Ten Hag looks like a bluffer to me

May or may not be the real deal but some fundamental observations...

came form the Eredivisie managing an often dominant force in Ajax...there is actually an adjustment period if you've never managed EPL or an equivalent...

top mangers often take time to establish their full impact ...see Pep season 1 in England despite a great team..see Klopp progression over time...see Arteta...even see SAF while we're at it...

Utd hasn't and maybe still doesn't have a credible recruitment operation which leaves the manager to make the key decisions inevitably moving him towards familiarity rather than relying on a top end recruitment structure that identifies talent and he then gets final say (or maybe even no say and just asked to coach)...

he inherited numerous transfer busts on big wages which restricts transfer options as they are tougher to shift...

he's had to deal with inheriting Ronaldo and it's circus (mug buy as proved by lack of interest from other top European clubs post Utd) , Greenwood (huge talent miss plus circus) Anthony (no red flags picked up by club...time will tell if that's bad luck, nothing to see etc)...ownership bid circus leading to players feeling less certain of their futures and to a lesser extent even he with his...

the academy still rarely produces top end talent so has few if any super stars in waiting (Garnacho maybe and at a longshot a couple of others maybe will be in time)

still managed third in the EPL in first season and a league cup...has earned the chance at this season as a minimum...

the difference is all those other managers showed signs of having control and making progression

so was finishing 3rd and winning a league cup (runners up FA cup) not a sign of progression ?

if you're evaluating this season you're talking about 6 games with most of his summer signings unavailable to this point..

Mount 50m ish played 2 games then injured ...questionable buy for me but can hardly judge yet...

Hojlund 70m ish  young talent investment not available as yet to play 90 mins because of injury issue management and only involved in 3 games to this point..

Amrabadt 8m loan with option...not yet played ...minor injury issue...


heard ref to 3 transfer windows for Ten Hag the other day...in reality in terms of evaluating them he's had one to this point as they could only afford a 2m loan in January for Weghorst...

way too much emphasis is put on the manager these days. this is not 1985 when managers basically decided who came and went from the club and when they had such authority over players that the latter would do whatever they told them.
UTD are not top of the tree anymore in getting top players.

look at the back 4 that played today.......regullion, martinez, lindelof and dalot..........thats average. c erikson is not a top player. casemiro is a good player and always gives 100%.......he gets a pass.
rashford is good..........bruno is ok but the rest of the squad is mediocre. UTD dont have any top players really. anthony is now a disaster zone. greenwood was supposed to be the next big thing but hes gone. this new keeper doesnt look up to scratch. this squad is not capable of challenging for the league or champions league. its not going to happen. i dont see what anyone expects ten hag to do here.

the glazers need to go. the stadium is falling apart and they have taken too much money out of the club in interest payments and money for themselves. UTD need a billionaire to pay cash for the club, develop a new stadium and all the profits can go on squad recruitment so UTD can go back to the days where mbappe might go there. we all know there is not a chance in hell he would. that fact tells us everything u need to know about how far UTD have fallen.

A lot of people (myself included) said the same about Arteta during the first 2 years. There are a lot of similarities. A squad of overpaid underachievers who will not take a pay cut and move, so will have to be paid off or let leave on a free. Some very poor and questionable early signings, often older players. A cup win and some relative success early on. Eventually bought some players he had worked with before who knew his style well.

But it takes years to get ideas across, players in and the hangers-on out. And the board/owners have to back you. Not sure he will get the same level of backing. Ultimately Arteta got it right with younger players who were prepared to do what he wanted, with the board prepared to pay the likes of Ozil, Auba millions to leave early and let Laca go on a free etc and then back him big on spending. I think that's what ETH needs to do but he is still miles away from it. Rashford and Sancho are on Ozil/Auba wage levels, which is not far off De Bruyne/Haaland/Salah level.

People expected Arsenal to kick on after the cup win and they went backwards. Whether ETH is the right man or not United are still years away from having a squad to challenge. They should have made sure Maguire left this summer when they had the chance.

I agree lurka but Arsenal are way off Man City even with City players missing.  They will only win something through City "letting them " ie. fixture pressure.

the proof of the pudding is not the signings thats probably nonly 50% of it,it depends on who you leave out to accomodate them,they,ll mess about with the frontline bto try and shoehorn mount in somewhere ,when he,s a midfielder and should be ousting fernand,cass,or erickson

If Burnley beat Manchester United on Saturday its my opinion that( Seven HAG) will be( Good bye hag) by Monday.At the moment the talk on the streets on the red side of Manchester is that( last chance saloon hag) has reached his waterloo.

They are all bluffers if they can't take the players with them.


I saw ruud Gullet go from genius to duffer because
his man management skills were awful.

brentford 21 Sep 23 00:14 
so was finishing 3rd and winning a league cup (runners up FA cup) not a sign of progression ?


