Greenlizard0 Premier League Football Thread ** spoilers ** [27th - 29th October 2023]

adam cool dude said:
Go watch how we played from September to around Feb/March this year. In fact September and Feb when ETH won two manager of the month awards. He loves playing inverted wingers and loves his full backs and Cb's to be that side footed. We have been playing basically all season without left footed CB's/full backs and when Martinez was playing he has been playing injured.
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There were 2 games played in September last year, I dont think anyone can use that month as a any sort of marker to a managers worth :cry: You were also played off the park against arsenal but came away with a jammy win.

February you had 3 wins and a draw, against the giants of the pl, leeds/leicester and crystal Palace.. mind you I think you'd give your right bollock for those sorts of result this season :p
adam cool dude said:
You will not have any style of play with the injuries we have. Liverpool fell off a cliff for two different seasons because of injuries.
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We still plsyed the same style, just a few tweeks such as the defense/midfield dropping 10 yards deeper back in 20/21 due to the injury crisis we had. Or a slight shuffle in midfield last season.
adam cool dude said:
Our current situation is far worse imo.
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Of course it is, everything is worse cos its 'yannitd'
adam cool dude said:
Shaw and Martinez especially are key and AWB too believe it or not. He was playing that inverted full back roll a lot better than Dalot. We have also had sporadic injuries on too many other players so the team has just been a mismatched mess.
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Dalot played as your rb last season in the period you claim is the example of how your manager wants you to play, hell Shaw isnt even the lb for a large chunk of those games either - using injuries as an excuse for this season is slightly disingenuous. Going over the match day threads for a lot of those games paints an entirely different picture, as you were largely terrible and bailed out by luck. I can count on 1 hand the amount of times the man u contingent here were pleased with the performances.
adam cool dude said:
Go look through our starting 11's from the beginning of the season. It is radically different almost from game to game. You cannot get any form or consistency going when you are like that.
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Stop signing ageing knackered players who cant string 3 games together without picking up injuries...
 
Nah we need Antony because it's the only thing that stops ETH putting Bruno on the wing. Antony hasn't been great but we play much better with him on the pitch because the other option is no width.
 
adam cool dude said:
Go watch how we played from September to around Feb/March this year. In fact September and Feb when ETH won two manager of the month awards. He loves playing inverted wingers and loves his full backs and Cb's to be that side footed. We have been playing basically all season without left footed CB's/full backs and when Martinez was playing he has been playing injured.
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Sorry, what? His style of play is that he has inverted wingers and defenders with the appropriate footedness for the side of the pitch they play on? It's hardly tiki taka is it?!
 
manic111 said:
Sorry, what? His style of play is that he has inverted wingers and defenders with the appropriate footedness for the side of the pitch they play on? It's hardly tiki taka is it?!
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It is how he wants his team setup then from there you have the tactics he wants to set out to follow. In fact it is a common trait of the Dutch way of playing football. As soon as he came Maguire was put on the right side of a back 4. Look at his Ajax team before he came to United and look at his Ajax team that almost got to the final of a Champions League.

His team that played that 2019 campaign had two left footed and 2 right footed in the back 4. With inverted wingers for the most part. The same when you look at his last 2022 team team as well. The whole point of his system is to build up from the back but if you do not have the players to do that then everything else suffers.

I guess my criticism with ETH is that he has no plan B which is obviously apparent. Well he does have one and that is counterattack football which he used to great effect last season against the big teams at home but it is absolutely pointless against the smaller teams that will allow United to have the ball.

We faced a fully stacked City team yesterday where we had a good 5-6 of our starting 11 out but I know the media are going to go absolutely nuts but I honestly believe ETH is not the problem with this United team but he will be made scapegoat.

