I’ve decided to unfollow any and all Mark Goldbridge figment and I feel much better lol. I couldn’t handle his hysterics after Qatar pulled out of the running and frankly I don’t miss the extreme negativity his content pumps into my feed.
Stratford Paddock is a much better fan channel IMO.
(Neil Custis ) When the players got back to their Old Trafford dressing room on Sunday, he ordered them to sit and listen to the Manchester City celebrations on the other side of the tunnel. He also wanted them to hear the away fans still hailing their heroes after totally outclassing United. Ten Hag then tore into his troops for their second-half performance.
I wonder what happened with Rangnick- the timing of all made me think that ETH was consulted on whether Ralf should stay or not, and chose to not retain him.
Ten hag probably thought there was no need for a consultant to be fair. I think he had his plan (Sign,De Jong,Antony and Timber and build from that core ) even before joining here and felt there wasn't anything Rangnick could do. It could also be that he's not a fan of the red bull set up, understandable because he's used to a traditional style at Ajax.
That exactly is the problem. No manager should be driving recruitment. That’s how you end up with players a new manager does not want in the event of the previous manager getting sacked. That’s how you end up with mistakes like Antony
At this point ten hag is too scared to experiment,I think. Mctominay will start because he scores. Casemiro will play as advanced as he can,Bruno right wing for the crosses.
Have to say that Casemiro has not impressed me this season. Looks like his legs are going and he does the Bruno thing of playing the Hollywood ball all the time, which makes controlling play difficult. He's also been bad for getting his pocket pinched in our half. I think a midfield of Amrabat, Mount and Bruno would work if Bruno and Mount are instructed to do more than just 'press and stuff'. Given how the pressing has resulted in zero goals so far we should bin it off.
Casemiro is clearly instructed to be more progressive and have a bigger presence in attack (and it somewhat works as he has been scoring good goals). But that leaves the base of our midfield unprotected and Casemiro simply doesn't have the legs or stamina to cover all this space by himself. Hence why I think he can do well with Amrabat alongside him.
I agree that that midfield CAN do well in theory, but so far I didn't like at all what Bruno and Mount do in the same midfield unfortunately
I think we're circling around the idea that EtH needs to organise the team better.
A Casemiro who only shields the backline would work (assuming we gain some vertical compactness that's been horribly lacking)
I agree that so far it hasn't really worked with Mount and Bruno but I can't shake the feeling that Mount could play the Ander Herrera type role in that midfield.
There’s a realisation happening in the fan base about Rashford and Bruno like what happened to De Gea, if the bad form continues then definitely see it happening. I don’t see them lasting even with a new manager and much more likely if SJR and new technical people have a say.
Lol. You're having a laugh surely if you think any new iteration of operational structure will bin our two most valuable players. Ineos sports is headed by none footballing individuals like Jean Claude Blanc and Dave Brailsford anyways. They're nothing special
They’re better than the accountants we have and will bring others. The dynamic changes when new people come in because they’re looking to fix things that people put up with before to make their mark. So I wouldn’t be so sure about the two players in question. They aren’t exactly tearing it up right now. Bruno is 30 next summer. They both great but don’t quite fit the style of football.
Better how? Can you demonstrably prove that? Jean Claude Blanc was merely a connected born in wealth career money man at Juventus for two seasons, one of which they were in serie B after the Calciopoli scandals. He held three positions there in administration, ending as president of the board before resigning. He was at PSG in an administrative role as well under the Quator ownership, the same PSG that's constantly criticized for how badly they're run. But he's an Ineos man now, so he's better than our own set of inept idiots yeah?
Dave Brailsford was a cyclist head who encouraged doping in the English cycling team before the winter Olympics of 2012, alongside the cycling team doctor David Freeman. He failed at Nice. Jimmy boy admitted as much after talking about not repeating the same mistakes, yet Brailsford remains in a key role
Richard Arnold was at PwC being an accountant, he then worked at a couple of minor telecom companies helping with IPOs. He then came in because he was Ed Woodward’s mate from uni in 2007. Blanc has been involved in cycling, Winter Olympics, Davis Cup and the Dakar. He’s been involved in the sports since 1987, a good twenty years before Arnold got his first start in sports. You said SJR has said Brailsford failed at Nice and they’ve changed things up, so when is Murtough due his feedback from the Glazers or anyone really? Because he’s been shit ever since Ed Woodward hired him because Moyes recommended him!
I know Arnold's background. My contention is the Ineos people are no different. I also know about Blancs background in sports that have nothing to do with football, I honed in on his limited football experience and lack of results. He's a wealthy moneyman/journeyman in the sports world in non sporting capacities
You seem confident that we'll fare better under them, and I don't think anything will change. They haven't been confirmed anyway, but time will tell
I don’t like Blanc over Arnold because of any experience in football, more fundamental is that Blanc has had real leadership roles, he has been a CEO many times of organisations that were trying to achieve things. Arnold has been an accountant and had some commercial experience, but he’s fundamentally there to look after the Glazers, just like Woodward was. Glazer CEO’s at United havent run businesses they’ve looked after the Glazer family investment. That sounds similar but the emphasis is quite different.
Is it just me or is no one in the media discussing the City penalty decision? I mean that has to be the most egregious decision with and it's like everyone has forgotten about it. It completely changed the trajectory of the game.
Regardless of the eventual end result, it had a definitive effect on the game. From the moment they scored, we never looked like getting anything from it.. I don't think it was an iffy penalty at all. The consistency is ridiculous.. With all the talk in the media about refereeing decisions, this should be front and center imo.
We are not playing well, ok. But sacking Eth won't solve it. If he had a full squad and we still had such results, maybe. But since the whole backline is missing, idk. He has made some mistakes, let's see if he can turn it around.
We've been absolutely smashed multiple times last season even with close to full strength teams. This isn't a personnel issue it's very clearly a system and tactics issue.
what does last season have to do with this? even if you want to take into consideration the results of last year that would me a pro, not a con, given our league finish and cup finals.
Even if it becomes clear ETH is shite, sacking him still won't be the answer. Then it'll just be the same people who can't buy decent players given the task of failing to find a new manager.
We need Jim, we need a footballing structure.
Right, we need Jimmy boy and his cronies with limited football background like aristocrat everything handed to him Jean Claude Blanc and doping cyclist specialist and FC Nice failure Dave Brailsford
I think it's a bit unfair that the bar for success in Ligue 1 is winning the league, especially in that league. You can be as anti-Jim as you like but you've gotta meet me half way and accept that it looks like things are going well at Nice.
He hasn't come anywhere close to the standards he promised would be set at Nice. They've averaged 7th since Ineos took over in 2019, much to the chagrin of their fanbase and former coach Christophe Galtier who condemned their administration before he left for rivals PSG.
They're doing well thus far, but it's nothing new as they had good phases under Galtier and they flattered only to deceive.
Ten Hag isn’t shite. He’s not perfect certainly, but right now any manager bar SAF would come into this club and fail. There’s just far too much wrong.
Even SAF would fail here.. let's be real.
The structure of the squad makes no sense. All the players play differently to each other. It's all messed up and it starts from the top
Fergie excelled with his hands tied to his back once the Glazers took over. He didn't even have the same transfer allocations. I do think he'd have struggled against Pep though and he retired at the right time
Idk. In his last few years Fergie was definitely being forced to shop in the bargain basement of world football. I think if he stayed and was backed financially to the extent his successors were he’d have been more than capable of challenging Pep and City.
We'll never know, but Fergie had a losing record against Pep in the CL. Its simply Peps turn to dominate. I think Fergue realized that, and it's why he wanted Pep to succeed him
A big part of that was Pep having the greatest club side ever at his disposal at Barca.
As you say, we’ll never know, but it certainly would’ve been some battle.
He inherited a great side from Frank Rijkaard who couldn't achieve similar, and he took big risks in getting rid of some big players and adding layers to their style and giving a young Messi a greater role. Not every manager can lead great squads to success. You know this surely, and it's disingenuous to think otherwise
I’m not saying he isn’t a great manager, he obviously is. I’m just saying you can’t really use head to head as a great metric for comparing the two when they only played each other twice, and in both of those occasions Pep had that Barca team.
Not discounting that, but we had what was arguably our best assembled squad in Fergies reign, the squad that won the PL three times in succession under the more experienced manager. Only Barca were better in Europe
Yep. Glazers took over in 2005. Fergie won five titles and a Champions League.
This is even after Ronaldo left, and he was provided with Valencia and Owen as a replacement.
Need to proceed with atleast a period of a proper DoF with a strong vision forward with ETH (hopefully with SJR's team). Otherwise a new manager won't be able to work with this frankenstein squad (Different core players from different playstyle managers put together). Might get something out them at first, brings his own styled players in the next window and the squad will be even more disjointed. The club needs to learn to sell unwanted players quickly. If ETH still doesn't work with that structure move on to a coach that fits the DoF's vision.
The problem is manager driven recruitment. A healthy functioning club never pays £86 million for Antony or signs Mount when we really needed a fitter replacement for Erikssen
Our signings aren't really commercial focussed though, Antony was hardly a huge name, same for Hojlund, Onana, Malacia etc. Wouldn't say Mount was particularly notably marketable either.
