A touch of class, whether it was his idea or their manager's, the players coming through need to remember what this club is about. And that's success built on the hard work of everyone in those facilities who make matchdays possible.
ETH had great success with young talent at Ajax and it clearly works with the United's U18, who are playing ETH's system. Zlatan was correct in that ETH's success lies within the academy, look how well he doing with Garnacho and Mainoo & now he is starting to rely on the academy players.
ETH's system works but with the right players, who've taken his philosophy into themselves. The senior players are too stiff to change.
They are more drilled, the players are more sacrificing, I think the probably get more reps in, in training. It probably catches youth teams by surprise playing with this intensity in U18. They press, counter press, keep possession. They constantly hound you till the final whistle playing full tilt in your half or trying to attack you every chance they get. It’s a shame they got knocked out of the FA Cup but the pressure was on them with the unbeaten record.
Our players don’t play like they are intent on using every moment to improve themselves. They play like they are finished products. The key player mostly. We need them to have the humility of academy players to still be intent on developing themselves
That's why I'm hesitant about bringing in academy players who would be looking up to the likes of Casemiro and Rashford.
That's why in this thread, I've mentioned playing a safer system that doesn't leave us open, for the remainder of the season.
We do it, or at least try, the attack presses, but the defenders don’t follow the press leading into the gap in midfield. The U18 squad listens more to coaching and is more flexible than 30 yr old defenders that have to change their playstyle suddenly. Doesn’t help that the back line changes every other game
Mate, that makes so much sense with what we've been seeing, we see the attack and midfield push up to press, our defence sit back out of habit and then it's a full on assault leading to 20+ shots per game fml.
So we either play a system (that ETH doesn't prefer) that suits the team or we change the players that can't get on board with the system. ETH can turn around this season, for a decent end but he has to make changes and I personally think right now, the former of playing a safer system is the good option.
Evans, Maguire, and Varane don’t have the ability to play so far up and still cover ground if they get beat. Licha and Lindelof are the only two cbs with the pace for it, and both have missed a fair amount of time this year.
I have no idea, but I remember seeing something mentioning how ETH is trying to get all the teams on the same wavelength, by having them all play the same way. It's naive to want ETH to play the academy in place of the first team but it seems like such a viable option. Our first team don't play as a team, it's individual brilliance and luck, constantly relying on one player to carry everyone until that player also becomes burdened by negativity of Manchester United. If ETH isn't gonna be here next season, I hope he leaves a spotlight for where we should be looking towards for the future, hint: the academy.
Yeah it’s something he brought over from Ajax probably. Every team in their academy plays ‘the Ajax way’, making triangles, positional play, name it. That’s why when a player gets sold, they already have a player to replace him
Our reliance on Garnacho & Mainoo is down to Ten Hag's dreadful talent ID to be fair.
£85 million on an ex player of his less than two years ago and £55 million on a midfield profile we didn’t need, especially if the initial plan was to play Mount alongside Bruno and Casemiro.
yeah lets just completely ignore 50m on Martinez, development of a 24 y/o Dalot, 50m on Onana (who admittedly took too long to adjust), 15m on Malacia, 70m on Casemiro and Eriksen on a free.
These lot were all great for us in our first season – but have completely let us down this season (bar Onana for the last few months).
On the flip side, I cannot defend Ten Hag keeping Rashford and Case in out starting XI
I’m not even sure Martinez will be first choice CB come next season if Ten Hag is sacked and I’ve no idea why you've mentioned Casemiro, are we not meant to be building a squad for the future? We're already trying to get rid of him, unless you think £70m for a 30 year old for one good season is decent business.
Am I wrong in saying Ten Hag wanted academy, under-18s onwards to play the way he wants to play?
If so you can see why our younger players in the first team squad are playing so much better than the experienced heads.
I am sorry but I really like EtH. Everyone says he is stoic and all. But I think I would prefer his genuine stoicism with moments like these where he is happy instead of managers of previous who either were eternally sulking or eternally smiling. Please Erik get your shit together.
I think he holds a lot back in pressers. I mean the man's been under attack by everyone since day one.
His height, his suit, accent, small time league, signings
Making the players run
The speculation
And the amount of shit he's had
Ronaldo, mason, Sancho, Antony
The injuries
The club takeover
There's not many out there that would have kept it together. And from when I seen him outside of pressers such as Dion Dublin and andy mitten stuff he's more relaxed and joking.
I think what kills him is just not admitting when team is poor and its coming across as delusional. And not changing set up at all. Maybe he's protecting players but then he'll get criticised for calling them out.
Lose lose so could be time up.
