Ten Hag ‘needs to go’ but Manchester United fans join Arsenal in calling conspiracy

Manchester United have fallen victim to the same Manchester City ‘conspiracy’ as Arsenal but ultimately Erik ten Hag needs to go.

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Sitter
Ronnie Rosenthal will sleep like a baby tonight after that Dalot miss.
Niallio, Dublin

At least Ronny Rosenthal hit the bar.
Howard Jones

Already over
So Manchester United are currently 14th in the league, second lowest goal-scorers in the league only worse than Palace, 3 draws (and no wins) in the Europa League and the captain as well as the whole team seems to have forgotten how to play football too.

The players have absolutely no pressure on them or fear/motivation from the manager, it’s a circus show. Unfortunately the players play for a fool of a manger, who is employed by and working for even bigger fools. Someone please tell me how Fernandes is the highest paid captain in the league, with Van dijk and Walker well behind him in terms of salary? How’s he burgled that one?

Watching United isn’t actually satisfying at all anymore, it’s just pure rubbish. No element of surprise or quality anymore, and the standards are so low now too. I think United losing the FA Cup semi final last year would have actually been for the best, as ten Haag would have surely been out of the door. However, the issue with United seems to be much deeper than that. Solving the root of the problem is almost impossible.

You would have thought winning a trophy last year despite it being a poor year would have given the players some additional hunger to want to succeed more and bring them some confidence as well. But all it’s done is create an even bigger ego for ten Haag and lead to further arrogance from the players.

I’ll give Ten Haag until December max, otherwise it’s time to go through yet another manager at the club, think that would be the 7th one since 2013…
Rami, Dubai

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Cannot stand it
I just can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it. Garnacho, Fernandes, DALOT unbelievable. I just can’t stand it. Fifty golden chances, fifty misses. Don’t they practice shooting on the net? Do they not understand that the ball needs to go into that big rectangle with the nice strings? My God! Why would anybody play defence against them? I wouldn’t even play a keeper, just eleven strikers, why not? I just can’t stand it.
Tom Karsay, Ottawa, Canada

Tough things
This is going to be difficult for a lot of people, but listen up: two things can both be true at the same time.

Firstly, ETH needs to go. Even though United should probably have been 4-0 up at half time, the terrible finishing is, imo, a by-product of the lack of control and composure that comes with his tactics. It’s reliant on fast, kinetic, hyper-active play and the finishing reflects that. There are not waves of attack like the best teams, it is hit and hope on the break. United are 14th. 20 something in the Europa League. It’s done. Finished. Rip the bandaid off.

Secondly, Michael Oliver should not be permitted to be involved in United’s matches anymore. Between his Newcastle fandom and his financial ties to City, he simply cannot be trusted to do his job objectively. He is either biased, or incompetent. I’m not sure which is worse. But just a couple weeks after VAR was unable to overturn the obvious mistake of Bruno’s red card because…reasons, VAR was able to step in here and after only a few minutes and 15 odd slow motion replays…I still see a 50/50 challenge. I absolutely promise you the VAR reviews will say this was a mistake. United might even get an apology. But it comes to mindset to me: Oliver is looking for that. And he found it.

Yes, it’s funny because it’s United and everyone hates United, but it’s a ref that is either subconsciously or consciously not objective, and the league should not stand for that.
Ryan, Bermuda

The more things change the more they stay the same.

United continue their principles of creating plenty of chances but refusing to take any of them – moving up a notch by missing an open goal. Then Michael Oliver, feeling his chance is getting away from him, takes matters into his own hands and makes the match all about him by deciding on a VAR intervention over a definitely-not-clear-and-obvious incident that took 30 seconds of reviewing before the referee limply decided that in spite of evidence it was a penalty.

People will be crying for the manager to be sacked, and while I get it to a point, that won’t make the forwards be better at finishing. It also won’t stop VAR being a floater in a turd soup that is refereeing in this country.

