Potter would be an absurd choice, another 'good' manager who's far from being a top manager, Ole - well that's obviously a non-starter, Lopetegui similar status to Potter, Flick has the pedigree but I've no idea what kind of manager he'd be.
it's a weird situation. there's the very real possibility that new owner will want to start clean with his own appointment, and there's plenty of time to salvage the season, but it's a disgrace if the players suddenly turned it on for a new manager. also, are any of the available managers who we would want long-term, all things being equal? whereas, if you sack ten hag now, bringing in another interim would, once again, be a sign that we've written off the season already. who would agree to the temporary post anyway? fletcher? mcclaren? so then there's the option of sticking with ten hag until the end of the season, which doesn't seem to be a popular option these days. right now, you'd be hard-pressed to find a united fan who has any confidence that he can turn things around, since there's been little to no evidence this season to suggest that's a possibility. that being the case, if things continue this way, the season could get even worse. yes, you'd have a better chance of a preferred replacement in the summer, but if things get worse, missing out on europe next season could limit those options. and, again, immediately replacing ten hag at the end of the season kind of says that the season was written off.
This guy is a tosser, worse than Mourinho, all he ever does is throw his own players under the bus but in a sly way.
Umm he's clearly referring to the fact that he was without hojlund after the villa game and was, therefore, unable to build on that. You're reaching, bro
He's complaining that we were shit precisely because his £70m striker who's scored just one league goal was missing yes. "We had to make one change to our starting XI so how could you expect us to still be good?" "Not my fault" This is what he's saying.
Even the corrupt arseholes at FIFA have more moral backbone than Erik ten Hag. Fifa extends Overmars ban to global game Ex-Netherlands winger Marc Overmars' suspension from holding a post in Dutch football has been extended to a global ban by world governing body Fifa. An independent Dutch sports tribunal banned Overmars for two years - with one year suspended - in November 2023. The punishment followed his sending a "series of inappropriate messages to several female colleagues" while he was director of football at Ajax. Overmars, 50, left his role at Ajax in February 2022. Ten Hag backs Overmars for Ajax return after exit over ‘inappropriate messages’
Erik ten Hag says Manchester United need players who will "fight for the badge" and the club. New co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is expected to be at Old Trafford when United take on Tottenham on Sunday. England winger Jadon Sancho rejoined Borussia Dortmund on loan for the rest of the season this week after falling out with Ten Hag over his training performances. "If you want to perform, you need hungry players," he said. "We need personalities and players who are very hungry to fight for the badge and this club." United have lost 14 games in all competitions so far this season and the club are considering their options in the January transfer window. The Dutchman added: "We need personalities and players who are very hungry to fight for the badge and this club. "It is not about discipline, it is about normal behaviour. It is about what you can expect from a top professional." The key question for Ratcliffe and Ineos head of sport Sir Dave Brailsford is whether to stick with the strategy of putting an emphasis on youth and development rather than buying established players. It is how United ended up targeting 20-year-old Denmark striker Rasmus Hojlund in the summer rather than England captain Harry Kane. "We signed talent and talent needs time," said Ten Hag. "You see the progress from [Alejandro] Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, also from Rasmus Hojlund. "You need time but at the same moment, we don't have time. You have to deal with some setbacks but that belongs to the process. "Is it difficult for me? No, it is not difficult because I could expect it from the start of the season that the process could go negative, then, as a manager, you have to stay positive and get the process in the right direction." 'Man Utd need players who will fight for the badge' Manchester United need players who will "fight for the badge" and the club? Why doesn't he ****ing buy some then?
cuz ten hag doesn't buy them? we can't pick and choose when we want to blame the manager or the owners when it comes to poor recruitment. it still kills me that the fee we paid for antony is used as a stick to beat ten hag with. antony may not be good enough for united, but it's not like ten hag identified an 85mil player; he asked for antony in june when he was less than half the price and, in true united fashion, we waited two months and ajax doubled their price. what are you gonna do in that situation? tell the manager, "sorry, we waited too long, so you can't have this player." we should have had other targets besides antony or the club should have told him to make it work with what he had and prioritize a different position. the problem is a completely inept recruitment department/strategy and/or the complete lack thereof. hopefully, we'll be changing that soon. you can't argue that the players ten hag's identified don't fight for the badge; whether they're good enough--which you never know until you sign them--is another argument, though. in a perfect world, you'd have both qualities, but this is where we're at. we've spent the last decade using ridiculous wages as our only means of convincing players to join the club. it was inevitable. you can see that ten hag is trying to steer us away from signing "shirt sellers," but i think he also needs to remind himself that this isn't ajax and we should be looking at a higher caliber of player, which doesn't necessarily have to be a galactico. it's also a sad reflection of where we're at financially that we're scraping to send players out on loan and getting rid of many youth players. i've said before that not every academy product is good enough and i stand by it, but the way we've shipped so many of them in the last 6 months for very small fees is a bit frustrating. i mean, i know we're doing it because we're skint and we need the few million in fees to maybe secure a loan this month for an over-30 striker, but it's still frustrating.
