Props to the editor for all the quick cuts to JJ sipping from his mug. Felt like I was watching an action movie

I think the first step for our rebuild is for everyone around the club, fans included, to accept that we are no longer an elite team. Until we accept that no manager will be given enough time to truly overhaul and rebuild this club without fans and media breathing down their backs.

XG against of 4 is "not ideal". Slight understatement there.

Through this whole period Luke Shaw's absence has been massively underestimated. He is a fantastic fullback and really helps Rashford play the way he needs to down the left hand side. Width is absolutely crucial to a team's shape and Shaw is a massive part of that. His absence massively compromises the team's overall ability to build and keep structure. Martinez is also a huge miss in our ability to play out.

15:25 "I'm sure he didn't come with the idea that were just going to do the same things that we've been doing for the past few seasons and do it just as badly" had me rolling 😂

What frustrates me is, why Ange Postacoglu can just come in and completely change the Spurs playing style, from a squad that was built for a back 5 system into a fun to watch attacking side - whereas it's seemingly impossible to do that same thing at Manchester United. Could you maybe cover that in a video? cheers

If you looked at the first have of the game Man U backline tried really hard to play from the back,they just couldn't do it ! Not only because of man city's press,but because they simply lacked the ability to do so.

This is so frustrating because one of the main reasons Ten Hag was brought in was for him to implement his system so we wouldn't have to rely on individual brilliance.

I think the moment you are having Maguire as a defender in the team yiu will have to sit deep cos of the lack of pace..its not maguires fault, he was brought to play in that system. So start of thr season when you see that your players are not fight you went back into that system , which would mean relying on counter attack and chaos to get goals

So really at the end of the day, the problem is still ETH not having the players he wants and needs to play the style he wants. One can argue “United spent BIG money on ETH” all day long, just as we have with all of the previous managers since SAF, but the puzzling phenomenon remains where ALL of the managers reverted back to the counter attacking strategy to win games. And we have had managers with very different ideas on strategies. The fact it all came back down to this is rather telling of the status of the football club. And it almost doesn’t matter who comes in at this point. We might as well have Mickey Mouse sit in the dug out, and it wouldn’t get worse. Backing the manager under the current context really means to choose between immediate results and actually fixing the problem. And all the pundit and fans, and rivals could all just shut up about “but, but, but it’s United”. Any org is as good as the owners. Where there is a will, there is a way. Well, the lack of will trickles down from waaaaay up top. All the analysis with XGs, and possessions, and narrow lanes and channels and style of plays just cracks me up where we have had to rely on a CB half retired to defend, a CM and a CB both one foot out the door to score goals for us, a young striker who is brand new to the league leading the attacking line of a club size of Man United, and another CM who has literally died and came back to life. That’s how the manager has been backed. Onana must be thinking WTF every game, despite his own faults. Same with Bruno, Marcus, and etc, all of whom I am running out of patience with. But can we really blame them? It’s like forcing Bolt to run 100m races, but forbidding him to use his legs. With the players we have, all the new signings we signed with their forces in mind, can’t use their strengths. Even if ETH is just another one-season-wonder, just stick with him until the club structure substantially changes, because what is the point anyways otherwise.

He was brought in because OF the style of play he used at Ajax. This current football is purely relying on moments from two out of form players in Rashford and Bruno or by force through McTominay Maguire

when I saw the line-up I assume the exact same thing, that Lindelof would be tucking in to form a 3 and Dalot advancing, in my head it kind of looked like a mirror to City's formation so: ______________Onana______________ __Maguire __Evans____Lindelof____ ____Amrabat___McTominay_______ Dalot_Eriksen_Fernandes_Rashford ____________Hojlund________________ But Lindelof playing for width was just... bizarre... and then you see that Amrabat took up a deeper position than Maguire on average while McTominay, Eriksen, Bruno, Rashford and Hojlund just clustered together with a chasm of space in midfield forming... United are just bizarre atm.

As a Liverpool fan I think Ten Hag is doing great and should keep the current style.

So the main issue is that we don't have the defence ETH wants in order to play the type of football he wants to play. He's trying to accommodate the slower CBs he has and adjust his tactics accordingly but it leads to the worst of both worlds... I think the Luke Shaw and Lisandro Martinez injury really fucked us up because I remember how high we we're playing last season and even then the CBs weren't at the halfway line because we had DDG. With Onana you would expect us to play super high up the pitch but the injuries messed it all up. What's worse is ETH didn't get Kim Min Jae and he would have definitely allowed us to play ETH ball.