To be clear, it’s not VAR that’s the issue here. The technology is fine. It’s the humans that remain as inept behind a screen as they are on the grass.

It’s also some of the forwards (or at least those who choose to take shots) who needs to get into some serious finishing training. Can the manager make them better at it? Did Keane shouting at his inept defenders when he was managing make them defend better?

Personally, while something needs to change, I don’t think the manager is the issue really. His set up is creating more than enough chances. Talk is that Van Nistelrooy would be the person to take over, but isn’t he the lead coach of the forwards? Maybe a change would help, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the constant sack chat is affecting confidence. Or maybe they are just shit at finishing (looking at you Garnacho and Bruno).

I dunno any more. But at least we didn’t pick up more injuries… oh, wait.
Badwolf

Rubbish
Every week we are left wondering which United will turn up. Will it be the usual one that is utterly rubbish for at least the first half and either beaten easily by superior opposition or struggling to a 2-1 defeat/victory or draw against those around us at the bottom of the table? Or will it be the team that starts well, scores some goals then falls apart like the proverbial poorly built motorbike, heroically drawing 3-3? Maybe it’s the team that batters the opposition 0-0 in the first half, missing a host of chances leaving everything else in the game to chance.

This time we had the latter. Poor finishing and a bit of poor luck denying us a lead at half time. Absolutely battered in the second half, the draw may have been the fair result. But when you leave things to chance dodgy penalty decisions often go against you.

You have to feel sorry for Ten Hag. We were crap against Spurs but you’d like to think with ten men we’d have been less sh*t after a half time dressing down had Bruno been on the pitch. And here we should’ve won the game before half time and then that penalty decision has taken even a point away.

That sympathy is severely limited though because he keeps putting United in these situations. He set the team up against Spurs in the first half and we were crap. That led to the situation in which Bruno got sent off. He’s trained the team for more than two years and we score fewer goals than we did before he came. An unlucky manager he may be at the moment but you make your own luck and he’s creating bad luck in abundance with his tactics, training and team selections. Besides, I’d rather have a lucky manager than an unlucky manager.

The board have been very brave/stupid to keep him on but it seems kinder now to let him go. Not sure we can afford it though.

That penalty was an interesting one. Seems to hit Ings hand which automatically means a United free kick. I’m not entirely convinced there was much contact and I’m not totally sure De Ligt doesn’t touch the ball first anyway. I’m not sure of any of these things so I’m struggling to see how this one was clear and obvious. Michael Oliver was the VAR of course. That the Michael Oliver that did some work for Abu Dhabi? The same Abu Dhabi that own Manchester City?

I’m not a fan of conspiracies, they generally tend to be rubbish. But PGMOL continually let such conspiracies fester by letting officials with – let’s face it – dodgy connections officiate games of rival clubs. I’m not telling you Michael Oliver sends the ref to the screen because he wants to give a penalty, though others will. But the fact there’s such a connection we can point to is bad for the game. That Howard Webb refuses to do anything about it is more evidence of his unsuitability for the current role he finds himself in.

And I’ll say it again – we should not send referees to the screen. If they could t see it in real time they are going to add nothing. If the VAR thinks it is a penalty then they should give it. Oliver has put the referee in a terrible position here and the ref hasn’t had the balls to go against VAR. which they rarely do in fairness. Unless your name is Chris Kavanagh and you hate Arsenal. He’s from Ashton-Under-Lyne by the way, pretty likely he grew up supporting one of the Manchester clubs, though his bio says he’s a Droylsden fan…

In short: Ten Hag and Howard Webb out, more scrutiny on ref affiliations.
Ash Metcalfe

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More misery to come
I’m so depressed after this West Ham game not because we lost, more so because I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Let’s say Ten Hag gets fired tomorrow. All I see is continued misery. In through the door would come Garteh effing Southgate. Oh Lord save us!

On the plus side, I’m really starting to like the NFL. Any suggestions on which team to follow?
Manc in SA

Oliver!
I said it before and will say it again, Michael Oliver isn’t fit to officiate in the PL. Whether it’s ineptitude or just pure bias, the number of mistakes he makes is laughable.

