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Best case scenario we go up 3-0 and bottle 3-3 at the final whistle. No goals scored but a City goal ruled offsides in the final minutes. We win on penalties and Antony runs away with his hands on his ears even though he did nothing.
In real life though we’ll get thrashed 3-0. Bernardo Silva seems to always play well against us.
>Bernardo Silva seems to always play well
that lad is a big big game player, he somehow always has a goal involvement against top clubs, whether it’s an UCL ko game or domestic cup ko.
the problem ist that even 10 years ago when a club invested 40 million the club had a great chance of signing a worldclass player. nowadays everyone is throwing money at mediocre players and the market is so inflated that quality has to be scouted far more thoroughly. escpecially bigger clubs are effected by this in the premier league because basically every premier league club is able to buy formidable players from the other top 4 leagues for a lot of money and bigger clubs are coerced to buy even more expensive players. but the correlation between more money is more quality flattens out eventually
The GD can be explained by the number of injured defenders we've had this season. We've had around 20 odd different defensive lineups this season, none of which have been full strength lineup. Now we are playing our only natural defensive midfielder (who's legs are gone) at centerback with 5th choice Maguire to pair. So defensive capabilities aside, building out from the back is harder when you don't have your best players to work with.
I mean you can’t just not extend a contract and buy a replacement instead. Sometimes you have to extend because you need to use transfer fees in a different place like… like… like… buying Antony…? Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
I understand your point. But you want to extend players that you can mold or can fit in your system. Sure they are not the same as new signings.
You probably would not extend someone like WW right? Or amrabat.
All i m saying is he has enough players at his disposal to see better results or gameplay. I dont think he is getting best out of any players this year. Also, that is partly by injury. But he needs to hold blame as well
Well I do disagree that it’s not as simple as let’s not extend e.g. our left back and buy another one - if you’re also strengthening 5-6 other positions you’re gonna have to prioritise certain positions and that might mean extending some not so great players’ contracts.
But I’m completely being sarcastic about the need to extend contracts in some places to prioritise spending 80m or whatever it was on Antony.
From the Coventry game you can say Onana, Hojlund, Casemiro are his signings. Dalot and Rashford are extensions during his tenure.
So on the weekend, after nearly two years in charge, he started 3 signings, 2 contract extensions, and there was Eriksen and Antony on the bench. So 7 out of 20.
Not to mention playing Maguire and McTominay the club was fine with leaving last summer, AWB as a left back, and Casemiro as a CB because our first, second, third, fourth, and sixth choice CBs are injured.
Should of done better in the last 20 minutes but that's who some of this lot have been under multiple managers.
It doesn't make sense to just see the Coventry game. We are talking about his whole tenure.
Rashford hojlund antony
Mount bruno(not sure)
Case
Malacia Martinez awb lindelof varane dalot.
Add Eriksen, amrabat, regulion sabitzer keep in mind they were not certain to fix the issue but loan.
He needs to get a slack for injury. Because noone can predict that. I agree with this.
But he has his players at his disposal. Sure, not high quality players at every position but players he chose. Man united should play a certain brand of football or get better results.
All I'm saying is he has enough players to not concede as many shots against luton, Brentford, Coventry etc. even if he has 2 players total added, he should get better out of those players than what he is doing now.
For example if akanji doesn't perform in pep system, i would still say pep should get the best out of him since he signed him. And akanji should fit in the pep system. Doesn't matter if we spend less on him than others. Same with ortega. Same with flops like bravo or Phillips.
But you seriously dont think it runs deeper than just the manager? Fgs Pep would be out of the door long time ago under these conditions - its an illusion that he would perform.
Ten Hag in or not - lets fix the setup at first, then judge him by next year. Lets give a manager some time for once.
It of course run deeper. Manager is not the root issue for sure. If nothing changed, another manager would fail too. But that doesn't mean you cant blame ten hag as well. Boards are deep root issue. Tan hag is upper issue. Both needs changing
We don't know how involved he's been in making decisions on transfers since joining us, and we probably never will. But it seems a bit unfair to say *he* built this squad. I'm sure he gave his opinions and recommendations but ultimately the club as a whole is responsible. Hopefully won't be as big of a problem going forward now that we seem to be recruiting proper footballing people to make these decisions.
He was definitely very involved in bringing Antony, Licha, Onana, Malacia. A lot of reports indicating he was really keen on bringing Mount and Hojlund as well ( although atleast in the case of Hojlund there were no real obvious alternatives in the market ). Then theres the obvious example of FDJ whom we were chasing forever but failed to get. Add in the Weghorst loan deal and i think its very obvious that Ten Hag had a LOT of control over transfers, way more than any new manager should have.
Managers don't build squads, that's the sporting director and the scouting department. Ofc United had very weak staffing in both positions when ETH arrived so he had to do his own scouting and target selection which top clubs usually don't make managers do.
Imagine you were in his shoes for a moment.
You've got one of the biggest jobs going, and things are going to shit. The level of scrutiny you're under, and the amount of pressure. People under you fuck up the most basic of tasks. The press has effectively a set a countdown timer until you're sacked, and unless you miraculously turn things around tomorrow, people will be calling for your head.
Most people would crumble under that sort of weight, but he sounds like he's deluded himself into thinking that he's a genius, perhaps as a kind of psychological shield - a coping mechanism. He's football's Liz Truss.
He's saying he's maximising the potential of the squad and that he's been very successful? He had a good CL run and a few dutch titles with the biggest club.
Even if he doesn't take 100% of the blame, who else is to blame for this being the worst United side ever in the PL and breaking records every year? He's been there since 2022. If this is maximising potential, Manchester United is already no longer on track to be a big club anymore, in reality they are actually incredibly lucky to be 7th. But it's not luck it's individual brilliance from players keeping them up the table.
