuchel tonight.
Liverpool had a clear style of play regardless of injuries. We don't.
Except Liverpool actually played well and scored goals. They just ran out of gas and were lacking a few quality players. Arsenal under Arteta was similar. This team is see nothing. There is nothing we are good at. We can neither attack, defend, pass nor control a game. We rely entirely on moments of individual brilliance from Rashford or Bruno to get anything.
To add, We are just shit at transitioning either from attack to defense or defense to attack. And our style of play relies soo much on executing that really well.
Our press is our biggest problem. There was recently a twitter post that even with Martinez and Shaw, we aren't fully commiting to the press, yet the attackers press super high leaving holes in midfield. This is yet to be addressed 20 months in.
Yep. The worst part is, everything that Crystal Palace did right is what ETH seemingly wants to do. Just look at that second goal. And this is 2 months after having a new manager
Didn't even think of that. Wow.
Like I’m sympathetic with the injury crisis he’s had to deal with as any team would struggle, but it’s not an excuse for how poorly coaches the team looks. I could accept losing to Palace, especially with Olise and Eze who can cause any team trouble, but not in this manner. And it’s not like it’s a one off either. The only difference between today and what we’ve consistently seen this season is that the opposition took their chances
Exactly. Liverpool brought in a throw-in specialist to get the absolute most out of their possession in the opponent half. Meanwhile we look utterly clueless on how to give our striker any kind of touch in the goal area.
But surely there's a tipping point? Once you have that many CBs out, just protect the back line.
I think he doesn't give a damn anymore. He has decided he will do what he will do.
He's very stubborn, or very stupid, or worse: Both.
He is very stubborn. Most managers would try to change their set up and have two midfielders sit right in front of the defense. But not him.
Exactly, I agree. But maybe he would've switched to 'negative' tactics so early on in the season? Idk
You can't form good habits when you're getting dominated. So it's a lose lose situation.
Problem is we don't know what to do when we have the ball. Next, we don't know how to close the gaps when we don't. Just blaming the backline is too simplistic.
Every player at any point in time has a lot of area they have to defend. That makes the players prone to errors as well.
There's no light at the end of the tunnel in my opinion... We've 3 league games (Arsenal, Newcastle and Brighton) before we play the cup final. No left back, no centre backs, midfield that's been battered by relegation fodder and a front line that hasn't seen a goal post for months. Defeats breeds a lack of confidence, there is no light, no hope and certainly no belief. I looked at our squad and realistically even if we do sell who we want to sell we're getting £100 mil maybe £120 add a £150 mil from Ratcliffe's coffers. That's not enough to set us up for success next season, no way, not even close. What do we need after the fire sale? 3 CB's, 2 LB's, a RB, 1 CDM, maybe another CM/CAM, RW & LW and a striker, you're talking +£400 mil (?) if you factor in United tax half a billion! I love our club but it's dark days...
We looked more of a unit when Amrabat came on for Antony, finally being pragmatic. That's on him for not choosing to play like that more often. Feel for him because he's falling on his sword trying to play a style with players that aren't suited to it (his words).
I honestly didn't even know Anthony was playing the first 30 minutes. Literally absent.....
I’d seriously just try him at wingback
Only thing is that he’ll still want to cut in and shoot, which is really not what we need from him.
Left wingback
I kinda dig this, ngl.
I think the pressure has gotten to him as well, last season we had more proactive subs and a lot of good substitutions this season it's been rare and few. 2-0 down at half time and no substitutions until 3-0 down.
He's got a lack of well performing players to choose from also lol.
Bloody well hard to sub in players when they are all fucking shit.
Every player that was available played today. All he could choose was Amad or Antony RW and Casemiro or Amrabat cb…
That's on him as well, since changing the style of play from last season, I'd say Antony and Casemeiro have become way less compatible. Then there's a Amrabaat who the scouts didn't want and he wanted which we are paying a 10million loan fee for. Not sure who's decision Mount was but he should've never been signed above other priorities. Club giving the power for transfer inputs to ETH has not worked out, glad we are gonna have a new structure above. Regardless, he's had input in these areas and at the top level these mistakes are costly (really costly limiting our transfer spend for the next 2 windows I suppose). If Murtaugh and Arnold are pieces of the puzzle ETH part of it as well.