I'm going to keep saying it, NO, it was a skewed result obtained by a huge outlier in Rashford's season coupled with other sides under performing.

On the face of it the bare result of the season appears to suggest progression, but when you consider the above and actually analyse many of the performances you would have to question the notion of genuine progression.

Zidane’s a bluffer

Very overrated player also

^ very silly comment

Coming from the Eredivisie shouldn't be a problem.  Wenger came from the J-League.  It's about the person.  Some are natural leaders who can manage individuals with ease.  Some can't.

Didn't really come from the J-League though. He won the league with Monaco before that. I believe EtH should have cut his teeth at a mid-table side first. Huge jump to take and with so much exposure, it can make or break a manager.

Bit harsh aspro he cut his teeth in holland
and took Ajax to euro semi final which you must
have watched.

I can't see where I'm being harsh, semi-final or not. It's still a huge jump.

its seldom in football that a potential George Best arrives in the football world.
its very sad when an egotistical blabbermouth arrives shortly afterwords and demotes the player to train with the under twenty one team.But for the sake of all football fans world wide lets hope God intervenes and helps Burnley win tomorrow night.and then we all might hear some famous words like"a taxi for ten please "

United only got into the top 4 because Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham were so bad with managerial or ownership changes or a stale midfield in Klopp's case, it was almost by default, even Ole got them second. A league cup win is not progression especially considering all games were at home til the semi's. I just look at him and think that is not a leader of men, being blunt doesn't make it so, all Dutch people are like that. Can't see players running through brick walls for him.

To be fair Scandy, a cup in the first season isn't a bad start, but I still agree he's out of his depth. Spurs, Newcastle, Villa would have been a good start to life in a league he has no experience of whatsoever. Thankfully he chose Utd

I think it's pretty clear united players won't run thru brick walls for any manager. That's the problem. The board need to back him to clear it out but unlikely they will.

players fought for Mourinho and Van Gaal maybe bar Pogba, they were rubbish and football was dour but didn't lack intent, players under Ten Hag look like they can't wait for him to go. Nobody also came out like Sancho did and challenged his authority so readily, lack of respect.

Ten Hag won't achieve anything at Man U - He uses the outdated methodology of Ruling by Fear, which can only work as long as you are actually the scariest figure around. Unfortunately, he can't pull this off due to his lack of English and comedy accent. He will continue to throw his players under the bus at any given opportunity, as it deflects from his failings. Man U fans slowly realising he is a fake, be surprised if he is there at the start of next season and be even more surprised if the players don't down tools very soon.

They fight hard for every manager when he's new. Then the novelty wears off and they slide. Then they down tools on him. No different here. Leopards don't change their spots. Mourinho threw players like Pogba and Shaw under the bus on a regular basis. Changing managers clearly doesn't solve the problem.

Any manager is scary if the players know he has full board backing and downing tools will work against them. Ferguson wasn't scary when he first arrived. He was almost out of the job after 3 years but the board backed him. He became scary after some success and the players knowing the board would back him against any player. United need to back their manager and get rid of the dross on big wages and it's going to take years. The owners don't look at things like that tho. Success is not their prime goal. Getting another guy in to manage that squad is just more rinse and repeat failure.

had more fight under Mourinho and Van Gaal, they have more about them in terms of presence and deameanour, this guy has never looked liked he has the players respect, as someone said he doesn't exactly come across as scary, more like a comedy character, but predecessors are a sidetrack anyway, his record away from home against the top sides since day 1 has been horrific, against the other teams in the top 9 last season he lost 8 away games and drew 1, this season he's already lost away to Arsenal and Tottenham, away results for the big teams shows character, they have been dining out on home results can't just keep blaming the board looking at those results, that's horrific. The manager has the backing of the board, as every United manager has - nobody has spent more money than United in the last 10 years, including city.

the only certainty about this season is that city will win the league and spurs will now go on a bad run and it will be "spurs cant get it right again for the next 8 mths"

Arteta had a similar poor away record in his first year and finished 8th. ETH finished 3rd and you think he didn't have the players' respect? Get someone else in and they're still going to have to spend 2+ years offloading the likes of Sancho, Maguire, AWB etc, assuming the board will back them to do it, which doesn't seem likely. The problem is the board. The only plan they have is to keep the spotlight off them and the fans happy short-term with guys like OGS and Ronaldo. How long does it have to go on before you see it? Another decade? There is no quick fix for united. Finishing 3rd was an overachievement like Arsenal winning the FA cup was. It will likely go backwards before it goes forwards.