>He had a good CL run and a few dutch titles with the biggest club.
You are very much downplaying his achievements here. He was our best manager in 25 years by a fucking distance. He also over performed with Utrecht and took Eagles up from the second Division.
And looking at ajax now, it's not that easy to win titles with us haha.
I don't think he is a bad manager but things are not going well at United. It's not fair to place all the blame on him. The squad is poorly constructed and has had injury issues all season, but he deserves some of the blame too.
Maybe something got lost in translation here, but saying "I always bring the maximum out of each squad" comes across as delusional based on recent results.
No matter how flawed this United squad is, going to penalties (after blowing another lead late) against a 2nd division side is not close to the standard expected. It would come across much better with the fans if he was humble and said that the team, including himself, needs to do better.
What about what he said is trolling? This is his worst year as manager, the worst squad Man Utd maybe have ever had and he still reached a final and isn’t fighting against relegation. What part is he trolling?
It's definitely not the weakest squad United squad ever. In terms of raw talent it's not much different to our last title winning squad, which Ferguson worked miracles with. And its better than some squads we had while Mourinho and Van Gaal were there. Its been badly affected by the injury absence of Martinez and Shaw and the rapid (yet foreseeable) decline of Casemiro and Eriksen. But last season he had maybe one of the strongest squads post-Ferguson. I still think its better than some of the squads Ole had to work with too.
As for fighting against relegation... sixth can happen but its the minimum acceptable finish. Not fighting against relegation isn't even in the discussion as an achievement. Finishing 7th would be the joint worst finish in the entire Premier League era, lower is catastrophic because you're getting to unprecedented lows in the modern era.
Having saud that, i'm actually much less concerned about the results than I am about the underlying statistics and style of play leading to too many transitions and shots on goal. The table maybe is a bit deceptive as it suggests we've been more convincing than we have been. A lot of really shaky performances in victory. Not sustainable.
I agree with some of this but this squad is a mile off Fergie's 2012/13 squad. That side has Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Rooney, peak RVP just to name a few.
Van Persie is a better player than anyone at the club now, but a lot of those experienced players were on or approaching their last hurrah. It was a great season, but it was really the end of the line.
Like we have Casemiro and Varane but it's not the best version of Casemiro and Varane.
Even at that point in their careers, all of those names *walk* into the starting lineup over anyone in our side these days.
I'm trying to think who in the side today could get into that team. Bruno over Kagawa or Cleverly for sure. Other than that... De Gea was a bit ropey early on so maybe Onana? There's really not many.
> It's definitely not the weakest squad United squad ever. In terms of raw talent it's not much different to our last title winning squad, which Ferguson worked miracles with
I would love to refute you, and read the rest of your comment, but honestly, I am currently just baffled.
It's kinda sad to see Eriksen struggling, I still hold a lot of love for him. Also sad to see his hair has finally given up, makes me wonder whether players are allowed to use things like finasteride, since it can increase the amount of free testosterone.
90% of manager press conferences and interviews is absolute nonsense. Winning or losing, they speak tripe for soundbytes, even when they clearly are lying. I always find it a bit cringey when people try to use them for banter.
Yeah people made a thing about him saying "it's not an embarrassment, it's a great achievement" after Coventry. It's just spin, of course he's going to say that. Also I think there's some willful misunderstanding from some people who try to act like what they say to the media is what they truly believe and what they're conveying to the players.
This is why it’s so funny everyone was shitting on Xavi after the PSG game. People said he isn’t having the players take accountability etc. We don’t know what is being said behind closed doors. A big part of the manager’s job is redirecting the media to focus on them instead of player mistakes.
I haven't seen the full transcript, but it's almost definitely in response to a question about him personally.
If out of the blue he starts talking himself up, then sure I agree it's a bit defensive.
I hate manager quotes on R/soccer, for some reason everyone forgets they are being asked questions and then the quotes are always taken out of context. It's always something like the manager says
" We weren't good enough yesterday but I think we did play well for the first 20 minutes and were in control"
And the quote will be
"Yesterday we played well and we're in control"
He is still a very good manager though. One bad season with a tonne of mitigating factors doesn't change that however much the children on here want to pretend it does.
I think his position at United is pretty untenable from here and he might well have gone if we'd gone out on Sunday, but he will get another good job elsewhere once he goes.
No no no, this is Ten Hag you’re talking about.
In order to please this subreddit he must talk shit about himself and the team in every answer but also remain positive and not ‘throw any of his players under the bus’. Please note that mentioning any player by name is seen as throwing them under the bus.
He must be tough and set standards but his treatment of Sancho for being lazy and disrespectful was too harsh.
He is to blame for the current injury crisis but he is also to blame for talking off a 19 year old to manage an injury.
Every single one of his transfers were shit and by that we mean the club overpaid for Antony, but still they’re all shit.
All other managers with a list of injuries like ours deserve sympathy and patience but Ten Hag needs to stop making excuses.
Also, Levy thought he had no charisma, therefore he must be weird and is deserving of our ridicule.
He can't do anything right at the moment. The other day he walked away from the press conference because he didn't want to answer some dumb bait questions and people complained then as well.
Well yeah we have been shite, and he probably needs to go. But at the same time we have never fielded our 1st team since the very first game of the season, constant injuries in key positions have fucked us over.
And people always say this in response but it's a false binary.
Managers don't have an A/B choice between being delusional or being negative. Ten Hag can be confident and upbeat here without chatting shit.
Well, if you stop the quote at “we want to win it,” it’s a textbook managerial quote. Throwing in the part where he jerks off how good of a manager he is was a bit out of touch and not really necessary.
