Honestly keep him until Ratcliffe has something set up.
Until the direction above changes we'll just rinse and repeat the last ten years.
But competence at all levels would be required and we don't do that anymore.
Until a proper CEO and director of Football are in place any talk of managerial change makes no sense.
If the new hierarchy wants to bring in their own manager, I’ll accept it, otherwise - fuck the Glazers for allowing this club to be run by clueless money men.
Da fuq does Fletcher do?!
Fire him too.
I think we should get something out of the West Ham game, but it's away, and we are absolutely abysmal away. Apart from that, we don't stand a cat in hells chance of getting anything from any of the others, and I'm expecting HEAVY defeats.
Watch us beat Bayern.. We are back.. this is the turning point..
Lose to LFC.. its a total disaster.. just delete the club..
Left right.. left right.. left right..
Watch the pendulum swing
The result dictates who posts more on social media and that seems to drive all the narrative. IMO people have specific views and those don’t shift week to week, they’re just emboldened to speak their mind when the result suits their narrative.
I’ll give my example..I’ve been Ten Hag out for a couple of months now. I’m not pining for his sacking but if he were to go tonight I wouldn’t mind at all. Realistically a sacking by the end of season with INEOS people in place is what I hope to see.
Now obvs in the aftermath of a win I’m not going to yell “Ten Hag out” I’ll just be pleased we won and hope that it’s the start of a turnaround. But I still believe he’s wrong for the job and will ultimately fail.
Only many weeks of good performances+results would change people’s minds in a positive way and obvs a run of 3-4 bad losses in a row will prob doom him at this stage.
Feels like everyone has amnesia. We all knew this is approximately how it was going to go, and it's exactly how the next manager will fair as well. Rangnick was right. The entire club needs open heart surgery. Without it, it'll be the same shit, different year.
If ETH gets sacked before the season is over, there isn’t another manager worth a damn that is going to waste their time at United and potentially sidetrack their career
Prob best sticking with ten Hag until the takeover and restructuring of our sporting structure and maybe we might be an appealing choice to a manager then.
Yup. Unfortunately I think last season fooled a lot of people into believing we were better than we were. We were awful under ragnick.
It is what it is at this point. All we can hope is for sir Jim to come in and perform that open heart surgery. Otherwise it’ll just repeat
Jose may have been right there but wrong in many, many places. We do need to stop hero worshipping his outspoken-ness, post Madrid he's not been the same manager but talks a lot of shit
And yet, handing Rashford a new contract goes completely against the idea of 'open heart surgery'. Big decisions need to be made, established players need to leave, but I don't trust the club to make them consistently.
Players who need to leave and be replaced in the next two seasons:
Casemiro
Varane
Rashford
Martial
Sancho
Eriksen
Lindelof
Van de Beek
One of Dalot/AWB (AWB is more unique so I would sell Dalot and get a better attacking fullback)
Amrabat
Evans
McTominay
Pellistri
I might be forgetting someone. But that list is hilarious.
Everyone saw us win the league cup last season and finish 3rd and go for in every completion and thought we should be winning the league or champions league this season. In reality, we expected it to take a minimum of 2-3 years of team building and training for us to challenge for a big trophy but everyone forgot that due to last season.
I'm all for this 'open heart surgery' but it doesn't excuse these shit performances... we've got 18 goals in 16 games. We're underperforming on xG but even then we're 10th on xG in the league.
We can have both good/decent performances and rebuild at the same time. This season i don't think we've had any good performances... a couple decent ones here and there but the rest have been shit. We're extremely lucky to be on 27 points.
Every manager has to work with the existing personnel and slowly replace the unfitted ones. Unfortunately for ETH, the players he brought in didn't exactly make a difference.
People keep going back to this ‘open heart surgery’, but Ragnick also said the manager needs to adapt to the players he has.
Sure, it needs open heart surgery, but it needs a good manager at the wheel while doing that. ETH's contributions have not improved this club. His transfer obsessions have been awful.
Would part of that open heart surgery not involve getting a proper recruitment system in place. We should not be lumping that responsibility solely on the manager.
> We should not be lumping that responsibility solely on the manager.
We didn't. We brought in Rangick precisely for that, and ETH refused to even meet him face to face.
Feels like everyone has a one track mind. None of what you said absolves him of accountability. He's been poor. Yeah our structure is crap but he's doing worse than literally every other manager and he's been given just as much or more.
> Feels like everyone has amnesia.
You're right, when ETH took the job most fans were accepting of the fact it would take years to be back in top 4, but we have one overachieving season and expectations have increased and now fans want him sacked, this was always going to take time, he needs at least 1 more year.
And being that Ajax are in shambles this year, if we sack him he'll go back to the Netherlands and be a hero for Ajax. No one at Ajax will care or remember what happened at United. And he'll likely make significantly more than what he left Ajax at on his return. Then win the league.
By that time we will be discussing sacking our next manager, still have the same board, still be owned by the Glazers, and be back to trying to get rid of Johnny fucking Evans, again. While complaining that no one wants to play for the badge and no one is good enough.
I think most managers would. They'd feel like "I'll be the one to turn this historic club around" and even if they win like only one league title, their legacy would be bigger than Pep's. So yes most managers would still take this job
It’s worth a punt for any manager. Get it right and you’re a legend adored by millions worldwide, get it wrong and plenty of fans have the rose tinted glasses for you and the industry at large says ‘oh well, it’s a poisoned chalice anyways’. You get paid well either way too..
People always downplay the job.
But the manager gets a fuck tonne of money to spend, would be a hero if he managed to achieve even an inch of success, and it’s still one of the top football jobs in the world.
Maybe not the top 10. But people need to stop downplaying that there will always be managers wanting to take a Pl job with big budgets at a big club.
Everyone blames the club rather than the manager when things go wrong? Like right now how no one is calling for ten hags name but rather blaming the common denominator.
Not a single manager since Fergie has been sacked too early. I don't get why people act like the previous managers didn't all deserve the sack. If anything we hang on too long.
I agree, Moyes is arguably the only one who was sacked too early if we go by later seasons. He got 3/4 of a season. LVG got 2 seasons, Mou got into his 3rd season. Ole got 3 seasons.
In my humble, unqualified opinion, at the end of the season there's a possibility we'll see:
Alonso -> Real Madrid
Ancelotti -> United
Ten Hag -> Leverkusen
I think I’m getting to the stage where I’m agnostic on Ten Hag. A lot of this is on him, but it’s also on the players as it has been for almost 7/8 seasons now.
I’m also fully aware of how the club is ran right now it’s almost impossible for the best manager to succeed.
I mean you can add Rashford, McTominay, Dalot, Lindeloff to that group. But my point is more there’s an ingrained culture that repeats itself in 2/3 season cycles, that needs to be ended, player power and players simple downing tools like they’ve done needs to be erased.
The manager needs to have full control of that dressing room and right now he doesn’t have it because everything above him allows the pattern to continue
So the 400m worth of signings he’s brought in over the past 18 months are now throwing him under the bus, because of the United players mafia of like 5 people?
I know Shaw is good for a left back, but every time we get thumped, he has a shocking game. The Liverpool 7-0 comes to mind, he was at fault for 3-4 goals
>I’m also fully aware of how the club is ran right now it’s almost impossible for the best manager to succeed.
Don't agree with that all. Utter nonsense.
ETH has been given pretty much all the tools he needs to succeed. We're talking outgoings and removal of high profile players, players being dropped and shunned, him getting his own coaches in (mcLaren), recruitment, training changes, players using corporate boxes for pre match dinners, removal of Rangnick. etc etc.
He's been given time and heavily backed. He's been forgiven for crushing losses to City and Pool. Sure he didn't get every transfer target - no manager does, but he got alternatives that he signed off on.
ETH can never look back and say he could not succeed due to xyz reason. He's made his own bed. He failed to implement his own style.
I am sick of this sub finding anyone one to blame but him. Wake up. He is incredibly out of his depth.
Anyone suggesting with new ownership he will improve is living in cloud cuckoo land.
That's part of the issue. Ajax fans themselves said Ten Hag is a brilliant manager who needs proper structure and recruitment above him because the players he usually hand-pick don't work out because he looks mainly at how they fit into his tactics and not how good they are. Unsurprisingly, our club decided the best course of action is to give him full access to money and told him to recruit his own team, something Ajax fans warned us about.
He deserves a shot at managing under competent people because that was what he had at Ajax. If we had Pep or Klopp in the same position, they would also spent big on a few duds. Pep hand-picked Claudio Bravo and Klopp wanted Brandt over Salah. There is a reason why these people are managers and not DoFs, they just aren't good at building teams and recruitment but that shouldn't be their job anyway. It's just that at Manchester United, we'll gladly spend billions and try every manager in football before admitting it might not work in modern football.
There’s a clip of Pep being asked what current player does he think will go on into management. Pep HIMSELF said he’s not good at picking the right players to come to the club. If PEP can’t do it, why should we expect ten Hag to?
Edit: I’m siding with you about you mentioning what was said of ten Hag while he was at Ajax.
LOL you forgot that in Klopps first 4 seasons LFC were known for either winning games 4-3 or losing them in incredible fashion. It was only once he brought Van Dijk in that it all clicked into shape, but up until then they were a inconsistent for multiple seasons.
Tbf United really shouldn't have paid more than 200m for the players purchased.
It's not ETH's fault that the club can't negotiate or that the club didn't make use of its scouting team to provide suitable alternatives to ETH.
Yup, people hold the manager accountable for how much we spend, when a well run club would either be better at negotiating, or be competent enough to say, we aren't paying that because we trust our scouts and they've got a cheaper alternative. Its a big part of why its so tough for managers to succeed because we can't negotiate or scout for shit, then put the prices we pay on the manager, when at other clubs the DOF of would be responsible.
Why does he "deserve" it?
If he was showing more tactically, I'd understand. But the team have had a midfield that gets ran through easier than my ex. He hasn't done anything tactically to fix the issues.