I think the first comment Klopp made something about dont take history in your backpack and carry it around when he appoint at Liverpool was brilliant in changing the mindset of the club and make fans and others accept that there are mediocre club, it take pressure off and it allow him time to build the team.

Definitely a challenging task for ETH to rebuild Man Utd. The trade-off between short-termism and building for the future in modern football is every manager's dilemma. Build for the future but not show results in the short-term can mean you're out of job before results can be seen. Focus on short-termism sets the club up for medium to long term mediocrity. As a fan who trusted the Arsenal process, a manager who has a clear long-term view is better if the owners are able to invest with the manager.

For anyone who pines for the 'good old days' of Premier League football, just watch United then realise you are wrong.

got to sympathize with ETH. working with united is like when an artist got commissioned by client with bad taste in art, they keep changing things to their liking even though the artist keeps pitching great ideas, and the end result is a bad art that looks somewhat okay purely because the artist skills to make it look not too bad.

The comparison with Solskjaer is an interesting one. In the last 48 PL games under Solskjaer (i.e including the ones where it all fell apart) compared to the 48 that Ten Hag has taken charge of, EtH has just 2 more points than Ole (90 vs 88). Ten Hag's side has conceded 1 less goal but scored 20 less goals than Ole's team did. Ole was sacked for 3 results: 0-5 against Liverpool. Ten Hag lost 7-0 to Liverpool. 0-2 against City. Ten Hag lost 6-3 and 0-3 against City.the 4-1 against Watford. Ten Hag lost 4-0 against Brentford. And 1-3 against Brighton. Ole regularly used to win games against the big teams especially away from home but EtH has got nowhere near. We were humiliated by Istanbul in the CL under Ole, but then this term have lost at home to Galatasary. I'm not suggesting that we get rid of Ten Hag (at this point who else is there) but there has been no improvement since Solskjaer at all. It's just narrative creation from former Ole critics to claim otherwise.

I think I’d have believed ten Hag’s reasoning for not playing in that same way through necessity… if Ange wasn’t doing what he’s done at Spurs so quickly. Yes, he’s brought in some players that fit his system more, but ten Hag has had way more time to figure things out and bring players in than Ange has. I think it shows the weakness in pragmatism in football. Just play the way you want your team to play! Results may not come, but at least you tried

Fantastic show as always guys

Erik wants United to be the best transition team with basic possession principles. Basically a mix of Ajax and Borussia Dortmund. It will either be a football revolution or an early dismissal for him. Really hope he can ride out this negative pressure. Up United.

So nice to have someone explain it all thank you

What program do you guys use for the tactical board?

I really love how they got the real Erik Ten Hag here into Tifo studios to tell us all about Erik Ten Hag's tactics!

11:47 Yes because Bruno and Rashford are counter-attacking players who give the ball away for fun.

1.) The players Ten Hag brought in this season to improve the work rate and stability have (almost) all been injured to start the season. 2.) Even now, no one on that backline is a 1st choice. 3.) The same players who never have conviction when fighting for a 50/50 ball or a header continue to do the same. You can tell when a player is running with belief they will win the ball, and when they are running JUST to show they "did their job" on defense.

JJ seemed so pleased with himself when pouring his cup like he just discovered coffee 😂

Love this breakdown. Anybody know the app they are using?

Answer: Trying to go back to Ajax 😂

what tool do you use for explaining formations and buildups etc

At this point, he's trying to get sacked, don't get any cheese for quitting your job

You dont have to look too deep into this to see the problem. You have Evans and Maguire starting for one of the most important matches of the season

Where is the new Tifo podcast and how can I access it? Someone please advise.

last season we struggled at the end of the season. I hope we can get some form.

The stars of the team are Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford. I can't even imagine them two playing possession football. It's impossible and I think Ten Hag has seen this. He tried to play "Ajax football", got massacred and changed it to "United DNA" and got the results he needed. Just look at some of the players Ten Hag's signed and some that he wanted to sign, it's clear that he wants something else: Martinez, Antony, Onana, Amrabat, Eriksen, De Jong, Hojlund, Kane the list goes on, all these players can play that Ajax style of football.