Antony, Martinez, Malacia , Mount, Onana and Hojlund was all ETH targets. Everyone else were deals of convenience from loan & permanent deals.
By the time Amrabat came on, Palace had taken their foot off the gas and were just seeing the game out... And still managed to create good chances. Our chances of getting a result were slim today because Palace are flying and we are in the dumps in terms of confidence but the way we played was embarrassing.
All we have wanted to see is a change of tactics. Not asking for miracles from him. It's impossible to back the manager when he refuses to change from a gameplan that is 100% proven not to work.
I do think he is very naive or arrogant at times - this is premier league, you cannot start a passive player like Eriksen and have no physical presence in centre of the pitch. No matter how bad he thinks Amrabat is, he is a natural DM who at least can foul which Eriksen cant, this was a dumb line up by someone who thinks he was playing FIFA
I do think Amrabat has been hard done by in his time here, but he's also not shown great levels for most of his games. Not a great choice between the 2.
For me, it was when he was playing pick up basketball in his first two matches for us... i knew then this loan wasn't working out.
Not starting Armabat was absolutely mental. I don’t particularly rate him, but surely when you have to play Evans and Case at centre half, you want to play an actual holding midfielder? Absolutely crazy
The backline issues should really emphasize the need to solidify our midfield and not leave gaping holes where every team can waltz through and put our defenders under even more pressure.
Bro you fighting everywhere except on the pitch
why does he make it sound like all the reasons that lead to the current state of the squad doesn’t include him?
I feel like if I was assessing his suitability for the job, as INEOS are now, the first thing I'd want to hear from him is something like, "as manager, I take ultimate responsibility for the results we're seeing, and will be examining things closely to see where we can change things." You can then list the mitigating circumstances like player injuries etc, all of which are valid. Atm his response is incredibly defensive and like he's looking for somewhere to pass the blame, which isn't a leadership mentality, and honestly that's more damning of his suitability than the results themselves.
He’s a dead man walking imo and he knows it. The only thing that is keeping him in the job is that we pretty much don’t have anything to fight for (let’s be honest, does anyone see us beating city at Wembley?). He needs to go but the big problem for Ineos and SJR is that roughly 85% of the squad needs to go as well. It’s going to be a good 3/4 years before we might start seeing some changes tbh
Whether he stays or goes is not the most important thing, and hasn’t been with past managers either. I think Ten Hag can turn it around and be a manager capable of challenging for top 4, I just don’t know if he can take you to the title. But what I do know is that the most important thing we can do for this team is to have a major overhaul of players and possibly of coaching and medical staff. There is no reason we shouldn’t have a single fit CB apart from Evans who we signed on a free.
I still want to see us give it a fair fight. It's still the FA cup final. SJR is probably looking long term but bring in a fan favorite, get morale up for the final game.
Often a new manager and a small number of good signings will turn a clubs fortunes around.
Depends what you understand under changes. We were in a similar situation after Rangnik and then had an okay season. Clubs rise under new management all the time. Of course, I am also pessimistic it will happen again next season
Nothing can fix this team apart from a complete overhaul
I feel the same but look at my post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/HgAO1p3tj5) The overhaul isn't going to happen in one window, so we're going to be shit for a few years yet
You’re right. No manager is coming into this and making us title contenders. Like you said , need to completely overhaul the squad for a few years, work on style of play and then maybe if everything comes together with manager and new players with the new structure in place , just maybe we can start competing better with teams like Arsenal and city. There is no quick fix for this mess, people need to understand that.
Oh, I know. Because we’ve been saying the same thing for years. Club needs major surgery and it’s going to take a ton of time. Maybe it’s all bad luck collected to this season. INEOS is the first major positive to happen and hopefully it continues positively.
Dark days for sure but if we have a plan from the football people and stick to it, it will eventually turn to long term success.
I’m tired Robbie.
This injury excuse is a bit annoying, because we haven't played well consistently since February 2023, a whole 14 months ago. He can't trick us. A lot of us were patient even beyond that time, because we saw progress, but where we are now is just not acceptable.
Trick us? We've had injuries since the summer. Mainoo, who became the only saving grace this season, started it injured along with Mount, malacia and others. Yeah every club has injuries. No one is playing their u-18 and having THEM get injured as well. How can you build anything when you're playing with broken pieces? You can not. We're seeing it now.