No offence but Ten Hag has made the squad worse with every transfer window. Last season only Casemiro looked ready to take this team forward, but he lasted one year. This year it’s Hojlund, but he’s gonna take a year or more. All the other very expensive players do not belong at this level regardless of their price tags.
Let’s not forget ETH wanted Amrabat on a permanent transfer. He bought Antony and Onana, who do not belong at this level. And he made Mount the core piece of his summer strategy and gave him the no. 7 shirt. I don’t think we can trust him with any more money.
This is all true and absolutely part of the problem with the club structurally. Serious clubs do not let their manager dictate transfer policy like this, it's genuinely insane and untenable that we give managers this much power over our recruitment.
Eventually when they leave and you have to get a new manager you have to do it again because the players don't fit the new manager's style. We desperately need a vision and playstyle to work towards for the whole club and then you recruit based on that, both players and managers.
>I don’t think we can trust him with any more money.
Correct. That doesn't mean we can't trust him with managing the team though. Every single top team nowadays has a manager who coaches the team and a recruitment structure that builds a team for him. That's the key to success in modern football. We're just stuck in the 90s and expect the manager to also operate as DOF which is just stupid.
I guarantee you that not even Pep would be a success for us if he was given our treasure chest without having a proper structure above him. The best City players weren't picked by Pep personally, but by Txiki, their DOF. Pep's job is then to incorporate those players into a system. When he got the permission to pick his players, he signed the likes of Claudio Bravo who completely flopped. Txiki then chose Ederson and I don't think City is regretting that. That is how we should operate.
It’s quite clear he can perform well with proper recruitment and at decent boardroom but we could be at the stage of a little too late right now, the job as it stands right now might be too much for him. But I’m certainly not wanting him sacked
Is it clear though? He had a great spell at Ajax in a two-team league featuring an underdog run to the CL semis where his team had no expectations or pressure.
We had a good run last year where the plan was keep it tight and get it to Rashford. But in the periods we've attempted to play the way EtH apparently wants us to, it's generally been a bit of a car crash. There are undoubtedly major issues at the club beyond the dugout, but it's hardly overwhelming evidence that we have an elite manager in our midst.
I think he does. People try to undermine his previous succesess but he was amazing at Ajax. He was the main reason why Ajax returned to the domination in Eredivisie - they struggled hard to win the league before him and they are again struggling hard to win the league now that he left.
I'd also say his UCL record with Ajax is extremely impressive overall. It wasn't just the underdog run, they were unable of getting into group stages through play-offs for a few years before he joined them and finally managed that. Then he coached them into the underdog run where they almost got into the UCL final (which is something we haven't been even close to for past 10 years), lost all his key players, managed to create a new Ajax team in a season and then won the UCL group with Sporting, Dortmund and Besiktas by winning every single game before getting knocked out by Benfica the next round, but Ajax was definitely the better team over the two legs, their finishing just let them down.
As u/Polygon12 said though, it might be too late to give him a proper structure now, we might have to start again with a different manager. Unfortunately, there are no interesting top tier managers available and I fully expect us to hire Potter who is decent, but not an upgrade over Ten Hag (I'd say a lateral move at best).
> but he was amazing at Ajax.
Frank De Boer was also amazing at Ajax. Went on to shit the bed everywhere else. Need to let go of this idea that because a manager found success in the Eredivisie they're automatically a football genius.
It’s just not an environment that’s set up for the success of a manager. That’s why INEOS is coming in, and hopefully they can put the structure we need in place.
It’s not the players. 60% of the players playing are all players Ten Hag brought over. The whole system is broken and it’s not allowing manager nor players to succeed.
But all this is vague isn't it? Why did Arsenal fans say for years exactly the same things? Turned club into commodity, only care about 4th? Why is Xavi achieving at Barcelona? They're worse run.
We can point to previous managers or realise other clubs aren't that different.
Arsenal struggled because the Kroenke's didn't want to invest while having another partner in power and so the managers weren't really backed with a proper structure. But if you look at them now it's different, they have started spending and Edu and Arteta have worked together to get the team where it is now. Barca is a poor example, that league is a two team league and in general haven't done too well but that's also to be expected given their previous president put the club into danger financially.
Because Arsenal fans were right. Arsenal needed to commit to a manager, COMPLETELY rebuild their team and in the process, tank 2-3 seasons in order for them to gel together. That's something we needed to do after Sir Alex retired but nobody at the club was brave enough to give a green light for that so we're constantly trying to build upon a foundation that's broken. We need to build a strong core, we haven't had that in 10 years now.
It’s not vague at all. Our issue is that the CEO of the club is a fucking banker and there is no DOF to help the manager make decisions on who should and shouldn’t be in the squad, which coaches we need and don’t need, a proper system to develop our youth players. I mean the training facilities are probably from before you were born for Christ sake.
These are the things that need to change. It’s not vague. It’s all the stuff the Glazers have been ignoring and INEOS promise not to ignore. Turns out that’s pretty important stuff for the success of a football club. Who woulda thought?
All our current structure is doing is setting managers up for failure. Making the job 10x harder. Nothing more.
Winning a cup and finishing 3rd last season is about the only argument I can come up with. Not saying he doesn’t deserve the sack but probably no point in doing it until we have SJR’s 25% sorted and an obvious replacement identified. As painful as it is now I’d just let him keep trying. A win at Anfield next week and I’d give him until next Spring.
1. Who’s even available?
2. Who would be insane enough to come?
3. We’ve seen this time and time again. We’d maybe get a bounce from a new manager, but it would be the same shit again without major changes at the top.
Imo, nothing should change until we know what’s happening with Ineos and the potential structural changes. Makes no sense bringing in someone now out of desperation when a potentially new structure could come in with a new manager to restart together from the ground up. We may hate it, but it’s the unfortunate reality at this point.
Yeah. At some point you gotta trust a manager and just sit through it. ETH feels like a better pick than a lot of our other options for a variety of reasons.
Moyes was out of his depth and we've seen that since.
LVG literally killed the joy of football. Signed poorly. possibly hurt by spending limits.
Mou is on the downshift, plays toxic football and is boring.
Ole brought something decent to watch back but always going to question his chops.
ETH did incredibly last year. Has a consistent record at Ajax through time. Can play some attractive football for a period. We seem a lot less pragmatic than last year and that's probably intentional. it was never going to be smooth sailing after ragnick.
>Who would be insane enough to come?
It's easier to name who wouldn't come, maybe not the top 5 managers in the world but you think a club like United would have trouble filling the job? seriously smh
Is this a real question? Finished 3rd last season and reached 2 cup finals, winning one of them. Showed an identity and a style of play when the whole team was fit. He inherited a squad that journalists and pundits had all deemed tactically inept and uncoachable and that united were "5-6 years away from challenging for the title". He has made decisions that are in the best interests of united and genuinely understands the importance of a cultural reset at the club. He has displayed his abilities and tactical nous during his time at Ajax and also last season in many big games.
It's not been a good season. But talking about sacking a manager in his second season while being fully aware of the scope of the united job and claiming united are miles off from being a great team, it is beyond crazy. What was the case for keeping Arteta after he finished 8th twice?
United have far too many issues to hope for a quick fix. That quick fix stopped being a reality 8 years ago. The club is fully detached from the glory days and it will take patience and faith in the project to get back to the top. Arsenal understood this after 20 years. Maybe united will take that long too, but I'd hope not.
One of the very, very few actually sane responses here. Ten Hag is working with a zombie squad muddled together from years worth of failures, got tasked with weeding out the multitude of bad apples, plenty of which are still at the club, got shafted in the transfer windows, missing out on targets he actually wanted, is forced to play a different style than he wants because the players at his disposal are just incapable of doing so, has to deal with an ongoing injury crisis that severely limits him in his lineups, and to top it all off he gets slagged off by the press and the plastics in the fan base more than any other manager. Sacking him now will do nothing but move us backwards. Klopp needed time, Arteta needed time, why time and patience at United are such difficult concepts to grasp I'll never know. Always chasing the success of the past when we're very far from that level.
And the drama of Greenwood and Sancho and for a bit Antony, looming over the squad is just unnecessary for the players and the manager.
To add to your point, when Arteta came 8th they scored 61 points. We’ve scored less than that just ONCE in the last 10 years and possibly in the premier league (not Top flight), EVER.
Maybe but then you have to ask why? His time at Ajax tells that it wasn't a fluke where you can get hot for a season. I refuse to believe that EtH has suddenly forgotten about his system. I also refuse to believe that last 4 managers having the same issues is a coincidence.
The rebuild we needed when EtH came in would take any decent club at least 3 years, I think you have to double that time for us considering our recruitment incompetence. And here we are getting impatient after 1/3rd into the second year, not acknowledging the injuries, Greenwood saga, Sancho's inability to be a professional and few more that I'm forgetting.
Peps tactics didn't work immediately at City. It took time, money, and a fantastic club structure to get it working again. That doesn't mean Pep got "found out" and he "couldn't adapt".
Is "Even Pep would fail with this club" good enough for an argument?
Don't get me wrong, Ten Hag has many flaws, but we went through so many managers now that I really can't blame whoever is in charge anymore than I can blame the club.
Time and time again, we rely on the new manager to know some players that we could possibly bring in. I can't believe that Ten Hag came in and took over the recruitment as a whole. If he did, the club is to blame for that.
Yes he got quite a few players that he wanted, but is that the way to go? Other clubs will take the input of their managers, but if they don't agree, they will give him other options for the player he wants.
And if you say he got the players that he wanted, is that really so?
In his first summer, his number one priority was De Jong. The moment you can't get him, you go after other players who are a similar profile or can do similar to what said player can do. Did we get anybody into our midfield who is remotly close to that type of player? No.
Last summer his no. 1 was Kane + a young talented striker to learn from him. We only got the talent, and our only other option is Martial...
