Why Man United's Biggest Problem Is Erik Ten Hag
Manchester United were a toenail away from arguably the most humiliating defeat in FA Cup history. But despite the manager's assertions that their victory should be celebrated, Coventry City showed four times precisely what is wrong with Erik Ten Hag's management... and why he'll not be able to fix it. FourFourTwo's Adam Clery unpacks the match as a whole, and says it might be time for the Dutchman to move on.
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00:00 *Intro*
00:03 Buenos dias, guten tag and ari to war kid, Adam Cleary from 442 here and...
00:09 You've seen it, you saw it, man, United vs Coventry, you saw, you saw that, yeah?
00:14 To kick this video off, I need to tell you something really important, okay?
00:18 Like, last year, I can't remember exactly when it was, but I promised myself two things.
00:22 One, I would never say something was sh*t if I could say something was good instead.
00:27 And two, I would never say a manager has to go.
00:31 But that game of football, from a Manchester United perspective, was just sh*t.
00:37 And there was a moment in it that made me realise that that man, Eric Ten Hag, has to go.
00:45 *Ding*
00:47 Okay, so this does not qualify as insight in any way, shape or form, but just look at these starting XI's.
00:55 Like, I know it's not perfect for Man United, they've got to improvise at centre-back with Casemiro,
00:59 but just, again, take in the level of experience, the amount of quality available there,
01:05 the number of internationals, the big players, everything.
01:09 How did it come to what it did?
01:11 They raced into a 3-0 lead, looked in absolutely no danger of even getting a scare in this,
01:16 so how, how does this team throw away a 3-goal lead, not to a top European team,
01:23 not to one of these Premier League sides that have got loads of quality and can hurt anybody
01:27 if they can just get it together, to this Coventry City side,
01:31 eighth in the Championship, whose most recent fixture was getting beat 3-0 off a Birmingham City team
01:38 in the relegation zone.
01:39 How? How, how, how, how, how?
01:41 Thing is, the answer's not even complicated.
01:44 Like, with an hour gone, Coventry made a triple substitution to change their shape from a 3-5 hybrid backline
01:51 to just a simple 4-2-3-1, kind of matched Man United up, but they did so in a way
01:56 that was specifically designed to give them better out-balls when they were under pressure,
02:00 and Man United were just like, "Oh, well, how on earth can we possibly resist this?"
02:06 So first off, fair play to Mark Robbins, because at 3-0, a lot of managers would just be like,
02:10 "Ah, well, let's just make sure we don't concede any more and we don't get humiliated today,"
02:14 but he looked at the game and he thought, "I actually think there are ways we can get at them now,"
02:19 and he made his changes accordingly.
02:20 So two things you obviously noticed about Man United.
02:22 First off is that Casemiro's playing right-sided, centre-back, and Scott McTominay's taking his place in the midfield,
02:28 and the problem this created was that, A, Scott McTominay absolutely adores to bomb all the way forward.
02:34 It's how he got on the end of that cross for the first goal, but also Casemiro's lack of recovery pace,
02:39 his sluggishness, means he's unlikely to drift too far forward. He doesn't want to get caught out of position.
02:45 Now, theoretically, that's not a massive problem for Man United, because one of their major issues
02:49 in the Premier League this season is this disconnect between defence and attack.
02:53 The defence will sit quite deep naturally anyway, so Casemiro hasn't got to worry too much about running back the other way,
02:59 but as you can see here, it does create quite a large gap in this right-sided channel.
03:05 McTominay's going to be too far forward, Casemiro's not going to step into it.
03:08 There is an opportunity there.
03:10 So one of Coventry's substitutions was to bring on Victor Torb, and would you just like to see his heat map
03:15 from when he was substituted on, like where he was doing all his work?
03:19 Oh, wow, would you look at that? It's in the enormous gap that Man United were leaving between McTominay and Casemiro.
03:25 That's quite good, isn't it?
03:26 Another one of Man United's problems is that Marcus Rashford has those centre-forward instincts.