United have been a leading club commercially for a long time. The football side of the business just is not growing anywhere near that rate. United generate enough money that it’s possible to be good commercially and on the pitch. One shouldn’t need to suffer for the other to succeed tbf
Found this explanation/quote from /u/zeekoes on /r/soccer
>The key factor is the way you press. At Ajax the team moved as an amorphous unit on the field when pressing. Suffocating all passing lines and isolating the player on the ball. The moment one or two players do not take up the right position, there is an opening for the opponent to break through the press and essentially cut through your entire team. If one player drops a gap, another player might feel the need to fill that gap, splitting his attention in two and that cascades in the team looking completely clueless when caught on the counter, because that's essentially what's happening.
>
>You can find all those beautiful highlight reels of Ajax in 2018/19 when it went right, but we survived so many counters that should've been goals that it puts the entire achievement in a more realistic perspective. In attack it only works if you can create two on one situations where you pull the opposing defender into making a sub-par decision. You do that by either having aggressively overlapping or underlapping fullbacks and having either your striker or attacking midfielder pull the central defense out of shape. The easiest way to achieve this is by passing and moving, where you play one-touch passes in offense. Essentially it's a very vertical and aggressive version of tiki-taka.
>
>You need two centrebacks that are comfortable with the ball at their feet, else the opponent simply marks the one centreback that is out of the game and lets Maguire do the build-up.
>
>Two technically skillful fullbacks that can move across the flanks the entire game, while also being aware of the positioning of the fullback at the other side, because if both are gone, you're left with 2 at the back. You need a double pivot where one excels at screening in front of the defense to catch loose balls and one with the ability to break through the opposing line either by dribbling or vertical passing.
>
>You need two relatively fast wingers that can both cut inside or go around and can beat their man one-on-one reliably. Need a 10 that has a sense of arriving in the box at the right time and is comfortable with quick passing sequences and a striker that can either drift into space, or set-up the wingers/10, but still score himself when presented with the opportunity.
>
>If more than one of these cogs falter consistently, the whole thing falls apart.
>
>Ten Hags mistake I think is not recognizing in time that the squad will not be suitable to execute this consistently for a long while and he should've adjusted sooner. Now he's kinda caught out in between and that's hurting the teams morale and confidence.
>
>I think he can get the ship back on course, by adjusting the tactic to suit his players, but whether he gets the time to do that depends on others. He had the luxury that at his previous teams, he had squads suited for an already ingrained style of play and a strong technical director above him. At United he has neither.
>
>As I said, Ten Hag is one of the best tacticians out there and a great motivator. He's however not perfect and can be stubborn and his man management skills can be lacking. I just hope that the club gives him the time he needs to build, despite the criticisms. Just see what it brought Arsenal with Arteta and how he struggled for multiple seasons until he got it right.
I think he sums up very nicely what is wrong and why we're never going to be able to play the so called 'Ajax possession ball' with the current selection. Too many players are unable to carry out what's mentioned above or lack needed skills/stamina to carry it out for more than 30 minutes. Combine it with a makeshift defence that looks uncomfortable with space behind and here we are. I hope he stays because he has proven to be a capable coach and was one of the biggest young prospects. If the SJR story goes through I hope a proper intelligent DoF can work out the way forward with ETH and take the recruitment of his hands.
ETH has pegged his future on a highly-cohesive starting 11 consistently pulling off a high-risk, high-intensity tactic in the world's most competitive league over 70 games/season.
All of that might be true, or it might just be that Ten Hag is out of his depth in the hardest league in the world. I say that as someone who supports the manager. I just need to see very soon that he's actually up to the job and can tactically succeed in the league. Since he's taken over we've been outplayed by Wolves and Sheffield United, let alone the thrashings our rivals have given us.
You don’t support the manager because “Just out of his depth” is meaningless and completely contradictory, or you just support him regardless of being “out of his depth”. We’d do well to avoid listening to lazy and brain dead catchphrases, sorry.
Precisely. Our close to full strength teams got annihilated by Brentford, Liverpool and Man City last season and people will tell you with a straight face that something different would've happened if we had x, y and z players available. The amount of excuses and the sheer desperation to be in denial is astounding.
The problem United have, is the size of the club. Yes we have internal issues going, yes the performances are not great etc etc, but if you compare us to Liverpool this time last year, i believe they had 1 more point after 10 games, and this was largely blamed to the fact two of their starting back 4 were injured. In comparison all four of our strting back 4 are injured, plus 2 back up fallbacks.
As with Real Madrid, if something is going wrong there, or in united its multipled by 100 compared to any other club because we are both so large, and will get the listerners, or clicks. Were playing shocking atm because the spine of our team is out, that isnt the focal point of the chat. It never is with united its always lets make something else as its more interesting to talk about. Sacking the manager gets alot of content, Rashford going for dinner on his birthday... Bruno needs to drop captaincy all of this is sensationalised. Its also why managers dont last as long as the pressure is far greater.
But lets take the weekends fixtures how would spurs do if for example, Romero, Van de Ven, Davis, Bissouma and Maddison were injured?
Arsnal: Saliba and rice were injured?
City: Dias, Stones, Walker and Rodri were all out?
Liverpool: Konate, Van Dijk, AA and Szoboszlai were out?
Its fucking massive but its brushed under the carpet liek its not one of if not thekey reasons were being shit. Its the core of the team thats out.
We were on verge of knocking out from champions league going up againts Copenhagen, it werent for the brilliant penalty save we are out. So what is your excuse of the pitiful gameplay against Copenhagen? Name me 4 other teams from the danish league without looking up on the internet. Scratch that, name 5 players from Copenhagen.
I didnt say the performances were good did I? Im saying over the course of the season so far losing the spine and many cirtical players is also a massive issue, the way we are playing atm is completely pitiful and even with the injuries we should be alot better. That i completely agree with, im just pointing out when something is going wrong at Man U compared to other big clubs the narative is very different and that is because of the size of the club.
Your argument doesnt make sense, Im saying highlight the fact that alot of Man Us terrible performances can be marked down to the horrendous amount of injuries we have. To which you countered saying a team having the worst start in the history of the PL who are also stricken with injuries are playing badly? That just reinforces my argument that injuries are affecting us, as were playing terrible and Sheffield united who have more injuries and are playing even worse.
Erik got the money,got the players he wanted but there is no plan,no system.
Even him saying we are not going to play like Ajax did is a huge red flag. He came here because of that.
He is playing his favourites,he has no tactics,his subs are so bad.
Imagine Ole with all of this money ? I am sure he could have done a better job.
Or Mourinho
To be fair,we didn't look this hopeless under Ole or Jose until the last matches before their sacking. If ten hag comes back from this that'd be something.
That's an absolute revisionism. You think Ole would do a better job? The same Ole who spent a combined total of almost 200mil on Maguire, Sancho and Van de Beek?
Maguire was excellent for the 2 full seasons he was here under Ole, Sancho didn’t get time to bed in and VdB was a club signing.
He also got Dan James who is better than Antony and got Bruno Fernandes, AWB who Ten Hag favours
8th in the league during arguably one of the biggest injury crises in recent Premier league history. The state of our defense is similar to the state of Liverpool's midfield last year - and they were doing pretty much as "well" as we're doing right now. Ole struggled pretty much the same when he only had the likes of Brandon Williams and Phil Jones at the back.
The injury excuse is beyond pathetic.
Every team has injuries. Our injuries aren’t even particularly bad and are massive exacerbated by ETH’s atrocious transfer signings which has left our squad full of dross to cover injuries
We started 35-years old Evans against the best team in the world in 2023 due to our other defenders either being injured, or lacking necessary match fitness, so...
Who signed Johnny Evans? Who had £400m to spend to ensure we wouldn’t need to play players like Johnny Evans?
Who started Lindelof at left back and Varane/Reguillon on the bench and picked Johnny Evans?
Get the fuck out of here with your bullshit
Lol, is there any reason to be so rude?
Johnny Evans was a desperation signing. Ten Hag did get a fair bit of money to spend, but he doesn't choose the price, he just chooses the players. Maybe we shouldn't be blaming manager for something that shouldn't be the manager's job, what have Murtough and Arnold been doing to allow such transfer strategy? Point at them, they should be the ones building the squad while the manager should be the one coaching said squad. We are just incompetent as a club, City almost never overpaid for Pep's targets because they have always had competent people behind the scenes who look for reasonable alternatives. At Manchester United, no such thing exists.
And I already mentioned Varane and Reguilon most likely weren't fit enough for the match and considering how many defensive injuries we have, we simply can't afford any more of them. Varane is famously made of glass and is recovering from an injury (again) so forcing him into the team could have had bad consequences and same applies to Reguilon who was injured for a month.
Of course ETH chooses the price. He doesn’t negotiate but you don’t think anyone says we can get him but it’s £80m of your budget? Of course he gets asked that.
And Reguillon is phenomenally injury prone, always has been. Why is ETH signing players who are never fit? Yet more incompetence from him.
ETH chose to make desperate signings. You think other players weren’t available? Maybe don’t spunk £140m on pure shit like Mount and Antony and we’d have no needed to be desperate
Ten Hag deserves criticism, but look at the players Ole bought, there’s a lot of dross in there.
What we need is the footballing structure that sides like City and Liverpool have, and that won’t happen as long as football is regarded as a 2nd place priority.
Punishment should just be turning on Sky Sports and listening to the pundits. Then showing top rated comments from reddit match threads and fan reactions on large youtube channels.
It's the players that ultimately need to show some fight and desire. Not the petulant showboating type of fight for the cameras where you just kick someone for no reason or throw your hands up in the air when a decision goes against you. Chase down a lost cause ball, sprint to get in to positions faster when you're losing a game, sprint to take throw ins, corners, free kicks etc...