I guess it was just a coincidence a lot of the players signed for United under ten Hag have played for him, or in the league he has a lot of experience in.
You're contradicting yourself here? My point is that ten Hag chooses the players, it's a given that the suits will make a balls up of the negotiations, and of course that's not his fault. However he wanted Antony, and Antony isn't good enough. He also wanted Mount, who we didn't need and who nobody seems to rate, and Højlund, a goal scorer who (so far) doesn't score goals. He's also binned off several young academy players for peanuts whilst bringing in expensive loan signings, and sold players like Fred whilst replacing him with an inferior model in Amrabat.
He chooses them because we don't have any semblance of a recruitment structure. He shouldn't be choosing them the way he's been allowed to, but that's where we're at these days. I said Antony hasn't proved to be good enough and that's a strike against ten hag, who thought the Brazilian might have worked out. I didn't contradict myself. Your point was that ten hag should buy players who play for the badge. I said the players he identified do fight for the badge, but some aren't good enough. Ten hag isn't buying them; he's identifying them and our club are screwing it up, as usual. Hojlund wasn't supposed to be the main striker, but we were desperate when greenwood wasn't kept around and we couldn't get anyone else. He wasn't even supposed to see as many minutes as he did at atalanta, but injuries kind of forced the situation. I've already discussed my opinion on mount in the past and have criticized that decision, but the guy's barely played for us so I can't really speak on whether or not he'll be good enough. I agree to an extent on the academy players, but with stingy owners, a scarcity of funds (or so we're told), and players we pay too much and can't move on, selling young players is about the only way we can raise money. Again, not ten hag's fault. He didn't sign players like martial or Maguire or Sancho, but he's had to deal with every issue that's been created by inept recruitment in the decade before he arrived, including the impact it's had on him trying to bring in players. Want kim min Jae? Too bad, here's Evans on a free. Eriksen on a free. Weghorst and sabitzer on loan. Amrabat on loan two months after identifying him as a target. Reguilon on loan when both lb's are out long term. It's sad that another over-30 loan signing this month would be a positive, but again, that's where we're at. Though, I've said before that if funds are limited then prioritizing mount was probably a mistake. Ten hag's been put in a position where he's had to be manager and director of football, which shouldnt happen at this level and isn't how serious clubs operate. He isn't above reproach, which I've said before. He needs to start winning matches. Period. Stop using tactics that don't suit our players and stop persisting with poor players. We're finally getting some players back from injury, so we'll see what happens.
yep. and if united had competent people in key roles or any shred of a recruitment team in place when he was interviewed for the manager job, that likely would have been addressed at that point in the process and discussed, negotiated, or completely nixed altogether. do you think ten had would have been granted such control if we'd approached him after sir jim and a hypothetical/rumored setup involving paul mitchell, brailsford, blanc, and ashworth were in place? probably not. there's a lot of accountability going around these days and ten hag shoulders his portion of it, but it's academic at this point that--sort of like thinking new paint on the walls will cover up the fact that you have a cracked foundation--for the last decade, the powers that be at united thought a manager or a few big signings would be enough to turn things around without instituting a foundation upon which to build.
Obviously the machinations behind the scenes at United have become more and more farcical since the Tampa hillbillies arrived, their successive 'negotiators' have all embarrassed themselves and United with the ludicrous deals they've managed to sign up for. So by all means let's blame the gimps for that, but it doesn't change the fact that ten Hag wanted Mount, Ohno!na, Højlund and Antony and the Glazer thieves produced a quarter of a billion quid (added to the debt mountain) to get him the players he wanted, none of which have looked good enough so far.
Biggest issue for me is the usual question, who'd replace him. None of the names we read in the tabloids inspire me. Yesterday's performance at Brentford was as bad a I've seen since Ferguson left, on another day we'd have been hammered.