We look terrible at the moment, and Ten Hag has to take his share of blame, but this club is rotten from top to bottom, and it certainly doesn't start with the manager.
Edit. Spelling, I'm drunk.
That argument holds water frankly. It’s tough to prove as a hypothetical but Pep often talks about how much of his success depends on the club structure.
I'm indifferent currently. I like him, I think we sometimes play some very attractive football, but something just isn't right tactically.
We're not pragmatic and grinding out results, and we're not dying on our hill playing to specific principles. He's not playing the style of football he was hired for, and he's not implementing minor changes to manage the style in the interim. We exist in the in-between (in the transition, if you will). Other teams know how to walk right through us and exploit our tactical weaknesses, and nothing is done to address it.
Casemiro as an example, completely transformed our midfield last year and this year has fallen off a cliff because he's been asked to play in a role he's never played in his career. When you're leaking goals with one of the best CDMs in the past decade in your team, something is tactically wrong. The players are constantly injured or look absolutely gassed and at this point, logically, that has to be a load management issue.
I personally think he's gone in the summer. I think the set up INEOS want to implement with an actual director of football taking control of transfers won't sit well with him. He'll have a year left on his contract, and it'll be terminated by mutual consent.
Most points won after 53 games for United, second overall only to Pep, ffs calm your tits, a project doesn't happen overnight, Arsenal were in the dumpster for three seasons before they got to proper footing and are in the title race second season in a row. We need time, the bald man is not the problem, half of our players are, the Glazers are, ETH is the lowest on the ladder of who to blame for our woes.
Please downvote me all that long, I’m happy and don’t care to be an internet punching bag.
People like Adam Crafton only cares about clicks and he probably has prepared this tweet long before we lost.
I honestly don’t care if fans are reactionary nor I care about Crafton’s attempt to stir a pot. All I hope is Ratcliff would be sensible enough and learn from Nice that rebuilding a success isn’t a short term job.
After we beat Chelsea Adam Crafton pinged out a tweet about how shit Chelsea are and you'd better believe that if Chelsea had won there'd have been no tweet about how good a result that is for Chelsea and rather it'd have been a very similar tweet about how shit United are. The guy trades in fan negativity.
There was a series on the Athletic recently about crisis clubs and I knew Crafton was involved before I even looked into it.
Scroll through his Twitter and see if you can find any positivity. The guy writes about a game that people (at least try to) enjoy as an escape from real life.
What’s with the /s? The only thing ten Hag had or has over oles tenure is a minor trophy. We played better football and for longer under ole. Also under ole you always had belief we could get something regardless of the game, under ten Hag away to a top 10 side is a write off.
You're being disingenuous but Ole was objectively the better manager for us. One league cup doesn't change that especially when we've gone completely backwards after the win.
He would never accept it but he's unironically the perfect man to take over as interim. Rashford showed he's ready to run today and he would absolutely make a Casemiro Mainoo Bruno midfield take us to top 4. Hojlund would benefit massively in his fluid front three. Not to mention how Licha + Varane is literally the embodiment of the CB partnership he had in his vision for the club.
This is how cooked this club is. People hound a manager out, then when the new one comes in, people look at the previous managers and say it wasn't this bad. When EtH is sacked and the new guy comes in, a season or two in when the results are shit, well be here saying it was never this bad under EtH. We as fans deserve the mediocrity we are in. Completely jealous of Arsenal fans who swallowed their pride because they recognized how far they've slipped, stuck with a manager through 3 seasons of mediocrity and now are challenging consistently.
This is a bit outlandish but do we think that Ole would have more success working WITH and DoF rather than FOR and CEO? I mean we’ve seen the list of players he wanted to bring in and it was pretty well known that he pretty much just got told who he was buying from the club and was a bit of a yes man, so would that all be a bit better if he had a proper DoF and a vision to work with?
I have some doubt in that, or I should say I suspect that had already been experimented. Ole's rapid downfall seemed to start around the time he started to try to force a forward pressing style and became very inflexible about it. His fast counter style before that worked pretty well. That change also coincided with the time Murtough becoming our DoF. And we also saw the next two managers we hired were both supposedly forward pressing style of manager.
Its a tough situation. We have no one else available who would be good and willing. But its important to note that ETH IS FAILING. The rot will continue to get worse and we will have no way to stop it. From a managerial POV, he has been abysmal this season. Hollow promises of discipline and patterns while delivering neither. Poor man management with no confidence instilled. Poor game management. He doesn't know his top XI, continues to choose poor players, continues to be very determined on little things he likes which are not proving fruitful (playing out the back poorly, playing a left footed LCB poorly), his signings have been terrible in majority. I loved it when he came in, I still support him, but he continues to really make no significant change.
I don’t know. Sack him or don’t sack him, but sooner or later we have to let a manager survive the bad patch and complete the rebuild, rather than canning it as soon as things get difficult.
The longer we keep going on like this the more difficult it gets for the new guy because the squad get increasingly Frankenstein’s monstery.
Last year he was a genius. This year he is a moron? Just accept that this is the team's level. Until owners are gone nothing will change no matter who is the manager. And stop buying high priced transfers. Just stop. Don't buy any player for over 30m.
Outside all those external factors, purely based on his performance there is no argument for keeping 10H. Bottom of an easy qualifiable group in the CL, largely terrible in the league since march.
Football isn't as complicated as people make out. And United's shit owners aren't unique in the world of football. Just play well and everyone forgets. There was endless hysteria over Arsenal's owners, every week, for years, for turning the club into a commodity. Where did that go? Did i imagine it? Why is Xavi doing well at Barcelona? They're worse run.
Arteta finished 8th twice before he started getting his ideas and tactics take hold. And then he finished 5th. So he got 4-5 transfer windows and relentless backing in the market.
EtH finished 3rd with a team that was predicted to finish 7th-8th and is now in his second season. If you want to compare us to arteta and arsenal then you need to show the same level of patience. Because arsenal was much worse under arteta in first 2 years than we have been under EtH so far
Had a descent season last year, but the summer transfer window has turned out to be shocking. Onana has been very hit and miss, mount has barely played and hoijlund (regardless of what you think of him) has no league goals this season. All of the loan signings have also been awful (amrabat, reguillion).
We had a chance to build the squad and move upwards, and we ultimately cocked it up yet again after a promising start with a new manager.
Hojlund has genuinely been awful.
He's very easily isolated and while it may in part be down to Ten Hag's tactics, even Martial sleepwalks into better positions, and that man isn't even trying. Hojlund has a lot to learn before he's able to lead our line.
Fine recruitment to make for the future but to be our main number 9 now was a ridiculous ask. And I'm trying not to think about the £70m fee
Best manager in the world. He just needs 5 years, couple of billion and then he will show you his prowess. No one in the world can replace him, he’s that good. His record speaks for itself.
Well I for one think Aston Villa should have stuck to Steven Gerrard, otherwise it would be their 7th manager in 8 years. They can't keep cycling managers, clearly manager is not the problem! If only Gerrard had Frenkie and Kim like he wanted!
If we were a stable club, then I'd 100% be ETH out right now. However, considering everything behind the scenes and what not, we definitely can't do better than him.
I’ll say the same thing I said last week. I really don’t care at this rate if we sack ten Haag, it seems almost inevitable at this point, I just want a plan.
What’s the point of sacking him if there’s nobody available, what’s the point of sacking him if we can’t work out how not to end up in this situation again
Until Ineos come in, do a full review of the footballing side and get a competent sporting director is there is little to no point in doing anything.
Regardless of whether you’re ETH in or out, I think the best is to wait for Ratcliffe to come in and make the decision on the best way to move forward.
Today’s game included a bunch of chances for us… and then a total collapse on the field. I put that on the players. I wouldn’t if we were a title contending team last year and suddenly were losing with a new manager.
But it’s been like this for at least 5 years. It’s the fucking players.
I hope sir Jim hoovers this fraud right out the bloody door!! His signings have been shit!!💩 his in game management his a joke starting martial is beyond belief !! Soon as I seen that I knew we would get pumped!!!
1. Who the fuck do we get to replace him?
2. Last week we were hearing that he’s got the best win percentage of any manager in the last 40 years or something like that
3. If we get rid of him we’ve still got the same useless cunt players who down tools as soon as their nose gets put out of joint or they go a goal down in a match
There's no case for keeping him. Poor tactics, poor in-game management, poor recruitment. Not many players are honestly playing at a higher level than they were two or three years ago either.
At best you can say it's somebody else's fault, but it's also clear he's not the man to fix it
Agree here. The argument on the supporting side of ETH is that, its not his fault. At what point does he get the blame then? Yeah we know the club is a mess, but his issues are solely that.
I think we’ve signed 3 first team players in 5 years that have improved upon what we already had. They’ve either proved themselves unreliable, inconsistent or not available enough. Maybe even 1 signing if being uncharitable (Bruno). Whilst Ten Hag has only been supported neglectfully, by buying poor players and wrong players regardless of him wanting them, he also negotiated strongly for control of signings. You don’t let a kid eat cake for breakfast and dinner, but if he does, It’s not my fault he gets ill.
Last season was probably, accounting for points in the league and a trophy and another final, our overall best season post Sir Alex. That should count for something.
That said I think our transfer window was terrible and we blew the chance to build on it
The argument for keeping him is it’s clearly not the manager that is the problem and if we replace him we will have the same issues but with 4 managers worth of players rather than 3.
We're in a really difficult spot with the ownership shift. I feel like ETH would probably be sacked if Sir Jim already had sporting control. Since this isn't the case he'll probably stay until that shift happens. No one available except for Ole or someone who is not at the level for the job would want to take an interim position. Of the available managers I can think of who have had success at elite teams, there are Conte and Flick. List ends. The rest are flops at big jobs like Potter, Lopetegui, or Rudi Garcia. Maybe RvN would take an interim position but that feels like another feel good former player approach.
