Ten Hag’s nine Man Utd ‘mistakes’ exposed after ‘p*ss poor’ loss and Rashford is the ‘worst simulator’
The Mailbox lists Erik ten Hag’s nine mistakes at Man Utd and exposes Marcus Rashford as a ‘dreadful’ diver. Also: Erling Haaland is Jar Jar Binks.
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Ten Hag’s mistakes
I should preface this by saying I love Erik Ten Hag and genuinely think he’s doing a great job. Long May his reign continue. But at this stage of the season, as United are on the precipice of bottling Champions League participation again it’s worth pointing out some of his mistakes.
Trusting Martial at the start of the season. He was always going to struggle for fitness and when he has a period of fitness is patchy at best. A place in the squad that could’ve been filled in the summer.
Keeping Ronaldo. Yes, this eventually gave Ten Hag an opportunity to exert his authority over the team but again, we could’ve signed a striker in the summer who wasn’t a massive c*ck or injured all the time.
Going for the quadruple. I get it. Trophies are nice. But sustained success is also nice. Are players going to join United this summer because we win the Carabao Cup? No. Are they going to come because we’ve been beaten 5-0 in the FA Cup Final? Probably not. Would they come if we finished in the top four and qualified for the Champions League? Definitely. By going for everything and playing the same players in every game (because the alternatives aren’t great) United are in a weird state where the end of the season can’t come soon enough but we still need to win some games to get in the Champions League. Could still happen but gets harder with every second-half performance.
Not resting players earlier in the season. I personally would’ve been really happy for us to play five or six youth players in every cup game and go out early. Go for every cup when you’ve got a squad capable of scoring some actual goals. Played almost a full side in a home cup tie against Reading and lost Eriksen for months. Costly mistake. Got to the quarter-finals of the Europa League and both centre-backs were lost. Another costly mistake which also led to us exiting the competition anyway.
Not realising sooner that he didn’t have a good enough squad to play the way he wanted. Get your business done early. A point or three in the first couple of games would definitely have helped this run-in be a little more comfortable now. This leads us to….
Signing Antony. Ok, he’s still young and could turn out to be the next Pele (lol) and generally when he doesn’t play we do sort of miss him but…. Gakpo was right there for half the price man! And could that money have been better spent on a striker? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Pursuing Frenkie De Jong all summer long. Add him to the Fabregas saga. Probably have another fruitless go this summer. HE DOESN’T WANT TO LEAVE ERIK.
Half-time team talks in Spring. Every single one for the last two months has been abysmal. Ok, not every one but United’s in United’s last 15 matches we’ve won the first half 9-3 and lost the second half 16-9 on aggregate. Even if you take out the six we conceded against Liverpool that’s still more than 3 times as many second-half goals conceded compared to the first half. And if you take away the 3 later goals we scored against 10-man Fulham then it looks even worse.
Playing Maguire. Ever. Fair play to Erik for giving Harry a chance but we’re now at the point where every time Maguire enters the field of play, the opposition fans actively cheer for him and all hope and confidence is drained from the United fans and maybe even the team. I don’t remember a player who has caused as much fear and consternation in my 30-odd years as a United fan. He needs to go to ever offers actual cash money. And he’s still club captain….
Taking the job in the first place. Yea United is a big club blah blah blah but it’s a poisoned chalice. In truth, Erik has done ten times as many things right this season as he has done wrong. But the keyboard warriors don’t write about the good stuff. So when Erik is out of a job at Christmas – because we spend our entire budget on Kane and he joins Martial (no one would take him) in the injury room for the first four months of the season so we score five goals, all against the promoted sides – he will look back and regret taking the reins at the biggest omnishambles of a football club. But then I expect Bayern will snap him up when Tuchel falls out with the squad (again).
Hopefully, the Glazers will pull their head out of their asses and sell up or raise some proper capital to help Erik and he can take us to the promised land. Won’t hold my breath though.
Ash (Brighton weren’t at their best today but deserved that win for the bravery they showed and United didn’t)
READ MORE: Mac Allister nails Hollywood ending to send Brighton ever closer to a European tour
Rashford is the worst ‘simulator’
Have I missed it or is there very little chat around Marcus Rashford becoming one of the worst ‘simulators’ in the game?
Worst being used to mean how much he does it and also how absolutely dreadful he is at it.
J (Belfast)
‘Fuming’ Red Devil
Honestly, I have not been p*ssed off for a very long time after watching the United game following the 1-0 defeat to Brighton tonight. Fuming, to say the least, because United just can’t handle the pressure anymore, they are a weak team when it comes to the crunch moments. The team were hanging on for dear life as if it was the bloody World Cup final, all because some players don’t have the f***ing balls or intelligence to keep the ball and maybe try to create a chance to score a goal!! 49 goals in 33 league games so far this season says it all. The need for a top striker is really desperate now, no wonder United can’t score a f***ing goal when Weghorst & Martial are our only actual number 9 strikers. All United had to do was win this game to secure Top-4, but NOPE, United just have to do things the hard way and once again allow Liverpool to still have a chance of securing Champions League football next season.
