Manchester United Part V / ETH Sack Watch

The guy is a bum.

Strong character but a poor mans Wenger. Interesting system in place but zero concept of tactics and cannot conceive in game changes to positively influence the team, to save his life.

When SAF left the building we forgot what United was before him, an average mid-pond club at best.

They simply are back to who they originally were before the greatest manager of all time took the helm.

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea"

Ten Hag

• Won 30 PL games faster than any MU manager
• Has more points from his first 50 games than Klopp and Arteta did, not too far from Pep (who inherited a far superior team)
• We are #1 in the league in terms of points in the last 5 weeks


all this while having a ton of key players injured



I think it's personally very flattering, we're grinding out wins against the Lutons of the league (the last month we had a pretty easy schedule and still looked shit)

all of his signings have been awful, made zero sense and got binned...I still don't see him lasting beyond the season but I pray Martinez, Shaw are back soon and that Rashford somehow starts scoring again..

I don't want to defend him, like EG suggested I was doing at one point, but I really don't think he's responsible for the poor team building. The signing of Anthony is likely his responsibility, but Man United's team building has been poor for a decade now, and they've had several different managers during that time. I imagine he wouldn't have signed players he was already familiar with, if he was able to sign players from the top shelf instead. Being familiar with those players already, likely meant that the club was able to acquire them for cheaper than they would've been otherwise. And I shared this on here before, but this doesn't sound like the words of a guy who was able to build his own team, like a lot of fans always seem to insist that every manager does. Perhaps because they've seen managers do it in FIFA and FM  

Wow... if he cant bring Man U to play his style n can only adapt to play shit football due to this reasoning... then shouldnt Man U have just gotten another cheaper or coach with another style? XD Pathetic excuses really... but loving it~

I agree with some of the points made here. I don't like TH, nor dislike him. I am quite neutral about him. Thimmy made it clear that he is not defending him and I am also not defending him, but the root of the problems really seem to be somewhere else. So, I also feel that regardless of the manager that we would appoint, if the problems that exist behind the scenes from an organisational perspective aren't solved, there won't be any success/improvement.

Other than that, it's very hard to watch this team playing. I barely watch them these days...I try, but I usually switch the channel or move to some other activity if I am bored. I still wish they would play better and want them to win, but it's so so hard to watch them.

I have no reason to defend him as an individual manager, I even mocked him when my forum avatar was an image of him looking like he was about to burst a vein in his forehead last season. But let's be realistic here, the manager has not been the primary issue at Man United since before Pogba returned to the club.

If it was up to the fans, Arteta would've been sacked before the club signed players that actually made a difference. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe you were on the sack Arteta train, EG. No offense intended. I do not support Man United, it's my closest friends who are supporters of the club. I just don't think it's helpful for anyone to single out the manager for blame every time, as if the club hasn't burnt through enough managers to expose that there may be more fundamental issues elsewhere that are holding the club back.

I also think it's really difficult to watch Man United these days and actually enjoy the experience. It was the same for long periods of time under Ole as well, but what surprised me the most during Ole's tenure was that he started playing anti-football at some point, and that's very much against the brand of football that he played at Molde.

It's natural to wonder why a manager who's known for high-pressing, offensive-minded football would suddenly start playing park the bus and counter-attacking, and I don't know if it's because he inherited players from the Van Gaal and Mourinho era, or because even the players that were brought in couldn't play anything else, but normally I'd expect a sporting director to be able to answer why there are issues with the team building, and Man United's last reliable sporting director was a combination of SAF and David Gill.

For style, I think they would look like a more cohesive team if they brought in another Mourinho/Van Gaal type. As depressing as that may sound, counter-attacking football has been the only style of football that they've excelled at for an extended period of time over the last 8 years or so. If they want to change that style, they need a team of players who can play under a different system. And from what I can tell, that's where their problem with direction lies.

So, should they bring back Mourinho or someone like Conte? Or repeat the same routine of hiring a manager who has a track record of playing attractive football, but don't provide the groundwork for attractive football to be played?

You mentioned that Arteta brought in players from the start, but you also have Edu, who I believe has been at the center of your turnaround in fortune under Arteta. And like Txiki at Man City, the sporting director is easy to take for granted when they stick around for the longer term and the manager is accredited with their achievements in setting up teams with a specific purpose in mind.