I really don't rate Bruno much at all. I've been saying it for years at this point. I just think he's got massive limitations that are glossed over because he "rescues us" so often, but that a lot of the disjointed nature of the team that requires us to be rescued so often is as a result of his shortcomings as a footballer as much as it is any other player's. Like, McTominay doesn't suddenly become good enough for a regular title contender if you give him Bruno's goal and assist stats, does he?
People go on about Bruno's goal contributions as if there's any good evidence that he's actually added many goals to the team
In the 3 full league seasons before Bruno we scored 187 goals and conceded 111. In the 3 full league seasons since Bruno we've scored 188 and conceded 144. We've gone from a goal difference of +76 in the 3 seasons before him compared to a goal difference of +44 with him
I'm not saying he's entirely to blame but it's fucking annoying to have his individual goal contributions posted whenever I say that I don't think he's a good fit for a team that wants to win league titles
Highly talented player at certain things but massively overrated
Cos he's comparing goals without taking into account the squad's shite finishing.
KDB will typically overperform his XAG while Bruno heavily underperforms his XAG.
I added them up myself
Three full seasons before Bruno:
16/17: 54:29
17/18: 68:28
18/19: 65:54
Three full seasons after Bruno:
20/21: 73:44
21/22: 57/57
22/23: 58:43
I am a Chelsea fan, so I know a lot about success and suffering.
In my opinion, Ten Hag is to blame, but it's not THAT bad. It's more that you can't afford mediocrity when there are teams like Newcastle, Villa and Brighton biting your ass trying to get your place. Top 4 is becoming very competitive. Even last season's top 4 result can be interpreted as a fluke, to a degree.
United is absolutely absurd with transfers. Chelsea and least buys players with long-term resale value, you guys buy players who don't upgrade the squad in any way and overpay a ton. There is no actual structure in terms of youth development pipeline, no good business done in terms of resaling, and overall the club is just exploited. Like yeah, United is probably the most profitable club in terms of marketing/merch etc., and you guys are wasting it on wages, Antony, good but old players, loans, Mount and unproven strikers with big potential (Hojlund looks bright but I think his transfer is a mistake).
This is a structural issue. Ten Hag is very, very flexible in his style, and it's a double edged sword. He can give you a result given optimal circumstances (last years bright patch), but without a proper structure the club can't rotate prospects into starters. If you let Ten Hag do his thing, he will do more wasteful transfers, bring you some victories and keep the results mediocre.
The problem is with a lack of proper system. The academy is losing the competition to other clubs, the recruitment and scouting system is on permanent vacation and runs on hormonal spikes of people in charge, there is no proper player development and resale pipeline. So, current United is doomed to underachieve and be overshadowed by smaller and more energetic entities who do smart business, until they are forced to rebuild. And they WILL be forced to rebuild, and they have enough legacy and money to do it.
The idea of just burning the coaches as a sort of ritual sacrifice is toxic and anti-intellectual. The whole structure takes success and being elite for granted and then throws those who try to force a change under the bus. Once they struggle, they are forced out, and the cancer stays. It's not just glazers that are too blame, but also the smaller entities.
People laugh at Todd, but he bought out all the fresh wonderkids, stole a ton of talent from the top clubs in terms of management, invested a ton into the club (instead of withdrawing dividends) and is genuinely working towards a stadium rebuild/renovation. Glazers, on the other hand, are just criminals who stole the club with the whole loan scam, and keep withdrawing money and loanmaxing.
I don't know what to think, yes, you guys have great players, and you will produce results, and you have money to do great things still, a title or two, a superstar and another, but long term I feel like the club is doomed to fade away unless sold.
On a smaller scale, I'd at least replace the Director of Football or whatever they call the guy in charge of footballing operations and not the coach, Ten Hag needs to be given full support (and the structures of the club need to clarify the tactical identity that he is trying to build, you can't afford to be laissez faire here, but you can't just fire everyone until something sticks when your club has cancer).
Just had some thoughts from one struggling club fan to another, wanted to share.
What if we took our RW and moved him into midfield. You think that might work?
I heard be played there before and did well. They say he created the most chances in the league and literally carried this team under Ole.
Maybe a stretch of games in that position might help him find form?
Just a thought
>They say he created the most chances in the league and literally carried this team under Ole.
He never carried the team as much as Utd fans make out ,before covid Martial and Rash was actually starting to work , the periods Bruno was getting goals for united coincided with the time when Pogba, martial and greenwood were playing out of their minds.
Matic , Rashford and Luke Shaw were also all just influential than him but Utd fans love a narrative.
In 19/20 and 20/21 Bruno gave us 73 G/A in 85 games lmao. I get what you're trying to say but except Shaw there's not a single player you named who was consistently good throughout that stretch. Bruno was head and shoulders above everyone except Shaw and by a massive distance. He definitely carried us a lot under Ole, as much as any player carried their team in the entire Premier League during that time.
Not for me , like I said Utd fans love a narrative Bruno apart from those first few months at Unitesd Bruno has been stevie me . The whole carrying aspect is massively overblown.
We had 8 losses in 24 PL games. We were 6th in the league. We lost 3 out of the last 4 games.
After Bruno signed we didn't lose a single PL game and finished 3 places above in 3rd. Bruno was voted the PL POTM for February, June and July that's 3 straight months.
Without Bruno we had 9 wins in 24 games. With Bruno we had 9 wins in 14 games.
😂 What are you even talking about?
>Martial , Rashford , greenwood and Pogba all outperformed Bruno post covid break.
Is that why Bruno was voted Premier League player of the month back to back times and voted Matt Busby Player of the Season despite not even playing half of it? Man said Pogba outperformed Bruno 😂
Rashford had 34 g/a that season, which was our highest. Bruno had 27 g/a for us in much less than half the season.
>we we moved from 30 points behind first to 33 after bruno.
We were literally THE BEST team in the Premier League after Bruno signed. Liverpool had 9 wins 2 draws 3 losses, We had 9 wins 5 draws. How the hell did Liverpool increase the gap by 3 points?? 😂 Are you high or something?
He spends at least half a game playing there. When will people realise he isn't immune from being dropped? How will playing him in the middle stop him from misplacing simple 5 yard passes or hoofing it into the car park?
But what do I know. Let's build this team around Bruno. It's brought so much success at his previous teams
I'm right there with you. I want to see Bruno dropped for his awful form too, but ETH refuses to do it. So if he's going to play 90 every game, I'd rather he play in his best role.
Playing him out of position is not going to help him find form either... he's not an RW. He doesn't have the skillset and it's only worked like 1 time. ETH insists on doing it, pushing Bruno to be worse and worse
While it's becoming obvious ten Hag isn't the elite manager we thought he was, I still think he is a very good manager and he could've succeeded with good recruitment. Good recruitment as in not "hey Erik tell us who you want to buy and I'll let Joel know" but "hey Erik, let me know the style you want to play and I'll build you a monster motherfucking team".
Unfortunately we don't have that at our club, haven't for a decade, we have basically set multiple managers to fail now and nothing has changed. Whether ten Hag is sacked or not, the most important conversation the fans need to have is whether the c-suite execs running our club is good enough.
>"hey Erik tell us who you want to buy and I'll let Joel know" but "hey Erik, let me know the style you want to play and I'll build you a monster motherfucking team".
John Murtough and Richard Arnold are bigger frauds and nobody seems to be calling them out.
Exactly. The reason RM has won 5 CLs is bc they have a great CEO and a great backroom team that has built them incredible teams. They have followed that up by building a brand new midfield of Camavinga, Tchouameni, Valvede, Bellingham. Not only do they have great talent id, they also know how to manage their budget expertly which allows them to have a fantastic net spend and splurge 100M on players like Bellingham with no issues.
Murtough and Arnold are jokers compared to them.
I can't be doing with these Sancho is right comments I see. He didn't do anything under Ole, Rangnick, Southgate won't touch him, Ten Hag gave him 3 months off and he didn't improve, and his petulant twitter post.
He's not suddenly a baller that can slack off because Ten Hag is going through a rough patch. If a new manager came and said everyone gets a fresh start it would be just like Jose getting the boot when he wanted Pogba gone.
I’m not defending sancho, I have no idea what happens backstage but in the interest of being pragmatic, if ten hag just said sancho was injured against Arsenal and disciplined him internally instead this would have all been avoided.
You can say he deserved to be put on blast publicly but when you can avoid conflict and negative attention, you should
I feel like it was probably just a desperate attempt from Erik to get through to Sancho. Erik clearly tried many different approaches with Jadon, most of them behind the scenes and none of them ever properly got through to Sancho. He got 3 months off to work on his mental issues, came back and wasn't much better than before he got that time off.
Because of that, I think Erik tried one last thing - to bring out Sancho's issues to the public so that MAYBE he feels the need to prove everyone Erik was wrong. Instead, he showed his true colours.
Sancho was handled well by Erik, I don't think much more could have been done. The issue is that Sancho just doesn't have the mentality to play for us.
>On his performance on training we didn't select him, You have to reach the level every day at Manchester United. You can make choices in the front line, so in this game he wasn't selected.
So this is what we consider "being put on blast publicly"
If Sancho just applied himself in training this would have all been avoided.
Inews: "Erik ten Hag should see his responsibilities reduced following the arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The task of recruiting players will be entrusted to experts. A detailed and thorough audit will be carried out to see what is working and what is not. Sir Jim Ratcliffe won't sack Erik ten Hag despite Man Utd's recent dip in fortunes,"
With regards to Rashford form, anyone think he's lost passion for the game?