Ten Hag needs to communicate his ideas and thoughts about the game better through media and press conferences. This should be as though he is talking and explaining to the fans. One of Sir Alex's biggest plus was how he communicated with the media. As a fan, we knew exactly how and what he was thinking, so when he dropped someone, we were always kept in the loop. Sir Alex's substitutions were quite telling, he would demote a bad performance by substituting, and a bad pattern by a first-teamer would result in him getting dropped. Ten Hag needs to do these things more than anything

This is actually the best take on the current situation 👏🏾

What is the name of that application with the tactical board?

Manu created 0.9 xg quite high for their current standard.

Hey, can you do a video on Marco Rose? He's a really good manager, did amazing at Gladbach, did better at Dortmund than he had players to and is doing really well at Leipzig as well

When did he say that quote mentioned at the beginning of the video??

What am analysis guys and that last line that you have to suffer short term to gain long term I agree !

One of the weird things about being a Man United fan over the last couple years is that I've honestly believed the team we've had (all the way back to the last few years of Pogba's United career) has been good/talented enough to challenge for the league or at least a few more cups, even with Man City's unprecedented dominance over the last 3-4 years. (Although, honestly, from a neutral POV, Man City are so f***ing good) I've always thought we're one player away or two players away. But with 10 years of pain I'm thinking blow it up, keep a few keystones but blow it up begin a proper rebuild. Literally hasn't been this bad in my lifetime, I'm 26 going on 57 because of this season

No idea. I don't understand why he wants them to become the best team at counterattacking and transitions. It wasn't like that at Ajax.

The injuries are one thing, the fact that there's no cohesiveness within the team is another. When I watch this unit play, I just see 11 guys, not a team. It's so obvious they should be doing better, they win the ball high up the pitch more than anyone else, but they never find a pass. I think they'll have it figured out by the end of the season but I don't really see them pushing for anything apart from a conference league or Europa league spot, and I don't see them making it out their UCL group either.

What kind of software is it?

We are desperately missing Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw 😢 both bring the defense to life and progress up there pitch also casemiro

This is a fantastic review of the problems in Utd on the field problems. It really, to me, boils down to the need for Glazers to go and Utd to have a proper footballing structure from top down with a good Director of Football and top top staff assisting the Manager.

everything feels a bit half-assed tactically, the team doesn't press together, push high together, but they also don't play the way a team that sits deep is supposed to play either

I don’t know if you can do that anymore. This season is insane, normally you can point to 3 teams that will challenge for the title and within that you will always get another doing surprising things with a good season. This year while you have your clear title contenders there are 10 teams I can see that should be in the running for the European spots. If United take a step back to rebuild they risk dropping not into mid table but into a relegation scrap. As much as I hate to say it, fighting 1 season to the next is the only way to survive currently

4xg conceded is shocking even in the Liverpool 7-0 game they only conceded 2.6xg

Let’s be honest; they sit deep and lump it

i wonder if it something to do with the backline not pushing up because he doesn't have the players to do so harry maguire to name one cannot play at the halfway however last season when it was martinez and varane they always pushed right up the pitch to compact the space for opposition

“They do not” ~ as an editor, im lovin the post production banter

No Casemiro, Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Wan Bissaka is the key reason we haven’t been up to it this season. Simple as that. Maguire can’t play a high line, hence the chasm in midfield. Martinez and Varane, injury prone. Still a lot of players required to even make top 6 let alone 4 now.

Imagine city were missing rodri stones dias etc ... Nobody mentioning uniteds back 4 has been out for weeks

It's strange to me that injuries is an excuse that isn't afforded for Man Utd, but Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal were given that benefit of the doubt. Not having a consistent back 4 is really disruptive as the previously mentioned teams have experienced.

If he wants to play this way he should switch to a back 5 it will give us more balance while still squeezing the right areas with overloads to win the ball high

when you look at a back 4 of Dalot, Evans, Maguire and Lindelof even Crystal Palace have a better backline. Someone needs to go having spent over a billion and thats your options.

Ten Hag basically needs a new 11. I know he got his own players in. But the fundamental core of this team is still from the old. Ten Hag still literally had to rely on signings even from the Van Gaal era.

8:02 show me the screen shots John 😂😂

The coffee close ups 😂❤️

This was before a 3 Nil embarressing at home to Newcastle. Fantastic video. The guys absolutely nailed it.

The question everyone's been asking!

Ten Hag's issue is more than just tactical. It seems like he's a terrible man manager, who makes too many excuses and throws players under the bus. Not to mention he hasn't actually made any of the players better- compare that to the top managers in the league who do improve their players.