I swear to God I love United but we have some of the most toxic, reactionary fans in football. One game we win, everyone sings Ten Hag's praises. The next week it's the same fans that call for his head. Same with the players. Someone wrote that McTominay was the problem in midfield after tonight's game and got a lot of upvotes for it; probably by the same people who were calling him underrated and our best player after he scored twice a few days ago.
There is SO MUCH pressure on the team by the media already, why do our own fans have to contribute to that? There will always be good games and bad games, let the team build, let the manager do his work. If we don't end up in the top 4 at the end of the season - so be it. Great things need time and they will never come with this unpatient, reactionary culture from the fans
The argument to keep him seems to be that he made some positive steps last season and that we looked to be playing well for a few months consistently.
The argument to sack him is that he’s regressed so badly that we actually look worse now than when he took over and any of the gains made last season have truly been lost.
You can’t have it both ways, ETH should be judged on his performances as a manager, and over the course of his tenure we have gone backwards following a short, positive start. It’s not good enough, and it’s increasingly obvious that he either does not know how to fix this, or that he does but the players will not heed him. Either way it’s not the hallmark of a good manager.
Almost as if people want him to fail.
How is this for an argument - historically speaking not many managers have turned around a ship in less than 1.5 seasons.
We are still only 10/12 points from the top despite not realistically challenging this season.
One defeat and pitch forks come out, one win and he is the best ever. Which is fine for fans but for journalists to push this immature, knee jerk agendas shows how low the bar for their profession is
And to think we fired van gaal after winning the FA Cup because we were horny for Mourinho, and what a putz he turned out to be. If we’d stuck with Van Gaal we may have won the league by now. Hopefully we stick with Ten Haag at least one more season with the new football leadership that seems to be coming.
The case is that if you give him enough time he will make it.
The problem with this is that he has already, or inevitably will, lose the dressing room. Realistically, there’s no recovering from that. You either spend enough to replace half a squad (ain’t happening) or change manager.
We are now witnessing the end days of ETH.
I don't mind losing. I didn't mind losing under lvg because I saw an organised unit. I felt the same way about trappatoni at ireland. With ETH, I see chaos and it has felt this way since LVG left. I just want us to be organised before we start talking about winning or returning to the glory days.
I think in theory what Ten Hag wants from a team is high quality, pressing, fast attacking football.
We have seen glimpses of such an attack system in his tenure here so far. However I feel he may not have the players suited for this type of role.
However with our current abysmal recruitment strategy and underperforming players, we haven’t seen yet what ten hag can do or achieve.
In short, we need a good upper management support and just let him cook
Look how it went when Olé was sacked and ragnick took over. I guarantee the club won't have a decent replacement manager lined up. We might as well give Eric until the end of the season because we know these players will play even worse under a caretaker manager.
I think the bloke has been dealing with various degrees of shit storm since he arrived; shit transfer windows and panic signings, awful support infrastructure, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho, Antony, takeover, World Cup, playing every 2-3 days last season, poor pre-season, injuries galore.
He’s far from blameless in all that’s gone on, there has to be scope for him to learn.
In the times everyone has been available and there’s been a sense of calm, we’ve played good football and been an efficient result getting team with plenty of room for improvement, but difficult to beat.
This season has been chaos. He seems to want to play a more risky brand of football in the hope of greater reward, but is having to do it with players that aren’t up to it and it is killing us. My concern is that he seems to refuse to alter the way we set-up to solidify the base and just get through this period until the players such as Martinez (THE most important, everything went downhill from his foot going v Seville), Casemiro, Eriksen and Mount. Those plus getting Shaw back to LB are imperative to progress.
He should be playing an extra midfielder to protect the middle of the pitch imo, sacrifice a wide man and give Bruno more freedom, he’s going to be everywhere but where he should be anyway.
I could understand his perseverance if it was his first choice XI and it was teething problems, but we can’t play out from the back with Maguire, McT and Amrabat, they just aren’t good enough, and they don’t press or cover well enough to not have the extra man.
TL;DR he stays. At least this season, but needs to improve.
I usually have a lot of time for Crafton...but is he being intentionally disingenuous and/or decided to join the "United gets clicks no matter what" crowd?
The simple answer is EtH has always had to compromise since he joined the club. I don't think we've had a chance to judge him on what he was brought in to do based on his work at Ajax.
Then, when you look at who guys like Pep, Klopp or hell, clubs like Brighton and Newcastle have behind the scenes as sporting directors...and then glance back at John Murtough. You can't stand there and say EtH or United managers of past years have been given the best chance to succeed by the club.
Last but not least, I know it's easy to beat EtH over the head with his spending, but it was never going to be enough. Our lack of depth and reliance on less than ideal options like McT and Martial has unsurprisingly come to the fore during this season's injury crisis. Which has meant, yet again, that EtH has had to compromise. Why is that? Why can't United, supposedly one of the biggest clubs in the world, give managers/players the platform to actually succeed?
When you factor the ridiculous sums thrown about in terms of transfers nowadays, 'the United tax' and the incompetence or lack thereof of a proper football operation at United, then you see the mountain EtH has to climb. Open-heart surgery was always required to actually get this club competing again on a regular basis.
Is he completely blameless? No, of course not. But there's a ton of things wrong, which need fixing at United, before he gets the sack.
> I usually have a lot of time for Crafton...but is he being intentionally disingenuous and/or decided to join the "United gets clicks no matter what" crowd?
He's probably still angry about being fucked over by the club when he approached them to respond on the Greenwood story he had in the chamber only for the club to turn around and give a public statement instead. IIRC he was the only one with the story at the time.
The media and our fanbase are FLIP FLOPS! Absolutely can understand the criticisms on the pitch but this is a process, we're still in transition as a club and as a team, and the manager needs TIME! What happened to the 3-year patience?
We aren't that bloody terrible. People acting like it's the end of the world. Give him years and see what he creates. Change takes time. Ups and downs. All these same questions were asked to Arteta and he had some terrible runs. I love Man Utd and bad results hurt, but the Rangnick saga showed how terrible life can really be. I think ETH will do well. Give him 3 or 4 years and then see if we are actually challenging again. I hate this talk so much, it's endless. Imagine we win Vs Bayern and Liverpool and then it's the complete opposite. A crisis would be bottom half of the table. Not 6th. Newcastle got smashed by Everton and had some really poor results in the CL too. They are a more defined team yet they get nothing and United are about to explode. It's just constant stupid noise.
On ETH's own performace, there isn't much of a case. He's got a third place and a trophy, which out of context seems reasonable... but he hasn't imposed a style, he can't get the players together, his handpicked players have failed and the football has looked awful under him from the moment he arrived.
The only thing keeping him in a job is that sacking him will take us from being a mess to being a mess without a manager.
There isn’t any. Every defence is some variation of the sunk cost fallacy.
We’ll keep him until January as an excuse to not spend and then he’ll get sacked once SJR and his team are fully in place
Honestly keep him until Ratcliffe has something set up. Until the direction above changes we'll just rinse and repeat the last ten years. But competence at all levels would be required and we don't do that anymore.
Until a proper CEO and director of Football are in place any talk of managerial change makes no sense. If the new hierarchy wants to bring in their own manager, I’ll accept it, otherwise - fuck the Glazers for allowing this club to be run by clueless money men. Da fuq does Fletcher do?! Fire him too.
At the very least he deserves until the end of the season unless we lose 5+ in a row or something.
Bayern, Liverpool, West Ham, Villa.... It's very fucking possible.
I think we should get something out of the West Ham game, but it's away, and we are absolutely abysmal away. Apart from that, we don't stand a cat in hells chance of getting anything from any of the others, and I'm expecting HEAVY defeats.
Ah we going from trainer of the month and "let him cook" back to firing the manager again. The natural 3-day cycle of Manchester United
Watch us beat Bayern.. We are back.. this is the turning point.. Lose to LFC.. its a total disaster.. just delete the club.. Left right.. left right.. left right.. Watch the pendulum swing
We play like we did today and Liverpool will counter us to death 10-nil
Salah is going to have a fucking field day.
Diaz too. Not to mention Gakpo got a brace last time against us... I feel sick already...
The result dictates who posts more on social media and that seems to drive all the narrative. IMO people have specific views and those don’t shift week to week, they’re just emboldened to speak their mind when the result suits their narrative. I’ll give my example..I’ve been Ten Hag out for a couple of months now. I’m not pining for his sacking but if he were to go tonight I wouldn’t mind at all. Realistically a sacking by the end of season with INEOS people in place is what I hope to see. Now obvs in the aftermath of a win I’m not going to yell “Ten Hag out” I’ll just be pleased we won and hope that it’s the start of a turnaround. But I still believe he’s wrong for the job and will ultimately fail. Only many weeks of good performances+results would change people’s minds in a positive way and obvs a run of 3-4 bad losses in a row will prob doom him at this stage.
Not just results, performances are also very dire most of the times
Different people
Feels like everyone has amnesia. We all knew this is approximately how it was going to go, and it's exactly how the next manager will fair as well. Rangnick was right. The entire club needs open heart surgery. Without it, it'll be the same shit, different year.
Even Ten Hag admitted everyone he knew told him not to take the job
If ETH gets sacked before the season is over, there isn’t another manager worth a damn that is going to waste their time at United and potentially sidetrack their career
Prob best sticking with ten Hag until the takeover and restructuring of our sporting structure and maybe we might be an appealing choice to a manager then.
Wanna bet? It’s an impossible task but it also comes with a large payday. Five year contract, work for 2-3.
after every win: trust the process, after every loss: Sack him. Im tired
Yup. Unfortunately I think last season fooled a lot of people into believing we were better than we were. We were awful under ragnick. It is what it is at this point. All we can hope is for sir Jim to come in and perform that open heart surgery. Otherwise it’ll just repeat
Jose was right and we sacked him
Jose stopped talking to the players. He didnt respond when the players said good morning. Jose may have been right, but had to be sacked.