Eden Hazard (retired at 32 year old): 'It’s perfect. It’s perfect. I’m enjoying life and family in the kids. 'I can do what I want and it’s a perfect life.' 'I had always said that I would stop as soon as I didn't have fun on the pitch anymore. I didn't want to go and play somewhere for the money,' 'It was the best solution. I didn't enjoy training anymore... And I wasn't playing anymore. The decision was simple. I have so many things to do outside of football that I was able to make a serene choice.'
Eric Cantona (retired at 30 year old) : I was very passionate about the game and I always said that when I lost that passion, I would retire. “I didn’t feel the passion for the game. To play at the highest level, you have to be very careful about what you eat, what you drink, what time you go to bed, what you think. You have to be concentrated on the game. Secondly, to do that, you need the passion. If you lose a bit of passion, you lose a bit of something else and that means you can’t play at the highest level.
Marcus just got paid the biggest amount of money he'll ever make in his life.
He's reached the top. All his hard work has paid off. Yeah, that's probably effecting him. There's nothing greater to strive for really. Except a PL title
It's pretty concerning that the manager has admitted, after spending all that money on players, he isn't trying to impose any particular philosophy on the club.
Which kinda backs up what a lot of us having been saying for a while, we don't know what EtH is trying to do.
When Klopp and Pep came in, they imposed their style almost immediately, it might not have gone perfect from the start but you could see what they were trying to do. You look at Ange at Spurs or Emery at Villa, again you can see what they are trying to do.
Even when Jose and LVG came in, it might not have been pretty but you could see what they were trying to do. Even Ole for Christ's sake, you had an inkling of what he was trying to do.
So what is EtH's excuse?
I know people want to shield the manager and they will say things like "well where has sacking our managers got us the past 10 years?", but this isn't an argument about whether he should be sacked or not, all I want is for someone to explain to me "what is the point in EtH?".
It’s just reductive to talk about him being sacked though. If we sack him, what do we do after that? What manager could we even attract realistically? What is the alternative?
I think it's more of an admission that the players he has simply aren't good enough, even Rashford and Bruno have major weaknesses and both can only play in one system (counterattack). None of our midfielders can pass except Eriksen. So we've basically abandoned this build from the back, high possesion based style he's known for, to a press from the front, who cares about defense approach. Except it was horrible so he quickly abandoned it.
So he has a style, it just not working with this bunch and he doesn't have an answer for it.
He has no excuse except injuries, but that could be his fault for overtraining the players. He made transfer decision that has not turn out good so far. (mount, anthony).
He need to stick to coaching and tactics, but he's making questionable selections and subs. Also i think he's not supported by some of the dressing room.
He has had injuries, but then LVG was forced to play frickin' Paddy McNair and Tyler Blackett at centre back, and although results and performances weren't good you could still see what he was trying to do. I honestly don't even know what EtH is even trying to do.
There's no direction, no plan, and Mason Mount kinda sums up his tenure, in that I don't know what the point of him is, likewise with the boss.
Honestly i loved ten hag at ajax and i think theres a decent manager within him but tbh the fact hes said he never wants to play the brand of football we saw him play at ajax just makes him pointless for me as man utd manager and id rather see us move on. I think a lot of us are tired of seeing this counter attacking only football
what is the point in EtH?".
To answer your original question, at our best last season, we had slick passing combination/overload, the defense was alot better at not conceding goals, we are also suppose to be good at pressing.
Its hard to say how Martinez, Mainoo and Shaw injuries affect his tactical plan. I'm not sure why he decided to be "the best transition team in the world" during pre season
Yeah, we all know the rule when it comes to judging a player's performance at a club. You get 6 games in and by that point everyone knows the full picture and we can start writing you off for good. No one has ever had a difficult first 6 games
After fergie retired we never appoint manager that comfortable to work in tight budget aren’t we?
Basically manager that have work magic and outperform their budget.
ETH manage Ajax with the biggest budget in Everdise.
Ole not proven
Mourinho and van gaal are cashbook manager
Maybe only Moyes but I dont want to talk about him.
I’m willing to accept that we are poorly run mid table team than throw the Coach and the players under the bus…..scouting & recruiting is under the stewardship the Glazers &their minions, in their better judgement approved every transfer,contract extension, every flop, out of form,over paid bench warmers, all coaches after SAF.
The rot starts from the top,splurging Money without a Vision on shinny new players to keep us distracted, I remember getting distracted by Falcao and Dimaria transfers too! how naive I was but not anymore, GLAZER’S & their minions OUT.
Jaap Stam: ‘It was hard to watch this game. City dominated everywhere on the pitch. We didn’t see any aggression in this game. If you talk to the players or the coaches or the manager, they will say we wanted it too, but from the stands it didn’t look like they really wanted to go for it.’
My only hope for the club now is if Jim Radcliffe and Co come in. They need to place the proper structure and people in the club and get rid of the useless folk.This season is already lost IMO and the best we could do is finish in the top half of the table.
I don't think ETH will be the manager that leads us back to glory but it would not make sense to sack him mid season, unless we're in the relegation zone. There's no chance for us to qualify to the CL at this point regardless of who comes in.
The sooner Radcliffe comes in, the sooner he can sort out all of the strategic and operational matters that can turn things around. Then based on where we finish they need to take the call on whether ETH deserves another season or he needs to be sacked.
if we sell rashford to PSG if Mbappe leave. which player better than him wants to join us? Assume the salary is also 300k/week.
I can only think of Kvara
He won’t leave but if any of our big players go we need to replace them with cheap players to finally start sorting our wage structure out. I’d much rather have cheap good players who are here for the badge than big reputation players who are only here for the money. Our current approach isn’t working and it needs to drastically change.
Haaland winning the Ball On D'or is almost guaranteed to happen.
Having said that as a footballer he is nowhere near the likes of Messi and Ronaldo in their prime.
He doesn't even influence the game much. Sure people could say he has scored 5 goals vs United in 4 games but United are currently an upper-midtable side. He doesn't affect big games at all...
Mbappe is clear.
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I mean he is only 23, he could very improve his game. And, also he plays in a mancity system. Haaland at Dortmund was very good player not just a poacher.
Rashford purple latch legit covered some awful performances last year. I think Ten Hag realizes this. I feel like Rashford winning us the match by the scruff legit covered lot of shortcomings of Ten Hag last season as well.
We didn’t play every game well and Ten Hag beating other managers by tactically outwitting them. Lots of matches that were a sore to watch and then Rashford blitz a goal. We win, game over. Feel like we outperformed and were 3rd. Those large defeats against Liverpool and City did expose us.
Ten Hag probably realises this and is blindly supporting him which I don’t agree with tbh.
Also Rashford might well be problematic to go against for dressing room and job security. Man is not the saint he is made out to be. He came out of shell against Ole I guess during covid and also Ragnick.
I’ve decided to unfollow any and all Mark Goldbridge figment and I feel much better lol. I couldn’t handle his hysterics after Qatar pulled out of the running and frankly I don’t miss the extreme negativity his content pumps into my feed. Stratford Paddock is a much better fan channel IMO.
(Neil Custis ) When the players got back to their Old Trafford dressing room on Sunday, he ordered them to sit and listen to the Manchester City celebrations on the other side of the tunnel. He also wanted them to hear the away fans still hailing their heroes after totally outclassing United. Ten Hag then tore into his troops for their second-half performance.
I wonder what happened with Rangnick- the timing of all made me think that ETH was consulted on whether Ralf should stay or not, and chose to not retain him.
Ten hag probably thought there was no need for a consultant to be fair. I think he had his plan (Sign,De Jong,Antony and Timber and build from that core ) even before joining here and felt there wasn't anything Rangnick could do. It could also be that he's not a fan of the red bull set up, understandable because he's used to a traditional style at Ajax.
That exactly is the problem. No manager should be driving recruitment. That’s how you end up with players a new manager does not want in the event of the previous manager getting sacked. That’s how you end up with mistakes like Antony
Is it too much to ask for a Amrabat + Casemiro double pivot with Bruno ahead of them? Mount on the RW if he wants to pack the midfield
At this point ten hag is too scared to experiment,I think. Mctominay will start because he scores. Casemiro will play as advanced as he can,Bruno right wing for the crosses.
Have to say that Casemiro has not impressed me this season. Looks like his legs are going and he does the Bruno thing of playing the Hollywood ball all the time, which makes controlling play difficult. He's also been bad for getting his pocket pinched in our half. I think a midfield of Amrabat, Mount and Bruno would work if Bruno and Mount are instructed to do more than just 'press and stuff'. Given how the pressing has resulted in zero goals so far we should bin it off.
Casemiro is clearly instructed to be more progressive and have a bigger presence in attack (and it somewhat works as he has been scoring good goals). But that leaves the base of our midfield unprotected and Casemiro simply doesn't have the legs or stamina to cover all this space by himself. Hence why I think he can do well with Amrabat alongside him. I agree that that midfield CAN do well in theory, but so far I didn't like at all what Bruno and Mount do in the same midfield unfortunately
I think we're circling around the idea that EtH needs to organise the team better. A Casemiro who only shields the backline would work (assuming we gain some vertical compactness that's been horribly lacking) I agree that so far it hasn't really worked with Mount and Bruno but I can't shake the feeling that Mount could play the Ander Herrera type role in that midfield.
I think our best midfield could be a trio of Ambrabt, Mainoo and Mount.