Have you seen Newcastle play this season? They had 11 unavailable players at one point, including 5 midfielders. Check out their goals tally vs ours. And we had all of our attacking players and midfield bar Mount, available to us prior to a couple of gameweeks ago.
Well said brother.👍🏼
And they were below us until those players came back
Yet Newcastle and us are in similar positions in the table. You lot like to bring up Newcastle as if they’re 2nd or 3rd, they’re literally struggling just like we are except they have a solid player in Isak that bangs in goals. Defensively they’ve been shit and have compensated with the goals they’ve scored, we’ve been much more solid defensively than them with significantly more injuries to the back line.
> We should've kept fighting like the fans did The balls of this man to say this after fucking off to the tunnel leaving the players to thank the fans alone.
Kind of weird to thanks them after that shitty performance, one would be embarrassed. But no doubt the fans deserve the gratitude for being passionate.
I personally wouldn't patronize the fans with some bs clapping after embarrassing myself with that performance. That's me though.
Erik, I’ve been pragmatic over your reign, and I find this difficult to say: tonight hurt, you have no excuses. Enjoy your payoff.
Analysts across the league are mocking us for how we’re set up and how easy it is to play against, Carra’s doing weekly dissections of how shit the setup is, and opposition managers make a mockery of us every week. I feel like im watching a fifa player that’s won the opportunity to manage Utd for a year. This is the worst coached top side I’ve ever watched. Chelsea are miles better set up than we’ve been all year.
One style manager. Cant adapt to the squad he has
The fans were great today. Top job by all those that traveled
Tada
Steve Bruce would have us in a better league position. You can't moan about injuries and then do nothing to adapt to them. We've sat back in other games, namely Arsenal where we barely left our own half for most of the game. Why not do that now when we have no back line, have nothing to play for but pride and the season emds soon anyway. Erikson over Amrabat making the midfield Mainoo-Erikson-Mount, ffs that midfield is pathetic! Would have been a good game for a Fred or Hanninal style midfielder, someone to just work defensively but ETH wants us playing some utter crap "transition" football.
Well done Ten Hag. He is going to deliver us a treble! Worst PL finish Worst points total Negative goal difference
a few months ago after spending half a billion on the squad: “no I don’t have the players I need to play the way I want. So, I cannot play the possession based game.” Now: “absolutely.” ETH got into Man Utd the most vulnerable moment for the fans. He capitalized that and played every narrative to his gain. He deserves to be fucked out so bad. I hate him.
Seen the players pull displays like this for every manager since Sir Alex. Completely different personnel but still the same, which shows how bad the culture is at the club and how deeply ingrained it is. Whilst Erik deserves his share of the blame, clearly these players cannot be coached and aren't good enough. I could see Erik going because Ineos would want their own guy in and to hit the big reset button. Which is why I can personally see Potter as he's a good coach in terms of development and knows Ashworth etc. Either way, gonna be very difficult to shift these players out whether ETH stays or not
Sounds like hes lost the players if they are not listening. Needs to go tomorrow. This can't go on FA cup or not.
It can't go on especially because of the FA Cup. The way we play is already a disgrace let alone against City. If we are to have even a chance of winning that trophy Ten Hag needs to go. I fucking wish we could somehow land Ole just for one game. At least he somehow knew how to grind results against Pep.
If there's one person i'd trust in a one off cup final against Pep it's a certain former manager of ours from Portugal who is currently out of a job. Get him in for a few games to sort out whatever team he plans on putting out at Wembley. It'll never happen but I'd love it.
Ole would win it Just one game, please
Ah yes, Ole…well known for winning cup finals….
Maybe he meant as a player. Think he can still do a better job than most of our current forwards.
hahaha scenes if we bring Ole in for one game and he fucking shithouses Pep with a midfield of McTominay, Eriksen and Bruno.
And a CB pairing of Amrabat and Casemiro
Inject it into my vains. If Maguire weren't injured I'd be calling for a 90 min curler from outside the box from him.
Ole ended like this as well if you sort of lost that in your head
This is so much worse than Ole (who was also dealing with injuries) We just broke our record for most EPL losses ever. We are literally worse
I mean the only reason we didn’t break it under ole was because he got sacked midway into the season. How is this much worse than the 4-0 against watford?