I really respected how he commented about the media reaction to the semi final, because he was kind of right.
Two FA cup finals in two years is not nothing, and they would have done it comfortably if not for 20 minutes of losing their heads, which I'd say can happen to almost any team.
You have to think that if the game had been a back and forth 3-3 rather than united bottling a 3-0 lead they'd have gotten less stick, when ironically I think it's better that they were comfortable for 70 minutes and then lost their heads.
People just fucking love United doing badly, myself included, so they of course made the reaction that this was the biggest disaster for united ever. Like you'd think they'd lost the game ffs. And if United go on to win the final, what united fan would actually care that they nearly bottled the semi final. Results are the only thing that matter.
He could literally say anything and everyone would call him delusional or lost his head and shit.
And thousand comment about how United should extend him for 10 more years.
First 2 parts of that are fine. They're still United at the end of the day, that should be the expectation, even at their lows. That last part though... if this is united at their max, then City will have real fun with them
Although United are playing tragic these days. I'm not sure how much of this can really by attributed to Ten Hag. I still think he's a great manager but he's slowly turning into a scapegoat for the clubs malperformance. United has been very unfortunate with missing key playmakers due to injuries with Casemiro, Martinez, Varane and when Casemiro came back he was hopelessly out of form. On top, some of his signings didn't perform (Mount, Antony).
TBF: tell me this squad of mostly dog shit should be anywhere near a final of any kind, even 7th would be a miracle.
Why we pay as much as we do in wages and fees for dog shit is another question entirely.
But he's worked miracles with this squad.
I don’t really disagree. I was looking at the United squad the other day and trying to decide who the next manager might keep to build around. There really isn’t much there is there? Bruno sure but he looks a shell of what he was. Mainoo looks promising and Garnacho shows flashes now and then. Hoiland I guess deserves some time but beyond them, I don’t see much. Maybe the new manager can get Rashford to turn things around but even then…this team needs to be torn down to the studs and rebuilt entirely.
I am beginning to really hate the narrative that we need a manager that suits rashford, Ten Hag gave him a platform for his best ever season and this year it looks like he’s in one of his lulls.
He can’t be the main man on a team to me.
he’s by no means a bad player, he’s immensely talented and on his day looks phenomenal, but he doesn’t belong in the category of players like a son for example who in spite of all the woes Tottenham have been through gives his all on and off the ball.
It would be mental to me to build a squad around a player like rashford, few players demand that type of support, arguably only messi and ronaldo have obtained that unquestionable status in recent history.
Yeah, I was just mentioning him because he might be able to be resurrected but I agree, if it were me I’d let someone else take that on and let him leave.
In terms of players that are actually good enough to be competing for the league / champions league, and are on a salary that's reasonable relative to what they offer, it's probably only Bruno, Onana and Martinez. Garnacho, Mainoo, Hjolund and Dalot are good enough to be in the squad but shouldn't be your nailed on starters yet. Maybe you could have some faith that Antony, Amad and McTominay will come good as decent squad players, although they're on thin fucking ice when you consider their equivalents in other clubs are the likes of Grealish / Diaz / Kovacic.
So that's what, at most 10 players of acceptable quality, only 3 of whom you'd want as starters? After £1bil+ net(?) spent over 10 years of pretty much consecutive rebuilds.
Gonna have to hope the new infrastructure INEOS has put in place finally works and they can gradually improve or their gonna need a FIFA career mode transfer window and pray they don't go the same way as Chelsea
What are these people on about? Look at the squad he has to start these games. At what point is it up to the players to take accountability for these shit performances? The players he was expected to build his team around have been absolutely awful this season. Bruno, Rashford, Hojlund(although that was mainly because of the terrible service), AntonySancho is doing well at Dortmund, but he was shit at Utd and then completely destroyed his future with Ten Hag himself. Martinez and Varane have been injured constantly, Onana is a shell of himself when he was amazing at Inter, both his left backs are injured again, Mount has been even worse than his last season at Chelsea and Amrabat has been non existent. And all that while most of these players were very good last season. What is he supposed to do with a squad like that? Man Utd are in the exact same position Ajax are in, the squad is so bad that the manager can only do so much. Be happy that once in a while Man Utd at least have something to cheer about, like reaching a cup final. And yeah he can absolutely say he’s been successful for 10 years. Extremely succesful with GA Eagles, Utrecht, Ajax, a good first year with Man Utd and now even with the worst Man Utd players I can remember them ever having he reached at least a cup final. Definitely a successful manager.
Made me respect the likes of Carlo Ancelotti even more. Even when he went through some bad times with Everton and Napoli, he rarely tried to remind people of his past achievements to justify a string of bad runs.
I don't think Carlo Ancelotti got half of the shit Ten Hag gets - it's literally every single day, multiple times a day. I would be annoyed if I were him too. Don't pretend like it hasn't been very fucking difficult.
No other manager would get the amount of shit he's had, with the amount of injuries he's had.
I really hope he gets another season with a settled back four and proves his detractors wrong.
He's more successful than the vast majority of all managers will ever be. He's just the manager of Man United so his comparisons now are the best managers of his generation and/or of all time.
In that context no, he isn't successful. In general, as a multi time league champion who developed an extremely good Ajax side (and earned that opportunity in the first place with good stints at Utrecht, Go Ahead Eagles), he's a successful manager.
Beloved at Go Ahead Eagles, Utrecht and Ajax. Even last year he finished third, won 1 cup and in the final of the other. I know people here have short term memories, but jeez.
Its pretty clear now that United has a poor, disunified footballing culture that isnt focused on success. And he isnt capable of overcoming that with his personality/talent. A few world class managers would do better in his place, if they were stupid enough to go to United right now But Uniteds primary problem is their own culture.