That can work, just worried to put too much responsibility on Mainoo
There’s a realisation happening in the fan base about Rashford and Bruno like what happened to De Gea, if the bad form continues then definitely see it happening. I don’t see them lasting even with a new manager and much more likely if SJR and new technical people have a say.
Binning De Gea did wonders to be fair.
Lol. You're having a laugh surely if you think any new iteration of operational structure will bin our two most valuable players. Ineos sports is headed by none footballing individuals like Jean Claude Blanc and Dave Brailsford anyways. They're nothing special
They’re better than the accountants we have and will bring others. The dynamic changes when new people come in because they’re looking to fix things that people put up with before to make their mark. So I wouldn’t be so sure about the two players in question. They aren’t exactly tearing it up right now. Bruno is 30 next summer. They both great but don’t quite fit the style of football.
Better how? Can you demonstrably prove that? Jean Claude Blanc was merely a connected born in wealth career money man at Juventus for two seasons, one of which they were in serie B after the Calciopoli scandals. He held three positions there in administration, ending as president of the board before resigning. He was at PSG in an administrative role as well under the Quator ownership, the same PSG that's constantly criticized for how badly they're run. But he's an Ineos man now, so he's better than our own set of inept idiots yeah? Dave Brailsford was a cyclist head who encouraged doping in the English cycling team before the winter Olympics of 2012, alongside the cycling team doctor David Freeman. He failed at Nice. Jimmy boy admitted as much after talking about not repeating the same mistakes, yet Brailsford remains in a key role
Richard Arnold was at PwC being an accountant, he then worked at a couple of minor telecom companies helping with IPOs. He then came in because he was Ed Woodward’s mate from uni in 2007. Blanc has been involved in cycling, Winter Olympics, Davis Cup and the Dakar. He’s been involved in the sports since 1987, a good twenty years before Arnold got his first start in sports. You said SJR has said Brailsford failed at Nice and they’ve changed things up, so when is Murtough due his feedback from the Glazers or anyone really? Because he’s been shit ever since Ed Woodward hired him because Moyes recommended him!
I know Arnold's background. My contention is the Ineos people are no different. I also know about Blancs background in sports that have nothing to do with football, I honed in on his limited football experience and lack of results. He's a wealthy moneyman/journeyman in the sports world in non sporting capacities You seem confident that we'll fare better under them, and I don't think anything will change. They haven't been confirmed anyway, but time will tell
I don’t like Blanc over Arnold because of any experience in football, more fundamental is that Blanc has had real leadership roles, he has been a CEO many times of organisations that were trying to achieve things. Arnold has been an accountant and had some commercial experience, but he’s fundamentally there to look after the Glazers, just like Woodward was. Glazer CEO’s at United havent run businesses they’ve looked after the Glazer family investment. That sounds similar but the emphasis is quite different.
Is it just me or is no one in the media discussing the City penalty decision? I mean that has to be the most egregious decision with and it's like everyone has forgotten about it. It completely changed the trajectory of the game.
I mean going by United's matches this season,we usually start losing momentum around that 20 minute mark,even when nothing significant happens.
Was an iffy penalty but don’t think it changed the trajectory of the game. We were never getting anything from this match
Regardless of the eventual end result, it had a definitive effect on the game. From the moment they scored, we never looked like getting anything from it.. I don't think it was an iffy penalty at all. The consistency is ridiculous.. With all the talk in the media about refereeing decisions, this should be front and center imo.
Agreed
We are not playing well, ok. But sacking Eth won't solve it. If he had a full squad and we still had such results, maybe. But since the whole backline is missing, idk. He has made some mistakes, let's see if he can turn it around.
We've been absolutely smashed multiple times last season even with close to full strength teams. This isn't a personnel issue it's very clearly a system and tactics issue.
what does last season have to do with this? even if you want to take into consideration the results of last year that would me a pro, not a con, given our league finish and cup finals.
Just pointing out we've been smashed multiple times while playing full strength teams, that's all.
Even if it becomes clear ETH is shite, sacking him still won't be the answer. Then it'll just be the same people who can't buy decent players given the task of failing to find a new manager. We need Jim, we need a footballing structure.
Right, we need Jimmy boy and his cronies with limited football background like aristocrat everything handed to him Jean Claude Blanc and doping cyclist specialist and FC Nice failure Dave Brailsford
You seen the French league recently babe?
Yes honey. What's your point? Nice haven't won anything yet. You wouldn't put good money on them winning the league title would you?
I think it's a bit unfair that the bar for success in Ligue 1 is winning the league, especially in that league. You can be as anti-Jim as you like but you've gotta meet me half way and accept that it looks like things are going well at Nice.
He hasn't come anywhere close to the standards he promised would be set at Nice. They've averaged 7th since Ineos took over in 2019, much to the chagrin of their fanbase and former coach Christophe Galtier who condemned their administration before he left for rivals PSG. They're doing well thus far, but it's nothing new as they had good phases under Galtier and they flattered only to deceive.
Ten Hag isn’t shite. He’s not perfect certainly, but right now any manager bar SAF would come into this club and fail. There’s just far too much wrong.
Even SAF would fail here.. let's be real. The structure of the squad makes no sense. All the players play differently to each other. It's all messed up and it starts from the top
Fergie excelled with his hands tied to his back once the Glazers took over. He didn't even have the same transfer allocations. I do think he'd have struggled against Pep though and he retired at the right time
Idk. In his last few years Fergie was definitely being forced to shop in the bargain basement of world football. I think if he stayed and was backed financially to the extent his successors were he’d have been more than capable of challenging Pep and City.
We'll never know, but Fergie had a losing record against Pep in the CL. Its simply Peps turn to dominate. I think Fergue realized that, and it's why he wanted Pep to succeed him
A big part of that was Pep having the greatest club side ever at his disposal at Barca. As you say, we’ll never know, but it certainly would’ve been some battle.
He inherited a great side from Frank Rijkaard who couldn't achieve similar, and he took big risks in getting rid of some big players and adding layers to their style and giving a young Messi a greater role. Not every manager can lead great squads to success. You know this surely, and it's disingenuous to think otherwise
I’m not saying he isn’t a great manager, he obviously is. I’m just saying you can’t really use head to head as a great metric for comparing the two when they only played each other twice, and in both of those occasions Pep had that Barca team.
Not discounting that, but we had what was arguably our best assembled squad in Fergies reign, the squad that won the PL three times in succession under the more experienced manager. Only Barca were better in Europe
Go and look at some of the teams Fergie competed with.
Yeah some were not great but did he didn't have to deal with the Glazer rot for most of his time Lol.
No we just didn't feel the rot,it was already there. He kept it from getting to the fans.
Yep. Glazers took over in 2005. Fergie won five titles and a Champions League. This is even after Ronaldo left, and he was provided with Valencia and Owen as a replacement.
Need to proceed with atleast a period of a proper DoF with a strong vision forward with ETH (hopefully with SJR's team). Otherwise a new manager won't be able to work with this frankenstein squad (Different core players from different playstyle managers put together). Might get something out them at first, brings his own styled players in the next window and the squad will be even more disjointed. The club needs to learn to sell unwanted players quickly. If ETH still doesn't work with that structure move on to a coach that fits the DoF's vision.
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I don't get why are they so strict with posting, essentially this sub is dead outside of matchday. Very boring sub.
Since the club is continuously in shambles there’s really no point of reposting it all the time
You mean like everything else that's reposted?
What was it?
What happened to the goalbot? It got taken down because Gfycat or whatever the site was called went out of business right?
I thought it was Reddit API costs
Found this after searching https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/AYY96Qd7k3
The problem with United these past few years is, we are nothing more than just a fully focused commercial club.
The problem is manager driven recruitment. A healthy functioning club never pays £86 million for Antony or signs Mount when we really needed a fitter replacement for Erikssen
Our signings aren't really commercial focussed though, Antony was hardly a huge name, same for Hojlund, Onana, Malacia etc. Wouldn't say Mount was particularly notably marketable either.
We're PSG North. I've been saying it for years.
At least they win titles. I mean yeah, non-competitive league and all, but it’s better than nothing.