Erik Ten Hag made Ajax a threat again in European football not once but twice rebuilding the team and he is fastest manager in its history to get to 100 wins in just 128 matches. Ajax was also one of the best ran teams of his era there so that obviously helped. His first season at United is the best anyone has done since SAF and even after this torrid start he still maintains a 63% win percentage. Rival fans will take the **** no doubt but you are not getting a better manager than him especially with everything he has had to deal with player wise and ownership wise. (Ronaldo, Sancho, Maguire and now Antony)

It is also only going to get worse. We are most likely going to get knocked out of the Champions League by Christmas as well. The best we can hope for is some sort of form to start from now till we meet Liverpool in December. We should have the vast majority of our players back by then with the exception of Martinez.
 
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I've just seen Neville's post match comments, the reason they were so **** is becuase Radcliffe's bought his 25% stake and the manager and players dont know what will happen next :cry::cry: The excuses he trotts out are getting more laughable by the day.
 
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C Kent said:
I've just seen Neville's post match comments, the reason they were so **** is becuase Radcliffe's bought his 25% stake and the manager and players dont know what will happen next :cry::cry: The excuses he trotts out are getting more laughable by the day.
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There are far too many people who give footballers earning north of £200k/week excuses for absolutely everything. You couldn't make it up. The old "they are just like anyone else" excuse. No they ******* aren't. In any "real world" job you would be gone in a few months if you pulled any of the **** footballers do. When you are paid that much money you turn up and you give your all. You do what you are told and you act professionally.
 
fez said:
There are far too many people who give footballers earning north of £200k/week excuses for absolutely everything. You couldn't make it up. The old "they are just like anyone else" excuse. No they ******* aren't. In any "real world" job you would be gone in a few months if you pulled any of the **** footballers do. When you are paid that much money you turn up and you give your all. You do what you are told and you act professionally.
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Also in the real world if you had several other places you could work at you’d be able to leave with handing in a notice.

Footballers can’t. So they get contracts, which allows them to just do what ever they want really. Look at Sancho.
 
C Kent said:
I've just seen Neville's post match comments, the reason they were so **** is becuase Radcliffe's bought his 25% stake and the manager and players dont know what will happen next :cry::cry: The excuses he trotts out are getting more laughable by the day.
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His point is quite clear though. The club has no plan or direction. We've gone from manager to manager, letting them sign their own players, with no sporting director or clear club ethos. The people in important positions seem to have very limited knowledge of how to properly run a football club.

The stadium and training ground have had little to no investment, the club has no ambition outside of selling lots of merchandise and lining the pockets of the owners. Yes, a lot of money (self-generated) has been spent on players, but it's been a reckless scattergun approach and the results are clear for all to see.

This ultimately filters down onto the pitch in various different ways.

But on the other hand I completely agree, the players come across as lazy and entitled, and the manager does appear clueless at times too.

Basically everything has gone pear shaped, our only hope at this present time is that Ratcliffe can come in and seriously shake things up...
 
I've just seen ETH's comments about not being able to implement the style of football he used at Ajax, surely if a manager can't implement the style of football that he prefers and is a specialist in, then he's pretty much doomed anyway. You could argue that a good manager would adapt and should be able to implement a style of play that suits that squad, but surely even managers like Klopp and Guardiola, if they weren't able to implement the style of football they wanted and are famous for, then they'd flop. And that's why both of those managers have bought players in the past that have allowed them to keep playing that chosen style of playing.

I know ETH would probably buy the entire Ajax squad he had, if he could, but the players he's bought outside of Ajax have hardly been players that would allow him to implement a high pressing, possession based style of football that Ajax supposedly played (can't say I watched much of Ajax or know much of his time there).

Just seems a bizarre thing to come out and say when he's chosen the players we've signed, so if he says he can't play how he wants to play, then that's down to him as much as anything else. I'm not calling for his head yet, but I am well and truly off the ETH hype train, if anyone is even still on it, and just think he really is not helping things with his comments after games, both about individual players and the squad as a whole.
 
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Robbo said:
His point is quite clear though. The club has no plan or direction. We've gone from manager to manager, letting them sign their own players, with no sporting director or clear club ethos. The people in important positions seem to have very limited knowledge of how to properly run a football club.

