It's surely only a question of succession strategy, not of whether they think ETH is the man to take them forward. Is the right long-term fit for the project available? Is an interim manager who doesn't tick all the boxes going to stabilise the team in the short-term or just leave us with more upheaval in the end?

I imagine the same questions and paradigms applied back in June. On one hand, now is a worse time to appoint a new manager (no summer preparation with the squad; most candidates are in jobs and harder to prise away). On the other hand, the calculations around trade-offs between short-term risk/opportunity and medium-term project building may be different. Could well be that in June they foresaw ETH making modest progress that could be built upon once the right guy became available - and that now they see a real risk that short-term failings start to erode the platform they want the next guy to inherit.

...that raises for me interesting questions about what the short-term strategy could be, which echo the questions we were asking about ETH's approach back in 2022. Is it better to pragmatically go with whatever hoovers up as many points as possible, based on the strengths of this group of players? Or do we commit to a longer-term reshaping of the footballing identity, and building the kind of possession-dominating, intelligent pressing team that our squad struggles to produce, but which is ultimately where we need to get to if we want to challenge for the league title?

One of the key failings of ETH, in my view, is that we can't really say what his answer to those questions would be. We keep setting out in a particular tactical direction, then retreating to something more pragmatic when it doesn't work. Hopefully the sporting leadership give the next manager crystal clear guidance on what their expectations are in terms of short vs medium term progress.

I would be incredibly worried if a single one of them thinks he's the man to take us back to where we want to be.

Sacking him is going to cost them a lot of money though however I'd say throwing away another season would cost us more in the long run.

That Europa League is very winnable this year even with the slow start we have made in it. We have 6 more group games to play and Porto away always looked the toughest game we had. We should still qualify quite easily if we sack him and employ a manager who knows what he's doing.

There's simply no choice. He's had a fair crack at it now and ultimately he looks lost.

If he were to be sacked, now would be the right time with the international break.

It was funny watching Potter on MNF last week, reviewing the Spurs Utd game, he was desperate not to criticise Utd / ETH and kept giving praise to Spurs. Wouldnt want that on his CV. He must be on the short list, right?

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
...that raises for me interesting questions about what the short-term strategy could be, which echo the questions we were asking about ETH's approach back in 2022. Is it better to pragmatically go with whatever hoovers up as many points as possible, based on the strengths of this group of players? Or do we commit to a longer-term reshaping of the footballing identity, and building the kind of possession-dominating, intelligent pressing team that our squad struggles to produce, but which is ultimately where we need to get to if we want to challenge for the league title?

One of the key failings of ETH, in my view, is that we can't really say what his answer to those questions would be. We keep setting out in a particular tactical direction, then retreating to something more pragmatic when it doesn't work. Hopefully the sporting leadership give the next manager crystal clear guidance on what their expectations are in terms of short vs medium term progress.
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After the Cup Final I was cautiously for giving him one last chance. It seems I was wrong though.

I think we could get an interim in to get us playing decent football hoovering up points whilst also setting a foundation for a new manager next Summer.

I may well be wrong, but I don’t think he’s going anywhere unless things get (consistently) quite a bit worse on the pitch and/or ETH loses the OT support.

I get the impression that Ratcliffe and the strategic management won’t be swayed by the media or social media noise, and they’re reticent to change things without the right candidate being ready to take over, particularly during a big transition period.

Bigwigs / ETH - I see what you did there.

comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 14 minutes ago
If he were to be sacked, now would be the right time with the international break.

It was funny watching Potter on MNF last week, reviewing the Spurs Utd game, he was desperate not to criticise Utd / ETH and kept giving praise to Spurs. Wouldnt want that on his CV. He must be on the short list, right?
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Potter looked very nervous doing that. It may have been a TV studio nervousness but he's not exactly new to the media spotlight, is he?

comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 14 minutes ago
I may well be wrong, but I don’t think he’s going anywhere unless things get (consistently) quite a bit worse on the pitch and/or ETH loses the OT support.

I get the impression that Ratcliffe and the strategic management won’t be swayed by the media or social media noise, and they’re reticent to change things without the right candidate being ready to take over, particularly during a big transition period.
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I'd say 14th after 7 Games, scoring the second fewest goals out of all 20 teams and not winning a single
Europa game yet is pretty terrible mate. I'd say that's consistent with what we got last year too. Not good enough.

The standards at this club are so so low right now though that you could well be correct. Put it this way....if he's still in charge for Brentford then this INEOS era will have lost me already. I won't have any faith in them whatsoever if they can't see we badly need to change things.