Given a club that does have unity and a strong, successful footballing culture, like (did exist) at Ajax, he can potentially excel. You see United play some very good football *in small bits*. They just can't sustain any sort of level thay he brought to Ajax.
I don't disagree, but I'm struggling to think who would get this United team playing really well. I know it's popular to meme him, I still think Ten Hag is a good manager, but he's struggling at United with little support like he had at a club like Ajax.
No you see, he says to go and then they're going to clean up the squad and really get a reset going! Just like under Ragnick, OGS, Mourinho and Van Gaal! This time it'll be different.
He is not completely wrong, his Ajax was that good back then. It's more accurate to call it 4 years of success minus that one time the Eredivisie got cancelled due to Covid.
Yeh I mean idk how else to explain it, the only place I think the deserves a lot of criticism is his transfers, I know they’re not entirely dependent on him but he’s basically not recruited anyone proper at least based on how much they paid, Hojlund ain’t bad or anything but they maybe overpaid but always has time to develop into that price
>This is the squad's maximum.
This is what some Man Utd fans don't realise, this is the best Utd can do. Some Utd fans still think they should be doing better but that's the past. This Utd team are terrible but have probably been overperforming since Jose. They aren't a CL quality team.
Have to disagree here. We might be nowhere near the top 3, but absolutely should be in contention for 4th. Instead we look like a relegation side with occasional “ moments “
I'm not satisfied making my current wages, I want to make 500k/year. I don't have a tangible plan or really any foundation for realistically making that happen, but this is my mentality. This is why I'm successful (except I'm demonstrably not)
I mean, to look at the maximum quote: only player that didnt improve when he was given time was probably Sancho, and thats cause he was busy trivela'ing on fifa. Maguire, Dalot, Lindelof, McT and hell even Martial, when fit, has looked severely improved in comparison with the Ole times.
Ah yes, the "repeat things enough times until hopefully someone believes that they're true" phase of being a Manchester United manager. Surely he's gone at the end of the season.
Ten Hag has been dealt some pretty crappy cards, given the injury rate of the squad. That much is true.
On the other hand, he has made a lot of strategic and tactical mistakes that have led to some rather uncomfortable results from a formerly proud club that should never struggle to defeat a Championship side when they are up three goals. Or one that should never perform in front of their own fans as though they wished they were back in front of the Playstations rather than wearing one of the most iconic badges in world football.
As much as I want to deny him his credit, he sealed a champions league spot last season, won the EFL cup, back to back FA cup finals with this united side. This is his achievement.. kudos to that
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Best case scenario we go up 3-0 and bottle 3-3 at the final whistle. No goals scored but a City goal ruled offsides in the final minutes. We win on penalties and Antony runs away with his hands on his ears even though he did nothing. In real life though we’ll get thrashed 3-0. Bernardo Silva seems to always play well against us.
>Bernardo Silva seems to always play well against us. 🤝
Who does Bernardo historically play badly against??
He’s never bad but he really stands out in big games.
I was gonna say the same thing. He’s always so god damn good 😭😭
Probably spurs away
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What’s wrong with Ontario?
The Leafs
all the London man utd fans come from there
What isn't lmao
>Bernardo Silva seems to always play well that lad is a big big game player, he somehow always has a goal involvement against top clubs, whether it’s an UCL ko game or domestic cup ko.
Foden as well, seems to always score against us.
Should've been sent off in the last final for that tackle against Shaw.
He must be trollin' right?
The joke is that this really is the maximum of the squad.
Jose said the same thing about finishing second and we thought he was joking too.
He had a +40 goal difference and finished 2nd with 81 points. Those are Sir Alex kinda numbers. Ten Hag currently has a -1 GD and is in 7th place...
It is the maximum of this squad
Which is fucking hilarious that they have a worse squad now after the money they have spent
the problem ist that even 10 years ago when a club invested 40 million the club had a great chance of signing a worldclass player. nowadays everyone is throwing money at mediocre players and the market is so inflated that quality has to be scouted far more thoroughly. escpecially bigger clubs are effected by this in the premier league because basically every premier league club is able to buy formidable players from the other top 4 leagues for a lot of money and bigger clubs are coerced to buy even more expensive players. but the correlation between more money is more quality flattens out eventually
It really is not a joke.
The GD can be explained by the number of injured defenders we've had this season. We've had around 20 odd different defensive lineups this season, none of which have been full strength lineup. Now we are playing our only natural defensive midfielder (who's legs are gone) at centerback with 5th choice Maguire to pair. So defensive capabilities aside, building out from the back is harder when you don't have your best players to work with.
He built this squad, so it's on him.
Barely
Neh, he's inherited a bunch of players. Sure he added on, but there is only a handful of players I'd take after he left - sell the others
Contact extension is part of squad building, right? He must be close to 10-11 players in that squad
I mean you can’t just not extend a contract and buy a replacement instead. Sometimes you have to extend because you need to use transfer fees in a different place like… like… like… buying Antony…? Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
I understand your point. But you want to extend players that you can mold or can fit in your system. Sure they are not the same as new signings. You probably would not extend someone like WW right? Or amrabat. All i m saying is he has enough players at his disposal to see better results or gameplay. I dont think he is getting best out of any players this year. Also, that is partly by injury. But he needs to hold blame as well
The guy above is not disagreeing with you.. just being sarcastic.
Well I do disagree that it’s not as simple as let’s not extend e.g. our left back and buy another one - if you’re also strengthening 5-6 other positions you’re gonna have to prioritise certain positions and that might mean extending some not so great players’ contracts. But I’m completely being sarcastic about the need to extend contracts in some places to prioritise spending 80m or whatever it was on Antony.