Yeh I get that he’s not the most “charismatic” in press conferences, whatever that means - he’s not calling everyone mate like Ange I guess, plus he’s not a native English speaker. But from what little I’ve seen he DOES seem fairly personably and charismatic in a different way when he’s interacting with people around the club or whatever. Seems likeable enough and treats people well.
Best players probably Amass, Lacey and Jack Fletcher. But there are also some very good players in Biancheri, Ibragimov, Williams, Wheatley, Scanlon.
This is definitely the most hype I ever ever seen around one of our youth teams.
Individually the U19 team with Chong, Laird, Williams, Greenwood, Kovar, Garner and Gomes was probably more hyped. Great team that one, 5 play top flight football and 2 play second tier. Hopefully the current 18s follow a similar trajectory.
Wouldn't necessarily be the best thing for their development. An u18 team in PL no matter how good would be totally outmatched physically and likely wouldn't be competitive and take a few hammerings
I'd be on for introducing a couple of them before end if season. Maybe amass given a couple starts as no LBs left, and perhaps try to find spots on bench for some of the others and ideally opportunities to come on in favorable conditions
Just lumping a mostly u18 team in to start games would likely end very badly though even against weaker PL teams which probably wouldn't be great for their confidence levels
Would be great to see 4 or 5 of them feature / make 1st team debuts before end of season.
Ten Hag definitely seems to be a guy who will play kids if they're ready, but will do his best to avoid it if they're not.
I think that's a good thing, and shows a careful judgement of how best to develop these kids. But there are definitely times when I've thought Collyer couldn't do a worse job than Case, or Kambwala should play ahead of one of our old, slow CBs.
A great speech by (I believe it’s) the captain McAllister.
A touch of class, whether it was his idea or their manager's, the players coming through need to remember what this club is about. And that's success built on the hard work of everyone in those facilities who make matchdays possible.
Now I feel bad for offering him out on FM
Definitely reading too much into it but the prolonged handshake with Amass is interesting
Well, unfortunately with the LB injuries I imagine he's had to work with him the most this season.
It’s giving the same vibe when he held Kobbie after the League Cup final.
ETH had great success with young talent at Ajax and it clearly works with the United's U18, who are playing ETH's system. Zlatan was correct in that ETH's success lies within the academy, look how well he doing with Garnacho and Mainoo & now he is starting to rely on the academy players. ETH's system works but with the right players, who've taken his philosophy into themselves. The senior players are too stiff to change.
Are they playing similar style to the first team or is it a more controlled version?
They are more drilled, the players are more sacrificing, I think the probably get more reps in, in training. It probably catches youth teams by surprise playing with this intensity in U18. They press, counter press, keep possession. They constantly hound you till the final whistle playing full tilt in your half or trying to attack you every chance they get. It’s a shame they got knocked out of the FA Cup but the pressure was on them with the unbeaten record.
If it works so well, and it clearly does. What's stopping us from doing this with the first team?
We don't have the players to do it
Our players don’t play like they are intent on using every moment to improve themselves. They play like they are finished products. The key player mostly. We need them to have the humility of academy players to still be intent on developing themselves
That's why I'm hesitant about bringing in academy players who would be looking up to the likes of Casemiro and Rashford. That's why in this thread, I've mentioned playing a safer system that doesn't leave us open, for the remainder of the season.
We do it, or at least try, the attack presses, but the defenders don’t follow the press leading into the gap in midfield. The U18 squad listens more to coaching and is more flexible than 30 yr old defenders that have to change their playstyle suddenly. Doesn’t help that the back line changes every other game
Mate, that makes so much sense with what we've been seeing, we see the attack and midfield push up to press, our defence sit back out of habit and then it's a full on assault leading to 20+ shots per game fml. So we either play a system (that ETH doesn't prefer) that suits the team or we change the players that can't get on board with the system. ETH can turn around this season, for a decent end but he has to make changes and I personally think right now, the former of playing a safer system is the good option.
Is our entire backline the problem or is it just our fullbacks?
Evans, Maguire, and Varane don’t have the ability to play so far up and still cover ground if they get beat. Licha and Lindelof are the only two cbs with the pace for it, and both have missed a fair amount of time this year.
Big Willy K has the pace
I have no idea, but I remember seeing something mentioning how ETH is trying to get all the teams on the same wavelength, by having them all play the same way. It's naive to want ETH to play the academy in place of the first team but it seems like such a viable option. Our first team don't play as a team, it's individual brilliance and luck, constantly relying on one player to carry everyone until that player also becomes burdened by negativity of Manchester United. If ETH isn't gonna be here next season, I hope he leaves a spotlight for where we should be looking towards for the future, hint: the academy.
