Maguire!!!!!!
Poll: Erik ten Hag Sack Watch & Next Manchester United Manager?
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
My point is that there’s very little evidence anywhere that he can do a good job. Ajax experience isn’t hugely relevant IMO.
FA Cup win beating Man City - yes, great. Let’s hire Roberto Martinez…
Caporegime
21/22 we finished with 58 points. Our lowest points total since Fergie. 22/23 We ended up with 75 points which is our second best points total since Fergie which is great for his first year, 2 cup finals, one cup winner and played the most games out of everyone bar Man City in Europe. Totally bossed Barcelona over two legs who were eventual La Liga winners. We beat Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and Man City at Home. He did all that whilst dealing with Ronaldo and having Sancho take months off to "sort himself out". His win percentage was in the mid to late 60's. You could see the lack of mentality (Liverpool away hammering and Europe League) but that is mainly on the players.
I would call that a very good first season. To totally disregard the injuries this season and he should "cope" is just being short sighted as he had shown he was more than capable in his first.
Soldato
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This. Having a good manager is important but at the end of the day it's the players out on the pitch that are often the main factor when it comes to winning/losing games.
Too many of United's current players are mediocre at best.
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Even City aren't the same without Rodri.
Nobody blames Pep for that.
"Lacking in ideas going forward"
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The first season was largely good, although there wasn't really a style of play that I could see. A few very bleak moments that we won't speak of (7-0).
I am not disregarding injuries, I am merely saying that in my view they don't excuse the consistently terrible performances, a complete lack of playing style, or any sort of team identity.
The fact INEOS have likely decided to sack him means they don't like what they see from inside the club either. Hopefully we'll have an announcement soon either way and we can stop going round in circles as I've said before.
His win % at United is 57.9%.
Poch in the same league has 54.3% (Spurs) and 50.1% with Chelsea.
Tuchel has 60% with Chelsea.
Much of muchness.
Not that the squads/clubs are comparable.
What are we expecting from a new manager apart from "a style of play"?
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The fact that INEOS are dragging their feet and the club is leaking stories like a sieve doesn't bode well IMO.
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I'm not sure win percentage is hugely relevant here, the truly impressive example is SAF but that's because it's across 1500 games!
Our football over the past season has been some of the worst I have ever seen. I expect a manager who can deliver something better. I think that's fair.
They need to decide something soon, all of this rampant speculation isn't good and whatever happens now it looks like they were about to sack him and didn't. They could have come out and addressed it.
Is winning matches not the aim?
Yes, but most of our recent managers have got similar percentages.
Playing good football does come into it too, see Moyes at West Ham.
In fairness to Maguire, he's generally pretty good as long as you don't have a high line. The rest, meh. £85m on Antony has to be one of the worst transfers of all time.
Soldato
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This is the main problem.
Teams can play pretty well and still end up losing matches but too many times this year I've seen United play very poorly. On top of that many times when they've won or drawn they probably deserved to lose because of how poor their general play was.
There has been a few highlight performances but they've been overshadowed by many dross ones.
Onana too. We're not winning anything significant with him in goal.
Caporegime
Players like Maguire is the reason ETH cannot play his style of football.
Hence all the madness this season. ETH wants to play aggressive pressing with a high line but our defenders cannot commit and that leaves acres of space in the middle.
Yes Antony was massively overpriced but ETH needed a left footed right winger. The club couldn't get one and overpaid for Antony. Ole brought in Diallo. A good well ran club would have said to ETH we are not paying 85 million when you already have a Diallo.
Antony's return is pretty much on par with Grealish and he cost 100 million...... Difference is Antony is playing in a bad squad and is still young whereas Grealish is in his prime!
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And yet for an extended period during the season ETH was picking Maguire (alongside either Evans or Lindelof) and leaving Varane on the bench. If Maguire was the reason ETH can't play the way he wants why did he keep picking him over other CB options?
But West Ham fans are amongst the most deluded in the football league. 'it's not the West Ham way' I'm fast approaching half a century on this planet and for 40 years+ years I've watched football West Ham have been a yoyo team with limited finances, a selling club that one season finished in the top 10 and the next relegated. They had the perfect manager for the club they are and Everton were. They will now burn through a load of money with managers and continue to not play the fast flowing attacking football the fans demand, but never happened. I get the expectation of good football at a club like United, not really the same to compare that to mid table dross with a fraction of the spending power. Like Villa will, these clubs get ahead of themselves with expectations and not having the income to properly join the T4.
Caporegime
You are seeing what you want to see. Either Varane was out of form or still not fully fit during that time when he was picking Maguire. A bit like a lot of the pundits who haven't watched United game in game out all season. Our most consistent CB partnership was actually Varane + Evans. With 6 starts between them which is also a joke in itself. Next one is Varane + Martinez at 4 and Maguire + Varane at 4. 14 different combo's in the end which you are never going to get any consistency with. Statistically the worse in the league.
Varane was actually our most capped CB last season with a whopping 32 appearances, next was Maguire with 31 and Evans with 30. Imagine the mess we would have been without Evans!
Arsenal and Everton had the most stable CB partnerships which is of no surprise as Arsenal had the best defence in the league and Everton the 4th best. With 30+ apps. You could easily argue that if United had that kind of consistency just on the back 2 we would have finished a lot higher up the table than we did.
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