03:31 So despite starting on the left-hand side, he's never going to go down the byline.
03:34 He wants to get alongside the other centre-forward. He wants to get in goal-scoring positions,
03:38 which puts a lot of responsibility on the left-sided full-back to get up and provide that width.
03:43 Luke Shaw's obviously very good at it, Dalot's very good at it as well,
03:46 but today they had Aaron Wan-Bissaka at left-back, who I think is one of the best individual 1v1 defenders
03:52 in the Premier League, but also quite bad at sort of managing the space behind him.
03:57 And with Kobe Mane, who as ever, being required to pretty much play the entire width of the pitch
04:01 to cover all the various gaps that are going on, that left an enormous amount of space here.
04:06 And so another one of Coventry's substitutions was to bring on Fabio Tavares,
04:10 and would you like to see his heat map from this game?
04:14 And oh gee, oh gosh, would you look at that? He's playing in the space left behind Wan-Bissaka.
04:20 That's interesting as well, isn't it?
04:22 But the thing is, right, and I mean this with so much respect to Coventry City, right,
04:26 that is not Mo Salah, who's now suddenly found endless room on the right-hand side.
04:31 That is not Kevin De Bruyne, who's suddenly found endless space in the centre of the pitch.
04:36 These are just two really good outballs for Coventry City.
04:40 They should, in theory, have made the game more balanced, allowed them to get up the field a bit more,
04:44 maybe start creating a couple of chances.
04:46 You see, this is how Coventry City started to get a foothold in this game,
04:50 but it's categorically not the reason why they scored three goals in normal time
04:55 and should have gone on to win the thing before penalties.
04:59 The reason for that is entirely down to Man Utd.
05:03 What happened was that the game changed around them.
05:06 They ceased to be having things all of their own way,
05:09 and instead of just making really just simple, boring alterations to either their system,
05:14 their approach to anything, to stop Coventry getting back into it,
05:17 they instead just completely fell apart.
05:21 So with 3-0, seemingly randomly, Diogo Dalot starts inverting into the centre of the pitch
05:26 to try and keep an eye on Ojeb.
05:28 For whatever reason, he gets drawn out even beyond where Kobe Mane is here.
05:33 So Man Utd are massively overloaded on the left-hand side.
05:36 Now, I can't get a camera angle that includes them both here,
05:39 but Anthony is like miles away holding the width and staying quite high on the right-hand side.
05:44 Scott McTominay is up with Fernandes and Hoyland for some reason.
05:48 They're just so disorganised, so all over the place,
05:51 that when the ball comes back after their own clearance, this is the shape of their back four.
05:55 The ball goes out to Tavares on the right-hand side,
05:58 and shock and awe is in all that space behind Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
06:02 Sims is the obvious target for this, so Dalot scrambles to get back into the centre and reorganise,
06:07 but he knows he won't get goalside quick enough.
06:10 So here, he points to Casemiro.
06:13 "You have to get this man. You, you there, sir. You go him, please."
06:17 Now, this obviously looks really bad for Casemiro,
06:20 but the problem is he can't go here now, sir, you, please,
06:23 because Haji Wright is right behind him.
06:25 He's now effectively having to mark both of these players for the same cross
06:29 because Man United were so open and so disorganised.
06:33 And just to pause it, and I'm going to be doing this quite a lot,
06:35 at the moment that ball gets to Ellis Sims,
06:38 Manchester United have given him this much room in the box.
06:43 This is the shape of their back four,
06:45 and this is the amount of room between the two centre-backs.
06:49 And Coventry simply were not capable of making that kind of chance in the first half
06:53 because Tavares wasn't there.
06:55 They weren't exploiting that space behind Man United,
06:57 so they've made a good change that's now led to them getting a goal.
07:01 You have to then adapt. You have to fix that.
07:04 And after that first goal, right, Ten Hag does make a change.
07:07 He takes off Kobe Menuh for Christian Eriksen.
07:10 The thinking obviously being Eriksen's way more experienced in these big games.