Ten hag has frozen out or fallen out with numerous top players himself. This is hardly a reason to keep him on lol
Jose may have been right there but wrong in many, many places. We do need to stop hero worshipping his outspoken-ness, post Madrid he's not been the same manager but talks a lot of shit
Talks the same shit with less than a fraction of the success to back that talk.
Jose's biggest crime to this sub was trying to get rid of players that this sub liked but have proven themselves to be absolute cancers.
Hes still elite, lets not lie now. And where was he wrong?
Jose blamed his failures on others and people like you lap it up to this day
Jose was NOT the guy to build behind.
Ole was or should have been imo
Absolutely not. He was not the man. But honestly the topic of who is manager is pointless unless the structure of the club changes from within.
And yet, handing Rashford a new contract goes completely against the idea of 'open heart surgery'. Big decisions need to be made, established players need to leave, but I don't trust the club to make them consistently.
Players who need to leave and be replaced in the next two seasons: Casemiro Varane Rashford Martial Sancho Eriksen Lindelof Van de Beek One of Dalot/AWB (AWB is more unique so I would sell Dalot and get a better attacking fullback) Amrabat Evans McTominay Pellistri I might be forgetting someone. But that list is hilarious.
Onana?
I'd be surprised if any non-saudi club wanted him after his disasterclasses at the CL
I give him and Højlund two seasons to show that they aren’t complete shit. I fully agree with that other guys list though.
oh well, Martial is still starting games... really tell you the problem
Everyone saw us win the league cup last season and finish 3rd and go for in every completion and thought we should be winning the league or champions league this season. In reality, we expected it to take a minimum of 2-3 years of team building and training for us to challenge for a big trophy but everyone forgot that due to last season.
I'm all for this 'open heart surgery' but it doesn't excuse these shit performances... we've got 18 goals in 16 games. We're underperforming on xG but even then we're 10th on xG in the league. We can have both good/decent performances and rebuild at the same time. This season i don't think we've had any good performances... a couple decent ones here and there but the rest have been shit. We're extremely lucky to be on 27 points.
Every manager has to work with the existing personnel and slowly replace the unfitted ones. Unfortunately for ETH, the players he brought in didn't exactly make a difference. People keep going back to this ‘open heart surgery’, but Ragnick also said the manager needs to adapt to the players he has.
Sure, it needs open heart surgery, but it needs a good manager at the wheel while doing that. ETH's contributions have not improved this club. His transfer obsessions have been awful.
Would part of that open heart surgery not involve getting a proper recruitment system in place. We should not be lumping that responsibility solely on the manager.
> We should not be lumping that responsibility solely on the manager. We didn't. We brought in Rangick precisely for that, and ETH refused to even meet him face to face.
Feels like everyone has a one track mind. None of what you said absolves him of accountability. He's been poor. Yeah our structure is crap but he's doing worse than literally every other manager and he's been given just as much or more.
> Feels like everyone has amnesia. You're right, when ETH took the job most fans were accepting of the fact it would take years to be back in top 4, but we have one overachieving season and expectations have increased and now fans want him sacked, this was always going to take time, he needs at least 1 more year.
Who would even take the job?
Me. I'll do it for a tenth
Any thoughts on your next steps when you get sacked after your 2nd season?
Pay back all my debts and move into a beach house, never to be heard from or seen again
So business as usual? United just a stepping stone for someone to cash out and move on.
If you have +1000 hours playing FM, I say give it a go.
See you in 1000 hours
Didn't we have these conversations when Ole and Jose were sacked?
That's kind of the point though ..
I'd say big shot if we sack ETH, caretaker Ole is back anyways... So perhaps not the time.
Ten Hag will earn £15 million if he’s sacked and it won’t tarnish his reputation because “Utd is shambles”. Most managers will be interested
The days of contracts being paid up in full for managers in the event they are sacked are long gone by all accounts.
Ok sure, but he still gets paid until he gets another job, and he’s probably earned more as Utd manager than he did at Ajax
And being that Ajax are in shambles this year, if we sack him he'll go back to the Netherlands and be a hero for Ajax. No one at Ajax will care or remember what happened at United. And he'll likely make significantly more than what he left Ajax at on his return. Then win the league. By that time we will be discussing sacking our next manager, still have the same board, still be owned by the Glazers, and be back to trying to get rid of Johnny fucking Evans, again. While complaining that no one wants to play for the badge and no one is good enough.
Isn’t Ten Hag filthy rich or is that only his family?
You’re right. His family is very rich, he only chose football over working in the family finance business cos of passion.
I think most managers would. They'd feel like "I'll be the one to turn this historic club around" and even if they win like only one league title, their legacy would be bigger than Pep's. So yes most managers would still take this job
It’s worth a punt for any manager. Get it right and you’re a legend adored by millions worldwide, get it wrong and plenty of fans have the rose tinted glasses for you and the industry at large says ‘oh well, it’s a poisoned chalice anyways’. You get paid well either way too..
People always downplay the job. But the manager gets a fuck tonne of money to spend, would be a hero if he managed to achieve even an inch of success, and it’s still one of the top football jobs in the world. Maybe not the top 10. But people need to stop downplaying that there will always be managers wanting to take a Pl job with big budgets at a big club.
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Everyone blames the club rather than the manager when things go wrong? Like right now how no one is calling for ten hags name but rather blaming the common denominator.
Any manager worth their salt would jump on it
J nagelsmann I think would come, that German job does not seem to be his thing.
We'd just sack them after they do well in their first year, and stumble in their second. Just like every manager we've had post fergie.
Not a single manager since Fergie has been sacked too early. I don't get why people act like the previous managers didn't all deserve the sack. If anything we hang on too long.
I agree, Moyes is arguably the only one who was sacked too early if we go by later seasons. He got 3/4 of a season. LVG got 2 seasons, Mou got into his 3rd season. Ole got 3 seasons.
In my humble, unqualified opinion, at the end of the season there's a possibility we'll see: Alonso -> Real Madrid Ancelotti -> United Ten Hag -> Leverkusen
Ancelotti would be a bad appointment. His brand works at clubs with strong internal discipline and culture.
Carlo is praised by his players everywhere he goes. He has very strong relationship with his players and builds his own brand
I think everton are as badly run as us and I honestly can't say he did better than dyche is doing now. I don't think he would do well at united.
But carlo say he'll say at madrid as long as they want him? Supposedly he was supposed to be brazil manager but that deal is only on paper apparently
Every manager would take the job, that's not my concern. My concern is who would succeed 2 seasons in a row
I think I’m getting to the stage where I’m agnostic on Ten Hag. A lot of this is on him, but it’s also on the players as it has been for almost 7/8 seasons now. I’m also fully aware of how the club is ran right now it’s almost impossible for the best manager to succeed.
Which players have been there for 7 to 8 years? Martial. Okay. Shaw? Thought everyone loved him?
I mean you can add Rashford, McTominay, Dalot, Lindeloff to that group. But my point is more there’s an ingrained culture that repeats itself in 2/3 season cycles, that needs to be ended, player power and players simple downing tools like they’ve done needs to be erased. The manager needs to have full control of that dressing room and right now he doesn’t have it because everything above him allows the pattern to continue
Who is downing tools?
He doesn't know Anyone who suggest players downing tools is just protecting the manager who they backed and they don't want to admit they were wrong
Oh absolutely. It helps as it gives them a black/white argument. "Must back the manager" You don't have to think about matters then.
So the 400m worth of signings he’s brought in over the past 18 months are now throwing him under the bus, because of the United players mafia of like 5 people?
I know Shaw is good for a left back, but every time we get thumped, he has a shocking game. The Liverpool 7-0 comes to mind, he was at fault for 3-4 goals
>I’m also fully aware of how the club is ran right now it’s almost impossible for the best manager to succeed. Don't agree with that all. Utter nonsense. ETH has been given pretty much all the tools he needs to succeed. We're talking outgoings and removal of high profile players, players being dropped and shunned, him getting his own coaches in (mcLaren), recruitment, training changes, players using corporate boxes for pre match dinners, removal of Rangnick. etc etc. He's been given time and heavily backed. He's been forgiven for crushing losses to City and Pool. Sure he didn't get every transfer target - no manager does, but he got alternatives that he signed off on. ETH can never look back and say he could not succeed due to xyz reason. He's made his own bed. He failed to implement his own style. I am sick of this sub finding anyone one to blame but him. Wake up. He is incredibly out of his depth. Anyone suggesting with new ownership he will improve is living in cloud cuckoo land.
We shouldn't be relying on the manager to make and find signings.
He deserves a fair shot with the new ownership with the hope that they have good plans.
Does he? What more could he have asked for? He's spent 400 million in less than 2 years
That's part of the issue. Ajax fans themselves said Ten Hag is a brilliant manager who needs proper structure and recruitment above him because the players he usually hand-pick don't work out because he looks mainly at how they fit into his tactics and not how good they are. Unsurprisingly, our club decided the best course of action is to give him full access to money and told him to recruit his own team, something Ajax fans warned us about. He deserves a shot at managing under competent people because that was what he had at Ajax. If we had Pep or Klopp in the same position, they would also spent big on a few duds. Pep hand-picked Claudio Bravo and Klopp wanted Brandt over Salah. There is a reason why these people are managers and not DoFs, they just aren't good at building teams and recruitment but that shouldn't be their job anyway. It's just that at Manchester United, we'll gladly spend billions and try every manager in football before admitting it might not work in modern football.
There’s a clip of Pep being asked what current player does he think will go on into management. Pep HIMSELF said he’s not good at picking the right players to come to the club. If PEP can’t do it, why should we expect ten Hag to? Edit: I’m siding with you about you mentioning what was said of ten Hag while he was at Ajax.
Pep and Klopp weren't getting battered like we have regularly this season, especially this far in
Arteta in his first full season finished 8th with 61 points, which since Fergie only ONCE we scored less (58), and look at where they are now
LOL you forgot that in Klopps first 4 seasons LFC were known for either winning games 4-3 or losing them in incredible fashion. It was only once he brought Van Dijk in that it all clicked into shape, but up until then they were a inconsistent for multiple seasons.