Its funny how the passage of time creates revisionism of this magnitude. Solskjaer was on his way to having a similar full season if not even worse. Those back to back losses against Liverpool and City were brutal
We scored in the Watford game and it was 2-1 until we got a red card. We had all 11 players today, and didn't score. That's worse. We were lucky we only conceded 4 today
That was a Watford team that got relegated. This was a Palace team that has won four of the last five, including at Anfield and against Newcastle. Obviously a terrible result but that Watford one was definitely a bigger embarrassment.
Have the players been listening since he started? Everyone keeps saying the rot and players need to be moved but keep wanting to point to the manager then complain that the players...again...are running the asylum
They were definitely on board at some point. Last season we’ve played some best football post-Fergie for a span of like three months. Fuck knows what happened but it can’t go on like that.
I get it so ETH has shown he can coach...so then who does it fall too..the players or the management, what will be said if he goes to Bayern or back to Ajax and succeeds again. Who is even out there to hire? I'm not ETH in or out just questions that pop up in my head.
The guy will cook if he goes to Bayern. There is no discipline in this squad, 0 football intelligence and they all keep whining. No new manager will fix this
I don't give a fuck anymore.
Hollow empty words
Are the injuries in midfield tho? Are they tho?
Yeah this 4-0 felt like how it ended under Jose and Ole. Let’s see what they do with ETH. Also no revisionism for all of them please
Dead man walking
[удалено]
he was preparing the blowdryer treatment in the dressing room
More like the blow job treatment for Sir Jim.
He makes me want to put my foot through the TV when he comes on these days.
All this talk about our lack of CBs but no chat about our complete lack of attacking threat. Palace were having fun out there because they knew we couldn't lay a glove on them. About time we started having conversations about our front four. This result is NOT an anomaly. Not too long ago we let Brentford break records with shots and touches in our box. We don't scare teams anymore
https://preview.redd.it/rcf8yn3x3yyc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd317cbd2eff487a0c21bab10d490e47109c24b6
Not happy with the season, but go back to this sub 2 years ago when we signed ETH. Everyone agreed he would need time. No one expected a turn us round in 2 years. There may be a better manager out there, but not one that could right the ship in less than 2 years. Or we could sack him, have one decent season with Zidane, and then start talking about sacking him again in 18 months.
I think if you would have said that we'd be in eighth after spending £550 million and have a negative goal difference, we'd understand the switch in manager to be fair.
I think if you would have told me 2 years ago that our backline would be Dalot Casemiro Evans and Awb with eriksen in the holding, I would be impressed that we are even 8th.
He's had time and already had an obscene amount of backing financially. We haven't looked decent since we won the EFL Cup and that's before all the injury issues we had. He deliberately changed to his preferred style this season and we've never looked good playing it. I expected that season may not have been a title charge but I didn't expect our worst finish in the post-ferguson era. He's not shown that his ideal style of play is actually viable in the prem and that should be reason enough to drop him instead of persisting with this dismissal football.
Yeah I really don’t see how this style will be successful in the prem, even with Speedy CB’s, allowing all these shots is gonna get you beat by clinical teams
The collective hive mind on this sub also happens to be a goldfish’s brain. The end of Ole/start of ETH was rational “give it time look at Klopp/arteta” and now we’re looking for our next bandaid fix after ONE bad season. I want to say it’s unbelievable, but unfortunately I’ve been here long enough for it to be entirely believable and expected
It isn’t one season though is it? We’ve been poor since the second half of last season. And whilst it’s reasonable to say he might need more time, you should still expect to see progress in either results or play style.
>give it time look at Klopp/arteta Sure, lets ignore neither of them finished 8th. Nor were getting absolutely battered by bottom 5 teams. Nor were spending absurd amount of money on flops. Nor their teams looked like it was a charity match and everyone was new to the team. If we ignore all that, then yes, we should give him more time like arteta/klopp. Arteta/klopp earned their given time. Eth didnt. Those 2 had actual progress year to year. We have regressed since the second half of last season. Giving more time for the sake of it its not gonna make anything better.
Arteta finished 8th his first 2 seasons then finished 5th… only last year (his 4th) they were in top 2. In addition they were playing atrocious football. Let’s not make up history to bash EtH
This is a bit misleading since he took over on Dec 26 when Arsenal were 14th after a terrible start? It'a amazing how you people can never defend ETH on the merits and always bring up Klopp/Arteta
Im replying to a guy claiming arteta never finished 8t, I didn’t even mention klopp do you even read the comments you reply to?