There is no way that should have been a penalty, and it definitely wasn’t a clear and obvious error. Yet he has manufactured a win for West Ham there from the VAR room, so well done to him. Also, West Ham got a corner just before the goal and it was a clear goal kick. Officials missed that too didn’t they.

We should have had that game won by halftime, the number of chances we missed was criminal and that is on the players. But we were absolutely robbed of a point.

Sickening.
Garey Vance, MUFC

Except the conspiracy can only ever be against Arsenal
Not one to usually go down this route, but it seems like Arsenal are being targeted this season for petty offences.

What do you say about VVD hacking Havertz off the ball, or Diaz kicking the ball away after the whistle has gone.

These are the kind of offences that Arsenal have gotten punished for this season, it’s just strange not to see it go the other way for once.

PS: I really wonder what’s the problem with Martinellli, it’s hard to watch sometimes. All that talent, not just clicking.
Iyanu, Lasgidi.

I’d buy that for a dollar
Yep. Before the game, pundits were all clamouring to say Liverpool were the favourites.

Madness.

LFC are still in transition, we had to deal with the odd injury ‘crisis’ (such a weird football term – with everything happening in the world, anyway) and carry on winning, we managed it.

To go to the Emirates with the chance that winning would put us SEVEN above Arsenal, it’s not going to happen. Arsenal simply could not lose and know they have any chance of winning the title.

I was desperate for a point before the game, especially with Saka back (Andy has been poor for a while, we need to give Joe a go) and I honestly felt in the second half, we weren’t gonna get that equaliser, but we got there.

Also, fair play to the Emirates, they really rallied around their team.

In other news, Citeh are gonna win it ain’t they? Obvs.

In other other news, Calvino, BadWolf and the rest. You are in fourteenth and two points above Everton.
David (🎵 This is my perfect moment, Man U 🎶) Molby, Shrews

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Positives and negatives
Many small positives and two big negatives from the Liverpool game lead to a pretty meh end of the weekend.

Postives:

– Saka is just unreal at this point – along with Sanchez and Fabregas a clear top 3 player in Emirates era.

– Merino starting to look a bit more at home in midfield – essential he and Rice get as much time together as possible.

– Base defensive structure/drilling is so good that we can rotate anyone in and get a B+ effort that can (mostly) hold even the top Premier League teams to negligible chances.

– Young players look so smooth stepping in.

– For that second half of first half, Arsenal stepped up a gear and looked a level above Liverpool. Having seen them today, not convinced Slot has worked any magic, they seem basically at the level of Liverpool last season. Not sure what fuss is given their gentle season start.

– Further afield, City still look very wonky – this doesn’t feel like as killer season to be dropping points right now.

Negatives:

– This team cannot catch a break with injuries, JFC. Timber maybe not a surprise (with little to no game time recently) but to lose Gabriel is just brutal. If that’s more than a couple of weeks and Calafiori is similar, we could be dropping more points…

– Refereeing margins again. No conspiracy chat, just plain frustration that Liverpool players throw their weight around all game, Nunez in particular putting an extra 30% on every challenge, and yet Arsenal don’t get a foul in the box on Martinelli which could go either way then an utter joke of a foul called on Kiwior to rule out that goal at the end. Yeh, look, these are games that just leave us tired, we’re getting literally no rub of the green in games and combined with injuries it’s starting to feel like this is our snakebitten season.

Maybe my one consolation though- when/if Arsenal get players all back at the same time, I think the foundation of the team is there to steamroller the league. If we’d not been fighting today with both arms tied behind our back (mostly misfortune, some self inflicted) I think we could have comfortably handled Liverpool.
Tom, Leyton

Red optimism
Miss Editor / F365, you’ve saved me blushes in not printing an admittedly bullish mid-week letter predicting of a Liverpool win today.  Our performance was an unquestionably dire one, so naturally it follows that today’s result isn’t necessarily a bad one ?  To have scraped something in North London, I believe we’ll be the happier of the two clubs, all considered.