07:14 He's probably a bit more positionally aware.
07:16 He should provide us a little bit extra control.
07:18 He probably won't get caught wrong side as much as Menuh might.
07:21 But just allow me to ask you the tactical question, right,
07:25 that I can't believe Ten Hag wasn't asking himself.
07:27 When the two major changes your opponents made are,
07:30 A, exploiting this space here, and B, freeing up somebody here,
07:34 in what way, and I'll show you Eriksen's heat map,
07:37 does this player impact either of those problems?
07:41 Now it is a tricky one, that,
07:42 so I'll just give you a couple of seconds to think about it, OK?
07:45 [MUSIC]
07:55 He doesn't!
07:56 Seven or eight minutes later, Man United push up the field.
07:59 They put Coventry under a little bit of pressure.
08:01 And one of the defining characteristics,
08:03 one of the main things about this side, in Ten Hag's own words,
08:07 is it's supposed to be a great transitional team.
08:11 So when the ball changes between one team to the other,
08:13 you know what to do, you react quickly,
08:15 and you make opportunities out of that.
08:17 But when they lose the ball, the counter-press,
08:19 which is them trying to win it back straight away,
08:21 so you can take advantage of the sort of disorganisation in the opposition,
08:24 is weak as piss.
08:26 And Coventry can just play out into the enormous space
08:29 Man United have left by pushing up the field.
08:32 And Man United fans, if you're watching this,
08:34 has this not just become the defining image of your entire season?
08:38 Like a random assortment of players, all in the wrong position,
08:41 sprinting back towards their own goal,
08:43 with a huge gap between those at the back
08:46 and those coming in from midfield.
08:48 Like how many times?
08:50 I'm going to play the clip again,
08:51 because we made a super cut of this like a month ago.
08:54 This happens every single game.
08:57 And again, just to pause it and draw the lines on,
08:59 this is the current shape of Manchester United's back four.
09:02 This is Christian Eriksen.
09:03 He's not even really supposed to be there.
09:05 He's on the wrong side.
09:06 But the thing that must be truly maddening,
09:09 if you're a Man United fan, it's just,
09:11 look at when the ball gets out to him here.
09:13 Like they've got the numbers back.
09:15 There's not an overload.
09:16 It's not an easy chance whatsoever.
09:18 And yet he's still got all of this space.
09:21 Like Anthony shouldn't be there.
09:23 McTominay should be closing that down.
09:25 Fernandes just kind of trots along.
09:28 There's so many individual decisions here that are just wrong.
09:31 And obviously it's an incredibly fortunate deflection.
09:34 You could let him do that a hundred times again,
09:35 he probably wouldn't score any of them.
09:37 But watch this slow down.
09:39 Look at all the different Man United players
09:41 who could make a decision to better close that shot down.
09:44 Who could throw themselves in front of it.
09:46 And just none of them do.
09:48 And yes, okay, that's a very weird penalty.
09:51 I think Aaron Wan-Bissaka was incredibly unlucky
09:53 to have that given against him.
09:54 But just the amount of things leading up to that,
09:57 which just scream,
09:58 "We don't know what we're supposed to be doing,"
10:00 is again, staggering.
10:02 92nd minute, Man United are hanging on.
10:04 And for some reason, their center forward and number 10
10:07 are defending the left-hand side of the pitch.
10:09 Now, given that that space was pretty open,
10:11 hey, maybe that's a good idea.
10:12 Maybe that's something Ten Hag has called for from the sidelines.
10:15 Maybe that's a way he's organized them.
10:17 Well, let's just watch them for a second.
10:19 First of all, Fernandes points there,
10:21 tells Hoyland he should go to that player.
10:23 And then when the ball switches, Hoyland starts to go,
10:26 but then changes mind and points for Fernandes to go there instead.
10:29 And in the end, neither of them come close to blocking the cross.
10:32 Now, I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh here,
10:34 but that does not, to me, look like two players
10:36 who, again, know what they are supposed to be doing.