Nailed it 👌🏻

i think ten hag needs time, more signings and also that the injury troubles cannot be ignored. once martinez and varane are back i think well look better. but idk if thats just blind optimism.

As a Spurs fan, I can truly say that purely transitional football seldom works over long periods. Listening to the analysis in this video reminds me of the time we played under Mourinho and Conte. They largely supplied the structure out of possession but relied on individual quality in the final third to score goals. This is reliant on your forwards to maintain form throughout a season (which rarely happens) and for your defense to be rock solid (which United doesn't possess). Especially for a club as big as United, it's absolutely ludicrous that they don't employ a coach that tries to dictate the game and play possession based football. If their goal is to win leagues, ETH isn't the man.

It's just a bad season. Ten Hag's the man for the job. 👍

United having unbelievably slow defense and midfield is a massive problem that Ten Hag cant fix. Remember that Ten Hag wanted Kim but all he got was Evans. It also doesnt help that Rashford just forgot when to pass and shoot.

I think cameraman wants some of that tea ( Coffee) as well 😅 With focusing everytime on JJ whenever he has a sip

Even if he's not able to play his fittest players, over what 1.5 years you cannot see any significant improvement in the players. You would expect that after 1.5 years the current players would start playing like that ajax side a bit or have some change in the playstyle.

Last season everyone went on and on about the midfield and attack having too much gap. They blamed it on personnel....looks to me ten hag is coaching it.

i agree everything they said but the recruitment. Yes ETH brought in martinez onana and antony, but we also failed to get him key player like de jong for his style of play. We end up getting casemiro who does not seem to be his type of player which he needs to adapt. Eriksen is brought in to play the role of de jong at ajax but he is much older and less mobile. Does not have the same defensive mind. He has a van de beek who has messed up by injuries and failed coaching. Mason Mount also does not look like a player for ETH. Meanwhile we cant sell the players, and continue to force him to play players do not suit his style thus he gave up and change. It is clear to see he didnt want to play maguire, mctominay over the past 2 years but he ends up playing them. Besides injuries, it also seems to me like all the former managers there is degree of influence from elsewhere on selection of the squad. ETH to me is a manager who likes to give youth a chance (looking at the ajax team). Garnacho is the only one broke through. Maybe we really dont have quality youth players but is it also due to instructions to play big contract players? Looking back at all the former managers, the pattern is we first let them try the styles, failed to get the players they want (mane for lvg, cb for jose, halaand for ole) and gave them second or third choice players (likes of Schneiderlin, Fred), whilst bringing big name commercial players (ronaldo, pogba). This is just the vicious cycle that wont change unless ownership or management is reconstructed. And surely it wont happen just cause sir jim got 25% of the owneship

Great shirt, JJ

What you expect from Erik ten hak, his knowledge of football is to that level only. Compare with pep guardiola, jogen klopp, and others he is miles behind. You sign cheap manager you received cheap result.

Amrabat out McDonut in. Insane.

So, High press with low defensive line? Well, I would never try that in fm

Great point by Jon at the end - the insistence on top 4 every season is a major factor in Utd's repeated failure culture. Managers need a few seasons to create something stable, especially in the shadow of SAF, and immediately sacking them as soon as they finish 5th provides no chance for that and enforces short-termism in tactics & manager planning. It's a point nobody seems to notice as we all buy into the whole absurd idea that finishing outside the top 4 even once is unacceptable

Self sabotage. He's now fully aware the club is rotten. Pep rejected a role in the past, as did Klopp, because they both knew it was a poison chalice.

Without watching the video: he's trying to get his first eleven sorted with no injuries.

I think the key to this is the comment that Utd are short term termist and you cannot build a team in the short term. I have seen a number of Liverpool rebuilds. The current Arsenal team is a rebuild. Blackburn and Chelsea virtually bought new teams and Utd were lucky with the ‘class of 92’ which gave them a new team. Since Ferguson left Utd have become a patchwork quilt paying ludicrous amounts to fill individual squares with little regard to the overall shape and blend of the team. Personally I think the current squad is at least as good as when Ferguson left but Ferguson was exceptionally skilled in getting results from average players. Utd don’t have Ferguson but have not made progress since he left.