You don't need to bark like Ferguson to be scary. That was just the way he went about it. You need the power to leave a guy training with the youth team regardless of the amount of wages he is on. That never came from Ferguson. It came from above his head.

that's a silly comparison, Arteta joined Arsenal in late December 2019, and soon after away games were virtually neutral venues due to lockdown anyway, but even for the rest of that stop/start season, it was 1 win, 1 draw, 2 loses v the other top 9 away, he also did not have a full pre season with his team and was only able to get a couple of loan singings in January, unlike Ten Hag who joined in April before the summer transfer window even started and signed Casemiro, Eriksen, Anthony and Martinez, shipping out Pogba, Mata, Matic, Lingaard and Baily.

Ronaldo was a good signing for United in his first year, United's top scorer, 3rd top scorer in the league with 18 at  36 years old, he only became a bad singing when Ten Hag came in and decided he didn't want him to start every week and didn't fit into his style. He saved them in a lot of games in 21/22 and United probably would have finished mid table without him. Then Ten Hag decided to bring in Weghorst in on loan.

Comparisons with other managers is just a side track, I'm looking at the man in charge and judging him, said this week he doesn't know why the players are not listening to him because they weren't doing enough running when he was telling them to

Can't see him being an elite manager based on his leadership so far but in theory needs more time, but sometimes the writing is on the wall.

Ronaldo was not a good signing for United. All he did was replace the goals Bruno got the previous season and Rashford got the season he left. The entire attack was geared towards him scoring as many as possible, the team scored less goals overall and everyone else's numbers went down. The team didn't score less after he was dropped either. Neither of these make sense if he was that good. Of course he was going to score a lot but 18 wasn't enough. If he was in his prime he'd have got closer to 30 and that would have been fine. But you can't justify that when he's past it, same thing happened at Juve. The goals were just redistributed to him with the team not scoring more.

You can look at Arteta's second season too then, when he also finished 8th. The majority of his first 1.5 seasons was without fans which generally meant better away records. In 20/21 they were a lot worse than United are now in the run up to Xmas, despite no away fans. They went on a run of P10 W1 D2 L7 F4 A13 before Xmas. If there were fans in the grounds during this period he may well have lost his job.

If you want to paint yourself as a disciplinarian, firstly the players have got to believe it and secondly, quite paradoxically, in this day and age of increasing player power you've got to be cute about it, ETH fails on both of these fronts, look at the Sancho case, he's demanding an apology or else nothing moves, so there's a stalemate.

Didn't really come from the J-League though. He won the league with Monaco before that

I really wouldn't place any value on the Frankish league.

Agreed (to a degree) lybertyne, but I'd still put it above the Eredivisie, not forgetting that some of the 'French' players he drafted were real quality too, not forgetting their national side.

Totally agree with lurka on Ronaldo. The problem I saw was that he would not be at all happy if other players went for glory, which in turn led to them often avoiding the chance to shoot. Same applied with Portugal, which I felt hampered them, but then they go on to win the Euros. Go figure.

this thread was about Ten Hag, but you've gone on about Arteta, now Ronaldo and Rashford, even when you got Arteta's first season wrong you've then shifted goalposts to the second season, and you haven't given any context to Rashford either, he went from 2927 minutes in Premier League games in 20/21 to 1233 minutes in 21/22, what were you expecting? Fernandes lost 8 goals and 6 assists from 20/21 to 21/22, so Ronaldo didn't replace all of the those goals then, in his prime at Madrid Ronaldo NEVER tracked back, he had Modric Kroos and Benzema tailored to his needs and doing that work and it worked wonders for Real, not his fault Ole wasn't the best tactically, but he was a good signing if used correctly and did his job to score goals, not his fault again more goals weren't provided.

anyway, I don't care about Ronaldo or Arteta it's about this manager Ten Hag

I'm simply looking at him, listening to him, and coming to the conclusion he doesn't look and sound like an elite manager and his record isn't really up to much, he has this outdated, authoritarian, dictatorial manner about him which might have worked in the 80's when players have far less and power and far less options, public treatment of Sancho is ridiculous and now he's at it again this week with Garnacho, hanging players out to dry, Ferguson used to say if you have won trophies you have control and power, all he has in his CV is the Dutch League and a Carabao Cup, has a decent run of fixtures now but can't see him winning the league title or Champions league no matter how long he's there. Modern managers, the intelligent one's, also know modern day players have personal endorsements and reputations to maintain those deals, telling the world, in effect, he was a lazy trainer made it unsurprising he came out to defend himself, just looked like he was diverting attention from the result and passing the buck, weak management.

Good result for him today too...the Man City one I mean

Ronaldo was not a good signing for United. All he did was replace the goals Bruno got the previous season and Rashford got the season he left.

This is a total myth. Bruno has been trash since Ronaldo left and Rashford wasn't scoring cos he was chucking it in.

