ETH surveillance 22/23

Originally Posted by Dacter

The human mind is simply not capable of preempting that much horror with simple doomlordery unfortunately,

southgate our manager this summer is a pretty good attempt tbf. whatever happens will not be worse than that.

Originally Posted by larry

southgate our manager this summer is a pretty good attempt tbf. whatever happens will not be worse than that.

Now you’ve done it…

Originally Posted by DublinRedDevil

Whatever about your opinion of Antony, he is not shit by any stretch of the imagination. He's not even in the top 5 shittest players at the club. United get criticised heavily for not developing or improving players but himself, Dalot, AWB look more assured every time I see them play, and that's down to the coaching.
It's obvious you've got the hump with ETH but he is the only lad at the club who looks like he gives a £#%&! about it right now.

sounds nice that’s not true. but why doesn’t our manager coach the other players to look more assured every time we see them play. as the word “assured” is the very opposite of how ETH’ United team look after 20 minutes.

Ten Hag out - Marlo in. Sorted

Originally Posted by Travis Bickle

Ten Hag out - Marlo in. Sorted

He’d immediately launch a campaign to get himself removed, and blame everyone else, and you in particular, for not seeing what a stupid move it was, before demanding Carlo Ancelotti be brought in as caretaker manager until the end of the next game.

Originally Posted by marlo

sounds nice that’s not true. but why doesn’t our manager coach the other players to look more assured every time we see them play. as the word “assured” is the very opposite of how ETH’ United team look after 20 minutes.

Who do you think could actually be coached better? Martial? Sancho? Maguire? McTom? DVB? You know as well as I do that they were identified for transfer at the end of last season. Most of the new signings have been injured alongside another 3 or 4 regulars. We don't look assured now, but we will. It might take a while though.

Originally Posted by Dacter

The biggest problem really has been that recently, however much pre-game doomlording you did to try to alleviate disappointment, United still often manage to go full on “hold my beer”.

I expect us to lose to Liverpool at home, we’re 0-4 behind at half time.

I expect us to lose to City in the cup final, we’re behind after 10 seconds.

The human mind is simply not capable of preempting that much horror with simple doomlordery unfortunately,

Yes. They’ve absolutely tested the boundaries of the doomlord genre in recent years. Reaching peaks of doom otherwise unexplored.

‘It will be a tough but I suspect a close game at Anfield this season’

‘7-0’

Originally Posted by Finport Red

He’d immediately launch a campaign to get himself removed, and blame everyone else, and you in particular, for not seeing what a stupid move it was, before demanding Carlo Ancelotti be brought in as caretaker manager until the end of the next game.

I'm going to pin a tweet saying I've been scapegoated. That'll teach him.

If we don’t beat Burnley today it will get a bit tasty for ETH.

yes, he’s the victim of the United Shitshow but he can still be doing much better than he is.

Media constantly repeating it convinces some

He has made a few puzzling decisions but when you add up the circumstances even before pre-season and seemingly none stop ever since…

Making what can be construed as the odd error is different to players not trying. Even have some sympathy with a good few of them after an overload of fixtures, going deep into all competitions and a tiring club promo instead of a proper preseason, followed by injuries etc etc but there’s no excuse for some of them not even putting the effort in. Eriksen and Cas, to name just two, look £#%&!ed - neither of who are the most athletic anyway but still important to the shape of the team

Originally Posted by DublinRedDevil

Who do you think could actually be coached better? Martial? Sancho? Maguire? McTom? DVB? You know as well as I do that they were identified for transfer at the end of last season. Most of the new signings have been injured alongside another 3 or 4 regulars. We don't look assured now, but we will. It might take a while though.

the new set of scapegoats have been announced.

The funny thing is those players hardly £#%&!ing play and we are still shit and unprepared.
We then go into “clueless mode” during the game where the opposition look pureposeful and we don’t know what to do.
It’s a shame we can start yelling “£#%&!ing Fred” or “can’t wait to pogba £#%&!s off” because they aren’t around.

Call it absurd but you maybe think the complaint could be levelled at the man paid £160k a week to manage the team.