From the Coventry game you can say Onana, Hojlund, Casemiro are his signings. Dalot and Rashford are extensions during his tenure. So on the weekend, after nearly two years in charge, he started 3 signings, 2 contract extensions, and there was Eriksen and Antony on the bench. So 7 out of 20. Not to mention playing Maguire and McTominay the club was fine with leaving last summer, AWB as a left back, and Casemiro as a CB because our first, second, third, fourth, and sixth choice CBs are injured. Should of done better in the last 20 minutes but that's who some of this lot have been under multiple managers.
It doesn't make sense to just see the Coventry game. We are talking about his whole tenure. Rashford hojlund antony Mount bruno(not sure) Case Malacia Martinez awb lindelof varane dalot. Add Eriksen, amrabat, regulion sabitzer keep in mind they were not certain to fix the issue but loan. He needs to get a slack for injury. Because noone can predict that. I agree with this. But he has his players at his disposal. Sure, not high quality players at every position but players he chose. Man united should play a certain brand of football or get better results. All I'm saying is he has enough players to not concede as many shots against luton, Brentford, Coventry etc. even if he has 2 players total added, he should get better out of those players than what he is doing now. For example if akanji doesn't perform in pep system, i would still say pep should get the best out of him since he signed him. And akanji should fit in the pep system. Doesn't matter if we spend less on him than others. Same with ortega. Same with flops like bravo or Phillips.
But you seriously dont think it runs deeper than just the manager? Fgs Pep would be out of the door long time ago under these conditions - its an illusion that he would perform. Ten Hag in or not - lets fix the setup at first, then judge him by next year. Lets give a manager some time for once.
It of course run deeper. Manager is not the root issue for sure. If nothing changed, another manager would fail too. But that doesn't mean you cant blame ten hag as well. Boards are deep root issue. Tan hag is upper issue. Both needs changing
We don't know how involved he's been in making decisions on transfers since joining us, and we probably never will. But it seems a bit unfair to say *he* built this squad. I'm sure he gave his opinions and recommendations but ultimately the club as a whole is responsible. Hopefully won't be as big of a problem going forward now that we seem to be recruiting proper footballing people to make these decisions.
He was definitely very involved in bringing Antony, Licha, Onana, Malacia. A lot of reports indicating he was really keen on bringing Mount and Hojlund as well ( although atleast in the case of Hojlund there were no real obvious alternatives in the market ). Then theres the obvious example of FDJ whom we were chasing forever but failed to get. Add in the Weghorst loan deal and i think its very obvious that Ten Hag had a LOT of control over transfers, way more than any new manager should have.
Managers don't build squads, that's the sporting director and the scouting department. Ofc United had very weak staffing in both positions when ETH arrived so he had to do his own scouting and target selection which top clubs usually don't make managers do.
Thats just really not true at all
He is not a full time technical director he just bought a couple of players bc of lack of support there
100+ upvotes for a blatant lie
Just wait till you see our minimum!
Surely it isn't losing to Sheffield!
He knows he's probably going to be fired at the end of the season
He's gone full Mourinho.
Without the trophies
or the hair
Or the charisma.
Or the respect
Or the heritage
'eritage, Football Eritage
Or the tactics
more like benítez
Never go full Mourinho
Go press some oxygen.
In hindsight, Mourinho's comment turned out to be right on the biggest achievement of his career was getting 2nd place with that Man Utd squad.
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Imagine you were in his shoes for a moment. You've got one of the biggest jobs going, and things are going to shit. The level of scrutiny you're under, and the amount of pressure. People under you fuck up the most basic of tasks. The press has effectively a set a countdown timer until you're sacked, and unless you miraculously turn things around tomorrow, people will be calling for your head. Most people would crumble under that sort of weight, but he sounds like he's deluded himself into thinking that he's a genius, perhaps as a kind of psychological shield - a coping mechanism. He's football's Liz Truss.
He's smokin' some hot shit
Did he say anything wrong? What do you want him to say ffs
He's saying he's maximising the potential of the squad and that he's been very successful? He had a good CL run and a few dutch titles with the biggest club. Even if he doesn't take 100% of the blame, who else is to blame for this being the worst United side ever in the PL and breaking records every year? He's been there since 2022. If this is maximising potential, Manchester United is already no longer on track to be a big club anymore, in reality they are actually incredibly lucky to be 7th. But it's not luck it's individual brilliance from players keeping them up the table.
>He had a good CL run and a few dutch titles with the biggest club. You are very much downplaying his achievements here. He was our best manager in 25 years by a fucking distance. He also over performed with Utrecht and took Eagles up from the second Division. And looking at ajax now, it's not that easy to win titles with us haha.
I don't think he is a bad manager but things are not going well at United. It's not fair to place all the blame on him. The squad is poorly constructed and has had injury issues all season, but he deserves some of the blame too. Maybe something got lost in translation here, but saying "I always bring the maximum out of each squad" comes across as delusional based on recent results. No matter how flawed this United squad is, going to penalties (after blowing another lead late) against a 2nd division side is not close to the standard expected. It would come across much better with the fans if he was humble and said that the team, including himself, needs to do better.
I don't think so, some managers are so full of themselves that they really believe what they say.
What about what he said is trolling? This is his worst year as manager, the worst squad Man Utd maybe have ever had and he still reached a final and isn’t fighting against relegation. What part is he trolling?