United defended well overall in the game and forced a lot of shots from Brighton outside the box, but there was a period for United in the last 15-20 minutes where Brighton backed off to actually go win the game, but the team like the bunch of wet wipes that that some of them are, were happy with a bloody 0-0 draw. Yes, it was away to Brighton and maybe a point would have been sufficient, but why oh why can’t the team at least try to score some more f***ing goals? Sh*tshow and just so unnecessary from the team. Conceded last minute against Palace & Arsenal in January and again today. United used to score last-minute goals to win games, now they are a bunch of bottle jobs at times. United better win at least 4 of their last 5 league games against West Ham, Wolves, Bournemouth, Chelsea & Fulham because the excuses and p*ss poor performances are getting old now.
Rami, Manchester (Just please stop starting Martial for the love of god)
Man Utd’s second-half problem
The first half was quite even from both sides. Before the game, I was definitely worried going to Brighton as they are a fantastic team and were coming off a great result against Wolves. Early in the half Brighton were looking good. Mitoma was attacking Wan-Bissaka and was getting the better of him for the first 10-15 minutes of the game but after that, Wan-Bissaka seemed to figure out the pace of the game and was more of his usual self for most of the half. United had some good counters that with more clinical players United could have easily scored 3.
I feel that Martial is a bit unlucky playing as the striker as one of the issues United have had for years is that Strikers get no service from the wingers so for the most part Martial has to go deeper to try to get the ball like Ronaldo was doing early this season. It was a good half where both sides look like they can win just depends on who comes out ready in the second half.
The second half was poor again from United. We came out in the second half not prepared again. The players let their emotions get the better of them which started causing fouls that did not need to happen. We almost got over the line until a last-second penalty. Recently our second halves have been poor. I still back Ten Hag but something needs to be said about the constant drop recently in the second half.
Overall, before the game, I was not expecting much but the first half gave me hope we could walk away with a win or at least a draw but to lose it to a last-second penalty always sucks but especially when our second half was so bad that I can’t even argue with the result. Now we have West Ham away where hopefully we turn our away form around and get a win.
Max Of Whitegate
Watching United players intensely running up and down the pitch for 90 minutes in January cup matches it always felt inevitable they were going to wear down by the run in
These days it looks like they burn out at halftime and have nothing left in the tank for the second half
— Pauly Kwestel (@pkwestel) May 4, 2023
Fair play to Brighton
Can’t really complain too much about that result; although the nature of the loss stings given we had defended well for 95 minutes, Shaw in particular. Brighton deserved the win on balance and our finishing was poor (as was theirs to be fair). Great game to watch for the neutral no doubt and hopefully Brighton kick on and get a Europa League spot.
As for us, that’s one of our toughest games out of the way with the next one on Sunday away to the hammers, who gave Arsenal and Liverpool a good game recently. Time to regroup and start picking up points again, then get a rest before Wolves at home.
We never do anything the easy way!
Garey Vance, MUFC
Jurgen Klopp is a… sore loser?
A lot of letters about what a terrible loser Klopp is.
Is that some kind of smoking gun? So what? Name me a top manager who is successful who is a good loser?
Fergie was such a shocking loser that when he lost he sent his assistant to do the press interviews. Jose would blame anyone except himself, Wenger would never “see it”. Every top manager is a sore loser.
Do you know why? They’re not used to losing. It’s an alien and painful feeling for them. if your manager is a graceful loser it’s because it happens so often he’s adapted to it. Let’s not pretend that you’ve all finally unmasked Klopp as the snarky whinger in a sea of graceful yet successful losers. Everyone who is successful is also a sore loser, it’s almost a 1:1 correlation.
Also on a side note – remember when I said Trent could perform the deep-lying playmaker role and yall said I looked like an idiot? How am I looking now? 5 assists in 6 games and a 7 game-winning streak. Everyone needs to also stop saying he’s a bad defender, he’s 2nd in the team for defenders and defensive actions (konate is 1st) and is 3rd overall for defensive actions (Thiago 1st, konate, 2nd) he’s genuinely not as bad as everyone says and the data supports that. He just gets highlighted a lot more.
Lee
Man City = Hulk Hogan
I have to confess that I don’t meet City’s dominance with anything other than indifference.
Before Boehly managed to turn Chelsea back into a caterpillar, I used to really dislike them for taking our position as the capital’s top club, and I really didn’t like United during the early noughties when we were challenging them for the league.
But with City, I find their league title wins like trying to remember who came second from seasons gone by. I couldn’t honestly tell you the years they have won the league because it’s never really registered. Even this season I don’t think any Arsenal fan can see it as anything other than a success – even if we didn’t beat the City to the title.
And maybe that’s more damaging to the Premier League. It’s easy to sell a title race between two teams that dislike each other but when the champions are met with indifference – can this league retain interest?
This is like Hulk Hogan winning the WWF title back at Wrestlemania IX on a loop – after a while – nobody cares.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
Haaland is Jar Jar Binks
Ha!I knew I saw him somewhere before. A supposedly likeable, floppy, long-haired annoying franchise ruiner!
Yes, Erling Haaland is Jar Jar Binks’
Star Wars Day and all.
Padraic (Mayo, Ireland)