In the summer there was talk of advancing to a six-up-top system, which is an increase in the pressing group of 50%. That relies on the remaining defensive unit being stable. He clearly does not trust his defence, as much as he tries to voice that he trusts the players. Would he trust his first-choice defenders? He doesn’t currently have them. So he surrenders those extra two pressing players and puts them in front of his unfavored back four. His tactical ideas are entirely undermined. He can’t commit to anything with essentially a first choice back four being out injured. He’s stemming bleeding. Badly. But trying to all the same.

Trying to fix a broken team with injuries and a squad that’s out of balance. The center back he wanted didn’t come, both Lindelof and Maguire are far too unreliable (he wanted to get rid of Maguire, but wasn’t allowed to by management) with Martinez still being injured, Varane being injury prone as hell. Both Shaw and Dalot not quite in form (especially Dalot) Scott often having moments of brilliance followed up by a mistake Mount, Casemiro and Eriksen having a form crisis to boot. The whole Sancho debacle (who has trouble performing ever since he joined United) he already personal issues at Dortmund like this. (At this point the issue solely falls on the player) Having an untested #9 as a striker with a youth player as their sole back up, All and all their isn’t much ETH can do. You can’t fix a team if 1 half understands what the manager wants and expects but the other half doesn’t understand

Against the bigger teams Ten Hag's Ajax always played with a counter attacking setup. The trouble for Ten Hag is that in the Premier League almost all the teams play at a higher level than the Dutch teams and hence why he sets up his United team to play how the Ajax team played the "bigger" teams.

It's funny cos what you described in the first 10 mins is exactly how Jesse marsch sets up his teams to play. So might aswell have him

For me the biggest problem with this team is that none of our midfielders want to play in the center of the pitch. The gap between the defenders and attackers is always massive and nobody moves to create angles for passes, there’s only ever one good passing option and it’s so predictable that teams trap us or push us back to Onana. Casemiro - likes to be between defenders or in the opposition box McTominay - likes to play in the half spaces Fernandes/Mount/Hannibal - attacking third half spaces Erickson - half spaces in defensive third or attacking third Even Amrabat avoids central positions. We desperately need a Carrick in the middle of the pitch who is happy to play in the centre circle, link play and break down attacks. Fred was the only player who naturally did this and he hasn’t been replaced. Fingers crossed Mainoo can fill this void…

He's trying to pretend to be a good coach. 😂

Let’s see how other teams play without their first choice defense and their most important midfielder out.

Great analysis fellas but with a back four of Lindelof, Evans, Maguire and Dalot you could put Accrington Stanley on the strategy board and they’d struggle against them in the same way. ETH is baffling at the moment.

He needed to do his style and get players that work for his style of play. Clearly theres a lot of issues above the manager still why theyll continue to regress

I've never seen a manger refer EXCLUSIVELY to the club's past success as a his reference for how to shape his team tactically. Ten Hag earned his success, reputation and job at Man Utd based on the football he played at Ajax. Now he's saying he wants to be the best transitional team, wants to play according to the clubs past of fast counter attacks and that he'll never play the way he played at Ajax. He's betrayed his identity, and that rarely works anywhere in life, not just football.

He is missing his entire backline, the effect this has cannot be overstated.

Was waiting for this. 😂

I can’t think of a perfect video title!

Ten Haag has bought a lot of ex-Ajax players. There really is no excuse for why he can't play the Ajax way. In less time and having bought only 3 starting players for comparatively very little money, Ange Postecoglou has achieved an Ajax style at Tottenham this season. No one should be buying what he is selling.

Ole Gunnar Solskjær got MUCH better results than Ten Hag with a MUCH much weaker personel against big teams ... Forget City, Ten Hag just keeps on continually getting literally SCHOOLED by ANY half decent footballing team n Mark blew him up so much at the time of bringing him in constantly with that Ajax domination football, thinking they are about to bring in that constant Jurgen Klopp fantasy right from the Ragnick days, that ETH is ROYALLY getting miserably found out, in over n out of his depths ... n yet back in the day wen United were winning trophies with Sir Alex then nobody gave a peep about the Glazers then ... A 6 year old child can see right thru the utter double standards building here n blame the Glazers, Harry McGuire, The Referees, the British Media, The Club's pantry, Their transport services .... Everything n every1 apart from this truly incompetent Manager right at the forefront of it with all the footballing decisions n power 💯 ..

The gap between defence and attack will always going to be problem against team like manchester city as high press can't get though because there in to transition possible in mid which is quite worst part of this system they need big change if they want to be back as big as there history

Jon sounds like he is done analyzing Man Utd's baffling tactics ...