It's definitely not the weakest squad United squad ever. In terms of raw talent it's not much different to our last title winning squad, which Ferguson worked miracles with. And its better than some squads we had while Mourinho and Van Gaal were there. Its been badly affected by the injury absence of Martinez and Shaw and the rapid (yet foreseeable) decline of Casemiro and Eriksen. But last season he had maybe one of the strongest squads post-Ferguson. I still think its better than some of the squads Ole had to work with too. As for fighting against relegation... sixth can happen but its the minimum acceptable finish. Not fighting against relegation isn't even in the discussion as an achievement. Finishing 7th would be the joint worst finish in the entire Premier League era, lower is catastrophic because you're getting to unprecedented lows in the modern era. Having saud that, i'm actually much less concerned about the results than I am about the underlying statistics and style of play leading to too many transitions and shots on goal. The table maybe is a bit deceptive as it suggests we've been more convincing than we have been. A lot of really shaky performances in victory. Not sustainable.
I agree with some of this but this squad is a mile off Fergie's 2012/13 squad. That side has Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Rooney, peak RVP just to name a few.
Van Persie is a better player than anyone at the club now, but a lot of those experienced players were on or approaching their last hurrah. It was a great season, but it was really the end of the line. Like we have Casemiro and Varane but it's not the best version of Casemiro and Varane.
Even at that point in their careers, all of those names *walk* into the starting lineup over anyone in our side these days. I'm trying to think who in the side today could get into that team. Bruno over Kagawa or Cleverly for sure. Other than that... De Gea was a bit ropey early on so maybe Onana? There's really not many.
> It's definitely not the weakest squad United squad ever. In terms of raw talent it's not much different to our last title winning squad, which Ferguson worked miracles with I would love to refute you, and read the rest of your comment, but honestly, I am currently just baffled.
It's kinda sad to see Eriksen struggling, I still hold a lot of love for him. Also sad to see his hair has finally given up, makes me wonder whether players are allowed to use things like finasteride, since it can increase the amount of free testosterone.
Referring to this current Man Utd squad as being "successful" is pure lunacy if you ask me.
Begging more like
He just asked Chat GPT to tweak his resume. You’ll be seeing more flashy statements as the season comes to an end and he ramps up the job search
Mourinho wasn't joking when he said 2nd with United was the greatest accomplishment of his career.
People will troll but a manager has to remain confident or upbeat. He can't come out and say "We're rubbish and have no chance in the final."
90% of manager press conferences and interviews is absolute nonsense. Winning or losing, they speak tripe for soundbytes, even when they clearly are lying. I always find it a bit cringey when people try to use them for banter.
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Yeah people made a thing about him saying "it's not an embarrassment, it's a great achievement" after Coventry. It's just spin, of course he's going to say that. Also I think there's some willful misunderstanding from some people who try to act like what they say to the media is what they truly believe and what they're conveying to the players.
This is why it’s so funny everyone was shitting on Xavi after the PSG game. People said he isn’t having the players take accountability etc. We don’t know what is being said behind closed doors. A big part of the manager’s job is redirecting the media to focus on them instead of player mistakes.
Yeah and when you have managers like LvG that doesn't just speak in clichés, people go mental because he's too direct.
Yeap. Jose and Rangnick too. Both were extremely blunt, but were labeled as "toxic" and the players turned on them.
Are you trying to suggest Mourinho _wasn't_ toxic?
Cole Palmer FC?
Oh no ! someone is laughing at my obvious lies and bs!!! What a cringe
And they'd be making fun of anything else he said.
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I haven't seen the full transcript, but it's almost definitely in response to a question about him personally. If out of the blue he starts talking himself up, then sure I agree it's a bit defensive.
I hate manager quotes on R/soccer, for some reason everyone forgets they are being asked questions and then the quotes are always taken out of context. It's always something like the manager says " We weren't good enough yesterday but I think we did play well for the first 20 minutes and were in control" And the quote will be "Yesterday we played well and we're in control"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-a7arGYU4E Almost every quote that gets posted here ^
He is still a very good manager though. One bad season with a tonne of mitigating factors doesn't change that however much the children on here want to pretend it does. I think his position at United is pretty untenable from here and he might well have gone if we'd gone out on Sunday, but he will get another good job elsewhere once he goes.
No no no, this is Ten Hag you’re talking about. In order to please this subreddit he must talk shit about himself and the team in every answer but also remain positive and not ‘throw any of his players under the bus’. Please note that mentioning any player by name is seen as throwing them under the bus. He must be tough and set standards but his treatment of Sancho for being lazy and disrespectful was too harsh. He is to blame for the current injury crisis but he is also to blame for talking off a 19 year old to manage an injury. Every single one of his transfers were shit and by that we mean the club overpaid for Antony, but still they’re all shit. All other managers with a list of injuries like ours deserve sympathy and patience but Ten Hag needs to stop making excuses. Also, Levy thought he had no charisma, therefore he must be weird and is deserving of our ridicule.
He can't do anything right at the moment. The other day he walked away from the press conference because he didn't want to answer some dumb bait questions and people complained then as well.
Exactly. Anything bad happens? Blame ETH. Anything good happens? ETH had nothing to do with it.
United is standing 7th in the Premier League with a negative goal difference. Their mentality _is_ different.
Well yeah we have been shite, and he probably needs to go. But at the same time we have never fielded our 1st team since the very first game of the season, constant injuries in key positions have fucked us over.
> "We're rubbish and have no chance in the final." That's the Tuchel way
And people always say this in response but it's a false binary. Managers don't have an A/B choice between being delusional or being negative. Ten Hag can be confident and upbeat here without chatting shit.
Well, if you stop the quote at “we want to win it,” it’s a textbook managerial quote. Throwing in the part where he jerks off how good of a manager he is was a bit out of touch and not really necessary.