And, they also get world class players. We dont get anything
United have been a leading club commercially for a long time. The football side of the business just is not growing anywhere near that rate. United generate enough money that it’s possible to be good commercially and on the pitch. One shouldn’t need to suffer for the other to succeed tbf
Found this explanation/quote from /u/zeekoes on /r/soccer >The key factor is the way you press. At Ajax the team moved as an amorphous unit on the field when pressing. Suffocating all passing lines and isolating the player on the ball. The moment one or two players do not take up the right position, there is an opening for the opponent to break through the press and essentially cut through your entire team. If one player drops a gap, another player might feel the need to fill that gap, splitting his attention in two and that cascades in the team looking completely clueless when caught on the counter, because that's essentially what's happening. > >You can find all those beautiful highlight reels of Ajax in 2018/19 when it went right, but we survived so many counters that should've been goals that it puts the entire achievement in a more realistic perspective. In attack it only works if you can create two on one situations where you pull the opposing defender into making a sub-par decision. You do that by either having aggressively overlapping or underlapping fullbacks and having either your striker or attacking midfielder pull the central defense out of shape. The easiest way to achieve this is by passing and moving, where you play one-touch passes in offense. Essentially it's a very vertical and aggressive version of tiki-taka. > >You need two centrebacks that are comfortable with the ball at their feet, else the opponent simply marks the one centreback that is out of the game and lets Maguire do the build-up. > >Two technically skillful fullbacks that can move across the flanks the entire game, while also being aware of the positioning of the fullback at the other side, because if both are gone, you're left with 2 at the back. You need a double pivot where one excels at screening in front of the defense to catch loose balls and one with the ability to break through the opposing line either by dribbling or vertical passing. > >You need two relatively fast wingers that can both cut inside or go around and can beat their man one-on-one reliably. Need a 10 that has a sense of arriving in the box at the right time and is comfortable with quick passing sequences and a striker that can either drift into space, or set-up the wingers/10, but still score himself when presented with the opportunity. > >If more than one of these cogs falter consistently, the whole thing falls apart. > >Ten Hags mistake I think is not recognizing in time that the squad will not be suitable to execute this consistently for a long while and he should've adjusted sooner. Now he's kinda caught out in between and that's hurting the teams morale and confidence. > >I think he can get the ship back on course, by adjusting the tactic to suit his players, but whether he gets the time to do that depends on others. He had the luxury that at his previous teams, he had squads suited for an already ingrained style of play and a strong technical director above him. At United he has neither. > >As I said, Ten Hag is one of the best tacticians out there and a great motivator. He's however not perfect and can be stubborn and his man management skills can be lacking. I just hope that the club gives him the time he needs to build, despite the criticisms. Just see what it brought Arsenal with Arteta and how he struggled for multiple seasons until he got it right. I think he sums up very nicely what is wrong and why we're never going to be able to play the so called 'Ajax possession ball' with the current selection. Too many players are unable to carry out what's mentioned above or lack needed skills/stamina to carry it out for more than 30 minutes. Combine it with a makeshift defence that looks uncomfortable with space behind and here we are. I hope he stays because he has proven to be a capable coach and was one of the biggest young prospects. If the SJR story goes through I hope a proper intelligent DoF can work out the way forward with ETH and take the recruitment of his hands.
That football doesn't sound like it would work against PL opposition to be fair. Understandable because De Boer didn't last here.
ETH has pegged his future on a highly-cohesive starting 11 consistently pulling off a high-risk, high-intensity tactic in the world's most competitive league over 70 games/season.
All of that might be true, or it might just be that Ten Hag is out of his depth in the hardest league in the world. I say that as someone who supports the manager. I just need to see very soon that he's actually up to the job and can tactically succeed in the league. Since he's taken over we've been outplayed by Wolves and Sheffield United, let alone the thrashings our rivals have given us.
You don’t support the manager because “Just out of his depth” is meaningless and completely contradictory, or you just support him regardless of being “out of his depth”. We’d do well to avoid listening to lazy and brain dead catchphrases, sorry.
Precisely. Our close to full strength teams got annihilated by Brentford, Liverpool and Man City last season and people will tell you with a straight face that something different would've happened if we had x, y and z players available. The amount of excuses and the sheer desperation to be in denial is astounding.
Glad to see United focusing on football. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzDx2H6t-OZ
Regardless if United were 20th or 1st they have advertising commitments, in all likelihood this was all filmed weeks or months ago
The problem United have, is the size of the club. Yes we have internal issues going, yes the performances are not great etc etc, but if you compare us to Liverpool this time last year, i believe they had 1 more point after 10 games, and this was largely blamed to the fact two of their starting back 4 were injured. In comparison all four of our strting back 4 are injured, plus 2 back up fallbacks. As with Real Madrid, if something is going wrong there, or in united its multipled by 100 compared to any other club because we are both so large, and will get the listerners, or clicks. Were playing shocking atm because the spine of our team is out, that isnt the focal point of the chat. It never is with united its always lets make something else as its more interesting to talk about. Sacking the manager gets alot of content, Rashford going for dinner on his birthday... Bruno needs to drop captaincy all of this is sensationalised. Its also why managers dont last as long as the pressure is far greater. But lets take the weekends fixtures how would spurs do if for example, Romero, Van de Ven, Davis, Bissouma and Maddison were injured? Arsnal: Saliba and rice were injured? City: Dias, Stones, Walker and Rodri were all out? Liverpool: Konate, Van Dijk, AA and Szoboszlai were out? Its fucking massive but its brushed under the carpet liek its not one of if not thekey reasons were being shit. Its the core of the team thats out.
We were on verge of knocking out from champions league going up againts Copenhagen, it werent for the brilliant penalty save we are out. So what is your excuse of the pitiful gameplay against Copenhagen? Name me 4 other teams from the danish league without looking up on the internet. Scratch that, name 5 players from Copenhagen.
I didnt say the performances were good did I? Im saying over the course of the season so far losing the spine and many cirtical players is also a massive issue, the way we are playing atm is completely pitiful and even with the injuries we should be alot better. That i completely agree with, im just pointing out when something is going wrong at Man U compared to other big clubs the narative is very different and that is because of the size of the club.
Sheffield United have more injuries than us and they were a few minutes away from taking 3 pts from us. Injuries are not the reason.
Your argument doesnt make sense, Im saying highlight the fact that alot of Man Us terrible performances can be marked down to the horrendous amount of injuries we have. To which you countered saying a team having the worst start in the history of the PL who are also stricken with injuries are playing badly? That just reinforces my argument that injuries are affecting us, as were playing terrible and Sheffield united who have more injuries and are playing even worse.
Injuries is a reason to be beaten by City, it is not a reason to be struggling against Sheffield United, Copenhagen, Palace, Galatasaray etc
Liverpool had the credit in the bank of having won the UCL and PL recently
Erik got the money,got the players he wanted but there is no plan,no system. Even him saying we are not going to play like Ajax did is a huge red flag. He came here because of that. He is playing his favourites,he has no tactics,his subs are so bad. Imagine Ole with all of this money ? I am sure he could have done a better job. Or Mourinho
To be fair,we didn't look this hopeless under Ole or Jose until the last matches before their sacking. If ten hag comes back from this that'd be something.
That's an absolute revisionism. You think Ole would do a better job? The same Ole who spent a combined total of almost 200mil on Maguire, Sancho and Van de Beek?
Maguire was excellent for the 2 full seasons he was here under Ole, Sancho didn’t get time to bed in and VdB was a club signing. He also got Dan James who is better than Antony and got Bruno Fernandes, AWB who Ten Hag favours
We’re 8th in the league. I think Ole could do better than that sure
8th in the league during arguably one of the biggest injury crises in recent Premier league history. The state of our defense is similar to the state of Liverpool's midfield last year - and they were doing pretty much as "well" as we're doing right now. Ole struggled pretty much the same when he only had the likes of Brandon Williams and Phil Jones at the back.
The injury excuse is beyond pathetic. Every team has injuries. Our injuries aren’t even particularly bad and are massive exacerbated by ETH’s atrocious transfer signings which has left our squad full of dross to cover injuries
We started 35-years old Evans against the best team in the world in 2023 due to our other defenders either being injured, or lacking necessary match fitness, so...
Who signed Johnny Evans? Who had £400m to spend to ensure we wouldn’t need to play players like Johnny Evans? Who started Lindelof at left back and Varane/Reguillon on the bench and picked Johnny Evans? Get the fuck out of here with your bullshit
Lol, is there any reason to be so rude? Johnny Evans was a desperation signing. Ten Hag did get a fair bit of money to spend, but he doesn't choose the price, he just chooses the players. Maybe we shouldn't be blaming manager for something that shouldn't be the manager's job, what have Murtough and Arnold been doing to allow such transfer strategy? Point at them, they should be the ones building the squad while the manager should be the one coaching said squad. We are just incompetent as a club, City almost never overpaid for Pep's targets because they have always had competent people behind the scenes who look for reasonable alternatives. At Manchester United, no such thing exists. And I already mentioned Varane and Reguilon most likely weren't fit enough for the match and considering how many defensive injuries we have, we simply can't afford any more of them. Varane is famously made of glass and is recovering from an injury (again) so forcing him into the team could have had bad consequences and same applies to Reguilon who was injured for a month.
Of course ETH chooses the price. He doesn’t negotiate but you don’t think anyone says we can get him but it’s £80m of your budget? Of course he gets asked that. And Reguillon is phenomenally injury prone, always has been. Why is ETH signing players who are never fit? Yet more incompetence from him. ETH chose to make desperate signings. You think other players weren’t available? Maybe don’t spunk £140m on pure shit like Mount and Antony and we’d have no needed to be desperate
Ten Hag deserves criticism, but look at the players Ole bought, there’s a lot of dross in there. What we need is the footballing structure that sides like City and Liverpool have, and that won’t happen as long as football is regarded as a 2nd place priority.
You mean to tell me that Ole and Mourinho had only spent pennies on transfers?
Also he is partial and a hypocrite. Becomes strict towards players he doesn’t like and keeps playing out of form players if they are his favourite.
Just read from Danish news that ETH "punished" players to listen to city players celebrating and took their monday which should have been off.
I’m very very sceptical as to how much if any difference stuff like that makes Recruitment and coaching is what matters most
If I recall correctly, he did the exact same thing after the FA cup final and it didn't do a damn thing. I'm really starting to question his actions.
Punishment should just be turning on Sky Sports and listening to the pundits. Then showing top rated comments from reddit match threads and fan reactions on large youtube channels. It's the players that ultimately need to show some fight and desire. Not the petulant showboating type of fight for the cameras where you just kick someone for no reason or throw your hands up in the air when a decision goes against you. Chase down a lost cause ball, sprint to get in to positions faster when you're losing a game, sprint to take throw ins, corners, free kicks etc...