Even from an external post of view do you think Liverpool or city fans are afraid of what ETH is cooking?
Have we made any progress under him? Is there a playing style? Is there a clear direction with our transfers…

Anyway fortunely football has metrics. And if we continue to be beaten. Out played and stink up the place it would be in the manager regardless of the puffpeices you lot post on here.

And why do you conveniently ignore the metrics of last season? You know - the one where we finished 3rd, won a trophy, reached another final, and a semi-final.

General consensus seems to be that the fans aren't falling for this latest stream of bullshit. Imagine a fair bit of vitriol towards the players if they don't show up today.

[When Erik ten Hag suffered a bruising start to his Manchester United career, the mitigation was significant.

At the time of the 4-0 defeat to Brentford in the club’s second Premier League game of last season, United had only two new players in the line-up: Lisandro Martinez and Christian Eriksen.

David de Gea, Harry Maguire, Fred, Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho all started that day. It was not really Ten Hag’s team.

Even when the aberrations came in an otherwise positive campaign, such as losing 7-0 to Liverpool or 3-0 to Sevilla for instance, the sense persisted that the failings owed in part to Ten Hag adapting his principles due to the players he had available.

That argument is not as compelling this season. In the 4-3 loss to Bayern Munich, a performance that bore many of the horror hallmarks of defeats gone by, United had a spine of players brought in by Ten Hag: Andre Onana, Martinez, Casemiro and Rasmus Hojlund. There was also Bruno Fernandes, whom Ten Hag has made captain, and Marcus Rashford, who in July was given a new long-term contract.

Onana was not the only one of these players culpable in Munich. Martinez was booked for pushing Harry Kane into the assistant referee in the second half and he turned his back on the shots from Leroy Sane and Serge Gnabry.

Casemiro scored twice late on but only after another display where he looked fatigued by attempting to keep up with the pace in midfield.

Rashford was a threat on the ball and at one stage sprinted back to win United possession, yet got it wrong in other moments and cut a visibly frustrated figure. Fernandes started well but misplaced 13 of his 46 passes, including one at 3-2 that set Bayern on the counter-attack that led to their fourth goal.


Fernandes cuts a dejected figure at full-time in Munich (Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Ten Hag ripped into his team at half-time about their application and afterwards gave a flavour of his thoughts publicly. “You see how easy Sane is coming through and that has to do with determination: don’t let players so easily through,” he said. “You have to suffer sacrifice in certain situations to stop that and only when we get that will we win games. We have to look in the mirror. The goals were easy giveaways.”

go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Onana is in the spotlight but Manchester United have issues all over the pitch
That was the kind of sentiment he expressed after the Brentford defeat, yet those players who were seen as causes of previous turmoil were not in Germany this week. Ronaldo is long gone, De Gea left in the summer, Sancho has been banished and Maguire is injured.

The dial on where responsibility lies for United’s form is now shifting from the players on the pitch to the manager putting them out there. This is increasingly Ten Hag’s team, which is why questions are beginning to be asked about whether he must also reflect on his work.

That is not to say Ten Hag has everything the way he would like. Far from it.

He still can’t select a midfielder in the mould of Frenkie de Jong, his principal target in his first summer, and the current right-wing options leave something to be desired.

Then again, United have signed four midfielders — Eriksen, Casemiro, Mason Mount and Sofyan Amrabat — since Ten Hag was appointed, so he had opportunities to recruit a player more naturally suited to picking the ball off the back line and dribbling forwards or passing progressively, as De Jong does.

And it was Ten Hag’s call to make public his complaints with Sancho and eject him from his squad over a refusal to apologise for the public backchat. Inevitably, such a major decision will generate more scrutiny the longer it goes unresolved. Ronaldo was 37 when he was kicked out, Sancho is 23 — they are different circumstances.

That Antony’s legal issues have surfaced at the same time, stripping United of two players in the same position, is unfortunate and an indication of how firmly Ten Hag believes in his approach to Sancho.

The Dutchman, 53, pushed United to sign Antony from Ajax, which came at a cost of £85million ($104.5m).