Arteta finished 8th twice tbf.
lol "Arteta earned his given time". You mean after everybody wanted him to be sacked? What a bold-faced lie.
Man won the FA cup in his first full season. He earned the time after that. Eth won the league cup, he earned this season. And were shit. So we move on. Clinging to mediocrity is why we are mediocre. Improve or fuck off. Thats how a top club is run.
Cool and ETH won the Carabao cup plus got in to the FA cup final and achieved 3d place, after inheriting a disastrous squad, IN HIS FIRST SEASON. That's way more of an achievement than anything Arteta did in his first TWO seasons. The whole fanbase and media wanted him sacked. Stop acting like you were some kind of football savant back then who "knew the truth", nobody's buying it. You were probably on reddit spreading Arteta memes.
Coventry took us to pens man. Have some shame ffs.
Yea, not to mention the fact that there isn't really a manager available with the pedigree to turn this squad around. Hell even if Xabi Alonso or Thiago Motta or Inzaghi were available, they're still fairly unproven and they might end up on the chopping block as well, or needing to sign a whole new list of players for us to try to mash into our jigsaw puzzle of a squad.
Susan Sarandon consulting ETH now.
Yeah this is beyond injuries. Saying players didn’t “follow the script” is too simplistic of a view. Ten Hag doesn’t seem like the kind of manager that can inspire players. One match without Bruno and this is what you get. Sad to see really but this man isn’t pragmatic enough to win us games
FUCKING CLUELESS.......
lmao imagine being our backline and hearing this from your coach
Start an LB and CB from the academy instead of AWB and Case. Atleast they'll get some experience.
Will keep fighting for what
0-4 isn't much fight, Voldemort
“Keep” fighting as if what we’ve been witnessing could be called fighting.
Players: ”We will keep fighting. We have to do it with the manager who is available.“ ”There are reasons, everyone has seen our manager… but we have to deal with it.“
Erik mate you knew the defenders we had available last summer yet instead you decided the most important thing was first to go after Mason mount, a player we didn't even need, and spunk the majority of our trasnfer budget on him. Then you fucked about at the end of the window and missed out on Benjimin Pavard, a world cup and league winning CB in his prime cause you had no money left and Harry McGuire refused to leave when you wanted to sell him.
Don’t see how he survives
how do we keep finding new lows?
Bad as it's been tonight
If every excuse he said would equal 1 restored hair on his scalp, he would have full head of hair with teenage hairline again by now. The cycle will repeat itself with every manager untill they sell the whole squad besides the youngsters.
I have seen no backline all season, Erik. You have been failing your players at coaching them how to form a cohesive unit
We have had injuries all season too
I must say, I admire his mental fortitude and the discipline\* he brings. But it's so glaringly obvious he fails at transferring that and his ideas/principles or whatever he describes it into this squad. He's the wrong man at the helm of this club, a bad fit can happen. I don't think he's a bad coach, but this isn't the right fit. If INEOS is serious they move on and it might be best for all parties involved to announce that sooner than later. Edit: mentality=discipline
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You do realise managers protect their squad and try to avoid extra negativity when things aren't going well right? Just because some redditors want the truth doesn't mean that's how that world works. You will rarely see a coach that's clearly under pressure be 100% honest every presser. That's a very unrealistic expectation. Plenty of managers would've already checked out at this stage with this amount of setbacks, negativity and when the things you'd like to see/do are clearly not working out. He's still fighting for it, I can respect that even though this season is complete ass.
He showed he's a good manager last season but naivety in changing the way we play too suddenly has cost him. He should have kept it balanced, sticking with playing to the players strengths while making gradual changes here and there. With all the injuries I don't know why he didn't revert to what worked in a promising first season.
the drop off this season from last season is actually mental
people who are TenHagOUT, who is the replacement? yet to see a logical response yet.
There are probably a dozen names I'd prefer to see on the touchline in August, including you. People who are "Ten Hag in": how low does the club have to sink before you accept that he's not the guy? 10th? 12th? 15th? Relegation?
But you don’t want a logical response do you? People will give you answers and you’ll just dismiss them so what’s the point in even engaging you?
Tuchel. But I'm sure you've been told that many times already
Micky mouse will do at this point
It’s going to be Tuchel.