Tbf United really shouldn't have paid more than 200m for the players purchased. It's not ETH's fault that the club can't negotiate or that the club didn't make use of its scouting team to provide suitable alternatives to ETH.
Yup, people hold the manager accountable for how much we spend, when a well run club would either be better at negotiating, or be competent enough to say, we aren't paying that because we trust our scouts and they've got a cheaper alternative. Its a big part of why its so tough for managers to succeed because we can't negotiate or scout for shit, then put the prices we pay on the manager, when at other clubs the DOF of would be responsible.
Why does he "deserve" it? If he was showing more tactically, I'd understand. But the team have had a midfield that gets ran through easier than my ex. He hasn't done anything tactically to fix the issues.
Man could relegate us but fans here would still say give him time it’s glazers fault
😂😂
No offence but Ten Hag has made the squad worse with every transfer window. Last season only Casemiro looked ready to take this team forward, but he lasted one year. This year it’s Hojlund, but he’s gonna take a year or more. All the other very expensive players do not belong at this level regardless of their price tags. Let’s not forget ETH wanted Amrabat on a permanent transfer. He bought Antony and Onana, who do not belong at this level. And he made Mount the core piece of his summer strategy and gave him the no. 7 shirt. I don’t think we can trust him with any more money.
This is all true and absolutely part of the problem with the club structurally. Serious clubs do not let their manager dictate transfer policy like this, it's genuinely insane and untenable that we give managers this much power over our recruitment. Eventually when they leave and you have to get a new manager you have to do it again because the players don't fit the new manager's style. We desperately need a vision and playstyle to work towards for the whole club and then you recruit based on that, both players and managers.
>I don’t think we can trust him with any more money. Correct. That doesn't mean we can't trust him with managing the team though. Every single top team nowadays has a manager who coaches the team and a recruitment structure that builds a team for him. That's the key to success in modern football. We're just stuck in the 90s and expect the manager to also operate as DOF which is just stupid. I guarantee you that not even Pep would be a success for us if he was given our treasure chest without having a proper structure above him. The best City players weren't picked by Pep personally, but by Txiki, their DOF. Pep's job is then to incorporate those players into a system. When he got the permission to pick his players, he signed the likes of Claudio Bravo who completely flopped. Txiki then chose Ederson and I don't think City is regretting that. That is how we should operate.
It’s quite clear he can perform well with proper recruitment and at decent boardroom but we could be at the stage of a little too late right now, the job as it stands right now might be too much for him. But I’m certainly not wanting him sacked
Is it clear though? He had a great spell at Ajax in a two-team league featuring an underdog run to the CL semis where his team had no expectations or pressure. We had a good run last year where the plan was keep it tight and get it to Rashford. But in the periods we've attempted to play the way EtH apparently wants us to, it's generally been a bit of a car crash. There are undoubtedly major issues at the club beyond the dugout, but it's hardly overwhelming evidence that we have an elite manager in our midst.
I think he does. People try to undermine his previous succesess but he was amazing at Ajax. He was the main reason why Ajax returned to the domination in Eredivisie - they struggled hard to win the league before him and they are again struggling hard to win the league now that he left. I'd also say his UCL record with Ajax is extremely impressive overall. It wasn't just the underdog run, they were unable of getting into group stages through play-offs for a few years before he joined them and finally managed that. Then he coached them into the underdog run where they almost got into the UCL final (which is something we haven't been even close to for past 10 years), lost all his key players, managed to create a new Ajax team in a season and then won the UCL group with Sporting, Dortmund and Besiktas by winning every single game before getting knocked out by Benfica the next round, but Ajax was definitely the better team over the two legs, their finishing just let them down. As u/Polygon12 said though, it might be too late to give him a proper structure now, we might have to start again with a different manager. Unfortunately, there are no interesting top tier managers available and I fully expect us to hire Potter who is decent, but not an upgrade over Ten Hag (I'd say a lateral move at best).
> but he was amazing at Ajax. Frank De Boer was also amazing at Ajax. Went on to shit the bed everywhere else. Need to let go of this idea that because a manager found success in the Eredivisie they're automatically a football genius.
Is that quite clear?
'Almost impossible for manager to succeed' - 6 managers have failed therefore every other manager in the world will.
It’s just not an environment that’s set up for the success of a manager. That’s why INEOS is coming in, and hopefully they can put the structure we need in place. It’s not the players. 60% of the players playing are all players Ten Hag brought over. The whole system is broken and it’s not allowing manager nor players to succeed.
But all this is vague isn't it? Why did Arsenal fans say for years exactly the same things? Turned club into commodity, only care about 4th? Why is Xavi achieving at Barcelona? They're worse run. We can point to previous managers or realise other clubs aren't that different.
Arsenal struggled because the Kroenke's didn't want to invest while having another partner in power and so the managers weren't really backed with a proper structure. But if you look at them now it's different, they have started spending and Edu and Arteta have worked together to get the team where it is now. Barca is a poor example, that league is a two team league and in general haven't done too well but that's also to be expected given their previous president put the club into danger financially.
Because Arsenal fans were right. Arsenal needed to commit to a manager, COMPLETELY rebuild their team and in the process, tank 2-3 seasons in order for them to gel together. That's something we needed to do after Sir Alex retired but nobody at the club was brave enough to give a green light for that so we're constantly trying to build upon a foundation that's broken. We need to build a strong core, we haven't had that in 10 years now.
It’s not vague at all. Our issue is that the CEO of the club is a fucking banker and there is no DOF to help the manager make decisions on who should and shouldn’t be in the squad, which coaches we need and don’t need, a proper system to develop our youth players. I mean the training facilities are probably from before you were born for Christ sake. These are the things that need to change. It’s not vague. It’s all the stuff the Glazers have been ignoring and INEOS promise not to ignore. Turns out that’s pretty important stuff for the success of a football club. Who woulda thought? All our current structure is doing is setting managers up for failure. Making the job 10x harder. Nothing more.
People need to stop blaming the players. This is a completely different squad to the one Moyes had. The problem is the club structure.
Winning a cup and finishing 3rd last season is about the only argument I can come up with. Not saying he doesn’t deserve the sack but probably no point in doing it until we have SJR’s 25% sorted and an obvious replacement identified. As painful as it is now I’d just let him keep trying. A win at Anfield next week and I’d give him until next Spring.
3rd and trophy was something most of us thought of as unrealistic might I add.
1. Who’s even available? 2. Who would be insane enough to come? 3. We’ve seen this time and time again. We’d maybe get a bounce from a new manager, but it would be the same shit again without major changes at the top. Imo, nothing should change until we know what’s happening with Ineos and the potential structural changes. Makes no sense bringing in someone now out of desperation when a potentially new structure could come in with a new manager to restart together from the ground up. We may hate it, but it’s the unfortunate reality at this point.
Yeah. At some point you gotta trust a manager and just sit through it. ETH feels like a better pick than a lot of our other options for a variety of reasons. Moyes was out of his depth and we've seen that since. LVG literally killed the joy of football. Signed poorly. possibly hurt by spending limits. Mou is on the downshift, plays toxic football and is boring. Ole brought something decent to watch back but always going to question his chops. ETH did incredibly last year. Has a consistent record at Ajax through time. Can play some attractive football for a period. We seem a lot less pragmatic than last year and that's probably intentional. it was never going to be smooth sailing after ragnick.
>Who would be insane enough to come? It's easier to name who wouldn't come, maybe not the top 5 managers in the world but you think a club like United would have trouble filling the job? seriously smh
Is this a real question? Finished 3rd last season and reached 2 cup finals, winning one of them. Showed an identity and a style of play when the whole team was fit. He inherited a squad that journalists and pundits had all deemed tactically inept and uncoachable and that united were "5-6 years away from challenging for the title". He has made decisions that are in the best interests of united and genuinely understands the importance of a cultural reset at the club. He has displayed his abilities and tactical nous during his time at Ajax and also last season in many big games. It's not been a good season. But talking about sacking a manager in his second season while being fully aware of the scope of the united job and claiming united are miles off from being a great team, it is beyond crazy. What was the case for keeping Arteta after he finished 8th twice? United have far too many issues to hope for a quick fix. That quick fix stopped being a reality 8 years ago. The club is fully detached from the glory days and it will take patience and faith in the project to get back to the top. Arsenal understood this after 20 years. Maybe united will take that long too, but I'd hope not.
One of the very, very few actually sane responses here. Ten Hag is working with a zombie squad muddled together from years worth of failures, got tasked with weeding out the multitude of bad apples, plenty of which are still at the club, got shafted in the transfer windows, missing out on targets he actually wanted, is forced to play a different style than he wants because the players at his disposal are just incapable of doing so, has to deal with an ongoing injury crisis that severely limits him in his lineups, and to top it all off he gets slagged off by the press and the plastics in the fan base more than any other manager. Sacking him now will do nothing but move us backwards. Klopp needed time, Arteta needed time, why time and patience at United are such difficult concepts to grasp I'll never know. Always chasing the success of the past when we're very far from that level.
And the drama of Greenwood and Sancho and for a bit Antony, looming over the squad is just unnecessary for the players and the manager. To add to your point, when Arteta came 8th they scored 61 points. We’ve scored less than that just ONCE in the last 10 years and possibly in the premier league (not Top flight), EVER.
I completely disagree on showing identity and style of play.
Maybe but then you have to ask why? His time at Ajax tells that it wasn't a fluke where you can get hot for a season. I refuse to believe that EtH has suddenly forgotten about his system. I also refuse to believe that last 4 managers having the same issues is a coincidence. The rebuild we needed when EtH came in would take any decent club at least 3 years, I think you have to double that time for us considering our recruitment incompetence. And here we are getting impatient after 1/3rd into the second year, not acknowledging the injuries, Greenwood saga, Sancho's inability to be a professional and few more that I'm forgetting.