So United have just Facundo Pellistri as a recognised right-winger. He is enthusiastic and direct, but he is also 21 years old and raw. It was only in the final week of the window that United confirmed he would not be heading out on loan. Pellistri made his second United start in three years in Munich.

Hannibal Mejbri has also experienced a sudden rise to prominence. He was so upset at missing out on the bench against Nottingham Forest that it seemed he would be leaving on loan, but he stayed and scored as a substitute against Brighton & Hove Albion on his third United appearance.

In that game, Ten Hag turned to Hannibal ahead of either Pellistri or Alejandro Garnacho, persisting with his diamond formation, before bringing both wingers on for the final five minutes in a fluid system based on a 3-4-1-2 formation.

All these elements add together to create a picture of uncertainty and flux — not the kind of structured control Ten Hag advocates.


Ten Hag on the touchline against Bayern (Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Injuries have undoubtedly had a huge impact. United had nine senior players out for the trip to Bayern and the situation should ease soon with Raphael Varane, Mount, Amrabat and Kobbie Mainoo back in training.

United also have a gentler run of fixtures now that could see the mood shift, beginning with a trip to Burnley on Saturday. Defeat, however, would ratchet up the pressure.

Yet United staff are conscious that there was pain at Liverpool and Arsenal before Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta delivered progress.

Ten Hag, given huge authority at the club, has credit in the bank from the Carabao Cup triumph and Champions League qualification, but now he has a squad populated by his signings, he needs results and performances to ensure his stock does not drop
[/quote]

From the athletic.

A word that most you have never seen before in your life - accountability!

Originally Posted by Ethers

And why do you conveniently ignore the metrics of last season? You know - the one where we finished 3rd, won a trophy, reached another final, and a semi-final.

because you are only as good as your last.

same goes for most top level sports or anything at the top.

He has credit in the bank but the balance is dropping as we the seasons goes on.

We are now 3 losses in a row, playing poorly, out of ideas after 20 minutes every game.

A carling cup win does make up for our poor start and continuation of last season issues wise.

Originally Posted by marlo

the new set of scapegoats have been announced.

The funny thing is those players hardly £#%&!ing play and we are still shit and unprepared.
We then go into “clueless mode” during the game where the opposition look pureposeful and we don’t know what to do.
It’s a shame we can start yelling “£#%&!ing Fred” or “can’t wait to pogba £#%&!s off” because they aren’t around.

Call it absurd but you maybe think the complaint could be levelled at the man paid £160k a week to manage the team.

Even from an external post of view do you think Liverpool or city fans are afraid of what ETH is cooking?
Have we made any progress under him? Is there a playing style? Is there a clear direction with our transfers…

Anyway fortunely football has metrics. And if we continue to be beaten. Out played and stink up the place it would be in the manager regardless of the puffpeices you lot post on here.

I think we're all sceptical at the prospect of simply sacking the manager without addressing the lack of consistent training structure or transfer planning at the club under the remit of a sporting director. It would be utterly stupid to expect any new manager to change things any more significantly than ETH would, so you might as well let the man do his job, notwithstanding the limits and unrealistic expectations imposed upon him.

Originally Posted by marlo

[When Erik ten Hag suffered a bruising start to his Manchester United career, the mitigation was significant.

At the time of the 4-0 defeat to Brentford in the club’s second Premier League game of last season, United had only two new players in the line-up: Lisandro Martinez and Christian Eriksen.

David de Gea, Harry Maguire, Fred, Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho all started that day. It was not really Ten Hag’s team.

Even when the aberrations came in an otherwise positive campaign, such as losing 7-0 to Liverpool or 3-0 to Sevilla for instance, the sense persisted that the failings owed in part to Ten Hag adapting his principles due to the players he had available.

That argument is not as compelling this season. In the 4-3 loss to Bayern Munich, a performance that bore many of the horror hallmarks of defeats gone by, United had a spine of players brought in by Ten Hag: Andre Onana, Martinez, Casemiro and Rasmus Hojlund. There was also Bruno Fernandes, whom Ten Hag has made captain, and Marcus Rashford, who in July was given a new long-term contract.