Rangnick was leaking Rashfords behaviour to the German hacks and OGS confirmed it last week as well

not a good start to the season for sure....

he had a decent season last ear tbf but im not sure were the problem lies is it him or the players?????

If managers weren't responsible for it, then why pay them the big bucks...though I do agree players often let their managers down.

it just seems to me that the players don't have much respect for him, he's already said they're not doing what he's telling to, they're not running enough etc, he was successful at Ajax when Tadic, Van De Beek and Ziyech were amongst his most important players, which tells you the strength of the Eredivisie. Imagine the job even Eddie Howe would do with them, he has no trophy laden CV either but you can tell he is a far better communicator and has better man management skills, which goes a long way, a bit like Postecoglu, if you don't have the CV, OK, but if you have people skills you have a chance.

The issue with Ten Hag is his whole reputation is based on reaching the CL Semi final where he bottled it badly in a weak season.

Other than that, he has not done anything out of the ordinary.

But Rashford is a good boy who feeds the starving children?

What happened to that gimmick anyway?

His mate Gary Neville is due to give him another soft PR interview soon on "MUTV" also known as Sky Sports

There will be an opening at QPR soon,poor ole ten bobs done at uknitted.

The fight is on to win a place in the Europa League now, shouldn't look down on it, it's currently their level.

If they sack him then the next manager will be stuck with all his signings for 2 years, and then be blamed when they are shyte.

They best chance of qualifying for next season's champions League is winning the Europa League..

Sean Dyche tribute act

he signed 6 of the players who started tonight and 3 of the subs that came on, two he didn't sign were Rashford and Fernandes, over 2 were Dalot and Lindelöf, all established internationals. It's not so much about what he's got or been lumbered with, you have to see at least some good signs to see what he's trying to do, all the season ticket holders in phone ins say they have got a clue, even the manager said they wont do what he wants them to do. His man managing also seems very poor.

Guess one thing that's come to light is that it wasn't all Harry Maguires' fault after all.

De Gea is still without a club, talking about retiring, I'd get him back in for Onana who does't look like a good shot stopper at all - but he's good with his feet apparently lol modern managers.

What happened to the "Ronaldo doesn't press" brigade or the "better team without Ronaldo" clowns?

Wout Weghorst the player who can press but can't score LOL

Onana the Goalie who can pass (actually he can't) but can't save LOL

Antony the player who......can't do anything LOL

Manchester United have conceded 18 goals in 10 matches in all competitions this season, their most after 10 games of a campaign since 1966-67 (20).

Opta joe

Manchester United have lost seven of their last 14 UEFA Champions League matches at Old Trafford (W5 D2), as many defeats as they suffered across their previous 96 games there (W67 D22).

Opta joe

away to Fulham the weekend, could be gone by the time the 3pm Kick offs start

0-3 Bournemouth

Just realised they're -3 goal difference after 16 games, Man United!

All that money spent

well 200m of Erik's spend wasn't available as has been a recurring theme this and last season..but maybe more worrying would be that I wouldn't expect them other than Martinez when fully fit to make that much difference...

Didn't buy a ready made goal scorer, settled for a very raw kid and expected him to perform like a seasoned pro.

Didn't want to spend the money to get Kane and hid behind the Levy is awkward excuse.

I do not blame the manager for this because he very much wanted Kane, shame because it's going to cost him his job.

With kane we would have very likely been poor a lot of the time but his goals would have turned lots of games in our favour and bought the manager a whole heap of time.

Bottom of their Champions League group
Out of Europe altogether
Out of League Cup
8th by Christmas in the League, 18 goals after 18 games, -5 Goal difference

but Neville will keep blaming the Glazers, or maybe the players who Ten Haag has mostly bought.

Guy has no charisma and should be replaced IMO.

Hes had long enough to bin off the troublemakers now I agree

Hes kept them there to possibly have his excuses ready

Id have ran Rashford and Sancho out a long time ago

Id have ran Rashford and Sancho out a long time ago


Correct. Rashford should have been the first out the door to send a signal.

The major issue though is is signings have probably been ilb for ilb the worst batch of signings I have ever seen.

All of them have been a complete bust (Including Martinez)

Anthony looks God awful, Onana made another howler but got away with it

Today Utd had
Central defence of.
A retired player who rocked up at training to keep fit,and a kid never played before.

He’s got 4 top class strikers who don’t speak to him or play.

Is solution to everything is double training.

If they lose he says they didn’t follow the plan.

All his signings are a disaster.
People will work hard if they believe it will get results,but working hard for the sake of it,just makes busy fools.

So another new manager,so another 2 years till he builds his team.

still looking like a bluffer

Have not read this thread, cant be bothered (too many words)

When he says "we lost because of individual mistakes" Which individuals is he blaming??

solid point away to Bournemouth today