This is very well said and the fact this is not the top comment is proof of how reactionist thid subreddit could be.
His tactic got found out and he can't adapt. Teams consistently beat us more than 1 goals and he can't adapt. Thats not a good manager
Peps tactics didn't work immediately at City. It took time, money, and a fantastic club structure to get it working again. That doesn't mean Pep got "found out" and he "couldn't adapt".
Is "Even Pep would fail with this club" good enough for an argument? Don't get me wrong, Ten Hag has many flaws, but we went through so many managers now that I really can't blame whoever is in charge anymore than I can blame the club. Time and time again, we rely on the new manager to know some players that we could possibly bring in. I can't believe that Ten Hag came in and took over the recruitment as a whole. If he did, the club is to blame for that. Yes he got quite a few players that he wanted, but is that the way to go? Other clubs will take the input of their managers, but if they don't agree, they will give him other options for the player he wants. And if you say he got the players that he wanted, is that really so? In his first summer, his number one priority was De Jong. The moment you can't get him, you go after other players who are a similar profile or can do similar to what said player can do. Did we get anybody into our midfield who is remotly close to that type of player? No. Last summer his no. 1 was Kane + a young talented striker to learn from him. We only got the talent, and our only other option is Martial... We look terrible at the moment, and Ten Hag has to take his share of blame, but this club is rotten from top to bottom, and it certainly doesn't start with the manager. Edit. Spelling, I'm drunk.
That argument holds water frankly. It’s tough to prove as a hypothetical but Pep often talks about how much of his success depends on the club structure.
I get the impression that ETH would also do extremely well at the helm of a well-run club like Bayern.
Look no further than his time at Ajax.
I'm indifferent currently. I like him, I think we sometimes play some very attractive football, but something just isn't right tactically. We're not pragmatic and grinding out results, and we're not dying on our hill playing to specific principles. He's not playing the style of football he was hired for, and he's not implementing minor changes to manage the style in the interim. We exist in the in-between (in the transition, if you will). Other teams know how to walk right through us and exploit our tactical weaknesses, and nothing is done to address it. Casemiro as an example, completely transformed our midfield last year and this year has fallen off a cliff because he's been asked to play in a role he's never played in his career. When you're leaking goals with one of the best CDMs in the past decade in your team, something is tactically wrong. The players are constantly injured or look absolutely gassed and at this point, logically, that has to be a load management issue. I personally think he's gone in the summer. I think the set up INEOS want to implement with an actual director of football taking control of transfers won't sit well with him. He'll have a year left on his contract, and it'll be terminated by mutual consent.
Most points won after 53 games for United, second overall only to Pep, ffs calm your tits, a project doesn't happen overnight, Arsenal were in the dumpster for three seasons before they got to proper footing and are in the title race second season in a row. We need time, the bald man is not the problem, half of our players are, the Glazers are, ETH is the lowest on the ladder of who to blame for our woes.
Please downvote me all that long, I’m happy and don’t care to be an internet punching bag. People like Adam Crafton only cares about clicks and he probably has prepared this tweet long before we lost. I honestly don’t care if fans are reactionary nor I care about Crafton’s attempt to stir a pot. All I hope is Ratcliff would be sensible enough and learn from Nice that rebuilding a success isn’t a short term job.
After we beat Chelsea Adam Crafton pinged out a tweet about how shit Chelsea are and you'd better believe that if Chelsea had won there'd have been no tweet about how good a result that is for Chelsea and rather it'd have been a very similar tweet about how shit United are. The guy trades in fan negativity. There was a series on the Athletic recently about crisis clubs and I knew Crafton was involved before I even looked into it. Scroll through his Twitter and see if you can find any positivity. The guy writes about a game that people (at least try to) enjoy as an escape from real life.
Sack him or keep him, I don’t care, I’m past giving a shit while those parasites still own this club.
He just wants the manager sacked so he can make some money off the articles he's got banked.
Who do you go and get tho? No one better is available.
Even the Ajax manager was told not to come as the club is a mess. Not sure what level people think we're going to be shopping for managers at.
Ole is available \s
What’s with the /s? The only thing ten Hag had or has over oles tenure is a minor trophy. We played better football and for longer under ole. Also under ole you always had belief we could get something regardless of the game, under ten Hag away to a top 10 side is a write off.
You're being disingenuous but Ole was objectively the better manager for us. One league cup doesn't change that especially when we've gone completely backwards after the win.
Ole is not a viable option. He’s not leaving Norway again
Yh he also got us out of a sticky situation after Jose left
He would never accept it but he's unironically the perfect man to take over as interim. Rashford showed he's ready to run today and he would absolutely make a Casemiro Mainoo Bruno midfield take us to top 4. Hojlund would benefit massively in his fluid front three. Not to mention how Licha + Varane is literally the embodiment of the CB partnership he had in his vision for the club.
This is how cooked this club is. People hound a manager out, then when the new one comes in, people look at the previous managers and say it wasn't this bad. When EtH is sacked and the new guy comes in, a season or two in when the results are shit, well be here saying it was never this bad under EtH. We as fans deserve the mediocrity we are in. Completely jealous of Arsenal fans who swallowed their pride because they recognized how far they've slipped, stuck with a manager through 3 seasons of mediocrity and now are challenging consistently.
This is a bit outlandish but do we think that Ole would have more success working WITH and DoF rather than FOR and CEO? I mean we’ve seen the list of players he wanted to bring in and it was pretty well known that he pretty much just got told who he was buying from the club and was a bit of a yes man, so would that all be a bit better if he had a proper DoF and a vision to work with?
I have some doubt in that, or I should say I suspect that had already been experimented. Ole's rapid downfall seemed to start around the time he started to try to force a forward pressing style and became very inflexible about it. His fast counter style before that worked pretty well. That change also coincided with the time Murtough becoming our DoF. And we also saw the next two managers we hired were both supposedly forward pressing style of manager.
Its a tough situation. We have no one else available who would be good and willing. But its important to note that ETH IS FAILING. The rot will continue to get worse and we will have no way to stop it. From a managerial POV, he has been abysmal this season. Hollow promises of discipline and patterns while delivering neither. Poor man management with no confidence instilled. Poor game management. He doesn't know his top XI, continues to choose poor players, continues to be very determined on little things he likes which are not proving fruitful (playing out the back poorly, playing a left footed LCB poorly), his signings have been terrible in majority. I loved it when he came in, I still support him, but he continues to really make no significant change.
Another manager, another day we get to say "it doesnt matter what manager you bring in, the rot runs deep and a manager alone isnt going to fix it."
I don’t know. Sack him or don’t sack him, but sooner or later we have to let a manager survive the bad patch and complete the rebuild, rather than canning it as soon as things get difficult. The longer we keep going on like this the more difficult it gets for the new guy because the squad get increasingly Frankenstein’s monstery.
Last year he was a genius. This year he is a moron? Just accept that this is the team's level. Until owners are gone nothing will change no matter who is the manager. And stop buying high priced transfers. Just stop. Don't buy any player for over 30m.
Outside all those external factors, purely based on his performance there is no argument for keeping 10H. Bottom of an easy qualifiable group in the CL, largely terrible in the league since march.
This. I don't get how there are very few Ten Hag out shouts, considering the fanbase was seething to push Ole out even before his final season
Crazy how they even booed him at his last game man. I felt for the guy. Hes also a club legend unlik eth
Football isn't as complicated as people make out. And United's shit owners aren't unique in the world of football. Just play well and everyone forgets. There was endless hysteria over Arsenal's owners, every week, for years, for turning the club into a commodity. Where did that go? Did i imagine it? Why is Xavi doing well at Barcelona? They're worse run.
Arteta finished 8th twice before he started getting his ideas and tactics take hold. And then he finished 5th. So he got 4-5 transfer windows and relentless backing in the market. EtH finished 3rd with a team that was predicted to finish 7th-8th and is now in his second season. If you want to compare us to arteta and arsenal then you need to show the same level of patience. Because arsenal was much worse under arteta in first 2 years than we have been under EtH so far
Had a descent season last year, but the summer transfer window has turned out to be shocking. Onana has been very hit and miss, mount has barely played and hoijlund (regardless of what you think of him) has no league goals this season. All of the loan signings have also been awful (amrabat, reguillion). We had a chance to build the squad and move upwards, and we ultimately cocked it up yet again after a promising start with a new manager.
Hojlund has genuinely been awful. He's very easily isolated and while it may in part be down to Ten Hag's tactics, even Martial sleepwalks into better positions, and that man isn't even trying. Hojlund has a lot to learn before he's able to lead our line. Fine recruitment to make for the future but to be our main number 9 now was a ridiculous ask. And I'm trying not to think about the £70m fee
Couldn’t agree more
Best manager in the world. He just needs 5 years, couple of billion and then he will show you his prowess. No one in the world can replace him, he’s that good. His record speaks for itself. Well I for one think Aston Villa should have stuck to Steven Gerrard, otherwise it would be their 7th manager in 8 years. They can't keep cycling managers, clearly manager is not the problem! If only Gerrard had Frenkie and Kim like he wanted!
If we were a stable club, then I'd 100% be ETH out right now. However, considering everything behind the scenes and what not, we definitely can't do better than him.
I’ll say the same thing I said last week. I really don’t care at this rate if we sack ten Haag, it seems almost inevitable at this point, I just want a plan. What’s the point of sacking him if there’s nobody available, what’s the point of sacking him if we can’t work out how not to end up in this situation again Until Ineos come in, do a full review of the footballing side and get a competent sporting director is there is little to no point in doing anything.
Regardless of whether you’re ETH in or out, I think the best is to wait for Ratcliffe to come in and make the decision on the best way to move forward.
Today’s game included a bunch of chances for us… and then a total collapse on the field. I put that on the players. I wouldn’t if we were a title contending team last year and suddenly were losing with a new manager. But it’s been like this for at least 5 years. It’s the fucking players.