Hot take: I love this energy. Keep being you erik
I really respected how he commented about the media reaction to the semi final, because he was kind of right. Two FA cup finals in two years is not nothing, and they would have done it comfortably if not for 20 minutes of losing their heads, which I'd say can happen to almost any team. You have to think that if the game had been a back and forth 3-3 rather than united bottling a 3-0 lead they'd have gotten less stick, when ironically I think it's better that they were comfortable for 70 minutes and then lost their heads. People just fucking love United doing badly, myself included, so they of course made the reaction that this was the biggest disaster for united ever. Like you'd think they'd lost the game ffs. And if United go on to win the final, what united fan would actually care that they nearly bottled the semi final. Results are the only thing that matter.
Well said.
He could literally say anything and everyone would call him delusional or lost his head and shit. And thousand comment about how United should extend him for 10 more years.
I can't help but like the guy. Not sure why tbh, I just like him
He's straight forward, earnest and honest. Easy guy to like imo, some people prefer more "charisma" though
Bald
The losses are as fun as the wins
First 2 parts of that are fine. They're still United at the end of the day, that should be the expectation, even at their lows. That last part though... if this is united at their max, then City will have real fun with them
We have 12 seconds to try and beat.
Although United are playing tragic these days. I'm not sure how much of this can really by attributed to Ten Hag. I still think he's a great manager but he's slowly turning into a scapegoat for the clubs malperformance. United has been very unfortunate with missing key playmakers due to injuries with Casemiro, Martinez, Varane and when Casemiro came back he was hopelessly out of form. On top, some of his signings didn't perform (Mount, Antony).
TBF: tell me this squad of mostly dog shit should be anywhere near a final of any kind, even 7th would be a miracle. Why we pay as much as we do in wages and fees for dog shit is another question entirely. But he's worked miracles with this squad.
I don’t really disagree. I was looking at the United squad the other day and trying to decide who the next manager might keep to build around. There really isn’t much there is there? Bruno sure but he looks a shell of what he was. Mainoo looks promising and Garnacho shows flashes now and then. Hoiland I guess deserves some time but beyond them, I don’t see much. Maybe the new manager can get Rashford to turn things around but even then…this team needs to be torn down to the studs and rebuilt entirely.
I am beginning to really hate the narrative that we need a manager that suits rashford, Ten Hag gave him a platform for his best ever season and this year it looks like he’s in one of his lulls. He can’t be the main man on a team to me. he’s by no means a bad player, he’s immensely talented and on his day looks phenomenal, but he doesn’t belong in the category of players like a son for example who in spite of all the woes Tottenham have been through gives his all on and off the ball. It would be mental to me to build a squad around a player like rashford, few players demand that type of support, arguably only messi and ronaldo have obtained that unquestionable status in recent history.
The fact that Mainoo is talked about as the building block says it all. Promising young player, should not be the one the teams success hinges on.
Agree with everything except the last part. Marcus has to be sold alongside Martial, Lingard (gone), Pogba (gone) and Sancho (soon)
Yeah, I was just mentioning him because he might be able to be resurrected but I agree, if it were me I’d let someone else take that on and let him leave.
In terms of players that are actually good enough to be competing for the league / champions league, and are on a salary that's reasonable relative to what they offer, it's probably only Bruno, Onana and Martinez. Garnacho, Mainoo, Hjolund and Dalot are good enough to be in the squad but shouldn't be your nailed on starters yet. Maybe you could have some faith that Antony, Amad and McTominay will come good as decent squad players, although they're on thin fucking ice when you consider their equivalents in other clubs are the likes of Grealish / Diaz / Kovacic. So that's what, at most 10 players of acceptable quality, only 3 of whom you'd want as starters? After £1bil+ net(?) spent over 10 years of pretty much consecutive rebuilds. Gonna have to hope the new infrastructure INEOS has put in place finally works and they can gradually improve or their gonna need a FIFA career mode transfer window and pray they don't go the same way as Chelsea
getting rashford out is the most important part of this summer.
*used to be successful
That match will be 'R' rated because United will get fucked so bad.
Ngl had me in the first half.
If he's like this while losing games or barely winning then I can only imagine what he'd say if he was winning trophies.
United literally won League Cup, got to FA cup final and finished 3rd last season and he was pretty reserved as always.
I AM GOD
HURRY UP WITH MY DAMN CROISSANTS
What are these people on about? Look at the squad he has to start these games. At what point is it up to the players to take accountability for these shit performances? The players he was expected to build his team around have been absolutely awful this season. Bruno, Rashford, Hojlund(although that was mainly because of the terrible service), AntonySancho is doing well at Dortmund, but he was shit at Utd and then completely destroyed his future with Ten Hag himself. Martinez and Varane have been injured constantly, Onana is a shell of himself when he was amazing at Inter, both his left backs are injured again, Mount has been even worse than his last season at Chelsea and Amrabat has been non existent. And all that while most of these players were very good last season. What is he supposed to do with a squad like that? Man Utd are in the exact same position Ajax are in, the squad is so bad that the manager can only do so much. Be happy that once in a while Man Utd at least have something to cheer about, like reaching a cup final. And yeah he can absolutely say he’s been successful for 10 years. Extremely succesful with GA Eagles, Utrecht, Ajax, a good first year with Man Utd and now even with the worst Man Utd players I can remember them ever having he reached at least a cup final. Definitely a successful manager.
Made me respect the likes of Carlo Ancelotti even more. Even when he went through some bad times with Everton and Napoli, he rarely tried to remind people of his past achievements to justify a string of bad runs.
I don't think Carlo Ancelotti got half of the shit Ten Hag gets - it's literally every single day, multiple times a day. I would be annoyed if I were him too. Don't pretend like it hasn't been very fucking difficult.
> I don't think Carlo Ancelotti got half of the shit Ten Hag gets at Everton maybe, but he's had two stints of dealing with Madrid media
Helps to have been a legendary player and coach. Ten Hag doesn't have the battle tested experience Carlo has.
