Ten Hag throws another Man Utd star under the bus with his ‘unacceptable’ bullsh*t

Erik ten Hag is a cr*p man manager who should be defending Marcus Rashford rather than publicly shaming him. That and much, much more on Manchester United in the mailbox.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Zeitgeisty Man Utd
A few people in this morning’s mailbox were asking why the obsession with all things United, and I’ll just offer a few thoughts on this.

Man United are the most Zeitgeisty club of all time. They always seem to be doing something remarkable at the point of most significance. When European football was starting to take root, the Munich air disaster happens (tragic but hugely iconic) sending the Busby babes into the consciousness of anyone remotely interested in football

10 years later they are the first English club to win the European Cup, 10 years before Liverpool, Forest etc ushered in an era of English dominance. With the swinging 60’s at their peak and the world going crazy for all things English (along with the 66 World Cup win), Best (the original pin up star who was bigger than his role in any team), Charlton and the rest embodied the era like no other.

It all went a bit quiet then, with Liverpool taking over, but just at the perfect point again, they win the first Premier League title and all the glory and, most importantly, money that comes with it. Fathers who grew up on 60’s glory pass the obsession down to their kids. Ferguson, the perfect manager at the perfect time ushered in an era of control at a time when the financial rewards were never greater. This, combined with their position in the worldwide football landscape they had established with their previous notable accomplishments (at this point surely only Real Madrid were in the same league) allowed them to exploit all the financial opportunities available.

My recollection of this time was a media obsession with all things United, class of 92, you’ll win nothing with kids, the treble, Beckham mania (George Best 2?) and a hairy Ryan Giggs waving his jersey around. All the United fans I knew were happy enough with the dominance, happy enough with the noodle partners that allowed them to buy all the best players from all the other teams (Andy Cole hurt quite a bit to be honest, I expect Arsenal fans feel the same about RVP) and happy enough to think it could never end. So many of today’s pundits are culled from the ranks of those Ferguson teams, so many people of a certain age have only them as a yardstick of success and so many people jumped on the bandwagon of what appeared to be a never ending party.

And finally now, in the era of extremely angry, extremely online fanbases, they are once again the ultimate team for their time. A team that promises new dawns every other year only to break hearts at every turn. But most of it stems from that Ferguson period where they won all around them in style and exploited that success for every penny they could get. It probably isn’t helped by the fact that their place at the top has been taken by Man City (rather than Liverpool), who just don’t have that romantic, long established image to really get the pulse racing.

So, sorry we’re all a bit obsessed, but remember, you wanted it this way.
Derek from Dundalk

Ten Hag’s mediocre Man Utd
If you look back over the last couple of decades at the most successful managers in the EPL (SAF, Pep, Klopp), they all have one key fact in common – they were all given time to build teams. Yes, MUFC is currently a sh@tshow but what is changing the manager going to achieve? There may be a new manager bump for a short while but the team will then regress back to the same levels that saw the demise of Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho and Solksjaer. It reminds me of the old saying “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting a different result.” Who would we get in? Zidane? Fat chance. I’m waiting for someone to mention Big Sam! And we’d start all over again. It’s Groundhog Day.

We, or at least those who care (especially YOU the former players) need to take off the red-tinted glasses and accept the fact that we are currently a MEDIOCRE team. The fact that we are even close to Newcastle and Brighton is astonishing, considering we are playing with our 3rd, 4th and 5th choice center backs and no recognized Left Back.

Sure ETH deserves some portion of the blame but only last season he won one trophy, was in two finals and finished 3rd. Did he suddenly become a bad manager or, more likely, he has realized how poor the current squad is. Is there any player, on current form, who could get into any of the top four sides?

Just consider for a moment the rebuild ahead… Varane, Casimiro, Ericksen, Maguire and Evans are all over 30. They were most likely gambles as stop gaps which hasn’t paid off. Now look at the lazy, limited or toxic players such as Martial, Mount, Rashford, Fernandes, McTominay, Sancho and Anthony. What is left is barely an indoor team.

Every single MUFC fan knew for certain we would not beat City and I suspect most of us expected a thrashing from Newcastle. That is, unfortunately, where we are. The sooner we ALL recognize this harsh fact, the quicker we can get started on the hard work instead of our current state of sulking entitlement.
Adidasmufc (And yet we are somehow STILL higher than Chelsea if you can believe that!)

READ MORE: Ten Hag brands Rashford behaviour ‘unacceptable’ as Man Utd star does what Sancho hasn’t

Under the Ten Hag bus
Imagine the scene… You’ve had a crap day at work. You’re not particularly responsible, the whole of your department has had a shocker, including your boss.

But, hey ho, it’s your birthday, so you go out for a quiet, controlled party that had already been arranged. You arrive perfectly fit and sober for the next day’s shift .. all’s good right?

Apparently not if Ten Hag’s your boss.

Is there any wonder why the players can’t be arsed to put a shift in for him?