The stadium and training ground have had little to no investment, the club has no ambition outside of selling lots of merchandise and lining the pockets of the owners. Yes, a lot of money (self-generated) has been spent on players, but it's been a reckless scattergun approach and the results are clear for all to see.

This ultimately filters down onto the pitch in various different ways.

But on the other hand I completely agree, the players come across as lazy and entitled, and the manager does appear clueless at times too.

Basically everything has gone pear shaped, our only hope at this present time is that Ratcliffe can come in and seriously shake things up...
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Nah, it's the usual neville claptrap, excuses excuses excuses. Look at how different his 'criticism' of other clubs is, you can use arsenal as a prime example. Hes utterly incapable of being objective where man utd are concerned- take his comments on your midfield compared to liverpools the weekend prior to the league starting. The transfer of Mount being a prime example, no mention of why you are dropping 60 million on a player that plays in the same position as fernades/Erikson - just empty platitudes of it being a great signing.. why was it Gary, what does he bring?

I was under the impression one of the issues previously was thst managers weren't signing who they wanted? Now the issue is they are signing who they want but that's bad, pick a side lads.

As Steedie says, your current issues are in the manager, he's the one that has decided which players to go for, how much they are worth etc. He's not looking great when teams who were worse than you have got guys in that have improved their current player's, implemented playstyles and seen their teams fortunes improve. Has ten hag improved any player after 18 months of day to day training?
 
C Kent said:
I was under the impression one of the issues previously was thst managers weren't signing who they wanted? Now the issue is they are signing who they want but that's bad, pick a side lads.
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There have been so many issues at different times.

C Kent said:
As Steedie says, your current issues are in the manager, he's the one that has decided which players to go for, how much they are worth etc. He's not looking great when teams who were worse than you have got guys in that have improved their current player's, implemented playstyles and seen their teams fortunes improve. Has ten hag improved any player after 18 months of day to day training?
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I'm not disagreeing with this at all. ETH had one very good spell last season, but aside from that it's been a disappointment. Of course injuries don't help, but you have to deal with them. You can't just lose a couple of defenders and then decide to play like Dyche's Burnley - only much less effective.
 
Every club in the world works like this:

Manager: I need a creative midfielder, someone like x
DoF: Ok here is a list of players we've scouted that fit that profile (and earlier in the season, we'll focus our scouting in that direction)
Manager: Ok these players look good, lets discuss this and work out which should be the priority

Here is how are club works:

Manager: I need a creative midfielder that can progress the ball, someone like FdJ
Dof: Ok we'll get on the blower.

Two games into the season

DoF: De Jong doesn't want to come, but an agent has offered us Casemiro, he'll fit right?
Manager: Well not really, he's a completely different type of player
DoF: Well it's him or nothing
Manager: Well then it'll have to be him.

We have no football structure. No football club in the world works where the manager is manager, DoF and scout in one. We have signed a couple of ETH's first choices, but most of our signings haven't been. The crucial part though is every single one of our signings has either been a suggestion from ETH or someone that has clearly been offered by agents. The DoF and scouting system have done absolutely nothing.
 
You've had a defacto sporting director in John murtogh since 2013, he was given the official title of sporting director back in 2021(head of football development prior) ...
 
Right but he's clearly not doing anything. What signings have we made that didn't come from ETH? The only ones really are Casemiro and Hojlund (excluding loans, although even one of those was clearly from ETH)
Every window we're scrabbling to try and put a team together purely from the players that ETH knows and players that are offered to us. What other team operates like this? Backing a manager isn't giving them whatever they ask for (not that we've done that either) It's giving them the tools they need to do their job. We've failed every single manager at that. This isn't to say the managers are free of blame, ETH has not been good enough and seems ridiculously stubborn on certain things that aren't working (like Bruno RW) but if we don't fix our structure, no manager can ever succeed here. That is why I'm not ETH out yet, because as bad as things are, a new manager can't fix it. Until the Glazers are gone and someone actually fixes the structure above the manager it is impossible to succeed. Klopp and Pep could not succeed at our club, Pep even said so post match that he relies on the structure around him.
 
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