10:39 But that's okay for now, because Man United win the header
10:42 and the ball drops very gently into this bit of the pitch,
10:45 that sort of right-hand side half space
10:47 between Wermick, Tominé and Casemiro,
10:50 where, you know, the part of the pitch
10:52 they specifically brought Taupin to get into.
10:55 And once again, we'll pause it.
10:56 This is the shape of Man United's back four.
10:59 And this is not even Dalot's fault.
11:01 Like, nobody else was going to put pressure on that ball.
11:04 He had to go out there and try and do something.
11:06 But because he hasn't won it,
11:08 look at all this space that just exists now.
11:11 And this still is just,
11:13 I can't get my head around how this can ever happen.
11:17 It's a 90-second minute.
11:18 You've thrown away a three-goal lead.
11:20 You are hanging on with seconds to go.
11:24 And your two most experienced players,
11:27 Casemiro and Eriksen, in this exact moment,
11:30 what are they contributing to your defensive efforts?
11:34 They don't have a man.
11:35 They're not covering any space.
11:37 They just stood there like a pair of dicks in the wind.
11:41 Sorry, yes, I have taken my jacket off.
11:42 I just went for a stress wee and just never mind.
11:45 Anyway, so the penalty, that's very unfortunate, yes.
11:48 Probably shouldn't get that, but they do.
11:49 And it's 3-3 and then we go into extra time.
11:51 And Man United are on the better side, probably.
11:54 But then it happens.
11:56 But it's this bit here that is the greatest organizational sin of the lot, right?
12:02 This is Taupe, who's been brought on to exploit that little bit of space
12:05 between the right centre-back and the right central midfielder.
12:07 As that ball comes into the box, this is the amount of room
12:12 Manchester United let him have.
12:16 Four players who you would say are involved in a situation
12:18 and yet not one of them is close enough to throw a block in,
12:22 to stop the shot, to contest anything about what happens next.
12:26 And the worst part is, even if he just fresh air kicked this
12:29 and it rolled through, Ellis Sims is completely unmarked at the back post
12:33 to just welly that into the back of the net.
12:36 That's unbelievably bad defending.
12:40 And purely for my own amusement, I'm going to draw that line again
12:44 because that's just...
12:49 How do you even do that?
12:51 So, why did I say at the start of the video that all this means
12:56 Eric Ten Hag has to go?
12:58 Well, what we've just looked at here are four absolutely classic examples
13:02 if you're a Man United fan, you've seen loads of them this season,
13:04 of the team being really open for somebody else,
13:07 exploiting all the spaces and scoring goals as a result.
13:11 But the thing is, all season, right, we have been told by the club,
13:14 by the manager, I've even done videos on it,
13:16 like this is part of the plan.
13:18 Man United play this way by design.
13:21 They think this openness allows them to be expressive in the final third.
13:24 It's what's got them up the league to as far as they are.
13:27 It's what's got them to this part of the FA Cup.
13:29 Like, without this system, they would never have beaten Liverpool.
13:32 They want to have this really high adventurous press
13:34 with this really low defensive line so that they can contest the ball
13:37 in the opposition's third and win it back, which they are quite good at.
13:40 And because the defence is deep, they're not going to get caught in behind.
13:43 They can hold the opposition up when they counterattack
13:46 to allow other players to get back.
13:48 Like, that is 10 hard ball in his own words.
13:51 But this, my friends, is why this game should, I think,
13:55 represent a point of no return for his tenure at Manchester United.
13:59 Because, OK, if that's the way you want to play, then fair enough.
14:04 But why do you want to play that way
14:08 when you're 3-0 up against Coventry City?
14:12 Because in the 60 second minute when Coventry made those changes,
14:15 the game was over. Like, Man United had won it.
14:18 This system had brought them a win in the FA Cup semi-final.
14:21 But now, those substitutions were going to open it up a bit more.
14:25 They were going to make the game a little bit more even.
14:27 So, why continue to use that system?