Has Ten Hag ever taken an ounce of blame for a team’s poor performance, or has he always chucked players under the bus?

I’ve worked for bosses like that and surprisingly it leads to negative morale, results and eventually their P45.

Just a thought..
Dave PVFC 

Rashford bullsh*t
I am convinced that Mr Ten Hag is not a good man manager, and this is a big factor as to why United are misfiring. Now, perhaps Marcus Rashford is full of remorse for having the ridiculous notion that he is allowed a social life, but perhaps he has seen what happens to players who don’t apologise to the manager when the manager picks a fight with them.

Every account I have seen suggests the night out was a pretty sober affair. There is no suggestion that Rashford was drunk or misbehaving. He got to training on time the following day. So, what did he do wrong, exactly? I know that elite footballers live incredibly privileged lives, but surely this shouldn’t preclude them from a night out every now and again?

Does he have to seek permission from his employer to go out after losing a game? Would he be under this kind of scrutiny if he was playing well and the team were performing better? Is it not a leap to conflate a sensible night out with poor form? If they were top four right now, would anyone give a toss about a late night out?

This seems like bullshit to me. If I was the manager, I would have defended Rashford, explained that he needs downtime like everyone else, and would have pointed out he didn’t act unprofessionally when he was out, he trained fine the next day and is a model professional. Instead, he is dressing him down, demanding an apology and criticising him in the media, who seem to perceive Ten Hag as a performing monkey who will provide them with plenty of headlines simply by asking him loaded questions. He’s out of his depth here, clearly.

I still think United need to stick with him for the time being, but in a sport where we often talk about a manager losing the dressing room, does he really sound like he is the captain of a happy ship?

With apologies to United fans who are (understandably) sick of all the chat about them, but OT is a soap opera right now, and it’s (understandably) great entertainment. I love watching United flounder as much as you love watching Liverpool when they struggle.
Matthew (good job mods, but we all know what’s coming)

Erik ten Hag is under severe pressure at Man Utd.

Man Utd victim blaming
Anyone notice the immediate contradiction in Lee’s email? First he says United fans are “basically like Madrid fans now, three bad games and everyone needs to be sold”. In the very next paragraph it’s “You can’t find a single example of a successful club with a fan base which turns on its players and coach at every opportunity.”

I’m sorry, you do know who the most successful European Club is don’t you? How many European Cup/Champion’s League titles do they have? How many in the last ten years was it?

United fans aren’t any worse or better than any other fan group. There’s just more of them, especially  online, so you tend to notice them more. Quite a large proportion of society are complete bellends and they’re particularly noisy when they’re sat behind a keyboard. So it stands to reason there are quite a lot of numpties following United.

The match going supporters general are quite supportive of the team. Yeh they boo when it’s going badly but most teams would boo their side if they played like United do at the moment. And I think most of the sensible discourse is more aimed at the structural issues at the club. Because for all Ten Hag seems to be making a hash of it, no other manager is touching it with a barge pole. There’ll be people that will say Mount/Onana etc was never a good player, we should never have signed him. Some more level headed fans will ask why players are struggling to recreate the form they showed at their previous club and whether there are bigger problems than this players being rubbish.

Yeh we’ve still got our Hugos. But quite often, when Liverpool have a bad game, a few of their more unhinged fans pop up and tell us how bad Klopp and FSG are. Arsenal have Stewie Griffin. The glass is half empty for a lot of people and that spans the entirety of the footballing fandom. Not just the club that you happen to dislike.

Blaming fans for their football club looking like it’s going through rapid unscheduled disassembly is essentially victim blaming.
Ash

Lack of Man Utd humility
The mailbox full of Man U fans flipping between the paranoia of ‘stop picking on us’ and the arrogance of ‘we’re the biggest and bestest’ team is hilarious.  In quick response to Calvinho from the mailbox.

The most under performing manager in the PL this season? Ten Haag

The most unsuitable captain? Fernandes

The most error prone high profile, big signing keeper? Onana

The most error prone, high profile cb? Maguire

The most drop off from last years performance by any cdm? Casemiro

The most drop off from last years purple patch forward? Rashford

The most in need of repair stadium? Old Trafford

The most under performing club? Man Utd

The most watched team for the hilarity of the arrogant failures? Man Utd

The most journalistically covered club? – bad news sells better than good news Man Utd