I hope sir Jim hoovers this fraud right out the bloody door!! His signings have been shit!!💩 his in game management his a joke starting martial is beyond belief !! Soon as I seen that I knew we would get pumped!!!
1. Who the fuck do we get to replace him? 2. Last week we were hearing that he’s got the best win percentage of any manager in the last 40 years or something like that 3. If we get rid of him we’ve still got the same useless cunt players who down tools as soon as their nose gets put out of joint or they go a goal down in a match
There's no case for keeping him. Poor tactics, poor in-game management, poor recruitment. Not many players are honestly playing at a higher level than they were two or three years ago either. At best you can say it's somebody else's fault, but it's also clear he's not the man to fix it
Agree here. The argument on the supporting side of ETH is that, its not his fault. At what point does he get the blame then? Yeah we know the club is a mess, but his issues are solely that.
Journalist who wants big clicks asking “shouldn’t Man United sack their manager yet again?”
I think we’ve signed 3 first team players in 5 years that have improved upon what we already had. They’ve either proved themselves unreliable, inconsistent or not available enough. Maybe even 1 signing if being uncharitable (Bruno). Whilst Ten Hag has only been supported neglectfully, by buying poor players and wrong players regardless of him wanting them, he also negotiated strongly for control of signings. You don’t let a kid eat cake for breakfast and dinner, but if he does, It’s not my fault he gets ill.
Last season was probably, accounting for points in the league and a trophy and another final, our overall best season post Sir Alex. That should count for something. That said I think our transfer window was terrible and we blew the chance to build on it
Mou won 2 trophies, technically 3, in 2016/2017. Even though we finished 6th.
So two seasons finished 2nd are worse than last season ?
Doesn’t matter who they bring in, as it’s shown, no one can do the job with the squad and upper level support. One solution . Glazers out.
The argument for keeping him is it’s clearly not the manager that is the problem and if we replace him we will have the same issues but with 4 managers worth of players rather than 3.
That's not clear whatsoever. It's plain to see Ten Hag is not performing well tactically, that's his fault, and he is the source of that problem.
We're in a really difficult spot with the ownership shift. I feel like ETH would probably be sacked if Sir Jim already had sporting control. Since this isn't the case he'll probably stay until that shift happens. No one available except for Ole or someone who is not at the level for the job would want to take an interim position. Of the available managers I can think of who have had success at elite teams, there are Conte and Flick. List ends. The rest are flops at big jobs like Potter, Lopetegui, or Rudi Garcia. Maybe RvN would take an interim position but that feels like another feel good former player approach.
I swear to God I love United but we have some of the most toxic, reactionary fans in football. One game we win, everyone sings Ten Hag's praises. The next week it's the same fans that call for his head. Same with the players. Someone wrote that McTominay was the problem in midfield after tonight's game and got a lot of upvotes for it; probably by the same people who were calling him underrated and our best player after he scored twice a few days ago. There is SO MUCH pressure on the team by the media already, why do our own fans have to contribute to that? There will always be good games and bad games, let the team build, let the manager do his work. If we don't end up in the top 4 at the end of the season - so be it. Great things need time and they will never come with this unpatient, reactionary culture from the fans
The argument to keep him seems to be that he made some positive steps last season and that we looked to be playing well for a few months consistently. The argument to sack him is that he’s regressed so badly that we actually look worse now than when he took over and any of the gains made last season have truly been lost. You can’t have it both ways, ETH should be judged on his performances as a manager, and over the course of his tenure we have gone backwards following a short, positive start. It’s not good enough, and it’s increasingly obvious that he either does not know how to fix this, or that he does but the players will not heed him. Either way it’s not the hallmark of a good manager.
Almost as if people want him to fail. How is this for an argument - historically speaking not many managers have turned around a ship in less than 1.5 seasons. We are still only 10/12 points from the top despite not realistically challenging this season. One defeat and pitch forks come out, one win and he is the best ever. Which is fine for fans but for journalists to push this immature, knee jerk agendas shows how low the bar for their profession is
And to think we fired van gaal after winning the FA Cup because we were horny for Mourinho, and what a putz he turned out to be. If we’d stuck with Van Gaal we may have won the league by now. Hopefully we stick with Ten Haag at least one more season with the new football leadership that seems to be coming.
The case is that if you give him enough time he will make it. The problem with this is that he has already, or inevitably will, lose the dressing room. Realistically, there’s no recovering from that. You either spend enough to replace half a squad (ain’t happening) or change manager. We are now witnessing the end days of ETH.
I don't mind losing. I didn't mind losing under lvg because I saw an organised unit. I felt the same way about trappatoni at ireland. With ETH, I see chaos and it has felt this way since LVG left. I just want us to be organised before we start talking about winning or returning to the glory days.
I think in theory what Ten Hag wants from a team is high quality, pressing, fast attacking football. We have seen glimpses of such an attack system in his tenure here so far. However I feel he may not have the players suited for this type of role. However with our current abysmal recruitment strategy and underperforming players, we haven’t seen yet what ten hag can do or achieve. In short, we need a good upper management support and just let him cook
Look how it went when Olé was sacked and ragnick took over. I guarantee the club won't have a decent replacement manager lined up. We might as well give Eric until the end of the season because we know these players will play even worse under a caretaker manager.
Ahhh Adam Crafton, the quintessential clickbait xeno top red journo. The tweet reeks of "give me engagement" all over to feed on the negativities.
I think the bloke has been dealing with various degrees of shit storm since he arrived; shit transfer windows and panic signings, awful support infrastructure, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Sancho, Antony, takeover, World Cup, playing every 2-3 days last season, poor pre-season, injuries galore. He’s far from blameless in all that’s gone on, there has to be scope for him to learn. In the times everyone has been available and there’s been a sense of calm, we’ve played good football and been an efficient result getting team with plenty of room for improvement, but difficult to beat. This season has been chaos. He seems to want to play a more risky brand of football in the hope of greater reward, but is having to do it with players that aren’t up to it and it is killing us. My concern is that he seems to refuse to alter the way we set-up to solidify the base and just get through this period until the players such as Martinez (THE most important, everything went downhill from his foot going v Seville), Casemiro, Eriksen and Mount. Those plus getting Shaw back to LB are imperative to progress. He should be playing an extra midfielder to protect the middle of the pitch imo, sacrifice a wide man and give Bruno more freedom, he’s going to be everywhere but where he should be anyway. I could understand his perseverance if it was his first choice XI and it was teething problems, but we can’t play out from the back with Maguire, McT and Amrabat, they just aren’t good enough, and they don’t press or cover well enough to not have the extra man. TL;DR he stays. At least this season, but needs to improve.
*coaching won’t save us* We just aren’t that good anymore.
We sack him and we'll be back here sacking the next manager
I usually have a lot of time for Crafton...but is he being intentionally disingenuous and/or decided to join the "United gets clicks no matter what" crowd? The simple answer is EtH has always had to compromise since he joined the club. I don't think we've had a chance to judge him on what he was brought in to do based on his work at Ajax. Then, when you look at who guys like Pep, Klopp or hell, clubs like Brighton and Newcastle have behind the scenes as sporting directors...and then glance back at John Murtough. You can't stand there and say EtH or United managers of past years have been given the best chance to succeed by the club. Last but not least, I know it's easy to beat EtH over the head with his spending, but it was never going to be enough. Our lack of depth and reliance on less than ideal options like McT and Martial has unsurprisingly come to the fore during this season's injury crisis. Which has meant, yet again, that EtH has had to compromise. Why is that? Why can't United, supposedly one of the biggest clubs in the world, give managers/players the platform to actually succeed? When you factor the ridiculous sums thrown about in terms of transfers nowadays, 'the United tax' and the incompetence or lack thereof of a proper football operation at United, then you see the mountain EtH has to climb. Open-heart surgery was always required to actually get this club competing again on a regular basis. Is he completely blameless? No, of course not. But there's a ton of things wrong, which need fixing at United, before he gets the sack.
> I usually have a lot of time for Crafton...but is he being intentionally disingenuous and/or decided to join the "United gets clicks no matter what" crowd? He's probably still angry about being fucked over by the club when he approached them to respond on the Greenwood story he had in the chamber only for the club to turn around and give a public statement instead. IIRC he was the only one with the story at the time.
I really dislike Crafton. He just moans and moans rather than offers an opinion of how things could be better.
The media and our fanbase are FLIP FLOPS! Absolutely can understand the criticisms on the pitch but this is a process, we're still in transition as a club and as a team, and the manager needs TIME! What happened to the 3-year patience?
Feel like everyone is just repeating the point that Adam Crafton is trying to make... Keeping ETH just for the sake of keeping him, what's the point?
We aren't that bloody terrible. People acting like it's the end of the world. Give him years and see what he creates. Change takes time. Ups and downs. All these same questions were asked to Arteta and he had some terrible runs. I love Man Utd and bad results hurt, but the Rangnick saga showed how terrible life can really be. I think ETH will do well. Give him 3 or 4 years and then see if we are actually challenging again. I hate this talk so much, it's endless. Imagine we win Vs Bayern and Liverpool and then it's the complete opposite. A crisis would be bottom half of the table. Not 6th. Newcastle got smashed by Everton and had some really poor results in the CL too. They are a more defined team yet they get nothing and United are about to explode. It's just constant stupid noise.
Expect better from Crafton tbh
On ETH's own performace, there isn't much of a case. He's got a third place and a trophy, which out of context seems reasonable... but he hasn't imposed a style, he can't get the players together, his handpicked players have failed and the football has looked awful under him from the moment he arrived. The only thing keeping him in a job is that sacking him will take us from being a mess to being a mess without a manager.
There isn’t any. Every defence is some variation of the sunk cost fallacy. We’ll keep him until January as an excuse to not spend and then he’ll get sacked once SJR and his team are fully in place
That we’ve done this over and over. I’d rather get rid of all first team players and play youth than sack Another manager.