14:31 When Ellis Sims gets that first goal, any manager in the world,
14:35 including Eric ten Haag, by the way, would look at that situation
14:38 and be like, "All right, OK, those were clearly some effective changes
14:42 they've made there, but there's 20 minutes left. We're two goals up.
14:45 We are miles the better side. Let's just close it down here."
14:49 But for some reason, with 15 minutes to go,
14:52 this is the defensive shape they found themselves in.
14:55 And then, with just four minutes to go,
14:57 this is the defensive shape they found themselves in.
14:59 And then, in the very last throw of the game,
15:02 the last moment of the injury of the extra time,
15:06 this is the shape they found themselves in.
15:09 The only conclusion I can draw as a result is that this openness,
15:13 this lack of control that Man Utd exhibit,
15:15 is not part of some genius grand plan that's going to see them score loads of goals
15:20 or just come good next season if they persist with it.
15:23 They don't control these games of football
15:26 because they're incapable of controlling games of football.
15:29 Like, they did get away with it here, just about,
15:32 but in recent weeks, they were beating Chelsea in the 90th minute
15:37 and then somehow went on to lose that goal because,
15:39 if you remember that winner,
15:41 they simply could not exert any control on the situation.
15:44 They snatched a 95th minute winner against Brentford
15:48 and still did not go on to win that game
15:50 because they could not exert any control on that situation.
15:54 Just to be as blunt as I can be here, right,
15:57 if you cannot physically find a way of controlling a game
16:01 against a championship side when you've got a three-goal lead
16:05 and there's half an hour left,
16:07 then you can't control a game of football.
16:10 It's that simple.
16:11 And all Corbentry had to do was make two really simple changes.
16:15 One that enabled them to get on the ball in the final third a little easier,
16:18 one that enabled them to get in behind the full-back a little easier,
16:22 and Eric Ten Haag could do nothing about it.
16:25 Like, he spent all season claiming this style of play,
16:28 this openness is deliberate, but it's clearly bollocks
16:33 because if it was, then you would just stop doing it at times like this.
16:38 Like, just look at all the pointing
16:40 and all the players trying to cover for other players.
16:43 This is not a team that in these situations has the first idea
16:47 of what it's supposed to do,
16:48 and that can only, only be the responsibility of the manager.
16:52 And I'm sorry, but get him gone.
16:56 Like, it's been fun, certain.
16:58 You know, the best team to watch in the league if you're in neutral, absolutely,
17:01 but he's got to pack them little hats up now and get walking.
17:04 So yeah, for me, it's not the players or the injuries or the bad fortune
17:08 or the officiating or the scheduling or anything like that.
17:10 Man United's biggest problem, I think, is Eric Ten Haag.
17:15 But I am very aware that that is just one opinion, mine,
17:19 and you may have some of your own,
17:20 and I would really like to take the temperature of the Man United fan base over this one.
17:24 So, Eric Ten Haag, good, bald, ugly, let me know in the comments below.
17:29 Should they keep him? Should they stick with him?
17:31 Should they give him one more season?
17:32 Should they get rid of him immediately?
17:33 Who would you have instead?
17:35 All thoughts, all opinions, all feelings.
17:37 Very welcome.
17:38 Think you're too good for the comment section, though.
17:40 You can get me on Twitter, X, whatever we're calling it this week, @AdamClearyClery.
17:45 Should be probably on screen now somewhere.
17:46 The 442 Socials are in the corner of the video.
17:48 The latest issue of the magazine, the Arsenal Invincibles one,
17:51 but if you're a Man United fan, there's still good reading in there.
17:54 There always is.
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18:06 Short of bumping into me in the street and putting £20 directly into my pocket.
18:10 But until next time, friends.
18:12 Oh, what a mess.
18:14 What, I just, I can't, I can't keep talking about Man United like this.
18:19 Just fix it.
18:20 I don't, I don't, are you watching, Jim Ratcliffe?
18:23 I don't care what you do.
18:25 Just do something.
18:27 Just... bye.
18:29 [Heartbeat]