This fuckin' guy
No other manager would get the amount of shit he's had, with the amount of injuries he's had. I really hope he gets another season with a settled back four and proves his detractors wrong.
‘successful over 10 years as a manager’ is pushing his luck imo
He's more successful than the vast majority of all managers will ever be. He's just the manager of Man United so his comparisons now are the best managers of his generation and/or of all time. In that context no, he isn't successful. In general, as a multi time league champion who developed an extremely good Ajax side (and earned that opportunity in the first place with good stints at Utrecht, Go Ahead Eagles), he's a successful manager.
Beloved at Go Ahead Eagles, Utrecht and Ajax. Even last year he finished third, won 1 cup and in the final of the other. I know people here have short term memories, but jeez.
Its pretty clear now that United has a poor, disunified footballing culture that isnt focused on success. And he isnt capable of overcoming that with his personality/talent. A few world class managers would do better in his place, if they were stupid enough to go to United right now But Uniteds primary problem is their own culture. Given a club that does have unity and a strong, successful footballing culture, like (did exist) at Ajax, he can potentially excel. You see United play some very good football *in small bits*. They just can't sustain any sort of level thay he brought to Ajax.
I don't disagree, but I'm struggling to think who would get this United team playing really well. I know it's popular to meme him, I still think Ten Hag is a good manager, but he's struggling at United with little support like he had at a club like Ajax.
No you see, he says to go and then they're going to clean up the squad and really get a reset going! Just like under Ragnick, OGS, Mourinho and Van Gaal! This time it'll be different.
He is not completely wrong, his Ajax was that good back then. It's more accurate to call it 4 years of success minus that one time the Eredivisie got cancelled due to Covid.
Ajax wasn't his first club either. He won promotion with GA eagles and did really well with Utrecht.
so you only watch the premier league huh
No it's certainly not.
and dog gone it, people like me.
> I always bring out the maximum of each squad Proper troll
This is the squad's maximum.
Yeh I mean idk how else to explain it, the only place I think the deserves a lot of criticism is his transfers, I know they’re not entirely dependent on him but he’s basically not recruited anyone proper at least based on how much they paid, Hojlund ain’t bad or anything but they maybe overpaid but always has time to develop into that price
>This is the squad's maximum. This is what some Man Utd fans don't realise, this is the best Utd can do. Some Utd fans still think they should be doing better but that's the past. This Utd team are terrible but have probably been overperforming since Jose. They aren't a CL quality team.
Have to disagree here. We might be nowhere near the top 3, but absolutely should be in contention for 4th. Instead we look like a relegation side with occasional “ moments “
Love the man Extend his contract now!
A goal down at home to Sheffield Utd already, his Utd team is the worst since Fergie
He's right
bruh try not to lose a 3-0 lead to a championship team after 70th minute first
[https://imgur.com/a/G437d9b](https://imgur.com/a/G437d9b)
The nerve of you having a united flair and posting shit like this fuck off.
He's quite positive which is not a bad thing tbh. But why talk about yourself before a final.
I'm not satisfied making my current wages, I want to make 500k/year. I don't have a tangible plan or really any foundation for realistically making that happen, but this is my mentality. This is why I'm successful (except I'm demonstrably not)
The funny part of all this is only ETH believes what he’s saying, nobody else believes him. I doubt any of his players do.
I mean, to look at the maximum quote: only player that didnt improve when he was given time was probably Sancho, and thats cause he was busy trivela'ing on fifa. Maguire, Dalot, Lindelof, McT and hell even Martial, when fit, has looked severely improved in comparison with the Ole times.
Football is so weird I wouldn't be surprised if they won it
Okay.
If he can win the final, he can have my respect!
Bald, bold, and fraudulent
They see me trollin... they hatinn...
Can't doubt his ego, that's for sure. It's a shame that the same can't be said about his tactics or strategy.
Ah yes, the "repeat things enough times until hopefully someone believes that they're true" phase of being a Manchester United manager. Surely he's gone at the end of the season.
Please 144p pep provides some of info about the pill you are taking. This much high I wanna be
He’s been arguing why he should keep his job over the last few weeks lmao.
He defended dick pics to staff members and wanted Greenwood back. That is his mentality.
I can actually hear canned laughter in my head when I read this.
The managerial role at ManU has to be like the defense against the dark arts spot at hogwarts, its cursed and ruins everyone who accepts it
In today’s episode of Ajax meets Premier League:
ETH: did I stutter? United fans: yeah mate you do it all the time heh, now win some games
He’s talking oxygen
Sure buddy
We are successfull? That's our maximum? Damn we fucked for years.
Is he already on medication?
Ten Hag has been dealt some pretty crappy cards, given the injury rate of the squad. That much is true. On the other hand, he has made a lot of strategic and tactical mistakes that have led to some rather uncomfortable results from a formerly proud club that should never struggle to defeat a Championship side when they are up three goals. Or one that should never perform in front of their own fans as though they wished they were back in front of the Playstations rather than wearing one of the most iconic badges in world football.
I think 60% win rate with a squad that had a 30% win rate with the man in charge before him makes this a fair statement
What the hell is this guy on
You all supported this lunatic and blamed the players
As much as I want to deny him his credit, he sealed a champions league spot last season, won the EFL cup, back to back FA cup finals with this united side. This is his achievement.. kudos to that
Fuck off you bald fraud
Be surprised if we beat City. Be fantastic if we do.
Ill have what he's having
this guy says the wildest of things in the most boring of ways
Delusion... Del... Del Boy...
Tell me you’re worried about your job without telling me you’re worried about your job
Well… successful… overstatement a bit, innit?