I think a few mailbox entries from non-man u fans have started to hit the nail on the head for one of the biggest problems Man U have created, and some Man U fans emails show this off brilliantly – it is the lack of humility. I realise there are some very sensible Man U fans out there.  The nature of having oodles of fans means you’ll have plenty of idiots, my team Arsenal have their fair share as well – and it shouldn’t be something to tar the entire fan base with, However I feel like Man U generally still feel like they are the biggest club in the world and that title alone should go some way to resolving their problems and returning them to the top. It is no more evident in their recent signings. Man U sign ‘obvious’ players. Player a 10 year old on FIFA would sign, Sancho was an obvious signing, bully their way to the front of the queue by throwing the most money at the player and selling club but seemingly without a proper short term or long term strategy of how best to use that player. Maguire felt the same, the flavour of the month England defender from non top 6 club, he must sign for Man U! Until Man U become more humble and accept that it may or will take a few years to properly rebuild and to implement a strategy they will keep stumbling from one managerial mess to the next. Short term signings in a panicked attempt to get back to the top have rarely worked for any team. £100m on Casemiro and Varane looks foolish at the time despite the performances being initially pretty good. They are ‘win now’ players when Man U were in no state to ‘win now.’ Amrabat is another, no one heard of this player until 5 good games at the World Cup, was he really the best defensive midfielder the recruitment team could come up with, was he even on the list of potential midfielders before those 5 good games at the World Cup? Mount was signed to play in a pair of 8’s with Bruno and Casemiro as the lone 6, as City and Arsenal play. It was quickly realised Casemiro for all the fawning over him last year can’t play a lone 6 as Rodri, Partey did last year and it’s back to 2 holding mids and Mount looks like a pointless signing.

Ten Hag supporters like to use Arteta as a yardstick as Arsenal kept faith with him during some tough early times (and yes there were those Arsenal fans who wanted him gone, the most reactionary fans tend to shout the loudest on social media), but they did because it was clear what the strategy was and it would take time to totally overhaul the squad given the budget available. But building blocks of the squad overhaul were put in place early and were a success, Partey and Gabriel were the first signings. Anyone with a bad attitude or unwilling to toe the line was moved on quickly (Ozil, Guendouzi) some even paying up their contract to ensure the entire group was on the same page. It wasn’t an easy journey and it’s far from done for Arsenal, and you have to be spot on in strategy and recruitment but the first step is being humble enough to realise there isn’t a quick fix and you may have to suffer short term pain for longer term gain. I don’t think Man U or their fans are willing to accept that yet.
Rich, AFC (is ‘hated, adored never ignored’ more or less arrogant than the ‘this means more’?)

Andy Cole to Antony
Reading Andy Cole speaking on Antony.

Andy Cole.

Good grief that hits me with a clarity you may not believe.

Fast forward a spot over 20 years from the memories I am recalling, and it’s the like of Antony I’m shouting for, Not King Cole alongside Dwight, with Teddy and Ole on the bench as alternatives!

That was quite some depth.

This is quite some decline.
Manc from SA (Really, England had forwards during the 90’s and at the turn of the century that make me gawk. Shearer, Teddy, Les, Robbie, Andy, Ian, Owen coming through. That’s just naughty man!)

Xhaka for Arteta
Interesting article on every Premier League club’s next manager. But I can’t see Carlo taking over at Arsenal.

Aside from our greatest manager ever – Herbert Chapman – our other pretenders to the crown have usually been a bit of a gamble ahead of Arsenal coming a calling. Arsene had never managed in England and George had never managed a top flight club, with only Millwall on his CV I believe.

I never thought I’d write this just a couple of years ago. But given I think Mikel will be Arsenal manager for at least a couple more years yet, I actually think it will be another former player who gets the nod. And it’s not the most obvious candidate either.

I think our next manager will be Granit Xhaka. I believe he’s already doing his coaching badges, he knows the club and players inside and out and wouldn’t it be the ultimate redemption story for him to return and do what no Arsenal manager has ever done – win old big ears itself?
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

Leave Moyesy alone
Why are we always seeing David Moyes sack articles?This is West Ham, sitting in 9th, won a bigger trophy than Man Utd did last season, sold their best player, in the QF of the fizzy cup and top their Europa League group.
They spent €137 million in the summer and recouped €156 million.
West Ham fans should be extatic.

David Moyes is a good manager, West Ham are an exceptionally well run club.
Could anyone else do a better job than Moyes? Of course and I don’t think anyone would say otherwise, but is sacking Moyes to maybe get a couple extra points a season really worth it, considering it could have the opposite effect? Does anyone think that the Hammers should be competing for a CL spot? I will go out on a limb and predict they’ll finish above Man Utd. A lot of the players he’s signed would walk into Utds team.

Lay off Moyes, he’s done a better job than any other West Ham manager has done in my life time.
Hugo

‘Elite’ Everton?
How genuinely wonderful for Peter Fitzpatrick to say this in his recent column:

In fact, there are few more dysfunctional and destructive clubs amongst the elite, with only Chelsea and Everton competing for that dubious honour in the Premier League.

No, not his comments about United.  Those comments weren’t wonderful, especially to United supporters.  But to consider Everton “elite?”  I’ve been supporting Everton since 1999/2000 and the last time I can remember us being elite in that time, was, well never.  If I know my history, Everton were considered elite in the mid 80’s and had some silverware to show for it.

Yes, we’re a big club if that’s what he means.  We’re also clearly dysfunctional.  But elite?

I think we’d need to win something before we can be put back on that pedestal.  But that was very kind of Peter to attempt to put us into that category.
TX Bill (heading down to McDonalds to get an Elite Mac) EFC