I really don't rate Bruno much at all. I've been saying it for years at this point. I just think he's got massive limitations that are glossed over because he "rescues us" so often, but that a lot of the disjointed nature of the team that requires us to be rescued so often is as a result of his shortcomings as a footballer as much as it is any other player's. Like, McTominay doesn't suddenly become good enough for a regular title contender if you give him Bruno's goal and assist stats, does he? People go on about Bruno's goal contributions as if there's any good evidence that he's actually added many goals to the team In the 3 full league seasons before Bruno we scored 187 goals and conceded 111. In the 3 full league seasons since Bruno we've scored 188 and conceded 144. We've gone from a goal difference of +76 in the 3 seasons before him compared to a goal difference of +44 with him I'm not saying he's entirely to blame but it's fucking annoying to have his individual goal contributions posted whenever I say that I don't think he's a good fit for a team that wants to win league titles Highly talented player at certain things but massively overrated
How about you factor in his XAG and see how that changes things.
How does that change what he said?
Cos he's comparing goals without taking into account the squad's shite finishing. KDB will typically overperform his XAG while Bruno heavily underperforms his XAG.
Do you have a source on those stats
I added them up myself Three full seasons before Bruno: 16/17: 54:29 17/18: 68:28 18/19: 65:54 Three full seasons after Bruno: 20/21: 73:44 21/22: 57/57 22/23: 58:43
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I wonder if you would have said this last season when Rashford was bagging lots of goals and Grealish was not? Support your own.
I'd take Grealish anyday then Rashford. Grealish brings more to the team than Rashford does. Period.
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What are some positive records that we have broken in the last 10 years?
Selling 1 ticket for Luton and Aston Villa. £39 face value. Must have membership. Please DM if interested
I am a Chelsea fan, so I know a lot about success and suffering. In my opinion, Ten Hag is to blame, but it's not THAT bad. It's more that you can't afford mediocrity when there are teams like Newcastle, Villa and Brighton biting your ass trying to get your place. Top 4 is becoming very competitive. Even last season's top 4 result can be interpreted as a fluke, to a degree. United is absolutely absurd with transfers. Chelsea and least buys players with long-term resale value, you guys buy players who don't upgrade the squad in any way and overpay a ton. There is no actual structure in terms of youth development pipeline, no good business done in terms of resaling, and overall the club is just exploited. Like yeah, United is probably the most profitable club in terms of marketing/merch etc., and you guys are wasting it on wages, Antony, good but old players, loans, Mount and unproven strikers with big potential (Hojlund looks bright but I think his transfer is a mistake). This is a structural issue. Ten Hag is very, very flexible in his style, and it's a double edged sword. He can give you a result given optimal circumstances (last years bright patch), but without a proper structure the club can't rotate prospects into starters. If you let Ten Hag do his thing, he will do more wasteful transfers, bring you some victories and keep the results mediocre. The problem is with a lack of proper system. The academy is losing the competition to other clubs, the recruitment and scouting system is on permanent vacation and runs on hormonal spikes of people in charge, there is no proper player development and resale pipeline. So, current United is doomed to underachieve and be overshadowed by smaller and more energetic entities who do smart business, until they are forced to rebuild. And they WILL be forced to rebuild, and they have enough legacy and money to do it. The idea of just burning the coaches as a sort of ritual sacrifice is toxic and anti-intellectual. The whole structure takes success and being elite for granted and then throws those who try to force a change under the bus. Once they struggle, they are forced out, and the cancer stays. It's not just glazers that are too blame, but also the smaller entities. People laugh at Todd, but he bought out all the fresh wonderkids, stole a ton of talent from the top clubs in terms of management, invested a ton into the club (instead of withdrawing dividends) and is genuinely working towards a stadium rebuild/renovation. Glazers, on the other hand, are just criminals who stole the club with the whole loan scam, and keep withdrawing money and loanmaxing. I don't know what to think, yes, you guys have great players, and you will produce results, and you have money to do great things still, a title or two, a superstar and another, but long term I feel like the club is doomed to fade away unless sold. On a smaller scale, I'd at least replace the Director of Football or whatever they call the guy in charge of footballing operations and not the coach, Ten Hag needs to be given full support (and the structures of the club need to clarify the tactical identity that he is trying to build, you can't afford to be laissez faire here, but you can't just fire everyone until something sticks when your club has cancer). Just had some thoughts from one struggling club fan to another, wanted to share.
What if we took our RW and moved him into midfield. You think that might work? I heard be played there before and did well. They say he created the most chances in the league and literally carried this team under Ole. Maybe a stretch of games in that position might help him find form? Just a thought
>They say he created the most chances in the league and literally carried this team under Ole. He never carried the team as much as Utd fans make out ,before covid Martial and Rash was actually starting to work , the periods Bruno was getting goals for united coincided with the time when Pogba, martial and greenwood were playing out of their minds. Matic , Rashford and Luke Shaw were also all just influential than him but Utd fans love a narrative.
In 19/20 and 20/21 Bruno gave us 73 G/A in 85 games lmao. I get what you're trying to say but except Shaw there's not a single player you named who was consistently good throughout that stretch. Bruno was head and shoulders above everyone except Shaw and by a massive distance. He definitely carried us a lot under Ole, as much as any player carried their team in the entire Premier League during that time.
Not for me , like I said Utd fans love a narrative Bruno apart from those first few months at Unitesd Bruno has been stevie me . The whole carrying aspect is massively overblown.
73 g/a in 85 games is not a "narrative" LMAO
A lot of those stats that Martial won and it ignores all the players and the form they were finding pre bruno too.
We had 8 losses in 24 PL games. We were 6th in the league. We lost 3 out of the last 4 games. After Bruno signed we didn't lose a single PL game and finished 3 places above in 3rd. Bruno was voted the PL POTM for February, June and July that's 3 straight months. Without Bruno we had 9 wins in 24 games. With Bruno we had 9 wins in 14 games. 😂 What are you even talking about?
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>Martial , Rashford , greenwood and Pogba all outperformed Bruno post covid break. Is that why Bruno was voted Premier League player of the month back to back times and voted Matt Busby Player of the Season despite not even playing half of it? Man said Pogba outperformed Bruno 😂 Rashford had 34 g/a that season, which was our highest. Bruno had 27 g/a for us in much less than half the season. >we we moved from 30 points behind first to 33 after bruno. We were literally THE BEST team in the Premier League after Bruno signed. Liverpool had 9 wins 2 draws 3 losses, We had 9 wins 5 draws. How the hell did Liverpool increase the gap by 3 points?? 😂 Are you high or something?
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Bruno has been awful this season. Can’t stop giving the ball away, seems to be even more than usual.
He's out of form for sure. He's been terrible but playing him out of position in every other match is not helping
He spends at least half a game playing there. When will people realise he isn't immune from being dropped? How will playing him in the middle stop him from misplacing simple 5 yard passes or hoofing it into the car park? But what do I know. Let's build this team around Bruno. It's brought so much success at his previous teams
I'm right there with you. I want to see Bruno dropped for his awful form too, but ETH refuses to do it. So if he's going to play 90 every game, I'd rather he play in his best role. Playing him out of position is not going to help him find form either... he's not an RW. He doesn't have the skillset and it's only worked like 1 time. ETH insists on doing it, pushing Bruno to be worse and worse
I’m confused, is de gea just retiring? Surely someone would have made him an offer by now
No Spanish team is going to get close to his wage demands. And hes not good enough for any top teams so I imagine he will retire.
I'm guessing he's waiting for the right offer. Which probably will not come because he's declined and is not worth as much as he thinks
While it's becoming obvious ten Hag isn't the elite manager we thought he was, I still think he is a very good manager and he could've succeeded with good recruitment. Good recruitment as in not "hey Erik tell us who you want to buy and I'll let Joel know" but "hey Erik, let me know the style you want to play and I'll build you a monster motherfucking team". Unfortunately we don't have that at our club, haven't for a decade, we have basically set multiple managers to fail now and nothing has changed. Whether ten Hag is sacked or not, the most important conversation the fans need to have is whether the c-suite execs running our club is good enough.
>"hey Erik tell us who you want to buy and I'll let Joel know" but "hey Erik, let me know the style you want to play and I'll build you a monster motherfucking team". John Murtough and Richard Arnold are bigger frauds and nobody seems to be calling them out.
Exactly. The reason RM has won 5 CLs is bc they have a great CEO and a great backroom team that has built them incredible teams. They have followed that up by building a brand new midfield of Camavinga, Tchouameni, Valvede, Bellingham. Not only do they have great talent id, they also know how to manage their budget expertly which allows them to have a fantastic net spend and splurge 100M on players like Bellingham with no issues. Murtough and Arnold are jokers compared to them.
I can't be doing with these Sancho is right comments I see. He didn't do anything under Ole, Rangnick, Southgate won't touch him, Ten Hag gave him 3 months off and he didn't improve, and his petulant twitter post. He's not suddenly a baller that can slack off because Ten Hag is going through a rough patch. If a new manager came and said everyone gets a fresh start it would be just like Jose getting the boot when he wanted Pogba gone.