I do wonder if we might’ve come away with more had we managed to reach halftime one apiece, poor as we were first half, gritty as we were second.  Knowing we were unlikely to play as poorly after the break I was achingly hopeful during VAR review of Merino’s header, to no avail of course.  Last week someone had aptly described Konate dangling a “go-go-gadget leg” to play Nicolas Jackson onside for Chelsea’s equaliser; ditto this week, as Van Dijk’s go-go-gadget foot played Merino on for 2-1.  Though both are excellent center-halves and Liverpool’s backline are well-drilled and extremely experienced playing an opposition offside, I do hope this is addressed because in either instance, there was no need for Konate to dangle a trailing leg, nor for Van Dijk to inch a boot forward just as an opposing dead ball was being delivered.  Margins.

Also, for all that’s been said about Slot’s template and Liverpool’s newfound control and patience, this is the second league fixture running that I’ve found control to be conspicuously wanting.  To my eye there were massive spells against both Chelsea and Arsenal where we just couldn’t touch the ball, nevermind stringing two or three passes together in an attempt to possess it.  I imagine I’m not the only one who sees this and I’m optimistic some improved displays are forthcoming.  We’re too talented a side to cede possession like this.

As it is, to win shakily last weekend and to draw boringly this, all whilst playing third-gear football and bedding in a new gaffer…  there could be much worse things I reckon.
Eric, Los Angeles  CA 

It promised so much
Hmmmm what an odd game or maybe it was interesting or maybe oddly interesting. I thought the first half was electric, really good fun, White had his professional head on and looked solid, Partey was brilliant even after I had shouted doom and gloom at anyone who would listen, Merino looked a decent addition, Rice was everywhere and dear (insert your deity) Saka is just awesome. That’s not to say Liverpool didn’t have their part to play, they felt very threatening, arguably more so than the second half, but it was shaping up to be an open second half of two teams wanting to win.

Then Gabriel got injured and that seemed to completely break Arsenals confidence.  I absolutely do not think that we set up to defend the lead because we were playing well, had 11 men(!) and there were definitely more goals up for grabs but that injury broke our midfields brain, Merino and Rice seemed to completely distrust Kiwior and so gave the defence too much protection. With that it meant Liverpool had all the ball with completely sterile domination and we couldn’t even pass to each other and so the game just sort of died as a spectacle.

My main takeaways are that I think 2 years of being so close to the title has pretty much broken the players brains and we’re veering into ‘don’t lose the game’ territory instead of ‘win the game’ due to the fear of dropping points, big questions for Arteta and his ability to toughen up the mentality and trust in the squad players, Liverpool I’m still not completely convinced by, strongest on the counter/transition but if they want to win the league need to work on their ability to break down defences. The night and day element between Arsenal’s first and second half performance is also a worry. A point was fair but also a bad result for Arsenal.

Oh and as for the ref……..
Lee AFC Bristol

Actually, yeah, fair enough
I’ve written in before lamenting the F365 writers for what felt like a bit of a negative vendetta against Ange at Spurs. Having just witnessed one of the most spineless, low IQ performances in an obviously winnable fixture from a Spurs team that’s already known historically for its soft underbelly, may I apologise to all concerned.

Ange and this lot deserve everything that gets thrown their way. A meek, pathetic yet unsurprising capitulation right when momentum was building and a win would’ve put Spurs back into the conversation at the top table is just what we’ve come to expect from the years of abuse following this god forsaken club.

Resigned to the fact that unless there’s a buy out by a petro state, nothing is likely to ever change. This club simply does not seem to know how to be serious. Perhaps Ange will now recognise why Spurs fans when put in an awkward position last season to accept a loss to Man City: because when it’s in Spurs’ hands, history shows us we absolutely cannot rely on Spurs for anything. And so far, he’s done sweet f**k all to change any of it.
Anon.

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