I wish Ineos would be as ruthless with Ten Hag as they were with the dinner ladies and office staff

Put it this way....if he's still in charge for Brentford then this INEOS era will have lost me already. I won't have any faith in them whatsoever if they can't see we badly need to change things.

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Last week you said you'll be done with INEOS if they don't make a change imminently, then when I questioned you on that statement (mentioning the fact that the bulk of their project relates to bringing in proven expertise at every level and creating a structure that emphasises accountability and efficient decision making at that appropriate level) you said no, of course you're not done with that, and it's just the failure to sack ETH that you take issue with. And yet here you are today saying INEOS will have lost you and you won't have any faith in them whatsoever.

comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 4 minutes ago
I wish Ineos would be as ruthless with Ten Hag as they were with the dinner ladies and office staff
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I'm fairly sure it's a ruthless calculation on ETH, but one that takes in cost of sacking him, cost of bringing in the replacement, and cost vs opportunity of the short-term and longer term implications. Do you think sentiment is coming into their decision making over ETH?

As an aside, I'm not a fan of Ratcliffe's ruthless, sweeping approach to corporate efficiency. But the way the narrative about the United job cuts always put dinner ladies and kit men with eight decades of service to the club front and centre is kind of amusing. As I understand it, most of the cuts relate to professionals who are mid-career, on decent salaries, and with marketable commercial / administrative / coaching skills. Redundancy is unpleasant for anyone. But it's curious, isn't it, that we need to imagine the subjects of job cuts as long-serving, humble, on a low salary band, and never to work again in order to really feel something about the downsizing.

comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 1 hour, 2 minutes ago

If he were to be sacked, now would be the right time with the international break.

It was funny watching Potter on MNF last week, reviewing the Spurs Utd game, he was desperate not to criticise Utd / ETH and kept giving praise to Spurs. Wouldnt want that on his CV. He must be on the short list, right?
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He'd be a bloody fool to take United if it was offered. Good (underrated) manager but he's not got the assertive personality to handle that job, it'll swallow him alive.

comment by Devil (U6522)
posted 25 minutes ago
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 1 hour, 2 minutes ago

If he were to be sacked, now would be the right time with the international break.

It was funny watching Potter on MNF last week, reviewing the Spurs Utd game, he was desperate not to criticise Utd / ETH and kept giving praise to Spurs. Wouldnt want that on his CV. He must be on the short list, right?
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He'd be a bloody fool to take United if it was offered. Good (underrated) manager but he's not got the assertive personality to handle that job, it'll swallow him alive.
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The thing with Potter for me, which he never solved at BHA or Chelsea, was that his teams do not score enough goals. So he's probably one of the last people you want. His teams have been pleasing on the eye up to the last third and then struggle at this level .

Still think you're crazy not to have gone for Poch in the summer. Even if he is not proven at the highest level, he knows how to galvanise a team and get it performing.

https://x.com/tenhagera/status/1843560500862267885?s=61&t=ncpdEcJLIN1zPASIYpgYDA

This is quite interesting from Tuchel

Pointless discussing the whats, whys and wherefores of the current, past and future of the coaching/management positions whilst ignoring the obvious flaws/absences in important positions in the squad.

And those flaws and absences are down to the club itself NOT the past, present (or future) manager/coach.

Ignoring the lack of ability at this level of way too many of the current, and recent, squad - whilst 'scapegoating' those that have had relatively little input on the transfers in and out - is just simply poor, wreckless and/or careless directional decision-making.

posturing and gesturing, no more no less.

The strategic management have been very clear about the fact that the club is going through a major transformation impacting pretty much all areas of the business. Several key players who will shape and oversee that transformation - one which will take years, and not weeks or months to complete - are only just through the door; and if they’ve even managed to define to-be strategy and operations yet, they’ll certainly still be busy running gap analyses, never mind being in a position to design the programmes of work to bridge those gaps.

In short, they won’t want to be worrying, remotely, about being distracted by week-to-week results right now any more than is absolutely necessary. I would warrant that they don’t have any solid, ‘medium term plus’ plan for sporting strategy in place to kick in before next summer. Certain principles might have been agreed and may even be being acted on, but they’ll be part of an interim holding strategy.

It took City and Arsenal years to build what they have in place now, and that didn’t start with managerial changes. City were preparing for and focussed on what Pep (or a Pep proxy, which they’ll have prepared for the possibility of too) would need at the very least 24 months before he arrived. And they were building on a much more stable and well developed platform than the one Berrada has to work with.

Ineos can be judged, at the very earliest, after 36 or 48 months of having their feet under the table. To attempt to assess them now is rank idiocy.

Rosso

But are you done with them or not?

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 10 minutes ago
Rosso

But are you done with them or not?
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