Onana was not the only one of these players culpable in Munich. Martinez was booked for pushing Harry Kane into the assistant referee in the second half and he turned his back on the shots from Leroy Sane and Serge Gnabry.

Casemiro scored twice late on but only after another display where he looked fatigued by attempting to keep up with the pace in midfield.

Rashford was a threat on the ball and at one stage sprinted back to win United possession, yet got it wrong in other moments and cut a visibly frustrated figure. Fernandes started well but misplaced 13 of his 46 passes, including one at 3-2 that set Bayern on the counter-attack that led to their fourth goal.


Fernandes cuts a dejected figure at full-time in Munich (Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Ten Hag ripped into his team at half-time about their application and afterwards gave a flavour of his thoughts publicly. “You see how easy Sane is coming through and that has to do with determination: don’t let players so easily through,” he said. “You have to suffer sacrifice in certain situations to stop that and only when we get that will we win games. We have to look in the mirror. The goals were easy giveaways.”

go-deeper
GO DEEPER
Onana is in the spotlight but Manchester United have issues all over the pitch
That was the kind of sentiment he expressed after the Brentford defeat, yet those players who were seen as causes of previous turmoil were not in Germany this week. Ronaldo is long gone, De Gea left in the summer, Sancho has been banished and Maguire is injured.

The dial on where responsibility lies for United’s form is now shifting from the players on the pitch to the manager putting them out there. This is increasingly Ten Hag’s team, which is why questions are beginning to be asked about whether he must also reflect on his work.

That is not to say Ten Hag has everything the way he would like. Far from it.

He still can’t select a midfielder in the mould of Frenkie de Jong, his principal target in his first summer, and the current right-wing options leave something to be desired.

Then again, United have signed four midfielders — Eriksen, Casemiro, Mason Mount and Sofyan Amrabat — since Ten Hag was appointed, so he had opportunities to recruit a player more naturally suited to picking the ball off the back line and dribbling forwards or passing progressively, as De Jong does.

And it was Ten Hag’s call to make public his complaints with Sancho and eject him from his squad over a refusal to apologise for the public backchat. Inevitably, such a major decision will generate more scrutiny the longer it goes unresolved. Ronaldo was 37 when he was kicked out, Sancho is 23 — they are different circumstances.

That Antony’s legal issues have surfaced at the same time, stripping United of two players in the same position, is unfortunate and an indication of how firmly Ten Hag believes in his approach to Sancho.

The Dutchman, 53, pushed United to sign Antony from Ajax, which came at a cost of £85million ($104.5m).



So United have just Facundo Pellistri as a recognised right-winger. He is enthusiastic and direct, but he is also 21 years old and raw. It was only in the final week of the window that United confirmed he would not be heading out on loan. Pellistri made his second United start in three years in Munich.

Hannibal Mejbri has also experienced a sudden rise to prominence. He was so upset at missing out on the bench against Nottingham Forest that it seemed he would be leaving on loan, but he stayed and scored as a substitute against Brighton & Hove Albion on his third United appearance.

In that game, Ten Hag turned to Hannibal ahead of either Pellistri or Alejandro Garnacho, persisting with his diamond formation, before bringing both wingers on for the final five minutes in a fluid system based on a 3-4-1-2 formation.

All these elements add together to create a picture of uncertainty and flux — not the kind of structured control Ten Hag advocates.


Ten Hag on the touchline against Bayern (Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Injuries have undoubtedly had a huge impact. United had nine senior players out for the trip to Bayern and the situation should ease soon with Raphael Varane, Mount, Amrabat and Kobbie Mainoo back in training.

United also have a gentler run of fixtures now that could see the mood shift, beginning with a trip to Burnley on Saturday. Defeat, however, would ratchet up the pressure.

Yet United staff are conscious that there was pain at Liverpool and Arsenal before Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta delivered progress.

Ten Hag, given huge authority at the club, has credit in the bank from the Carabao Cup triumph and Champions League qualification, but now he has a squad populated by his signings, he needs results and performances to ensure his stock does not drop

From the athletic.

A word that most you have never seen before in your life - accountability!



because you are only as good as your last.

same goes for most top level sports or anything at the top.

He has credit in the bank but the balance is dropping as we the seasons goes on.