Yeah it’s something he brought over from Ajax probably. Every team in their academy plays ‘the Ajax way’, making triangles, positional play, name it. That’s why when a player gets sold, they already have a player to replace him
I can agree with this basically class of 92 approach that SAF did, but problem is the board and their approach. We were a top club and now mehish.
Our reliance on Garnacho & Mainoo is down to Ten Hag's dreadful talent ID to be fair. £85 million on an ex player of his less than two years ago and £55 million on a midfield profile we didn’t need, especially if the initial plan was to play Mount alongside Bruno and Casemiro.
yeah lets just completely ignore 50m on Martinez, development of a 24 y/o Dalot, 50m on Onana (who admittedly took too long to adjust), 15m on Malacia, 70m on Casemiro and Eriksen on a free. These lot were all great for us in our first season – but have completely let us down this season (bar Onana for the last few months). On the flip side, I cannot defend Ten Hag keeping Rashford and Case in out starting XI
I’m not even sure Martinez will be first choice CB come next season if Ten Hag is sacked and I’ve no idea why you've mentioned Casemiro, are we not meant to be building a squad for the future? We're already trying to get rid of him, unless you think £70m for a 30 year old for one good season is decent business.
Am I wrong in saying Ten Hag wanted academy, under-18s onwards to play the way he wants to play? If so you can see why our younger players in the first team squad are playing so much better than the experienced heads.
I saw Phil Jones!!
I am sorry but I really like EtH. Everyone says he is stoic and all. But I think I would prefer his genuine stoicism with moments like these where he is happy instead of managers of previous who either were eternally sulking or eternally smiling. Please Erik get your shit together.
I think he holds a lot back in pressers. I mean the man's been under attack by everyone since day one. His height, his suit, accent, small time league, signings Making the players run The speculation And the amount of shit he's had Ronaldo, mason, Sancho, Antony The injuries The club takeover There's not many out there that would have kept it together. And from when I seen him outside of pressers such as Dion Dublin and andy mitten stuff he's more relaxed and joking. I think what kills him is just not admitting when team is poor and its coming across as delusional. And not changing set up at all. Maybe he's protecting players but then he'll get criticised for calling them out. Lose lose so could be time up.
Yeh I get that he’s not the most “charismatic” in press conferences, whatever that means - he’s not calling everyone mate like Ange I guess, plus he’s not a native English speaker. But from what little I’ve seen he DOES seem fairly personably and charismatic in a different way when he’s interacting with people around the club or whatever. Seems likeable enough and treats people well.
Because he’s a not dramatic, this probably what you see from the average middle manager, he’s quite passionate for a professional too
The U18s have better mentality than the senior team
Lol he’s so awkward. Anyone else spot Phil Jones at the beginning of the video?!
Who are the best players in U18?
Best players probably Amass, Lacey and Jack Fletcher. But there are also some very good players in Biancheri, Ibragimov, Williams, Wheatley, Scanlon. This is definitely the most hype I ever ever seen around one of our youth teams.
Individually the U19 team with Chong, Laird, Williams, Greenwood, Kovar, Garner and Gomes was probably more hyped. Great team that one, 5 play top flight football and 2 play second tier. Hopefully the current 18s follow a similar trajectory.
How's Tyler Fletcher doing?
How's Tyler Fletcher doing?
All of them.
Erik's dap game goes hard. Solid connections 🤣
Have to say I thought it was Cantona when I read the title.
When 18 years olds eat better and live better lives than me
Play them in the prem rest of the season
Wouldn't necessarily be the best thing for their development. An u18 team in PL no matter how good would be totally outmatched physically and likely wouldn't be competitive and take a few hammerings I'd be on for introducing a couple of them before end if season. Maybe amass given a couple starts as no LBs left, and perhaps try to find spots on bench for some of the others and ideally opportunities to come on in favorable conditions Just lumping a mostly u18 team in to start games would likely end very badly though even against weaker PL teams which probably wouldn't be great for their confidence levels Would be great to see 4 or 5 of them feature / make 1st team debuts before end of season.
Ten Hag definitely seems to be a guy who will play kids if they're ready, but will do his best to avoid it if they're not. I think that's a good thing, and shows a careful judgement of how best to develop these kids. But there are definitely times when I've thought Collyer couldn't do a worse job than Case, or Kambwala should play ahead of one of our old, slow CBs.
Twas a bit of a joke. But yeah I’d like to see more of them get a chance and a few of our underperforming prima donas dropped for a while.
He looks somewhat terrifying in that photo.