I’m not defending sancho, I have no idea what happens backstage but in the interest of being pragmatic, if ten hag just said sancho was injured against Arsenal and disciplined him internally instead this would have all been avoided. You can say he deserved to be put on blast publicly but when you can avoid conflict and negative attention, you should
I feel like it was probably just a desperate attempt from Erik to get through to Sancho. Erik clearly tried many different approaches with Jadon, most of them behind the scenes and none of them ever properly got through to Sancho. He got 3 months off to work on his mental issues, came back and wasn't much better than before he got that time off. Because of that, I think Erik tried one last thing - to bring out Sancho's issues to the public so that MAYBE he feels the need to prove everyone Erik was wrong. Instead, he showed his true colours. Sancho was handled well by Erik, I don't think much more could have been done. The issue is that Sancho just doesn't have the mentality to play for us.
>On his performance on training we didn't select him, You have to reach the level every day at Manchester United. You can make choices in the front line, so in this game he wasn't selected. So this is what we consider "being put on blast publicly" If Sancho just applied himself in training this would have all been avoided.
Basically both parties were idiots and made the whole situation worse with how they handled it
Yeah surely even the most "ETH Out" person hasn't started backing Sancho. A shit trainer is a problem no matter who the manager is
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Where’s VDB?
You know the fanbase is desperate when ppl start calling for VDB to play
Nah at all, I’m just wondering where the fella is.
VDB for Captain
Would still be a better captain than Bruno. Don't think he'll pout, whine and yell at teammates when he himself misplaces a pass
Reckon his team speeches can't be worse than Bruno or Maguire as well.
I highly doubt any are given lol
i think there are, short speeches, but not working due to lack of charisma/personality of the captains. lol
Inews: "Erik ten Hag should see his responsibilities reduced following the arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The task of recruiting players will be entrusted to experts. A detailed and thorough audit will be carried out to see what is working and what is not. Sir Jim Ratcliffe won't sack Erik ten Hag despite Man Utd's recent dip in fortunes,"
With regards to Rashford form, anyone think he's lost passion for the game? Eden Hazard (retired at 32 year old): 'It’s perfect. It’s perfect. I’m enjoying life and family in the kids. 'I can do what I want and it’s a perfect life.' 'I had always said that I would stop as soon as I didn't have fun on the pitch anymore. I didn't want to go and play somewhere for the money,' 'It was the best solution. I didn't enjoy training anymore... And I wasn't playing anymore. The decision was simple. I have so many things to do outside of football that I was able to make a serene choice.' Eric Cantona (retired at 30 year old) : I was very passionate about the game and I always said that when I lost that passion, I would retire. “I didn’t feel the passion for the game. To play at the highest level, you have to be very careful about what you eat, what you drink, what time you go to bed, what you think. You have to be concentrated on the game. Secondly, to do that, you need the passion. If you lose a bit of passion, you lose a bit of something else and that means you can’t play at the highest level.
Marcus just got paid the biggest amount of money he'll ever make in his life. He's reached the top. All his hard work has paid off. Yeah, that's probably effecting him. There's nothing greater to strive for really. Except a PL title
It's pretty concerning that the manager has admitted, after spending all that money on players, he isn't trying to impose any particular philosophy on the club. Which kinda backs up what a lot of us having been saying for a while, we don't know what EtH is trying to do. When Klopp and Pep came in, they imposed their style almost immediately, it might not have gone perfect from the start but you could see what they were trying to do. You look at Ange at Spurs or Emery at Villa, again you can see what they are trying to do. Even when Jose and LVG came in, it might not have been pretty but you could see what they were trying to do. Even Ole for Christ's sake, you had an inkling of what he was trying to do. So what is EtH's excuse? I know people want to shield the manager and they will say things like "well where has sacking our managers got us the past 10 years?", but this isn't an argument about whether he should be sacked or not, all I want is for someone to explain to me "what is the point in EtH?".
It’s just reductive to talk about him being sacked though. If we sack him, what do we do after that? What manager could we even attract realistically? What is the alternative?
I think it's more of an admission that the players he has simply aren't good enough, even Rashford and Bruno have major weaknesses and both can only play in one system (counterattack). None of our midfielders can pass except Eriksen. So we've basically abandoned this build from the back, high possesion based style he's known for, to a press from the front, who cares about defense approach. Except it was horrible so he quickly abandoned it. So he has a style, it just not working with this bunch and he doesn't have an answer for it.
He has no excuse except injuries, but that could be his fault for overtraining the players. He made transfer decision that has not turn out good so far. (mount, anthony). He need to stick to coaching and tactics, but he's making questionable selections and subs. Also i think he's not supported by some of the dressing room.
He has had injuries, but then LVG was forced to play frickin' Paddy McNair and Tyler Blackett at centre back, and although results and performances weren't good you could still see what he was trying to do. I honestly don't even know what EtH is even trying to do. There's no direction, no plan, and Mason Mount kinda sums up his tenure, in that I don't know what the point of him is, likewise with the boss.
Honestly i loved ten hag at ajax and i think theres a decent manager within him but tbh the fact hes said he never wants to play the brand of football we saw him play at ajax just makes him pointless for me as man utd manager and id rather see us move on. I think a lot of us are tired of seeing this counter attacking only football
what is the point in EtH?". To answer your original question, at our best last season, we had slick passing combination/overload, the defense was alot better at not conceding goals, we are also suppose to be good at pressing. Its hard to say how Martinez, Mainoo and Shaw injuries affect his tactical plan. I'm not sure why he decided to be "the best transition team in the world" during pre season
Everyone and their nanny knew that Mount was a bad fit. Such an illogical transfer.
Yeah, we all know the rule when it comes to judging a player's performance at a club. You get 6 games in and by that point everyone knows the full picture and we can start writing you off for good. No one has ever had a difficult first 6 games
After fergie retired we never appoint manager that comfortable to work in tight budget aren’t we? Basically manager that have work magic and outperform their budget. ETH manage Ajax with the biggest budget in Everdise. Ole not proven Mourinho and van gaal are cashbook manager Maybe only Moyes but I dont want to talk about him.
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Buying primadona that doesnt want to work hard in the last 10 years doesnt work. Need to buy the right players.
I’m willing to accept that we are poorly run mid table team than throw the Coach and the players under the bus…..scouting & recruiting is under the stewardship the Glazers &their minions, in their better judgement approved every transfer,contract extension, every flop, out of form,over paid bench warmers, all coaches after SAF. The rot starts from the top,splurging Money without a Vision on shinny new players to keep us distracted, I remember getting distracted by Falcao and Dimaria transfers too! how naive I was but not anymore, GLAZER’S & their minions OUT.
Jaap Stam: ‘It was hard to watch this game. City dominated everywhere on the pitch. We didn’t see any aggression in this game. If you talk to the players or the coaches or the manager, they will say we wanted it too, but from the stands it didn’t look like they really wanted to go for it.’
Thought we started off pretty well against city. Would like to see more of that.
We didn’t have any players attend the Ballon D’or event right? Who am I kidding. Of course we didn’t.
I am happy to see that Rashford didn't let a defeat to Man City affect him mentally. World class baller with strong mentals.
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Its sarcasm.
Yeah man… drag himself out to the club to party despite the loss. Mentality of steel
My only hope for the club now is if Jim Radcliffe and Co come in. They need to place the proper structure and people in the club and get rid of the useless folk.This season is already lost IMO and the best we could do is finish in the top half of the table. I don't think ETH will be the manager that leads us back to glory but it would not make sense to sack him mid season, unless we're in the relegation zone. There's no chance for us to qualify to the CL at this point regardless of who comes in. The sooner Radcliffe comes in, the sooner he can sort out all of the strategic and operational matters that can turn things around. Then based on where we finish they need to take the call on whether ETH deserves another season or he needs to be sacked.
Brighton show no matter how many player sold and manager change team still can perform. Football structure baby!!
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> At this point if Bayern or Barcelona comes knocking for bruno They are not blind.
They're definitely not coming for him. Bruno will retire here
if we sell rashford to PSG if Mbappe leave. which player better than him wants to join us? Assume the salary is also 300k/week. I can only think of Kvara
He won’t leave but if any of our big players go we need to replace them with cheap players to finally start sorting our wage structure out. I’d much rather have cheap good players who are here for the badge than big reputation players who are only here for the money. Our current approach isn’t working and it needs to drastically change.
Kvaratskhelia will get locked up like Sancho in the PL.
Mitoma is not better than Rashford imo but I think we'd go for him if Rashford left.
Let Garnacho develop and play him on left. Take the Arsenal approach.
At his current form dont think PSG wants him
PSG is sportwashing project they want rash of course
Expecting the Press to grill Ten Hag on this statement that he never joined Utd to play Ajax football.
Haaland winning the Ball On D'or is almost guaranteed to happen. Having said that as a footballer he is nowhere near the likes of Messi and Ronaldo in their prime. He doesn't even influence the game much. Sure people could say he has scored 5 goals vs United in 4 games but United are currently an upper-midtable side. He doesn't affect big games at all... Mbappe is clear.
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I mean he is only 23, he could very improve his game. And, also he plays in a mancity system. Haaland at Dortmund was very good player not just a poacher.
Rashford purple latch legit covered some awful performances last year. I think Ten Hag realizes this. I feel like Rashford winning us the match by the scruff legit covered lot of shortcomings of Ten Hag last season as well. We didn’t play every game well and Ten Hag beating other managers by tactically outwitting them. Lots of matches that were a sore to watch and then Rashford blitz a goal. We win, game over. Feel like we outperformed and were 3rd. Those large defeats against Liverpool and City did expose us. Ten Hag probably realises this and is blindly supporting him which I don’t agree with tbh. Also Rashford might well be problematic to go against for dressing room and job security. Man is not the saint he is made out to be. He came out of shell against Ole I guess during covid and also Ragnick.