We are now 3 losses in a row, playing poorly, out of ideas after 20 minutes every game.

A carling cup win does make up for our poor start and continuation of last season issues wise.[/quote]
So basically things need to improve?

Well erm, yeah. I don’t think there’s one person on here who would say any different?

Originally Posted by Jethro

General consensus seems to be that the fans aren't falling for this latest stream of bullshit. Imagine a fair bit of vitriol towards the players if they don't show up today.

This is exactly what’s wrong with the current outlook.

This complete absolve of responsibility for the £#%&!ing manager.

if we lose today it’s definately on the players.

The players he bought, the players he picked and the tactics he instructs.

Basically if we win it’s his doing , those are the signs he is the right guy.
When we lose it’s all the players not listening to him, bad eggs , rotten culture.

How can you decide before the game that if we lose it’s on the players like wtf is going on here.

The lack of objection is mad.

Originally Posted by Ethers

And why do you conveniently ignore the metrics of last season? You know - the one where we finished 3rd, won a trophy, reached another final, and a semi-final.

The most problematic metric last season as noted at the time was goals scored. Of the last 80 teams to qualify for the top 4, literally only 2 or 3 had scored less goals than us (Moyes' Everton and one of Benitez's Liverpool teams; there's a third but I forget). That was a very damning statistic.

We've started this season off with 6 goals in 5, one of which was a pen. Huge burden of responsibility will fall on Rasmus: he's looked v bright first appearances and will likely need to be.

The Glazer / club 'sideshow' excuse is nonsense to be honest (not least because he's thrown a lot of money and has his own players up and down the team now, a lot of whom have links to ETH's agency too). Far bigger is the injury problems: not convinced that Lisandro has ever really shown he's good enough without Varane alongside him, and Shaw is the third or fourth most important player in the team. Aside from a couple of horror shows last year, the defence was a boon and that's been taken away at the moment w/o attack improving. Results, therefore, not surprising? The most concerning game was Wolves when there was pretty much a full strength 11. With the first 11 I thought we'd push into a title race in these early months, but that 90 was dire.

Originally Posted by DublinRedDevil

I think we're all sceptical at the prospect of simply sacking the manager without addressing the lack of consistent training structure or transfer planning at the club under the remit of a sporting director. It would be utterly stupid to expect any new manager to change things any more significantly than ETH would, so you might as well let the man do his job, notwithstanding the limits and unrealistic expectations imposed upon him.

Unrealistic expectations?!?? He isn’t a volunteer. He coming in a top level manager to sort out our mess and get results.
It’s football. A results based business that is basically in fast forward due to the money being spent and the fact our rivals don’t stand still.
That’s life and if we want to live in the 90s we will get left further behind than we are right now.


Oh so now we need a director of football.
Wasn’t this what i was saying for the last 18 months and told “fletcher is doing a great job” ?
Had arguments for days about how we need a best in class DOF to sort out the transfers while ETH can focus on the playing side and then we see if he is the real deal.

Originally Posted by marlo

This is exactly what’s wrong with the current outlook.

This complete absolve of responsibility for the £#%&!ing manager.

if we lose today it’s definately on the players.

The players he bought, the players he picked and the tactics he instructs.

Basically if we win it’s his doing , those are the signs he is the right guy.
When we lose it’s all the players not listening to him, bad eggs , rotten culture.

How can you decide before the game that if we lose it’s on the players like wtf is going on here.

The lack of objection is mad.

Pal, the manager is in part responsible for how we perform but it would be utter madness to bullet him from just about every perspective you can possibly approach the question . He needs time to develop his system, to establish the team he wants, to off load the players he doesn’t want. He’s the 5 th manager in 10 years ffs.

All united fans have ptsd from the previous 4 managers all giving these shit@#%&! players too much rope and too much respect and finding themselves in a position in which they are sacked for the players gutless performances.

If that hadn’t happened there might be more player sympathy but as it is, some of our squad have somehow managed to outstay 4 £#%&!ing managers.

No one is on the side of the players and everyone is on the side of the manager. Bear in mind that context when you get exasperated by people defending 10’ers.