Man United have a bigger budget and are considered to be a bigger team than Arsenal in the grand scheme of things (and I mean no disrespect by saying this, Arsenal are my favorite team in England and although I don't watch them much these days, I've been watching them since the 90s). And yet, United are treated like a naïve king in the transfer market - where every potential business opposite is looking to take advantage of their track record of poor transfers. Arsenal doesn't seem to have that issue. And I don't personally think that's a result of Arteta's keen eye for talent and business. Man City don't have that issue, and unlike the fans, Pep actually does occasionally reference Txiki as the orchestrator behind their transfer business.

Even non-top clubs are taking big steps in acquiring top talent and building cohesive teams without breaking the bank. And while those clubs typically end up losing those players to bigger clubs, which keeps them from progressing competitively, at least they have a solid groundwork for success. Man United really is like a wasp that's trying to penetrate a windshield, and in order to break that cycle, I genuinely believe they need to address their team building issues before they hire a new manager. Ten Haag may not be their ideal candidate as a long-term manager, but I really do think the club needs to provide a direction before any single manager can build on that direction. And they can start by hiring a sporting director. But I said that over 5 years ago, and I still have absolutely no clue what's going on with that position, or their baffling incompetence in hiring one.

I want to make babies with his bald head. You know how it is

You guys are misreading Thimmy! eTH is as good as gone, but his firing will not resolve ManU problems anymore than the last five coaches. Thimmy is correctly pointing out that most coaches are not in charge of player acquisitions and that the issues are organizational

futbol_bill wrote:You guys are misreading Thimmy! eTH is as good as gone, but his firing will not resolve ManU problems anymore than the last five coaches. Thimmy is correctly pointing out that most coaches are not in charge of player acquisitions and that the issues are organizational

This is exactly it. I also think he'll be gone soon, and that's fine. But if the long-term goal is to play attractive football and still be competitive, they either need to start building towards that goal under a manager who wants to play attractive football, or recognize that they aren't building towards anything specific and play to the strengths of their current team. There's been a very clear disconnect between managerial styles and player profiles at the club for a long time now, and whoever's the primary source of those issues, whether it's the Glazers or the club board as a whole, they're not showing signs of wanting to change the current trajectory of the club.

EG: I've gone over how I understand that team building works, based on my personal discussions with football managers. I've never said that managers have no influence over transfers, they certainly do, but they don't typically have the final say in it. There are several people involved in every transfer decision, and this ensures that a club doesn't risk bankruptcy as a result of some short-term manager who isn't an expert on the talent and business aspects of team building. Ideally, every transfer would be the product of communication between the manager and the sporting director, within the confinements of the club requirements (which includes the input of financial advisors and whatnot). In the case of Txiki and Pep, Pep himself has stated that he isn't always involved in incoming transfer decisions, he sometimes leaves it almost entirely up to Txiki, yet I commonly see Pep being credited with being the mastermind behind every incoming transfer that exceeds expectations.



I recall Pep saying in a separate interview that he asked for a striker, not Haaland specifically. That's where a DoF comes in and does the job that a manager isn't necessarily an expert at.

If Man United had a director of football, then you could conveniently trace their neverending team building mistakes back to a single person to a significant extent, just like Edu would have to answer for himself if Arsenal had been regularly selling valuable talent that the club actually needs for small sums of money, or if they had continuously bought expensive players who failed to live up to their price tags - but Man United doesn't have that.

Someone has to take responsibility for the incompetence in this regard, and after so many years of there being no tangible direction in how they build their teams, as well as their managers publically addressing this particular issue, I think we're well beyond the point where you can conveniently boil all of the blame down to the manager every time. I don't doubt that they can find a better short-term alternative to Ten Haag, but I also expect that switch to become yet another scapegoat for what I think is becoming a very obvious issue at this point.

I'll stop writing essays in this discussion. I think you're focusing too much on Ten Haag specifically, EG. I think he's largely irrelevant to their problems, and whether or not they replace him is also largely irrelevant. It will likely just add a bit more instability to an already unstable club. And then it's back to signing players for inflated prices that don't mesh with the rest of the team. Even if we assume that it's the managers who keep chasing the wrong players, someone at the club should've put their foot down by now. No one's taking accountability for their persistent team building issues. Even Woodward distanced himself from it, without actually stating who's responsible. It's almost as if no one knows.